The view is wonderful

Last Sunday, Delynn and I went up to the top of the hill just west of Weil am Rhein. It has a beautiful overview of the town with miles of hiking and bike paths that wend their way through forest and meadows. We got up to the top in the late afternoon and got these snaps.

The first picture shows the town of Weil am Rhein in the foreground, with the red tile roofs (about the bottom 2/3rds of the picture). The city off in the distance is Basel, Switzerland - that is how close we are to the Swiss border. This is our home - it is kind of hard to show but both our current apartment and the school can be at least partially seen in this photo - both are located near the bottom of that forest area that cuts through the picture between Weil and Basel.

The second picture is from the other side of the small ridge of the town of Lörrach. You can't see everything because the town stretches quite a ways up a valley. Lörrach is about 2x the size of Weil am Rhein and it has the Milka Chocolate factory. Yes, if you have ever tried Milka chocolate, it might have come from the town next door. (I hear that they make the bar chocolates...) Delynn just took a Milka bar from our stash - she must have caught my thoughts. Mmmmm.

I love how this part of Germany reminds me so much of the Pacific Northwest . I mean, this picture could have come out of the coast range somewhere. Right after we took this picture, we walked down a path to a more secluded area of the park overlooking Lörrach. We passed by a small group of people who were fervently talking in a foreign language (uh, that would mean, not German, not English, not French, not Swiss-German - and oh yes, Swiss-German is very distinct from German). We stopped nearby to take some pictures of sheep. Okay, so one does some crazy things when in a different country but the sheep didn't appear to mind... As I listened more closely, I realized that they were praying aloud and that they were speaking Polish. It was so cool to be able to reach into my memory and pick out some words and expressons! It appeared that they were praying for the city and the people of Lörrach. Well, once we figured that out, we decided to reverently make our way back from whence we came. As we passed by the group a couple of them politely nodded to us. I think I surprised them when I greeted them with "Dobry Wieczor" (Good evening) because they smiled when they responded in kind. Not wanting to disturb their prayer, we continued on our way, basking in our own communion for the wonderful day God had given us.