a day on the Rhine

So, I'm officially "employed."

Two days a week I'll make the 45 minute trek out to Wiesbaden to tutor three of the cutest boys ever in piano and english. It's pretty much just what I was asking for... God is so good. Even if He hadn't provided this gig, I'd still attest to His awesomeness Just check out these pictures from our spontaneous adventure up the Rhine river:

The best part about exploring the Rhine is that you can hop on and off the train wherever you feel like. Which is what we did, first randomly stopping in St. Goarhausen. Being a Sunday, it was dead. I mean, completely empty, narrow streets; we felt like we owned the town. It was a unique experience, not to be surrounded by other tourists.

We hopped back on and decided to ride all the way to the top (Koblenz,) despite my prostrations of it being a lame city. Annie and I had attempted to check out this larger town on the Rhine but decided that it wasn't worth it, hopping back on the train after about 45 minutes of riding our bike to the river and back. (We were looking for vineyards, which weren't to be found...)

But, I stand corrected. Within this new context, it was actually lovely. We had a delicious German meal, saw where the Mosel and Rhine rivers meet, and did some shopping (T.K.Maxx!! Sooooo excited to find out that Germany has the British version, which is as close as I'm going to get to HomeGoods while here. And there's one in Frankfurt!)

Darkness falls early now as opposed to the 10:00 pm summer sunsets. We weren't sure if we should continue our journey or head home, but we decided to stop at Bacharach in search of wine. It ended up being my favorite part of the day and a town that I will absolutely return to with my momma in the daytime.

Again, we had the town to ourselves as we meandered through the streets, dreaming of what it would look like covered in snow.

We discovered cathedral ruins, which given the time of night, gave off an eery glow hovering over the town. A quiet moment was shared as we stood gazing out over the soft lights of the buildings, a train quietly working it's way along the river on the other side that made us feel transplanted right into one of those miniature Christmas scenes.

And then there was wine, 15 small glasses worth to taste and pretend like we knew how to distinguish between them all. My notes included the descriptions "pink, sweet, really sweet, ugh, buy this."

Days like this should occur at least once a week.