Back in November, I posted a list of things we were missing from the US and things we wanted to do before
we left Germany. Now that we've been back 7 months (!), I thought I'd look back through the lists...
Things we were looking forward to in the US:
- Inexpensive, high-quality steak. -- Yep, we definitely missed this! Thanks, Mom & Dad F, for grilling some steak for us when we got back!
- Tacos, sharp cheddar, and good salsa. -- Our first homemade tacos were 100x better than the best we managed in Germany. Though now we eat them with a lot more fresh ingredients, like chopped onions, peppers, and lettuce.
- Maple syrup and brown sugar available at the grocery store. -- Lots of baking has been happening, and I've already gone through 4 bags of brown sugar and 2 jugs of maple syrup.
- French toast, pancakes, scrambled eggs...eating at Parker's Maple Barn and Soundbites. -- We ate a Parker's for my birthday weekend, we've made it to Soundbites several times, and gotten fried chicken with waffles at M3!
- Our stinky hound! -- She turns 10 this month and is slowing down some, but overall she is very happy and healthy. We have been enjoying taking her on lots of walks!
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| hiking together in NH, just like old times |
- Getting reacquainted with my kitchen gear and all my other clothes. -- Oh, bread machine, slow cooker, and kitchen scale, how I missed thee! But for every kitchen gadget I did miss, there is one that I didn't miss at all...and those have been donated or given away in a house-cleaning extravaganza.
- Having a cell phone with a camera and being able to text family on the go. -- 'Inbox 100% full' is a common message on my phone these days, and it's nice to be able to look up restaurant recommendations or directions on the go.
- Seeing family and friends who we have only seen online for too long! -- We see J's family frequently, I got to see my parents and Em in January when I picked up the Granny Mobile, and I made it down to see Beth and Chris in March. We are slowly making the rounds!
- Being able to effortlessly speak with shop owners, administrators, and pretty much everyone without having to compose each sentence in my head beforehand. (Though I will miss this, too!) -- Extra thankful for this during tax season, though it took several months to clear our accounts with the German electric company and our German bank, so I didn't have to go cold turkey. I also took a German class in the spring, but it's just not the same!
- Having a car! Oh, how I have missed the freedom of having a car! (And, yet, oh how I will miss the fabulous trains and public transport in Germany!). -- Mom road tripped from TX to MA with me to bring the Granny Mobile back to Boston. Sadly, the green truck drove its last mile on my second day back to work, so we're now a 1-car family. When sitting in summer beachgoer traffic this summer, we have sorely missed being able to kick back with a book in a train. But it is also glorious to be able to pack up the car and go!
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| 3000+ miles of non-stop catching up :) |
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| RIP faithful green friend |
Things we wanted to do in Germany before we left:
- Go shopping for gifts at all of Cologne's Christmas markets. -- Done! I have a long list of the best of/worst of the Cologne markets, which you can read about here.
- Visit a Christmas market in a small, charming village (Bad Munstereifel? Monschau? Münster? We shall see...). -- We made it to markets in Hattingen and Marburg, and they were one of our favorite things to do in the fall and winter!
- Eat schnitzel at Oma Kleinmann's. -- check.
- Eat saurbraten (J's favorite) at a Kölsch pub. -- double-check. I undertook a culinary adventure to replicate this recipe on the hottest day in July. Recipe and post coming soon!
- See Radical Face at the Kulturkirche in mid-November. -- So much fun! I get very nostalgic every time I hear 'Welcome Home' now.
- Cheer on FC Koeln at another soccer match. -- We actually didn't make this happen. Instead, a quick trip to London happened.
- Attend mass at the Dom. -- This was a very neat experience! There's a lot of pomp and circumstance. Highly recommended for anyone visiting Cologne on a Sunday!
- A quick, 3-day trip to London, staying at a super posh hotel using our free Hyatt nights. -- Done, and post forthcoming!
- Experiment with more interesting ingredients from the market. -- I think this happened...probably. I don't remember any specific weird veggies or fruits, but I loaded up on Kaki and other favorites before we left. So much so that, when Sam and I departed for good, I had an entire bag filled with snacks and beer and things that were too good to throw away!
