To sum up

Okay, let's bring everyone up to speed…

For the last couple of weeks (before the trip to Germany) we were hanging out at Fred and Sarah's in Shepherdstown. For those that don't know, Fred was Nadine's boss when we lived out East. He's the pastor of our home church, St. James' Lutheran, and another church that form the Shepherdstown Lutheran Parish. While we lived out East, Nadine and I were unofficially adopted by Fred and Sarah, and they have graciously hosted us numerous times over the last several years.

Rather than give a play-by-play of the two weeks, here is a basic description that fits most days: sleep late, run errands or have coffee somewhere, then it was off to Jason and Jessie's for me and Olympics for Nadine. As most of you know, I am not that big into sports, so the Olympics didn't hold quite the same appeal for me as they did to Nadine, plus it gave her bonding time with Fred and Sarah. We didn't ultimately go to Charlottesville, though we had planned on driving down. Despite the apparent laziness in the above description, we were fairly busy. Our daytime was filled with trips to Borders in Hagerstown, a few side-trips to Charles Town, Ranson, Martinsburg, etc., and just seeing lots of people that we don't usually get to see on a regular basis. We spent so long living out there while we were in college, that Shepherdstown has this homey feeling, complete with lots of friends.

Jason and Jessie (courtesy of Jessie's Myspace).

While at Jason and Jessie's, I got to interact with all sorts of wildlife. In Wisconsin or Minnesota, you hear about things like praying mantises, katydids, and cicadas, but you rarely see them. Over the course of several evenings, I got to play with all of the above. Fauna-wise, West Virginia is a bit different from the Midwest.

Adam and a friend.

I shall name it... Zorak!

Adam's dirty fingers and a cicada.

At the end of our two-week layover, Jason and Jessie and Fred and Sarah threw a farewell/birthday party for us. It was a great gathering, with friends and former professors (turned friends, now that we're graduated), as well as a bunch of delicious food. I think that my favorite items at the party were the sea-salt brownies that Jessie made, and the cilantro-pesto pasta salad with pistachios and raisins that Dr. Henriksson brought. We were so glad that everyone could make it, and those that had prior engagements were missed. Thank you to Jessie, Jason, Fred, and Sarah!

Dr. Jerry Thomas, Nadine, Sarah Soltow, and Dr. Anders Henriksson.

Robb and Jason.

Sarah's Chiminea, which kept us warm all night.

Sarah also makes what she calls a Candlelight Garden. It was beautiful.

Finally, on the morning of the 28^th, we got a lift from Fred to BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport). Our flight was not until 11:15 a.m., but we got underway at 6:30, since we weren't sure what traffic would be like or how crowded the airport might be. Fortunately, there weren't a lot of other people on the road and we made pretty good time. We bade Fred farewell at a little after 8:00 and dragged our luggage (2 pieces each, around 40 pounds per bag) up to the counter. There was a nice woman working there who helped us with our bags and got us all set. Despite the fact that some of our bags stayed extra-long in Philadelphia, without the ticket-agent we would likely still be waiting for them to arrive. For some reason, they were only checked through to Frankfurt when she originally ran off the stickers.

Shepherdstown to BWI.

After making our way to the gate, we hung out for the last couple of hours, with Nadine watching DVDs on her new portable player while I played computer games. 11:15 finally rolled around, and we hopped on our flight to Philadelphia. Before dropping us off, Fred joked that he could have driven us up to Philadelphia in less time than it took to fly there. Considering that the entire time we spent in the plane to Philly was about 45 minutes (our total air-time was 16 minutes), and we had almost three hours of waiting before we took off, he probably could have.

BWI to Philadelphia.

Philadelphia was okay. We were really excited when we got there, since the airport advertised free wireless for students. We promptly signed up, only to find out that it was not available in our terminal. Plus, the terminal was ominously quiet. We were expecting a lot more people, since it is such a large place, but maybe they don't use that terminal very often. All in all, we spent several quiet, lonely hours waiting for our next flight.

We hopped on our plane at 4:00 or so, but there was a delay getting off the tarmac, and we didn't take off for nearly an hour. I will admit, though, that U.S. Airways was a fairly nice airline, as far as trans-Atlantic travel is concerned. We had individual screens to watch t.v. and movies on, plenty of space (except for my seat- there was a big piece of machinery or something blocking the underside of the seat in front of me, which meant no leg room), and the food was higher-than-usual-airline-food quality. We each had a tex-mex chicken dish, with rice, corn, black beans, tomatoes, and chicken; a dinner roll with butter; a Caesar salad; and a brownie.

Philadelphia to Frankfurt.

The flight itself wasn't bad either. We must have had favorable winds, because it took less time than predicted. Which, given the loud woman two rows back who was drunkenly harassing the person sitting next to her about where she should go in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, etc., was a good thing.

We spent most of our time in Frankfurt dozing and listening to music, since by the time we had arrived, we'd been up for almost twenty hours. At 10:10 a.m. (local time), we hopped on a little puddle-jumper and flew the final leg into Leipzig, where Nadine's dad picked us up and drove us home.

Frankfurt to Leipzig.

Leipzig to Narsdorf, Germany. Ahh, home.

And that, my friends, brings us to Narsdorf, Germany, our current location. We've not done much since we arrived, but I have taken a few photos, and will write up a sufficient narrative soon.

Until then!