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Tuesday Feb. 9th
Hello everyone-
We have had a couple of letters from George that should be
passed on now- He writes in such detail that it almost too
much to try and wait for five or six letters. So, let's start
with the wonderful ball in Germany and then on to Rome-

Jan. 26th-

Sunday morning, I went to church and then went with another girl to
spend the day with another family the Fabriz family. He is an en-
gineer and they are fairly well off by Beutelsbach standards (a
nice home, car, piano lessons for the kids 2 girls and one boy
ranging from about 8-14 etc. He sings in the church choir and the
family is quite religious as are most German families. We had a
marvelous day - ate lunch (the big meal of the day here) and coffee
together, sat around and talked and laughed a lot, watched the girls
put on a impromptu puppet show which was remarkably polished and
imaginative.

Oh- the Ball of Nations- This is one of the big students dance of
the year in Stuttgart and about 8 couples of us went from the Burg.
And it was a BALL in the old sense- a really big splash, gay, gaudy
and marvelous. They held it in the Liederhall. The main floor of
the main concert hall had the seats removed and was mostly filled
with tables. And a rock garden with 15 ft tree and a bubbling water
fountain, right in the middle of the concert hall. Also the foyer was
lined with tables both upstairs and down, and the smaller concert hall
was also transformed. The attendance was huge- about [?]
3 bands, all excellent [?] all evening- 8 PM
to 4 AM. One in each concert hall and one in the foyer. Also stage
entertainment in the large hall each hour, mostly student talent.
But even more dramatic than the Ball itself were the European girls
and their clothes. They dressed beautifully, dramatically, colorfully
with a real flare and they all know how to carry themselves so that
their clothes look good on the. There were dresses of every color, all
gay and beautiful and we spent half our time watching them wander
about. It was a gay evening and we hated to leave at 1 AM to take a
bus back to the burg. The party was just half over by then.

January 31st.

We arrived in Rome at 10 AM after a trip from Stuttgart in a private
car- jam-packed compartments in which 6 people tried to sleep in a
6'x6' space (the chairs pulling to make "one big mattress"). After
getting to the hotel and having lunch, we took off for a 4 hour bus
tour of the city, supposedly for orientation but also to see many
things we won't see in the next four days, My overall impression is
one of being completely overwhelmed by the scale and grandeur. Rome
is a REAL city and makes even Munich, one of the big ones in Germany,
look tiny. I wish I could speak Italian (our guide speaks fine Eng.
and is studying here in the Academy of Arts I think) because I can't
catch or remember names of churches, buildings etc to find out more
abou them later. Hence, though we saw a fantastic amount, I could
only name a few things--- The Roman Forums and baths (one remodeled
by Michaelangelo into a huge church). The Coloseum of course, St. Paul's