Super fast update!
We’ve been negligent in our blogging, but we’ve been busy. The occasional downloaded episode of New Girl or Mad Men aside, we’ve hardly had a minute to breathe. So, before I get to work, a very quick update!
We finally moved into our new apartment in Lindenthal, which is a neighborhood within Cologne. We’ve got an enormous park to one side, and a street full of stores, restaurants, bakeries, and gelato shops (I kid you not) to the other side. I’m pretty much in heaven, and so are the dogs.
Our apartment is completely unfurnished, so we’ve bee occupied with buying furniture, assembling furniture, and wondering how we’re ever going to finish getting the place set up. But, we do have a bed, couches, a kitchen, and a new-to-us washing machine, so the place is definitely livable. We can certainly deal with the echoes for now.
Our shipment from the U.S. arrived last Thursday, and we finally got all six suitcases, two dog crates, and miscellaneous groceries and paperwork out of the Pullman on Friday. Unpacking our suitcases took longer than the entire shipment of air freight from the U.S. Probably weighed more too. Yay for elevators and strong husbands.
Jeff’s mom and step-dad took a detour on their trip home from a three-week Middle Eastern cruise to visit Cologne this past weekend. They arrived on Friday from Istanbul, and we spent Saturday and Sunday showing them the ropes. Despite hearing warnings that EVERYTHING would be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we managed to keep a fairly busy schedule:
- Delicious Italian food right across from Pullman on Friday. I think there are 70,000 Italians in this medium-sized city, so basically, I’m happy as a pig rolling in … you know. Lots of Italian specialty shops, as well, and the cheese here is super cheap. More on that later.
- Breakfast at a local backerei Saturday morning, followed by a tour of our new place, a tour of the Dom, and a huge pork-fest at a downtown brewery for lunch. Then onto some important shopping — the oil and vinegar store (one of my new favorites) and to ProMrkt for an alarm clock. In the process of our short shopping trip, I spilled hot chocolate all over myself and the bathroom stall in the shopping center, walked out embarrassed because I had no “tip” for the cleaning ladies, and came back later with a 2-Euro coin. And ya, you tip the bathroom “monitors” … if that’s even what they’re called.
- Easter Sunday was the best. Delicious breakfast brunch at the Pullman, followed by a walk down the Rhein, a tour of the Easter market (basically a big, awesome junk sale), 45 minutes in the Chocolate Museum, a short 1-hour river cruise, and a nap. Later, we met Jeff’s mom for some Chinese food, and this concluded the visit. They left super early this morning.
Today is considered Easter Monday in Germany, and it’s what they call a “bank holiday.” So most businesses, grocery stores, doctor’s offices, etc., are closed. The grocery store bit drives me nuts, but they’re always closed on Sundays, so I’ve almost come to grips with not having 24/7 access to a supermarket. Lots of Catholics here who still take religion very seriously. I think they also really like to relax.
Speaking of relaxing, I’ve done enough of that today. Must get to work now that it’s 8:30 a.m. in the U.S. But, more pictures, insights, and updates to come.
Tschüss!
The human-canine journey to Deutschland
We’ve made it to Deutschland, complete with pooches and about 400 pounds of luggage.
We left Atlanta Saturday after a wild, out-straight week of packing, movers, a round trip drive to Florida, three or four visits to a storage unit, and two nights in our temporary housing.
Sad to leave, we were excited for our new adventure — if we could only get the dogs checked into their flight, through TSA, and across the ocean … ALIVE. This was my (Allison’s) primary fear and biggest concern through the entire moving process — how to get my furry babies over the Atlantic without suffering some sort of canine version of a nervous breakdown. Our vet, and Jeff’s dear friend, Meg refused to provide anti-anxiety meds, and for good reason. But worry not, I took mine with enthusiasm (chased by a cabernet-merlot blend).
Helping to calm our nerves, Jeff buddied up with our flight’s First Officer prior to boarding. He made it a point to check on our pooches during his walk-around (what a nice German and great first impression!) and then point out the location of our boxed-up children on the ramp near the gate. I spent about an hour with my new Swedish friend Emelia, who was shipping her felines, watching the three “live-animal” crates with the same attention and horror that we might watch a thriller. The process of getting them settled onto their cargo pallet (yes, I said cargo pallet) went something like this…
The ramp worker/animal handler followed a clear checklist and process. He:
–very gracefully placed Breezy and Kaya onto their pallet and roped their crates together.
–positioned the smaller cat crate behind the dogs — and applied more rope.
–shook them vigorously (I guess he was testing the strength of his knots, but at the time, I assumed he was making an obvious attempt to wake the dogs from a black out, or the early-stages of a coma …were they dead already?)
–decided, this was not the best crate architecture.
–untied crates and removed dogs and cats from pallet.
–repositioned Breezy and Kaya.
–put cats ON TOP of dog crates.
–repeated roping.
-repeated vigorous shaking.
–looked at his first pet packing job with satisfaction and moved them to the boarding area.
Here are the doggies on the ramp, behind the white pick-up truck. You can see the ramp worker securing the cats into their first position.
Meanwhile, I asked the gate agent to have someone check their water bowls (obviously, the water didn’t stand a chance with all that shaking). They did. Thanks, Lufthansa.
Eight hours later — complete with a delicious dinner, a four hour nap, half a movie, and one more hour of stressing — we landed in Frankfurt. The rest was literally a breeze. We picked up the dogs from their special baggage belt, met with our driver Manfred, passed through customs with hardly a glance at our doggy paperwork by German officials, and headed to Cologne … at the slow speed of up to 190 km/hour (that is 117.8 mph, folks) on the famous autobahn.
We arrived at our second temporary home, the Pullman, by noon on Sunday. Greeted by happy faces and a clean suite, we began the settling process. It took the dogs no time to relax.
Needless to say, we began our adventure with a nap.
—Allison
A European Adventure 