10 Years

The day before we were set to leave Germany, the German portion of the company that Darren works for (Climax Portable Machine Tools) celebrated its 10-year anniversary. They had a big party, opening its doors to customers, vendors, board members and employee families and invited them to come celebrate in an open house with live music, dancing, a golf simulator, free food, and lots of free beverages of all sorts. They did a great job in setting up for the event and completely transformed the warehouse portion of the business into a nice place for a party.

The night before, Mikayla and I joined Darren, people from the German portion of the company, people from the USA portion of the company that had flown in, and some of the board members for dinner at a nice steak house in Düren. It was wonderful food and fun to meet some more of the people that Darren works with.

On Thursday, the day of the open house, I spent the morning trying to clean up the apartment some, do a little packing, and get things ready to leave the next day. We needed to be in Düren, though, at a little after noon so that we could join some of the board members for a tour of Düren. The tour lasted for a few hours and included a meeting with the deputy mayor (the mayor was in Berlin that day), a tour through some of the important buildings of the city by one of the directors of the city, a tour through a paper museum (that is one of the major industries of the city), and a tour through a moated castle near the city (I hadn't known it was there). It was nice to learn a bit more about the city we had been living by and working in, even though a lot of the information came on the last day we were there. I spent much of the tour walking around with Mikayla since she wasn't really up for sitting through meetings, but I still learned a lot.

The party

Part of the photoboard display that was set up. This picture shows the people who work in the German portion of the company, and Darren's coworkers for the time he was here.

Yes, it is an engineering company

Mikayla as she wandered around City Hall while the meeting with the deputy mayor was taking place. She had fun peering over the railing to the floor below.

It was a little hard to say goodbye at the end of the day, even though we knew that we needed to head back to Embken and finish packing and getting the apartment ready to leave. Darren really enjoyed working with all the people here and we appreciated how much they reached out to us and made us feel welcome in a foreign land. We hope that we can see them again in the future.

One Last Trip to Aachen

On Tuesday, the day before my mom and Doreen's flight was scheduled to leave from Frankfurt, we decided to go on one last little day trip. There were so many fun places to choose from that I wanted to show them, but we didn't have time to go see them all. We decided to go see Aachen since it was a pretty easy trip and different from anything we had seen on their trip so far.

We had a really great day. It was a beautiful, sunny day and didn't even threaten to rain like it had the other times I had been to the city. We had lunch in the square near the cathedral in the center of the city. We sat outside drinking yummy coffee and sampling different kinds of sandwiches, people watching, and listening to the live music that was playing nearby.

Mikayla really liked to stand there and listen to the music, but was a little shy about putting the money into the guitar case for them.

After lunch we toured through the cathedral, which I have mentioned before is really beautiful. It was nice because last time my pictures came out all blurry since it was so dark inside, but this time it was all lit up for some filming crews. Here is one more picture of the inside of the cathedral to add to the ones on earlier posts.

We walked around a bit more after we were through looking at the cathedral and saw some of the other fun sites of the city. And then we went to the cute little toy store that I had found in earlier trips. This time we found that in addition to the train set that kids could play with inside the store, they also had a little mechanical bear outside the store that would blow bubbles. Mikayla was very excited about the bubbles. I think that we spent a good half hour or so just watching the bubbles. It was pretty cute so see how excited she got, though.

Bubble watching

More bubble watching

We had a wonderful time in the city, but it was time to go back. We had to swing through Düren to pick up Darren from work, drive to Embken to drop Darren and Mikayla off and pick up luggage, and then it was off to Frankfurt. Mom and Doreen had an early flight the next morning, so they had booked a hotel near the airport to make the morning easier. It was hard to say goodbye, but it made it easier that we were heading home in just a couple of days. I had a wonderful time showing them around a little bit of Germany and I am glad that they were able to make the trip.

Darren's Commute to Work

Here is a video I made of my commute to work. Don't worry, we really are not going that fast!

My Two Brothers

Last week was a week for my brothers. While my older brother, Nate, was here visiting me in Germany, my younger brother, Josh, was at his home in Canada celebrating his 30th birthday. It is crazy to think that none of us were in the country that we were born in. Nate and I were able to talk to Josh via Skype a day or two (depending on whose time you were talking about) before his actual birthday, so at least we were able to partially celebrate with him. It was sad not to be able to be there with Josh to celebrate this milestone birthday, but hopefully we can make it up to him.

