Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

After Patrick and Bree's visit, we had just a few days left in Germany. Patrick and Bree left town on Tuesday morning, a day which also saw movers come to pack up our apartment, and Erin work her last day in Singen. After being moved out of our apartment, we'd spend three nights in a hotel right in the heart of Konstanz's old town.

Despite living pretty much right in the middle of Konstanz for a long time (3.5 years for Erin, 1.5 years for Tim), the town seemed a little different while staying in the hotel. We got to see the city through the eyes of a tourist, and we realized all over again what a beautiful town it is, and how much we'd miss it.

In between checking in on the cleaners and painters touching up our apartment for the turnover to the next tenant, we were able to spend some time touring the city one last time. We walked through the old town, walked along the Rhein, and had some nice meals at some our favourite restaurants in town. It would have been nice to have a little more time to soak in the town before we left, but unfortunately we had to leave early Friday morning to move to Cleveland.

Our move to the USA is one we're making with mixed feelings. On one hand, we're excited for this next adventure in our life, and to be in a culture way more similar to our Canadian way of life. On the other hand, we will miss some facets of European life that we really grew to love, and we will definitely, definitely miss having all these amazing travel opportunities right at our doorstep. In less than four years, we've seen more beautiful and amazing places than most people get to see in a lifetime, and we've gotten to meet a number of wonderful people that have become great friends. We've had some great experiences here, and we're truly lucky for that.

Konstanz Oktoberfest (with some visitors from Canada!)

This most recent update is coming to you from our new (temporary) home in Beachwood, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but we are starting to get things in order here. More on that to come soon, but first we'll go over our last days in Germany.

Our friends Patrick and Bree were visiting family and friends in England in September, and had mentioned that they had hoped to come visit us for a few days in Germany if we were able to find the time. We had to make sure their visit wouldn't interfere with the movers coming to our house, and after organizing and cancelling their vist a few times, finally we were able to arrange everything, and Patrick and Bree arrived in Konstanz on the Friday night.

Those of you who were at our wedding will remember Patrick as one our MCs; specifically the one with the odd sense of humour. He worked with both Erin and I at our last job in Canada, so we both know him well and were happy to have him and Bree visit. On their first night, we made them a cheese fondue before heading into Konstanz for a couple of drinks; all in all a pretty quiet night.

On Saturday we showed them around the town. We showed them the usual tourist sites of Konstanz: the cathedral, the old town, the waterfront, and the statue of Imperia. They absolutely loved the town.

That evening we went to the local Oktoberfest. It is tiny compared to the one in Münich, but it is still a huge party. We had a number of other friends show up as well: Scott from Tim's German class with his girlfriend Nina, our friends Chastity and Mark, and a number of friends from Erin's work as well. We had a great time drinking the giant one-litre beers, eating pork knuckles and listening to German music while wearing our lederhosen and dirndls.

Sunday we showed Patrick and Bree around town a little more, and Bree, inspired by the night before, went and bought her own dirndl for future Oktoberfests. We took advantage of some nice September weather and had a couple of beers on Konstanz's waterfront beer garden before having a nice dinner on a restaurant on the Rhine.

Monday we were back to work (Tim's last day teaching English and Erin's second-to-last day in Singen), so Patrick and Bree went down to Zürich for the day. They enjoyed it, but said they liked Konstanz much better -- great praise considering Zürich is generally considered one of the nicest cities in the world. For dinner we went to a local Brauhaus to get some traditional German food and beer. We sent Patrick and Bree off to a friend's apartment in Kreuzlingen across the border, as we needed to do some preparations for the movers coming the following morning.

Patrick and Bree were off back to England Tuesday morning, and the movers came and cleaned our stuff out of our apartment. While it was a hectic few days to have shortly before our move, it was really great to see our friends and show off our life in Germany. Three days later we would leave Germany. More on that next entry...