Weekend in Deutschland: June 15-19, 2007

For all you Deutsch sprechers out there, a big shout out from Hemmerde! Hier ist it kalt diese morgan aber das sohn ist jetz starten to shinen. :-) I arrived Friday evening to the warm welcome of the Familia Gunther. Peter chauffered me from Dusselfdorf airport in horrid traffic, but Fredde was home from university in Münster to spend the night just to see me, and her warm hug and radiant smile with the same from Babsi made me feel right at home. The weekend visiting Heidelberg was splendid. We stayed at the Hotel Golden Rose, whose wi-fi introduced me to the success of Skype and the joy of blogspot. My former exchange student son Christian has a family parallel to mine: His older sister Tina and her husband Stephane and their twins Julien and Finn (the blond) welcomed us, and little sister Johanna joined us, taking time from her law school studies. She and Fredde are heading in to the final weeks of spring semester exams, so it was great that they took time to visit. I mailed a third package home to ease the load on the suitcase. I'm traveling light!


Here is Peter with Julien, who has Babsi's energizer bunny transmission, and Finn, more contemplative. With his fair hair, he looks so much like baby Christian!



Here is Katya, currently living and working in the Black Forest, a long way from Christian in Cologne. Watch for a move as soon as she can find a new job.


Tine, Christian, and Hanni all lived with us for a while, Tina for a month of medical internship at the Parkview Hospital Emergency Services, Christian for a year at Lakeland, and Hanni for several months of limbo waiting for immigration to take our money and approve her visa as a Lakeland student - only to finally have to give up on her semester and go home, a collateral damage casualty of the war on terror. She is studying law. Maybe she can improve on what we've got.