We slept in today, since we had nowhere to rush off to. :) When we did get up, I wanted to make good use of our kitchenette, so we went to the store and picked up eggs and ham. I made us a little scramble, and we sat down at the table to enjoy it.

A word about our lodging: if the hotel in Avignon made me feel we could remodel our tiny office into a master bedroom, this place makes me feel that our sunroom is large enough to be an apartment . It is filled with Ikea shelves, table and folding chairs. It has a small fridge, kitchen sink, two elements, and a little counter space. Directly past this is the "bathroom" sink and a shower about the size of a regular refrigerator. The place also enjoys AC and a TV the size of our iPad. The roof is slanted on one side, so that I can barely stand up straight to wash the dishes. But it is so cute!

As we got ready for our day we both came up with less clothes in our packs than we'd expected. That is the tricky thing about backpacks. You know where your clean shirts are supposed to be, and you would never guess until you reach in that you don't have anymore. That was Bryan's discovery this morning. Mine was just as urgent, so we quickly declared it laundry day. :)

But first things first: sightseeing! We went on a lovely walk of the town. The half-timbered houses with shutters and window boxes are charming. There is a canal that runs through the middle of town, and flat bottomed boats take tourists for a leisurely ride . We found some of the wine that the family who owns our lodging had made, and did some impromptu wine tasting. (We are in Alsace wine region, after all.) Bryan had read about a grape-y tasting wine called Muscat that he thought I might like. And I did! :)

We continued our walk and visited the larger of the two cathedrals in town, St. Martin's cathedral. It was gothic through and through. Gargoyles and pointed arches and lots of lovely stained glass windows. I didn't take any pictures because it was pretty dark inside.

Next stop was the Unterlinden Museum. This was very cool. It was an old convent that now houses all sorts of neat exhibits. There were plenty of medieval paintings to go around, and altar pieces. There were also ancient sculptures, Roman pottery, old musical instruments, armor and weapons... so many things to look at. The audio guide was included with the entrance fee, so you just pushed the number of the exhibit you were interested in, and it would tell you all about it . If, for example, you were perplexed at the appearance of a unicorn on an altar piece - you would hear all about how that was symbolic of Christ and depicted the annunciation (Gabriel telling Mary that she would bear the Messiah). Anyway, it was quite handy, because many of the renaissance images just don't make a ton of sense now.

With our sightseeing done, we came back to our lodging and collected our laundry. We went and got it started together, and then Bryan went into the train station to figure out how we will get to Paris tomorrow. (Ack! Paris tomorrow! So excited!) While he was gone, I was in charge of getting the laundry done. Only, we didn't have enough coins for the dryer. So I walked back to where we were staying, planning to buy a bottle of Muscat to go with dinner. But the shop was closed. So I grabbed the map and went to the grocery market instead to buy dinner and hopefully get us change. I managed to find two chicken breasts, rice, olive oil from Firenze, and a packet of seasoning . Getting in line to pay, the woman two people in front of me (I'm assuming she was American) was struggling to understand how much she owed or get the right amount out. She was holding up the line and the clerk showed her annoyance, pointing to the read out and rolling her eyes. It was at this point I decided not to say anything in English to this gal if I could help it. I had been planning on asking if she spoke English and asking for a bag (which cost 18¢) to put the total up over 10€. That way I could pay with my 10 and my 5 and get plenty of change back. Instead I said "Bonjour!" and when she asked if I had a Monoprix card I said "Non." And I still messed it up, because you aren't supposed to hand them the money, you are supposed to set it down, but I can never figure out where so I just held out my bill. She finally took it (probably thinking "stupid Americans" for all I know) and I told her "Merci!" and left.

This was all very good, except I still didn't have as much change as I needed for the dryer . I figured I would start with what I had, and with any luck Bryan would be back with change from the train station before I needed it. Well, I ran out of change and Bryan wasn't back yet. I asked the couple in the lavarie if they spoke English, and I can tell the woman is nudging her boyfriend to help out. He turns around and asks, "Porquoi? Why?" I showed him my bill and told him I needed change for the dryer, and asked if there was a machine around. (I knew their wasn't, but it seemed better than asking if he had change for a five, since he probably needed it for his own laundry.) He told me there wasn't, but counted change for me from his wallet. I double-checked they didn't need it for their laundry and thanked them. When they left he said "Bye!" and I said "Au Revoir!" which got a smile from the woman. Since they were so nice, I was able to finish off the laundry successfully. Yay!

Bryan was unable to use our rail pass to reserve a trip to Paris. So he used it to get the discount instead. We paid half price for the ride into Paris tomorrow. It is too bad that the railpass isn't working for last minute travel here in France. But half price is better than nothing, I guess. And at the end of the day, we'll be in Paris, so that's gotta be good. :)

We cooked and ate our dinner of chicken and rice. We opened the bottle of Muscat and enjoyed some of that as well. Then we went geocaching. It is getting pretty serious, because we picked up a bunch of trackable items, and haven't been able to find hardly any geocaches large enough to drop them off in. And we are running out of time! So we took a long walk into the suburbs of Colmar and found a large geocache under a wooden bridge. We dropped off all the remaining trackables and called it a day.

Then we walked back into town and I deleted a few more apps off the iPad so I could upload the photos for today. (This is the third day in a row we have had to make room for the new photos.) By the time we get home the iPad is just going to be one big photo album! :)

Thanks for reading! Good night.

Colmar was the last of our pleasant surprises and another town that we found ourselves in based entirely on Rick Steves' show. It was this odd hybrid of German and French architecture. It really looked like it was right out of a fairy tale.  We just really enjoyed strolling down the streets and soaking it up.