March 29, 1971 #2

Dear Mom & Dad,

Here's 12 more pictures.  Most of these were taken in a town about 15 miles from here called Rothenburg.  It's claim to fame is that it is one of the oldest cities in Europe that is still in original condition.  There is a stone wall built completely around the town and many of the buildings date back to the 8th century.  It is a very popular place for tourists, but at this time of year it isn't too crowded. Even though it is kind of a tourist trap, it is very worth seeing.  

if you look closely at the picture above you will see me standing over on the side.  A friend took this one for me.  Believe it or not this is a very famous place in Rothenburg.  Mainly because there must be about a thousand paintings and drawings of this spot.  In fact one of the drawings that I bought myself is of this scene.  Why all these artists picked this spot to draw is kind of a mystery to me.

This is a closer view of the tower in the picture above.

Both this picture above and the one below are of the same building.  You can see by the clock that it was one o'clock.  On the sides of the clock are two windows.  Inside the windows are two figures which are kind of hard to see in theses pictures.  Every hour the windows open and these two figures of men come to the opening.  Their arms raise and they proceed to each "drink" a large mug of beer.  This takes 3 or 4 minutes.  When they are finished they turn around, leave the windows and then the shutters slam shut for another hour.

Above also taken in Rothenburg.  At the time I thought it was kind of an interesting composition for a picture.

This one was taken from the wall around the city I mentioned.  you can walk completely around the town on this wall.

This one was also taken from on the wall.

Here is a picture of a typical store window in Rothenburg.  Too bad there was too much reflection to get a better picture of this.

This is a German police car, with a friend and fellow 2nd Lt. standing by it.

Here is the man who drew the pictures I bought.  He was a very interesting character to talk with and like I said before, he is over 80!

Most people take pictures of their cars after they spend hours shining and polishing them.  I did that too, which you will get later, but I thought I would let you see what it looks like after a little normal use as well.  It is almost impossible to keep a car clean for more than a week on the roads over here.

Don't show this picture to Mike!  (their dog)  It's a dog skin rug.  Wild Chinese dog, or so they told me, but it is really nice to put your feet on in the morning.  I just hung it on the door in order to photograph it.

More to come.....