75 days away from home

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At 50 days on the road, I was in Paris and emailed my dear friend, Val:

We've been on the road for 50 days now, and holy moly, we've been like a tornado ripping through nine states (Mississippi was more of a drive-by, though), four countries, seven flights (well, five, but two had two legs), twelve cities, etc. On good days, it's amazing. Aria and Téa play in a picturesque playground sandbox with the Eiffel Tower in the background while Andres and I sit on a shaded park bench and sigh at how awesome everything is. On bad days, Aria is tantruming, Téa is crying because she's hungry, Andres and I are grumpy and tired and lost, and it starts to rain. We've had plenty of both kinds of moments, but there are definitely far fewer of those perfect moments! (Of course, they weigh a lot more, so one five-minute awesome moment can carry us through a tough day or two...) ;-)

Now, at 75 days away from home, we've settled in our home for the academic year, but we don't know anyone here yet, and it's colder and grayer in Germany. (Let's all play our pity violins for the wimpy Californians.) There is a ton of paperwork to fill out, and while we have a place at a bilingual school for our younger daughter starting October 31st (yay!), we have been jumping through hoops in search for a school for our older daughter and are now on the wait list for an emergency place with the ministry of education.

The upside is that we live in what I call a castle because it is old and gorgeous and looks, well, like a castle.

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And the way I figure it, we'll either make great friends this year or we'll bond as a family.

So, for now, we'll be donning puffy jackets and bundling up, and we'll try to remember to do our next sabbatical somewhere warmer. :-)

P.S. If you speak English (or Chinese or Spanish) and live in (or near) Darmstadt, send me a message at serendipityberries@gmail.com, and let's be friends! Any other expats around? We haven't seen any friends since August, so we're due for some socializing. (And if you happen to have kids who could play with my 1-year-old and/or 4-year-old, that would be awesome, too.) :-)