the most important thing, i suppose, is that i (we) are finally here: that is, in germany (for awhile i was beginning to think i'd never make it!) and everything is 100% buena/gut/good.
we arrived in duesseldorf on sunday at approximately seven in the morning (german time) after a really fantastic First Class flight (really!!! thanks to dana; it was wholly fantastic). anna met us at the airport. we're staying with fred and regina (sarah's parents) and hopefully we'll get to see sarah (and meet boyfriend rene) this weekend (they currently live and study in zurich, switzerland). everyone is so wonderful! there was a small amount of terrible jet-lag (in that i thought i might temporarily die from exhaustion) but it was not very long and i seem to have mostly recovered.
we spent a little bit of time roaming around the city- people can actually understand me (and i can understand them!) so my german is ok although still a little bit dusty from disuse: i anticipate great improval over the next few weeks. phil is making great progress. he can say whole sentences! we hope to visit schlossburg in the next few days although mostly i suppose we will be focusing on plans for the future:
before we left america, we made a sort of farewell-tour through the southeast: attached are a few photos of some of the people we visited (for the curious!). i am making a serious effort to take more pictures in the future.
first stop: we visited phil's cousins in atlanta: this is a photo of phil & trisha in the (very lovely) parkinglot.
our next stop was tampa, florida, where we visited my awesome grandparents and my very young and pretty cousin kathy: unfortunately i didn't take any pictures. alas. (this does not mean they aren't still the best ever!)
after tampa we visited venice, florida,the alleged shark tooth capital of the world.
we found so many sharkteeth!
phil counted around 500 teeth! it was strenuous
but important activity.
we then drove across to west palm beach & visited phil's grandmother nancy, aunt & uncle (sandy & george), and his great-grandmother.
our last stop before returning toraleigh was outside of charleston,
where we visited phil's friends
rich & ginger.
everyone was so very nice!
it was an excellent predeparture
adventure. many thankyous to everyone.
so: i anticipate further adventures in the future and so will post more interesting informations as they occur. avast!
now i should probably go back to writing german resumes, which is much more difficult than american resumewriting. also very strange: one has to include things like birthdate, family status (ie single, married, number of children) and a photo! apparently they can't use them to discriminate but it seems very odd coming from america where everyone takes such great steps to avoid even the idea of discrimination in the workplace. i have a few ideas so far and will keep everyone updated on my success. we are mostly focusing on finding ways to stay here legally, which will probably involve phil enrolling in some kind of school/university/language course and me getting a job teaching english: i anticipate all the success, however, as we have lots of help from fred & regina and some friends that are helping us with all the important details.
i miss everyone lots (hugs to velocirex!) bis spater, tschuess! xoxo. etc.
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