Wheels to Kiel

The adventure begins when we're set loose on our own in Germany. No more public transportation. We picked up our rental car this morning and set off for Kiel. The car is a cute blue seven passanger Renault. Luckily, the Marriott was nice enough to keep Amanda's extra bags, because we just barely had room for one bag per person. We were lucky to get a very nice navigation unit in the car. Her name is Bonnie and she even speaks American English. She got us safely to Kiel despite some pretty heavy vacation traffic leaving Berlin.

Our hotel, the Maritim is right on the fjord, and we got two rooms with a view. It is a fairly busy harbor, and it's been fun watching the ships come and go.

We took a walking tour of the city, starting with the City Museum. It is a small city, and an even smaller museum, which was good, because we were able to see it all in 20 minutes.

We walked up to the folding bridge behind the train station. It is a pedestrian bridge that occasionaly rises to let boats through. They had the most gigantic cruise ship docked close by. It is amazing that the harbor is deep enough to accommodate such a large ship!

This is Ed on the folding bridge with a view of the city behind him.

They have some pretty impressive malls, both enclosed and open air pedestrian malls in Kiel. We had dinner in a cute little plaza with some pretty fountains. It was a little crisp outside, but the restaurant prvided blankets for our comfort!

We dropped by at the Institute building where we met the Elders getting ready to give a missionary lesson to a young adult from Shanghai. It reminded us of our nephew, Isaac teaching the gospel in Hong Kong. The young investigator here in Kiel said he speaks another language that isn't even Mandarin. I spoke to him in German!

The town has a lovely Rathouse with a tower right behind the opera house. They both face a beautiful little lake with a walking trail.

The Nicolaikirche was the first church built in town (1242). It has been destroyed and rebuilt on several occassions, including WWII. The Germans really went to a lot of work to put their cities back together after the war!

We look forward to attending church in the Kiel Ward tomorrow with Amanda. We're trying to imagine how cold it was for her riding her bike around in the winter! It was so cold today that we had to wear jackets in the middle of July!