Please excuse the 2 weeks off I've taken. I promise I've been taking notes and will bring you more stories of our adventures soon. In the meantime, I will give you a synopsis of the past 2 weeks to get you caught up with the times...
We have our first houseguest! Thus, the preceding days of her visit were filled with putting the finishing touches on our apartment making it suitable for visitors (which means shoving boxes out of sight and finding appropriate furnishings to store the rest of our stuff).
The biggest news by far is that our youngest small child has started school! We got word that a spot had opened up in an American pre-school. Not my first choice, as I had hoped to be able to have the child in German kindergarten. But we are thankful for the opportunity and feel this will be a good experience.
Soccer season has begun. Both of the small children are playing. So our weeks are fairly normal, consumed with school, homework, packing lunches, and soccer practice. They both seem to enjoy it and are good at following the coaches' directions, which are about all you can hope for at this age.
One of our recent weekends I particularly enjoyed -- not because we went anywhere fabulous -- on the contrary, we spent the entire weekend at home. We didn't have to go anywhere, run any errands, or feel it necessary to experience any sort of adventure. We slept in (about 7:00 for the small children, always a treat for mom), made pancakes for breakfast, had a leisurely morning, walked to a few places nearby, took naps, and enjoyed life. It has been months since we had a weekend that wasn't filled with the demands of transition and I relished every minute of it.
And that's about it. We are enjoying having our houseguest here. Her visit is allowing us to experience some of the more enjoyable aspects of living here as we show her around. It may be a few more days before I can get some other stories posted, but be assured that "The Bloomies" are alive and well! :)
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Strasbourg, France
We set off on a drizzly Sunday morning for a little road trip to France. Neither of us had ever been to France, and so we decided to take advantage of the easy 2-hour drive across the border.
This little trip served as a trial run for other bigger trips and I learned a few things...Our phones do not have international service, therefore I can't rely on my smart phone for all my information. And so an actual map of the area would be helpful, even though we recently purchased a GPS. Also the actual addresses of our destinations would be beneficial to use in congruence with the GPS (again, because I am unable to rely on my smart phone to tell me everything).
Prior to the trip, I researched the area and picked a few sights for us: the Notre Dame Cathedral said to rival the one in Paris, a quaint neighborhood called La Petite Paris, a carousel, and a park.
My research led me to believe all the places we would enjoy going to would be open even though it was Sunday. I'd like to take a moment to emphasize the fact that Germans (and Strasbourg, perhaps because it's so close to Germany) like to close down shop on Sundays. Unless you're in a big city or a particularly touristy area, most things are closed. I speculate that perhaps the reason we find such a variety of vending machines in Germany is to prevent people from actually starving to death in the event they did not properly prepare for the Sunday closings.
However, upon arrival we find that really nothing is open except for a few shops and restaurants obviously geared toward the average tourist. In the rain, we set out on a march through town in attempt to find food that's not overpriced.
On our trek we did see the cathedral, which is so large it nearly slams you in the face as you round the corners of the narrow village lanes. We also found the carousel and allowed the small children a ride on its double-decker grandness.
After nearly an hour of wandering through streets of closed shops, we came back around and settled on a nice restaurant by the river. We enjoyed our meal and our view. They enjoyed emptying our wallet.
Since it was still raining, we weren't able to visit the park so we continued just to walk. The neighborhood La Petite France is located on an island in the middle of a river. The river has an interesting set of locks and we spent some time watching the chambers fill and empty, allowing the cruise boats passage.
With our curiosity about France appeased, we decided it was time to head back to Germany. I'm happy to report that there was actually a small amount of relief upon returning to our 'home' country with it's budding familiarity.
However, upon arrival we find that really nothing is open except for a few shops and restaurants obviously geared toward the average tourist. In the rain, we set out on a march through town in attempt to find food that's not overpriced.
On our trek we did see the cathedral, which is so large it nearly slams you in the face as you round the corners of the narrow village lanes. We also found the carousel and allowed the small children a ride on its double-decker grandness.
After nearly an hour of wandering through streets of closed shops, we came back around and settled on a nice restaurant by the river. We enjoyed our meal and our view. They enjoyed emptying our wallet.
Since it was still raining, we weren't able to visit the park so we continued just to walk. The neighborhood La Petite France is located on an island in the middle of a river. The river has an interesting set of locks and we spent some time watching the chambers fill and empty, allowing the cruise boats passage.
With our curiosity about France appeased, we decided it was time to head back to Germany. I'm happy to report that there was actually a small amount of relief upon returning to our 'home' country with it's budding familiarity.
Notre Dame Cathedral
Our oldest small child was quite impressed by the swans.
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