A special stay in Germany

I just wanted to put up a quick post about a SERVAS stay we did in Germany. We stayed with a family about 70 km (~40 miles) from Berlin. The man's name was Lothar Rummel!! That is right, we found a Rummel in Germany, though they pronounce it differently (ROOM ol). I know my Grandpap Rummel's grandfather Charles (I think he went by his middle name because the Allegheny County census has his name as John C) was born in Berlin in about 1862 and immigrated to the US in the 1880s. (Thank you Uncle Mark for that info) So, Lothar showed me his family tree and there was a Johann (German for "John") Christophe Rummel on it, but that could not have been him because their Johann was born in 1805. So, to my knowledge, we are not related. On a funny note, Lothar said he recently had a fender bender with another Rummel that he has never met.

Lothar and his fiancee Maran are getting married this month after living together for 11 years. Apparently in Germany, very long courtships before marriage are quite common. They are both teachers and they enjoy teaching English to the Germans. Lothar started a program called "English Weekends" which he is very proud of. It is a workshop where he spends an entire weekend with German people who are learning English and they speak only English the entire weekend. He includes different exercises to help them learn. Lothar and Maran also enjoy dancing and they included Mauri and I in one of their dance sessions with their friends in their back yard. All in all it was a wonderful stay and I was excited to let everyone know that we found Rummels in Germany. Mauri will post pictures later. We also have pictures from Auschwitz and Holland that we need to post. We are in Denmark right now.