First Day

I slept about 12 hours and had a good breakfast with Eric. Mmmh, he brought delicious rolls and bread from his bakery this morning. We had coffee and read the paper. The cakes will have to wait till this afternoon for Kaffeestunde. ;-( He also brought the slaughtered rabbit home which Marco will cook for us tomorrow.
Then we made a quick dash to "town", Wurzbach that is. Since Opa and Uncle told me yesterday that they are just now getting over the flu, I have been feeling a bit scratchy in my throat. So, we went to the pharmacy and got some medicine (the boys have no drugs at home) and then walked to the flower shop to put some flowers on my Dad's grave.This little tower behind me is some new piece of art Eric told me. I thought it loooked funny.
Here you can see the little bouquet of Chrysanthemes we put on the grave. Below is Eric.

Eric just went to bed, since he has been baking all night. When he gets up at 4 pm we will drive to Kulmbach and meet with an old friend - Michael, who was the choir master of the church there. We will go to the mmmm good Greek Restaurant there. I might even run by a store or two while I'm there. I will take you some pix..

But I still have to tell you the story about my flight. The seat next to me going from Dallas to Frankfurt was empty. Oh, and I have to throw this in: From now on I will ONLY fly Lufthansa. I felt pampered!! You can even drink wine and get free refills. The food was great, too and the service! Nevertheless, the seat next to me in the center row was empty (which by the way, this should have been Paul's seat) and on the other side was a man flying to India. He was an American citizen, but from Indian decent. He said once he arrives in Frankfurt, he has to fly another 10 hrs to arrive in India - whew!
There were a lot of Russians and Indian / middle eastern people on this flight. Only a hand full of Germans or Americans.
During the later hours while everyone was sleeping, me included, and the lights were off, this lady about my age stood next to me asking to sit on that empty seat because the child behind here would constantly shake the seat. So, I let her in. It wasn't until breakfast time that I started to talk to her. She was from Israel, is Jewish and her name was Miriam (I pointed out that this was the name of Moses's sister, which she knew). She came back from a religious conference in the States and was headed home. I jokingly said: "How does it feel to be the chosen people of God?" And she chuckled, but said that this is not what it's about. From then on we had a real deep conversation about faith, bible and God. What struck me was that she did not know about the gift of Jesus. So, I was witnessing to her about the gift of eternal life and quoted her some scriptures that she did not seem to know. She knew all the old testament, but not the new, it seemed. She said that God must have put us together on this plane, so we can have this talk. Isn't that great? I told her that Jesus had her on his mind when he died and she seemed to think on this a while. Then, I asked her what kind of bible she reads and if she reads it in the original language. See, she speeks Hebrew and she even tought me to say " I love you" in hebrew, but she also reads aramaic, which is the original language of the bible. I thought that was fascinating. She pulled out a tiny book from her luggage which was called " The book of Abraham" and you open it back wards, just like the pages are filled and read from right to left. Everything was written in Aramaic, except for a little commentary in the fron (or our back), which is in English, French and some other languages. I thought this was the coolest thing. She told me that this is one of the many books Abraham had written and it contains instructions on how to be a selfless and righteous person. However, she said, it is not a God related scripture. I thought that was weird. They are the chosen people and the write books without mentioning God? She wanted me to have th is book since she had another one in her suitcase that was full size. I was happy about this encounter in which God was amongst us. Lets pray for Miriam that God will show her the way.