Erlangen

This is our home town in Germany. Lily is an official resident of the town, she's got papers to prove it. Its small but surprisingly diverse. It's a two 'company' town -- Siemens and the University. Both of these institutions have a lot of foreign elements from visiting business people to visisting students and scholars. Hence, its got lots of ethinic resturants like italian, chinese, indian, greek, turkish restaurants. As well as german ones. Chinese resturants are ubiquitious everyone, but in this town of 100,000 people, it has 6 Chinese resturants we know of. There are festivals throughout the summer and a farmers market that sells fresh fruits, vegetables, and flowers in the town square every day. Its very bicycle friendly town. The residents like to boast (and complain in dismay, if they drive) that it's the bicycle capital of Germany. We got new bikes here and it has made our lives so much easier. The town is very quaint. It has something to do with old homes (the city is founded in 1002 A. D.) with window boxes full of geramiumns everywhere. Lily says it's the nicest town she has seen, even if it's not spectacular in anyway. It's just the right size for her. It's small and peaceful but big enough and diverse enough to lots of interesting stores and hidden parks. All the resturants have open air components weather it's setting up humongous tents on the side-walk or little beer gardens in the back, the atomosphere is of prosperity and enjoyment.

cornfield_houses.jpg cornfield_lily.jpg Like many Germany cities, the scarcity of space have forced farmes to fit in where ever they can. Therefore, right around the corner from our hotel you get a farmers field that grows corn?, sunflowers. The Germans seem to have an obession with sunflowers. It's everywhere. Forests are everywhere in Germany, and Erlangen is no exception. This is a 15 minute walk from downtown, and you can walk through this is on of the smallest forests in the area. One of the local churches in Erlangen, right outside the train station. There are a lot of them in the town also. At seven in the morning and six in the evening they all ring like mad preventing us from sleeping in. I guess it's a good thing:0) On the weekends they are more considerate and doesn't ring until 10 for service. chinese_restaurant.jpg Lily_chinese_restaurant.jpg Who'd have thought such a small town would have so many Chinese restaurants? Well this one one is really nice, expensive but very nice decorations. I don't know where they get their decorations. It's full of silk emboraries, silk paintings and fake (very nice fakes) mohohangy.l every inch of the resturant is covered. They got some nice gold fishes too. Schloss.jpg Every town in germany seems to have Schloss, or palace, this one is humble by german standards, see Wurzburg, it is now the university headquarters. There is a nice garden and some very ornate fountains on either side. schlossplatz2.jpg Across from the Schloss is the Schlossplatz where their is a farmers market everyday. We'll get some pictures of when the market is actually on. Square.jpg Another square along the main road in Erlangen. Their are lots of nice cafes here, and the fanciest McDonalds you've ever seen. The food is still the same, but they got this theme thing going on. A couple of week ago in Switzerland they had Chinese week where you can buy spring rolls and a Chinese buger. We tried the spring rools (so, so) and stayed away from the buger. Tennelohe is a nearby town, where I stayed for the first few weeks in a hotel, this is the local church. tennelohe_building.jpg I don't know what this is, but it was one of the first pictures I took and I like it. The_Slammer.jpg Yes, this is the Erlangen town jail, hopefully we won't have to see the inside of it. See what we mean when we say tht Erlangen is quaint. The jail windows even has lace curtains.