Saying Goodbye and Coming Home

It has taken me a few days to get this post written. It has been a busy few days of traveling, getting home, adjusting to our new time zone and dealing with jet lag, seeing friends and family, and trying to figure out what it means to settle back into life here in Oregon. And I have also been trying to figure out what I wanted to say and how to say it about leaving Germany.

Saying goodbye was hard, much harder than I thought it would be given how excited I was to go back home to friends and family. We made a few good friends during our time in Germany and it was hard to say goodbye, not really knowing if we would ever get to see them again. And I enjoyed how simple our life was there. It was peaceful in a way that I hadn't experienced in a long time. We will need to figure out how to live that way back home.

I got a hug from Judith, the lady who runs the little store in Embken and we exchanged email addresses so that we could stay in touch. She was so great with Mikayla and made our little trip to her store, which was nearly every day, something we looked forward to. She was also one of the few people that could speak English, at least a little, in the town we were in, and I appreciated the effort she made to talk to me and make me feel welcome.

Saying goodbye to Mary, our landlady, was hard. She was such a big part of our life in Germany and a big reason why I enjoyed it so much. She was wonderful with Mikayla and was sad to see her go. She gave Mikayla a cute little bracelet to have and also a teddy bear backpack to have to remind her of her time in Germany. I am not sure I can put into words just how much it meant to me to have someone to talk to, to have someone who enjoyed my child, and to have someone I could ask all those stupid little questions you have when you are in a culture your own. Goodbye, Mary. We hope that we can see you again soon.

Mary, Mikayla, and I

On Friday, September 25, we left what had been our home for nearly three months and drove away from Embken for the last time. It was a beautiful morning with a low, misty fog hovering over the fields and promise of the sun breaking through the clouds. Mary had gotten up to wave goodbye to us and give us a hug, and also help with some of the last minute details of getting out of the apartment. And then we drove to Cologne so that we could turn in the rental car and get on our 8:50 am train to Frankfurt. We got there in just enough time to locate the rental car lot, haul our stuff into the train station, turn in the rental car, wait in line at the Lufthansa ticket counter and find out that we didn't really have our tickets booked after all, get hurriedly issued tickets for at least the train portion of our journey with instructions that we would need to figure out what was going on with our plane tickets once we got to Frankfurt, run up to the train platform, find our car, and then pile us and all our stuff on with the help of a few kindly strangers. And we were barely an hour and a half into our day of travel.

When we booked our plane tickets, we had gone with Lufthansa since they were the only ones that offered a direct flight from Portland to Frankfurt and we thought that would be the easiest, though not the cheapest, way to go with a toddler. Then we found out that they canceled their direct flight service to Portland in the beginning of September and had re-rerouted us. That was where the confusion with the tickets came in. For some reason they knew about us and knew that we were scheduled to be re-routed, but we didn't have actual tickets. So, once we got to the airport, we had to wait in several different lines before we found the one that would issue us a ticket, then had to wait in another, and one we had been in previously, to get the actual boarding pass. In fact, we talked to the same lady both times. It was nice that we had a long time between when the train got in and when our plane took off because we would have been pretty stressed out with how long it took to straighten everything out. Mikayla did pretty good with all the lines, so that made it easier, too.

And then we were ready to get on the plane. We got through Customs, Security, to the gate, and then onto the plane. We settled Mikayla in her seat, turned on cartoons on her seatback tv, gave her some milk, and then she was out. I was thinking that we couldn't have timed it any better than that, then settled in to wait for everyone else to finish boarding the plane. Once everyone was boarded and had been for awhile, the captain came online and said that they had found a dent in the cargo hold door, that although they had been flying with it that way for six months the deadline for fixing it was yesterday, and as a result the plane was not cleared to fly. So, about an hour after boarding, we found ourselves having to get back off the plane and on to buses that took us to a holding area to wait for another plane to come in and take us to Denver. And our perfect timing was out the window.

We did get on another plane, which took off about three hours after we were originally supposed to leave. The flight itself was okay, until Mikayla had a hard time falling asleep again and fell apart. It was hard to blame her with how long her day had been, and she didn't fall apart until after we should have been off the plane in Denver. She managed to fall asleep for a bit, but we were all exhausted by the time the plane landed.

