Last week we went to Germany near Paderborn for a Young Single Adult Conference. It was an eight hour trip on the train, which is ever so much more comfortable than a plane. We (the faculty) were housed in this lovely old schloss (castle) seen here from the entrance gate to the courtyard. Our room was nice and it had a TV! The first we have seen for 10 weeks. Not that we love TV, but it's nice to get the news on a screen bigger than our laptop. We actually got to see Michael Phelps swim, so we felt rather lucky!
A look at the interior of the castle.

Dancing at the conference ball with my favorite partner!

Together at the podium for our fireside. They had us and our translator in headsets. Great system. First time for us. We got a little frisky in our presentation, which was about marriage. Leonard, basically shy, was enjoying himself and we were feeling all warm and lovey, when, near the end of the talk, he did something totally unexpected and out of character for him. He turned to me and said, "Do you want to kiss me?" I leaned in and gave him a little kiss, and the kids applauded and hooted. Since then, Lenski keeps saying "I really don't know where that came from!" He is convinced that my mother on the other side of the veil, in all her sponteneity, pushed him! There are so many YSAs here who have never seen a happy marriage, that we were asked to talk about our ups and downs and how we work things out. It wasn't intellectual, but I think they got the idea. They seemed to like it and many told us so for the next three days.

On the way home we had a wait at the bahnhof and treated ourselves to ice cream. It's absolutely out of this world here! We have to restrain ourselves and only indulge on speial occasions, no oftener than once a month.
Some of our great Swiss YSAs at the dinner before the ball. You guys clean up real pretty!
One of the herd of adorable little deer in the paddock just under our castle window. This is one of the larger adults, probably about three feet tall at the shoulder. The does were smaller and there were about ten babies. So darling.
Teaching leadership in the "Literatur Cafe." Lenski had a class, too, but we forgot to record it, darn!
I love this guy!

There was a cheerleading workshop going on behind us. I couldn't imagine that any Europeans would be interested because there is no such thing as competetive sports or cheerleading in school. But these two cute American high school cheerleaders had girls and boys in all their classes. And they had such fun! There were institute classes, culture and the arts, marriage and dating, parenthood, preparing for business, career planning, and more! About half the time was sports of some kind, from soccer, to hiking (one was at midnight), to canoeing, and much more. There was a fireside followed by something fun every night except Friday, when they had the dinner dance. It was five and a half days, and the young people just did a teriffic job of putting it all together. I am so impressed with their capability. It is amazing.