Neu-Ulm

What a grand day planned for little Meggers' 7th birthday! This year we celebrated in the lovely town of Ulm.

We started at the famous Ulmer Münster - which sports the world's tallest church tower at the time of this writing - and climbed the 768 steps to check out the view from the top. It is a beautiful church, simple yet awesomely impressive in its architecture and design. There were also sketches inside of some other well-known churches, cathedrals and even mosques - including Notre Dame de Paris, which shall hopefully be restored to its former glory one day in the not too distant future.

After introducing the kids to Fleischkäse and Maultaschen, as well as a few common Schwäbisch phrases, we moved on to Animal Worlds - a new edition of Gunther van Hagens' plastination exhibitions that features mostly animal rather than human specimens. Davy and Meg had been looking forward to the exhibition and quite enjoyed the lightweight anatomy lesson.

When we got back to Stuttgart, we discovered two Christopher Street Day parties in full swing right outside our apartment. Even before googling just who Christopher was, the plethora of rainbow flags (many used as capes) and banners, not to mention a few flamboyant fully decked out drag queens, made it immediately evident that this was an LGBTQ* affair. Thankfully we could easily explain the basic concept to the kids by relating to our little skiing friend Jordan who has two Moms.Read more