She fell apart again in the line to get through Customs, but this time it ended up being a good thing, although it didn't feel like it at the time. While we were struggling to hold her while she was crying and keep moving with the line with all of our stuff, a Customs official came and got us and moved us to the front of the line. I think we skipped over at least a half hour wait in line. It ended up being a really good thing we did that, too, since we were the last ones on our flight to Portland as it was. If she hadn't fell apart in the line I think we would have missed that flight, too, and had to wait for a later one.

All we had was a little over two more hours on a plane, and then we were home. Luckily, we all were able to sleep for most of the flight. And then we were finally home. Darren's dad was there waiting for us, which was wonderful. When we finally got to our house, we figured that we had been traveling for 26 hours since we left our apartment in Embken that morning. It was good to be home, though we will always remember our time in Germany.

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.

They Made It

Sunday morning after we got back from Montenegro, I got up early and snuck out of the hotel room without waking either Darren or Mikayla up so that I could go pick up my mom and Doreen from the airport. We had booked a hotel room near the Frankfurt airport so that we wouldn't have to do the nearly two hour drive twice, and so that I wouldn't have to get up quite so early to meet them at their 6 am arrival. It was nice to be able to sleep longer, although it still felt really early.

But, they made it, and had a pretty good flight. And we were able to find each other pretty easily, especially considering the size of the Frankfurt am Main airport. We had set up a location through email to meet each other, but I found them before we even got there. I am so glad that they are here! I have been looking forward to being able to show them around where we live and let them see a part of Germany. Neither my mom nor Doreen had been overseas before, so I am glad that I got to be there for their first experience.

Mom and Doreen at the Boise airport, packed and ready to go

We ate a little breakfast in the airport, exchanged some of their money over to euros, and then found our way back to the hotel to pick up Darren and Mikayla. And then we all piled into the car with all of our luggage for the drive back to Embken. It was a pretty tight fit since Darren, Mikayla, and I had our bags from our trip to Montenegro, but we managed to squeeze it all in.

After we got to the apartment and unpacked, we all took a nap while Mikayla was sleeping before we went out for a walk to show Mom and Doreen around Embken a little bit. We took the rest of Sunday and most of the day on Monday to relax and explore our area a bit before heading out a bit further. Here are a few pictures of their first couple of days here.

Mikayla enjoying walking with Nana C and Doreen

Mom, Mikayla, and I sitting on the steps to the little restaurant in Embken

Mikayla posing for Nana C

Mom and Mikayla

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.

Nate and Luxembourg

A couple of days after Darren's parents left to go back to Oregon, my brother Nate came to visit us. His wonderful wife, Julie, volunteered to have their two kids, Ally and Jackson - the cutest niece and nephew ever- all by herself for a week while he came to visit us here in Germany. Thanks, Julie!

Mikayla and I drove in to Frankfurt to get him, since train tickets are much more expensive if you don't get them as part of a package deal with your airline tickets (like we did) than I thought they would be. Mikayla did great for the two hour drive over there. Nate's phone had died just as he was getting off the plane, so he had to find a pay phone and figure out how to use it before he could get a hold of me and arrange for a place to meet in the airport. We were a little late getting there, so Nate had a bit of time to explore the airport and sit while waiting, but we finally did meet up. We hung around at the airport for a little bit after that to have lunch and to let Mikayla run around for a little bit before the drive back to our apartment.

It was fun to be able to show the little part of Germany where we have been living to Nate. It was fun to be able to show him where we live and show him good places to go running. He is training for a marathon in October, so every time Darren and I had gone on walks or when I went running before Nate came I kept thinking about how much fun Nate was going to have on those trails.

The first day he was here, we just came back to our apartment, let him sleep a little, and went on a walk around the village where we live. On the second day, though, when Darren was at work, we decided to take a day trip to Luxembourg. It is a little over a two hour drive to get to Luxembourg, the city, so we thought it would be a fun trip. Nate drove the whole way there and back, so he got the experience of driving the autobahn. It is too bad that they stopped giving stamps for your passports at the borders now, but it is nice to say that we got to another country. And it is a beautiful country. The two or three hours that we had to explore were definitely not enough.

Nate in downtown Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Nate at the little cafe that we ate at. We both had yummy salads.

More Luxembourg

Mikayla after she enjoyed her strawberry ice cream

This is definitely a country that I would like to explore a little more. On the way back to our apartment in Embken, we decided to drive up through the country of Luxembourg instead of the faster way on the autobahn that we had taken to get there. It was beautiful driving through the winding roads through the little villages and country side.

