Deutschland!

A little about the flight before we get to business:

We flew New Orleans -- Dallas -- London -- Düsseldorf from Wednesday evening to Thursday evening. We were all comfortable; on the long-haul, we had a full row of 5 seats to ourselves, so the kids stretched out, and then we had just one skip over from London to our destination. The only hiccup was that Paul may have received my unfortunate leaning towards motion sickness; he lost his breakfast at the end of the long-haul flight. It was after landing, so all were unprepared. Oh well.

On to the good stuff. We arrived - after a detour regarding carseats that didn't arrive with us - at Ulli & Klaus' around 8:30pm Thursday night, had a bread+cold cuts dinner and then slept. like. champs. We all went down around 10:30 local time and slept until 8am. I woke and wanted both to stay in such a comfortable bed forever and get up to do all the things right away.

Our breakfasts consisted of Brötchen, cheeses, hams, jams, and delicious coffee. On Friday, we just took a little walk between breakfast and nap, but Saturday we went into the city center of Krefeld after Philipp joined us for breakfast. The kids enjoyed our little Stadtbummel to hunt for Christmas yummies to share with family. After short naps, we headed to Burg Linn for a most beautiful Christmas market, where the children had a run-in with Sankt Nikolaus, enjoyed the heck out of roasted chestnuts, and had their first Weihnachtsmarkt Reibekuchen (fried potato pancakes with applesauce).

Ulli's spread a lovely table two days in a row with 2 delicious cakes, and while all of the table-sitting might be right up Dylan's and my alley, the kids eat and want down. Good thing they had Eddy! Eddy the beagle is a regular peer for them, complete with playing, annoying, and snatching things ... mostly food. Mostly from Ada.

Sunday was St. Nikolaus day and the 2nd Sunday of Advent; we went to Mass at Sankt Anna, the kids' first Mass in German, but only after they were pleasantly surprised by goodies left in their shoes by St. Nick overnight! 

Paul had a bit of a rough attitude day - jetlag must be really weird for little ones. Ulli and I had Kaffee & Kuchen at Philipp's apartment, which was really sweet; he even gave me a St. Nikolaus treat, and then we went back home to have 2nd Kaffee & Kuchen with Klaus, Dylan, and the kids. As soon as we were finished, we packed up the cars for more Christmas markets! Now, one generally doesn't attend more than one market in a weekend, let alone 3, but we had to manage to squeeze in all of the best things in just 4 days. So, we spent an hour or so at a market in Lank, where there was a free carousel for kiddos ... but apparently was earlier in the day ... and the bookshop where Ulli works where we'd hoped to find birthday books for Paul & Ada ... which apparently closed sooner than expected. Sigh. After that little disappointment, we all sort of wanted to go home but pushed through and met up at the Krefelder Weihnachtsmarkt. And it was a good thing! I remember the Krefeld one being wonderful, but everyone was talking about how much better it's been getting each year. This year's was beautiful and by far the most delicious. I almost could have only visited that one, but I'm glad I can compare, of course. We had a ball, and the kids love Bratwurst. Duh.

 Monday was an up&at'em early day because just the Knolls trekked over to Cologne! This city is what got the whole party started anyway, really. Remember when Paul saw my old coffee mug with the Kölner cathedral on it? with that bridge? for trains? Well, it was then that we decided to make a stopover in Germany, so here was the day!

We trained from Krefeld to Köln, which was amazing; we visited the massive, gorgeous, impressive cathedral, walked through Köln's market for some yums, strolled the pedestrian shopping area, walked along the Rhein for the view of that bridge, hit up a bookstore for birthday books for the children, and took a café break. It was awesome. We trained back home for our last Kaffee & Kuchen with Ulli and Klaus and then a lovely parting dinner at home.

Unfortunately, on the last night, Paul and Ada broke a flower pot on a side table in the living room. Cringe. They were being really well-behaved, too; it was a complete accident, and Paul was very good about apologizing. I'm still mortified, though ... they've got really fancy things.

Then we woke at 4:15am on Tuesday the 8th for our trek to Melbourne! It was the start of a very, very long journey. Our layover in London had us meet up with a Father Jude who prayed with us on the feast of the Immaculate Conception before travelling to Dubai and on to Melbourne. The flights were really wonderful - the pilots steered clear of Syria and Iraq - and the kids slept. And ate. But, man, they slept. Just an fyi for when you next plan a round-the-world trip with toddlers: saving the longest leg of a 6-part journey for last is pretty rough, but mostly it was rough on us because we knew what was going on and were getting antsy to arrive. Seriously, Paul and Ada were amazing. I should make them little foil stars or something. We spent that first night in a hotel since we arrived so late, and then our Australia experience will take up a post or two of its own.

Overall, our short stint in Germany was everything we could have hoped, most especially for Paul. Of course it was wonderful for us to reconnect with Ulli & Klaus, but watching Paul ease in without blinking was a massive affirmation of our speaking German at home. There is no way I could believe my sometimes-shy big boy would have otherwise been so comfortable in a foreign experience. Watching him interact with people, ask for things, order in a café ... it was amazing and exciting. In fact, I've even wondered since if it was quite easy for him because everything was in German, and therefore only one language. There was no second anything to have to process. A funny thing, of course, was that it wasn't our "secret language"; I noticed that we spoke (especially reprimanded) more quietly and kept normally private-like topics under the radar, like potty visits or that man over there who's ... Anyway, it was awesome, and we need to do it every year ;).