Oh, I forgot to mention that we are here because Bruce is teaching a summer program here. We are here for 5 weeks. Well, 4 weeks in Bonn and a week in Germany. Our trip began on Sunday night at the College Station airport where we went through our first of 3 security checks (a frenzy of shoes and watches off, liquids and laptops out of bags, kids running around, fold up umbrella while people waiting behind and security guards trying to hurry you through, whew!) and boarded our first of 3 aircrafts. I must say, the boys were phenomenal. My anxiety and stress were for nothing, except to help make my expectations so low that I was so pleasantly surprised at their behavior. Each only slept a few hours on the overnight flight to London. London, ugh, what a nightmare of an airport. The entire airport is under construction so I guess they thought, "why bother". There were no signs or information AND the people were not that friendly. It was here that we went through our 2nd and 3rd security checks. Even with a 2 1/2 hour layover, we didn't even have time to eat.
Enough of that, we finally arrived in Bonn and were greeted by Arianne. What can I say about Arianne? She has been so gracious in helping us settle in, buying us a few groceries, showing us around Bonn, and reading our menus for us. Andrew has a crush on her, I think.
We had our first German meal at a restaurant. Very different from America. I had asparagus and sliced ham with potatoes. It was delicious. Bruce had a beef stroganoff. The boys enjoyed their schnitzel and french fries.
After a decent night's sleep, our second day in Gemany began with a walk to a little farmer's market and a little grocery shopping. OH MY! I woke up one morning last week freaking out over grocery shopping and not being able to read the labels and I was right. It is SO OVERWHELMING. I know how children feel. We choose our dinner meal based on photos on the labels. I pray that gets easier as the days go by.
Arianne met us at our apartment and we took that tram to downtown Bonn. It's only 10 minutes away. Absolutely wonderful. I have never seen so many bikes in my life. I am going to take a picture to post next time we go. Hundreds, no thousands, of bikes. Bikes, bikes, Bikes!!! The boys wanted McDonald's for lunch. I think that was the highlight of their trip so far.
Our second day in Germany ended with pizza at home and a a good night's sleep for all. Of course, the boys are going to sleep much later than usual because it doesn't get dark here until about 9:30.
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