I don't actually have a picture of Josh here on my computer (most of our pictures are on the computer we left back home in Oregon), but here is one of him and his superdog Zeke that I borrowed from the web page of his lovely wife, Tonya. Since she takes excellent pictures, I thought it would be a good one to post here.


For Nate's last day here, we went to the town of Aachen. I wanted to take him to the great little toy store I had found when Darren's parents were here, and also let him experience the town. We had a good lunch of Italian food at a little cafe just down the street from the Aachen cathedral. It is interesting to blend what little I know of Italian with what little I know of German and try to order Italian food in Germany. It is good that the waiter also spoke English so that we didn't have to rely on my language skills. I am slowly picking up bits of the German language, but not enough yet to be able to converse.

Aachen Cathedral

After we left Aachen, Nate, Mikayla, and I drove back to Düren to pick Darren up from work before heading back to Embken. We dropped Mikayla and Darren off at the apartment, picked up Nate's bags, and then headed back out on the road to go to Frankfurt. Nate had booked a hotel in Frankfurt on Monday night so that it would make getting to the airport on Tuesday easier and also let him explore a little of Frankfurt before leaving the country. It was a long drive there and back, but worth it. I am so glad that Nate was able to come and visit us and that we could spend some good time reconnecting with him.

Köln

For a day trip with the Weidmans, we decided to head in to Cologne and see the sights of the city. Darren was working, so Paul, Rosemary, Mikayla, and I loaded into the car and drove to the Düren train station where we got on a train to head into Cologne.

Mikayla on the train.

Mikayla and Nana Rose on the train

When we got into the city, we bought a map to get acquainted with the city, took a few pictures of the outside of the beautiful cathedral there by the train station, and then decided to get something to eat. We walked a little ways from the cathedral and found a wonderful little restaurant tucked away in a corner of a building. The menu looked good, so we went in. It was a really good meal and the place had a great feel to it.

After the meal, we walked back to the cathedral and went inside. It is hard to describe how impressive it was in there, and even harder to capture it on camera. Here are a few of the shots we did take, although none of them do it justice.

The main entrance to the cathedral

Statues on the facade of the cathedral

The interior

We had heard that taking an hour long cruise on the Rhine river in Cologne was a fun and relaxing way to see some of the sights of the city. Unfortunately, the day was a bit overcast and rainy so we didn't think that it would be much fun to be on a boat. Also, Mikayla really needed to get a nap, so we thought it would be better to just head back to Embken.

It turned out that we were able to go on the river cruise a few days later, though, and this time Darren was able to come since it was on the weekend. On the last full day that the Weidmans were here, Sunday, we all hopped on the train and went back to Cologne for some more sightseeing. It was a beautiful, sunny day that day and perfect for being on the water.

Paul waiting for the train in Düren

Darren and Paul on the train platform in Düren

The train

Darren, Mikayla, and I on the boat

Paul and Rosemary on the boat

Another river cruise boat that we passed

Random building that we saw on the river cruise

View of the cathedral from the river

After the river cruise, we got back on the train and went back to Düren. We had had a good day, but were ready to be back. Since it was such a warm day, we got some Italian ice cream (yummy gelato).

Mikayla enjoying her strawberry ice cream

... I might have had to help her out with hers a little bit and eat mine, too.

Annakirmes

For a little over a week in August every year, the city of Düren celebrates Annakirmes, a festival which has its roots in medieval times and continues to today. After looking at the website, it looks like there are some pretty neat traditions, parades, and ceremonies that happen with this event, but we didn't know about them in time to see them. We did, however, go to the "Family Fun Fair," which was an full of rides and booths selling food, candy, trinkets, and beer. We went on Tuesday, which is traditionally family day, when all the rides were half off. This didn't help us too much, though, since we had forgotten to go to the bank that day and were really low on cash. We have decided that a good way to not spend a lot of money at events like this is to not have any money with you, and no ready means available to get more. We bought one ride for Mikayla and one crepe to share and that was it.

The leg of Darren's pants - showing off the drips of chocolate sauce that dripped all over us from our chocolate and banana crepe. It was yummy, but very messy. It was so messy that a little girl stopped by us to offer us her napkins.

Mikayla on her carousel ride. She did smile and have a good time, but was a little distracted by the huge ride next to the carousel that had screaming people getting flipped upside down. She liked "driving" the little car and we had a hard time convincing her to get out.

