Day 12: Abroad on the 4th Again

This was the second year in a row I was abroad for the 4th of July--last year I was in Ireland.  I wonder if I'll be fortunate enough to be abroad somewhere next year or if I'll be home.   In the morning we had a wonderful lecture from a retired university professor.  The lecture involved comparing Germany and the US.  It addressed everything from bathrooms and restaurants to food, politics, etc.  In other words, he covered a lot, but he kept me interested the whole time.  It was one of my favorite lectures from the trip.  After the lecture, we went to a nearby Swabian restaurant for lunch.  I had something similar to spinach lasagna, a potato based side dish, and an apple pastry thing for dessert.  Professor Wagner joined us for lunch so we had time for Q & A.  He had done a study on obseity in the US a little while back so I was interested in hearing more about that.  As part of his study, I think he visited nearly every US chain restaurant you could name.

After lunch, we went to a farm.  We had a tour, snacks, and then a brief lecture on how the farm is working with teachers to help them educate students on farms, where food comes from, etc.

For dinner that night, we went out for Indian food.  I am not a big fan of Indian food, but I found something I liked--it was made of chicken and fruit.  Later on in the evening, a few of us met up in the lobby and then walked down the street to a treehouse bar.  You order a drink and then you climb the stairs in a treehouse type structure and you can sit up there and enjoy your drink.  Per ususal I had a Raddler. (There are other spots to enjoy your drink if you don't want to go in the treehouse, but we thought it was pretty cool to say you had a drink in a treehouse in Germany).  We also found it funny that we Americans were eating Indian food in Germany in a Turkish neighborhood on the 4th of July.

And full confession:  I didn't take any of these pictures.  Sam (one of the guys in our group) shared them with me.