So, we’ve been delinquent in posting. I guess you can say we’ve been busy, or not. Busy in Germany is different than “busy” was in the U.S. Some days, I honestly am at a loss for where the time has gone. Every day I spend at least 15 minutes translating. But, the remaining 23 hours and 45 minutes … I don’t know. Work, feeding, climbing up and down the stairs between our apartment and the laundry room, walking meine hunde.
The intent of this post is to serve as a brief update and launching board for the rebirth of our blog. And it’s mostly for family because certainly, no one else cares.

Ready?? Here are some bullets:

• In late July, Jeff and I visited Brussels, Belgium, and Bruges, Belgium. We rented a car and dragged the dogs along. I am honestly surprised Kaya survived the journey. Bruges was my absolute favorite, and it’s true what “they” say about Belgian beer and chocolate (and waffles). They don’t get any better. But what they don’t say is that people in Brussels are kind of mean. I don’t know — maybe it’s just me. I will elaborate more in the post (with pictures) to come!
• In late August, I went home to Massachusetts to see my family. My sister was (but no longer is) at home, so it was nice to be back in the house — all four of us. The entire Eckelkamp clan. In the process, I also got to spend some quality time with friends and family. Jeff stayed in Cologne/Europe because he had to work.
• Upon returning, we didn’t do much traveling. We’re actually kind of bad at that. I worked a lot, in preparation for a conference in September. In the meantime, B-rock came to visit for a design show, and we enjoyed some fine local cuisine/Kölsch and then ventured off to Paris. I would say the highlight of Paris was visiting the Moulin Rouge district. The “lowlight” was when I almost passed out in a Paris subway station whilst alone. That was scary. Pictures and a detailed post to come (but not of the two items I just mentioned).
• Damn. I just realized I still haven’t posted pics of Rome. I’ll get around to that too.
• The final summer months were quite enjoyable here in Cologne. The canine-related harassment has mostly stopped; however, I did encounter some old hags in the park who completely ridiculed me for my lack of German, after saying God-knows what about the dogs (“you speak ONLY English…bahahahaha….bahahahah….askfjal;ksjfalskdjfasljfalskf….”). I cried, and then studied German for about 4 hours.  Other than that, we’ve enjoyed numerous cookouts in the park with our new Cologne friends. I am forever grateful for the amazing people in this city. Such a community!
• On the topic of Deutsche-lernen, Jeff and I have hired a tutor. Her name is Eva (pronounced Ay-vah), and she’s great. We meet once a week for an hour over Skype. She assigns homework in hopes that we’ll actually spread it out over the course of the week so the German language slowly seeps into our obstinate English-speaking brains. I tend to do a crash course during the three hours leading up to my weekly lesson, but I’m still learning … something. “Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.”  Ja. Put that in your Google translate.
• In September, I headed back to the U.S. for a client conference. I coupled a trip to Destin, FL, to visit Miss Stina, and then stayed an extra weekend to hang with Megan (who flew in from Louisville) and some local friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time. In addition to acting like a complete glutton, we also added one cultural stop — Newseum — a cool (you guessed it) “news museum” in DC. Very expensive to get in, but also extremely interesting. My favorite was the World Trade Center exhibit.
• Now – back in Deutschland. Getting reacquainted with the time zone and trying to get organized for a few days of traveling next week. We’re thinking maybe Prague and Vienna, or Vienna and Munich. We’ll see. We’ll probably end up in Lisbon or somewhere completely different.

That’s all for now. Time to get some work done. More travel and random posts to come. My motivation is reborn.

Until next time…

Auf Wiedersehen!