Some of the sweets for sell. We saw children walking around with these hung around their necks.

Ferris wheel

Balloon man

We were glad that we were able to experience the fair, which I believe is the third largest in Germany, but were also glad to get out of the crush of people. And if we go back, we will be sure to have just a little bit more money on hand.

Downtown Düren

The day after our trip to Aachen with Darren’s coworkers, which was a Sunday on the second weekend we were here, we decided to take a trip into Düren. I hadn’t really spent any time in Düren and Darren had spent most of the time in Düren at work. We mostly wanted to get down to the train station near the center of the city and get a feel for how much it would cost to take the train to different cities. I had also told my cousin Keri that I would check out train prices for her, since she is planning on flying into Germany and then heading to Prague, Czech Republic, early next month.

After the train station, we walked to the main downtown part of the city. Most of the stores weren’t open since it was a Sunday, but we looked around to see what stores were available and found a little café that was open so we could have some coffee. We also found that McDonalds was open. Yes, we know that is cheating and not a good cultural experience, but we were hungry and it was the only thing open in the area.

Downtown Düren


Eating at the Cafe


German McDonalds wrapper


Playing with the doggie in the fountain

Getting Here

The trip over here was actually much easier than expected. After all the hassle of packing and repacking our bags to make sure that we came in under the 50-lb airplane limit and at the same time remember to bring everything we wanted to bring for our 3-month trip, and after trying to get our house ready for Amy, who is renting our house while we are gone, we were finally able to get on the airplane and be on our way. We need to give a big thanks to Paul, Darren's dad, for all his help in organizing our garage so we could park our car in there while we were gone, for driving us to the airport, and for helping us lug our many bags through the airport to get them checked in. We had to do that by ourselves once we got to Germany, and it sure made us appreciate his help even more than we did already.

Mikayla did really well on the flight over. She only threw one screaming/ kicking/ rolling on the ground fit, and that was on the way onto the airplane. When that happened, and the flight attendants had to help us carry our stuff back to our seats because I had my arms full with a flailing toddler, I was bracing myself for a horrible flight. But, God was merciful, because once we actually got back to our seats and she was able to sit in her car seat and play with the video monitor in front her her she did amazing. She played and she slept a little and she watched "Bolt" on her video monitor about 4 times (she loved the doggy, and pointing him out on the screen whenever he came on). Luckily, there was a little girl about her age in the seat in front of her, so she didn't mind that Mikayla was constantly kicking her seat. The older gentleman that was in the seat next to Mikayla was pretty entertained by her and was understanding about the occasional foot in his food or flying toy. Our flight was a direct one from Portland to Frankfurt, so we had it easy in that we could just settle in and stay there and not have to change planes.

Once in Frankfurt, we were able to get through customs with little difficulty. We did have to wait around for quite awhile for our stroller, which we had checked at the gate in Portland. The gate-checked items had accidentally been sent to the baggage claim with the rest of the luggage and had to be picked up and sent back. We waited for about 45 minutes and it wasn't there yet. Since we were starting to get worried about missing our train to Cologne, we decided to just leave the without the stroller and take the chance that we would have to buy a new one when we were here. It was nice that I had the Ergo toddler carrier with me, so that I could strap Mikayla to my back and not have to worry about my arms getting tired while we were walking. It turned out perfectly, though. We met up with the guy who was carrying our stroller to the train terminal, and we were able to retrieve that and the rest of our luggage and get down to the platform for our train with about a minute to spare.

When we arrived in Cologne, we were met by Olaf, one of Darren's coworkers here in Germany. We didn't really have any time to look around Cologne or see any of the sites since he needed to take us where we were going and then get back to work. I am sure that we will get back there to look around at some point on this trip. We somehow managed to squeeze all of our luggage and ourselves into the car, although there were a few moments when I thought we might need to leave some of it in a locker at the train station. And then we were off on the Autobahn. As Mikayla slept peacefully, we flew down the road at about 110 mph, passing other cars like they were standing still. What a welcome to Germany.

Olaf took us through the city of Düren, where Darren works, and then from there to the little village where the apartment that they rented for us is located. The village is called Embken, and it is located about 16 km south of Dueren. It takes Darren about 20 minutes to drive to work in the morning, so he actually has a little bit better of a commute here than he did in Oregon.