Paula and I have been having a great time in Germany over the past few days We flew into Duseldorf on Saturday morning and met my parents at our hotel.

When I was in elementary school (fourth, fifth and sixth grades) my family lived in Duseldorf for three years. It was fun to get a chance to revisit some of the places we used to frequent. We even went by our old house... it's now an Italian restaurant.

After a brief time in Duseldorf we drove east into the Harz mountains to stay in Ilsenburg. From our hotel in Ilsenburg we took a short drive west to visit Goslar. Besides being a wonderfully preserved old German town, it's also where Paula's great-great grandfather lived and died (though we didn't do any family history research this trip).

We just finished our second day in Hamburg and are off to Lubeck tomorrow. Here's a quickie picture of the town hall in Hamburg (sorry for the cell-phone quality, better pictures when we're back home).