Adventures in Deutschland

Ah, finally: einkaufen (shopping) - what you have all been waiting for! In general, it seems like we spend a lot more time shopping here. Maybe that's due to our tiny refrigerator (out of food again!); maybe due to living in the heart of city and being on foot more (let's duck in here and…

Before the break for Carnival, we received a sealed envelope from school: grades! Not knowing that to expect from the new school and a grading system that is totally new to us, we opened the envelope with anticipation and a bit of trepidation... We learned that the grading is much like that at our previous…

When we embarked on this journey to live and work abroad, knowing we didn't have much time and had exactly zero experience as immigrants, we clearly needed help. I quickly took to the Internet and started combing ex-pat blogs, ingesting all I could about visa, residence permits and Schengen rules, but much of it was…

Over the Christmas break, with the winter term behind us, I started reflecting on our experience thus far at St. George's School: how pleased we were, how Dashiell is responding well to the schedule and the new rigor, learning German, making friends, etc. And then we went back to school and as soon as the…

After all that tea and coffee drinking, you're going to be looking for the bathroom, or as they call it here--the WC! We have experienced a vast range of public toilet options. At cafes there is almost always a decent one to be found; sometimes for free, sometimes for the standard €0.50 fee. Wait -…

I first discovered the hot drink Heieße Orange at the little bistro just across the street from our tram stop, Cafe Nebanen, where they serve the popular ginger variety of this winter warm up (Ingwer Orange). Served fresh (frisch), with pressed orange juice--heated, slices of orange and ginger and, sometimes, fresh mint leaves, this is…

When we were kids, for special occasions, Dad would sometimes bring a 35mm SLR camera home, borrowed from someone at work. The camera was treated with reverence by Dad; it was a fine instrument capable of a precise measurement of light, with real glass lenses, and even a flash. In reality it was probably just…

Once daunting, we now have nearly mastered the art of going to the doctor (and - bonus points here-- the dentist!). OK - it's not so much of an art as it is understanding the local way things are done. I wish I had known some of this in advance - here's the details in…

Of course our year in Germany would not be complete without a visit with our German "daughter" and "sister", Lisa! When Lisa lived with us, it was the year she turned 18; she attended Camas High School for a year, just for the experience (she had already graduated from High School in Germany). Now, 7…

One of the pleasures of working in the software consulting world is that you never know where your customers may take you...and in November, we had the opportunity to visit a FullCity Consulting customer who has an office in Belgium. It was a great excuse for my friend and colleague, FullCity Consulting President Adam, to…