Schönes Wochenende

Winter has finally come back to Tübingen in the form of cool weather, but it's brought with it blue skies, which has ended the rainy streak we'd had (it rained every day of the year until... January 15). Joe and I took advantage of the bluebird day to head to Bebenhausen on Sunday, a town in the Schonbuch forest, just north of us by about 3 km. We finally visited the cloister there which was founded in the 12th century, which we'd spotted on a previous bike ride. At some point it was converted into a royal hunting lodge, and it is very scenic because the town is very small and nestled in a little valley. After walking around for awhile my toes about froze off so we headed back to our apartment.

We started off the weekend by drinking beer with about a dozen of my colleagues in our all-to-small kitchenette at work (we do this regularly). Then Joe and I went off to "Spielabend" to play games with Geology undergrads, who would be our unsuspecting German conversants. We ended up playing a very complicated version of Settlers of Cattan (my new favorite game!) and Risk, but we did it all in German! On Saturday I ventured to our local outlet mall to take advantage or end-of-year sales. If you've ever been a grad student then you know what graduate school can do to your wardrobe. It was just time to take action. The holes on my shirts are starting to grow their own holes, if that is even possible. We ended Saturday with burritos and margaritas at our local Mexican place (or probably the only Mexican place in 50 km) with other American post-docs and spouses. Not a terribly exciting weekend, but that in itself is somehow exciting.