Our First Visitors

After a little over a month of being here, settling in, and learning the ropes, we have our first visitors. Darren's parents arrived last Thursday and were very excited to see their granddaughter. And their son and daughter-in-law, too, of course, but mostly Mikayla.

Mikayla and I went to Cologne to pick them up at the train station since they had caught the express train from the Frankfurt airport to Cologne, much like we did when we first arrived. We were a little late getting to the train station since I got a little later of a start than I had wanted and a little girl had problems concentrating on finishing breakfast (she kept getting distracted by the calendar that is by her seat that has kittens on it and saying, "kitty! kitty!"). Also, I was relying on our GPS to get me to the train station once I got close to Cologne, but it was having trouble locating satellites and was no help to me until I had made several wrong turns and turned around a couple of times looking for signs to the Hauptbahnhof. Thankfully the GPS device did locate satellites in time for me to maneuver my way through the myriad of construction detours in Cologne and finally get to the train station.

I was getting a little worried since I was now about a half an hour later than I knew that their train was due to arrive in the station, and Darren had emailed his parents before they left and told them to wait a half an hour before leaving the platform and trying to call us. And I got a little more worried when Mikayla and I got up to the platforms and didn't see them anywhere. I had just got back down to the main part of the train station and was starting to look for a telephone to see if they were there when I got a call on my cell phone. It was Rosemary saying that they were in the Lufthansa office straightening out a baggage situation. I was glad that they weren't waiting on me, but a little concerned about what sort of situation there was.

It turned out that there was a mix-up with the carry-on luggage and the wrong bag was grabbed on the way off the plane. It wasn't discovered until Paul and Rosemary were on the train to Cologne and it was too late to do much about it. Thankfully there was a very helpful flight attendant who was on their flight and happened to live in Cologne so that she was on the same train that they were on, so she helped them once they got to the Lufthansa office in Cologne. She even went so far as to ride with us to the Cologne regional airport and help us turn in the wrong bag to the office there. We were able to pick up the correct bag the next day since it had been left in the lost and found in Frankfurt and we had been planning on driving in that direction anyway.

So, the bag situation was worked out, they got to see their granddaughter, see Darren's work, and then we headed back to Embken. I had been planning on trying to see a little of Cologne the day they arrived, but with how tired everyone was after the long flight and with the missing bag, it seemed much better to just head home.

It was fun to be able to show our little home-away-from-home off to people in person and not just in photos. It is hard to capture the peace of this place and the feel of it in pictures, although we have certainly tried. And it is fun to see some of our family again after a month of being by ourselves. Mikayla certainly is enjoying having someone else to play with and entertain her.

Fancy Meeting You Here

"Fancy meeting you here." That was the phrase my cousin Keri had all ready to say to me when I met her and her friend, Josi, in the Frankfurt airport. Of course, the phrase would have been a lot funnier if in order to get to a face-to-face meeting we hadn't had to coordinate with over an hour of waiting, three phone calls, and finally a coordinated trip up our respective escalators since we were on different platforms of the train station. We could see each other, but yelling over the trains rushing by wasn't working very well. But, we did finally meet up and get their bags checked on to their next flight so that we could head into downtown Frankfurt for lunch and a little sight seeing before they went on their way.

Keri and Josi were on their way to Prague, Czech Republic, for a nearly three week trip. I was really glad when I heard that they were going to have a six hour layover in Frankfurt while we were living here. I remember taking Keri on a trip to Oregon for her first time out of the state of Idaho. And that was when she was in high school. So it was a little surreal for me to think of meeting this same cousin on the other side of the world. I am glad that she gets to have the opportunity to travel to what I have heard is a beautiful city. Hopefully I can get there myself someday. I was half tempted to take Mikayla and get on their flight with them, just so I could see it, although maybe Darren wouldn't have appreciated it so much.

After all the time that it took to coordinate meeting each other and then finding where to check their bags and then figuring out how to use the ticket machine for the train tickets, we didn't have too long to spend in downtown Frankfurt. We did manage to grab a little lunch, find some cold drinks, and walk a bit to see some of the sights before we had to turn around and head back. And we only had a small amount of confusion over which train to take back to the airport. Then we said goodbye and Mikayla and I had to get back in the car for the two-hour drive back to Embken. It was a good day.

Frankfurt train station

A fountain

Keri and I

Keri and Josi