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| a last family photo on our back porch in Cologne |
[Long, rambling] side note: Our departure from Germany was quite a production! J took a separate flight out of Amsterdam on Iceland Air, while Sam and I took a train to Paris the next day to catch a flight to JFK, where we rented a car and drive up to Boston. (Pets can't go through Iceland and other island nations without getting quarantined, and we were trying to save money, hence the abominably complicated travel plans!) J and I spent most of Dec 13th doing our favorite things in Cologne, before he left the next day.
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| saying 'bye for now' to the Dom |
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top row: walking along the Rhine and enjoying Koeln's Altstadt
bottom row: enjoying the Christmas markets (ice skating and hot chocolate, respectively) |
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| soaking up our lovely neighborhood, Nippes, one last time |
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on his way to Boston, via Amsterdam and Iceland.
the next time we saw each other was 3 days later in NH! |
J, along with his mandolin, backpack, and two bags weighing precisely 20kg (thank goodness for luggage scales!) hopped on a train to Amsterdam in the afternoon on Dec 13th. Then I went home and started packing my bags. At about 4pm, I realized that there was no way everything was going to fit so I threw away some things (bye-bye, tennis shoes) and speed-packed a box to mail. I had the box ready by 4:45 and the post office closed at 5, so I ran several blocks carrying the 15kg box to the post office...in the rain. The rest of the day was spent packing and cleaning. The next day, I gathered everything together, did last minute clean up, put the cat in the carrier, and trudged (in the rain) to the UBahn station near our house with about 15 minutes to spare before my train to Paris left. Aaand when I got to the UBahn station, I realized that I had grossly misjudged the timing of the trains on a Sunday morning (every 10 minutes), which caused poor Samson and I to miss our train to Paris by
3 minutes. So I had to go to the Thalys counter (side note to the side note: the woman who helped me was French, but spoke excellent German as well as perfect English with a Cockney accent!), buy new train tickets, and wait 4 hours for the next train. Sam was not amused, though the ladies in the restroom thought it was hilarious to see a cat wheeled into a stall with me. I spent the time reading and killing time in the Hbf.
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there's a small cat in that carrier, being very quiet and definitely not appreciating
that she's getting her picture at a UNESCO World heritage site |
The rest of me and Sam's trip was also pretty eventful. We caught our train to Paris and it was uneventful except that I sort of spewed beer all over the place (I couldn't leave behind our last Rochefort 10!) and I ended up not in my assigned seat. But we got to the airport with plenty of time, which was good. I had been stressing about the baggage weights, which were very strict on this budget airline -- you got one 20kg checked bag (every additional kilo was 10 Euros or you could check a second bag for 100 Euros) and one carry-on bag (not counting the cat, since I paid 75 Euros to take her in the cabin) that must weigh under 10 kilos. I got my checked bag down to 23 kg and was planning to just pay the 30 Euros, but I had two big carry on bags (plus the cat) and both of them were waaaay over 10 kg since they contained J's camera and lenses and my computer. As I stood in line, I watched the attendants carefully count and weigh everyone's bags. But God took mercy on us, and the very nice man who helped us didn't bat an eye at my 23 kg bag and he pretended that he didn't see my excessive carry-ons...and we made it through the baggage gauntlet!
The flight was very empty, so Sammy and I got a whole row to ourselves. When we landed in New York, it was midnight and raining, but we got our little rental car and headed out. The rain turned to snow once we got into CT and we were making terrible time--no one else was on the road, but I couldn't see the asphalt. I had planned to stop at a Motel 6 just outside Hartford, but I passed the exit with no sign of the hotel. Fortunately, 30 minutes later I saw a sign for another Motel 6! Sam and I stopped at about 4am, slogged through 8" of snow to get to our room, and slept til about 10 before getting back on the road. The plowing teams must have worked the entire night, because the roads were completely clear by the time we headed out of the motel. We made it to NH just in time to avoid a late fee on the rental car, and Leslie, Kristy, and Nora met us at the airport rental return. Silly Nora didn't remember me at first, but I finally got a couple tail wags. And I could finally relax--we had made it!
Sam was such a trooper--she was dragged all the way from Cologne to Paris to New York, got rained on, and then had to ride in the car. She was in her carrier for 30 hours! I gave her relax treats and water throughout the trip, but I am still amazed at how good she was. She didn't struggle when I carried her through the Paris metal detector, and she didn't make a mess in her carrier. There were so many little blessings along the way that made our adventure of a return trip possible!
And now she is sitting contentedly beside me on our couch in Somerville, a real world traveler with a
German cat passport!
