Adventures in Deutschland

We were running some errands yesterday, Saturday, via bicycle. We were on our way towards our lunch spot when Dashiell slowed down and said, Mom, I feel woozy. I looked behind me and saw that he was white as a sheet! Thankfully we were cycling next to a green space with a pond; I thought…

When Don & Lori had a walking tour of Köln last week, the gracious tour guide let us non-cruise ship passengers tag along, having come up for the day to meet them. We got a very engaging tour of the Kölner Dom which I hadn't visited since my stay there with a host family when…

Last week, before daybreak on a warm fall morning, we met Don & Lori on the banks of the Rhine, where their Viking River cruise ship Alruna had docked for the day. We all piled into our rental car (Mietwagon) and headed to the hamlet of Mutterstadt, where the Weiss men who came before us…

For Unity Day (October 3), which commemorates the re-unification of Germany, we ventured to Berlin, the national capital, by train. I had the idea to go to Berlin for this occasion, because we wanted to visit there anyway (I hadn't be there in 20 years; Jeff much more recently), but also because there is so…

On Sundays, the shops are closed in Germany. Although at first we thought this would be difficult for us to adjust to, it's really no problem, as long as you've gone grocery shopping on Saturday. (if you're desperate, or are coming home from a trip away, there's a Rewe at the airport that's open on…

When we were planning this move to Germany, we debated about how we would get around once there, especially since D's school is about 15 miles away from our apartment, in a neighboring town. We knew it would be hard to get around Düsseldorf with a car--tiny streets, many 'one way'; lanes shared with street…

Now: the day-to-day. As I mentioned in another post, we are in walking distance of 3 Rewe grocery stores--one much closer than the 2 others, but the 2 others are on the "main street" of our little neighborhood, and so we end up going to all 3 on a regular basis. Exploring the grocery store…

We are all adjusting to our new school, in so many ways... I'm so proud of D, for making it through those first days, inevitably rough: all new faces, new routine, new campus, new uniform and what's with all those British words...!?? After the 2nd day, I thought my heart would break when D told…

Although we didn't have much choice in furnished apartments, or any lead time to speak of, and on our scouting trip we were only able to visit 1 apartment, the one we saw turned out be just what we needed and is in a beautiful, central neighborhood. Achenbachstrasse is a tree-lined street with an old-world…

(road trip to the Baltic Sea!) So we wouldn't be proper Americans if we didn't break in our first year abroad with a colossal road trip across the near-entirety of our new heimat (homeland). (Although we did attempt to take the train, and even to fly, but didn't have enough lead time to make the…