Ex-pat Newlyweds

I’m making up for the lack of posts in August — I know Opa will appreciate it.

It’s amazing how the change of the month brings the change of the season. It was very abrupt here, with September 1 being the official last hot day. It’s chilled considerably already, with nights dipping down to 12 degrees.

Besides our little trip up a creek with a paddle, we’ve been really busy and sorry to say, didn’t share any of it with you… until now.

June/July were full of visitors. We had six sleepovers in six weeks! With all the visitors streaming through, it’s made me grateful that I don’t have to deal with roommates anymore. Don’t get me wrong — I loved our guests coming through. A few were acquaintances that became friends and to be honest, you have to expect that people will call you up out of the blue when you’re living in a destination city. I’ve been lucky enough to have relatives that lived here all my life, giving me a “homebase” for all of my European adventures. I’m paying it forward.

I hope our guests do too.

While it was exhausting doing “the tour”, all of our visitors wanted to do different things. Amanda was ok going her own, a little overwhelmed by Christopher Street Day celebrations (Gay Pride) and appreciative of the kindness she got from us, near-strangers when she arrived. Cousin Elsie came from Zürich just to hang out with us and spend some family time with us, eating and drinking and shopping. Joel wanted to relive his glory days of being a 20 year old in Berlin, while Aunt Reva and Uncle Steve swung by en route to England from Switzerland for a 24 hour site-seeing expedition filled with German food and beer. Scott was a last-minute booking with tickets to shows, a party all night and while proving that it is just me when it comes to making my guitar sound good. Finally, Julie and her cousin Dave made a stop in Berlin on their way to a Norwegian family reunion. While Dave got his fill of Second World War to Cold War history, Julie and I got a good fill of girl time while window-shopping and trying on silly hats in the department stores.

We thought we were in the clear for August, but another last-minute booking came through via our friend Dom and Alex was with us for a few days too. More bike tours, another all-night party (with an interlude for Mel and Andrew’s engagement celebration over Skype) and lots of wine consumed.

August was nice to be at home. We spent a weekend in Cologne visiting with the Omas. Marlene and Sandi (”the aunts”) were visiting, so we took some time to visit them too. We had a very competitive game of minigolf — par for the course (har har) when doing anything with Marlene and Sandi. We took the train — my favourite. For our way home, the Oma Schatz (a nickname that means Oma Darling she was Christianed with because she called all of us grandkiddies Schatz all the time) packed us pieces of pork schnitzel in tin foil, Haribo gummis and a box of Duplo (they are much cheaper here).

The weather was beautiful, with hot days leading to epic thunderstorms — the kind of which I haven’t seen since living in Saskatchewan.

While Josh has spent the summer settling into his new position of Architect at Nokia (his second promotion since he started there in December! I brag for him), I had my last day of my internship at The Local. While I didn’t need the clippings most interns go for, I needed the German news experience. Before this summer, I couldn’t tell you who Frank-Walter Steinmeier was (head of the SPD), or what Ulla Schmidt does (Health minister) or even how to spell Baden-Württemburg (ouch, I know). I can say that all that has changed, as well making massive strides in improving my German. You can read my last hurrah by clicking here.

We have lots of adventures planned for Fall. We’ll be in London in two weeks, with a couple of visitors before that and finally, the big first anniversary trip in October to…

PARIS!

(*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllll!*)