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American educational system, which extends its general education to 17 or 18
and thus delays its vocational training. This particular type of German
education ends its general education at about age 14. We finally
cut short our drinking and conversation to walk back to the Burg
early enough that I stumbled into bed about 3:45 A.M.

On New Years Day I slept until 11:30 when I had to get up
for lunch, spent part of the afternoon talking with German
fellowsin the Ratskellar (some of those we had met the night
before) and most of the evening writing to Anne. An otherwise rather
undramatic day was broken by the visit (at 5pm) to the Burg
of the Beutelsbach brass chorus (affiliated with the YMCA) , who played
quite beautifully and remained around for a little wine and coffee
before dinner.

Saturday morning 3 of us took a leasurely and peacful walk
down one of the cart - roads which run through the vineyard
surrounding the Burg. We followed this rocky muddy path as it
wound down the hillside giving us a lovely view of the surrounding
country and several villages below, as well as a close-up of the
vineyard with its old stone walls, is downhill (not countour) plowing,
etc. Then at 2 pm we all met in Beutelsbach for one of
the high point of our stay here - the official group tour of Beutelsbach.
This began with a visit to the town's 3 churches - a Catholische and
a Neopolostolische church, both built in the last 3 years and
very attractive (seating about 300 each). The third church (Evangelische,
much like our Lutheran) is very different. It was built about 1500
with some of its architecture (e.g. the surrounding walls) still that old.
It has a Bible dating from Luther's days and a register of births,
baptisms, marriages, etc. dating continously from 1578. The church
is very proud of its historical background and it's "authenticity." After
visiting the churches we went right to the kindergarten school
(3 years for each child) where the little ones sang some Christmas
songs for us. Then we went to the Remstalkellerei- the cooperative
corporation for the storage of the wine of the Rems Valley.
They have, with a new-building now being built, a total storage