Nordic Countries - Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland

So, it has been quite a while since we've blogged!  So much has happened in that time, it is hard to keep up with it all.  But, I will try my best to summarize some of the major points.

First, we headed from Moritz's house to Denmark (June 30 - July 2).  In my opinion, Denmark wasn't that exciting.  It was similar to the Netherlands, but didn't have quite as distinct of feel as the Netherlands.  It was interesting that our arrival route took the train on a ferry across to Denmark, so we had a little time to enjoy the scenery from the water.  We had a nice walk around Copenhagen (København) and saw several touristy things--the underwhelming Little Mermaid statue, for instance.  The Round Tower, built as an astronomical observatory was very interesting.  We also visited Rosenborg Castle and saw the crown jewels and that was quite nice.  Also, I got to eat steak with David on my birthday while the kids were riding rides at the Tivoli Gardens amusement park--so everyone was happy!

[David] After Denmark came Sweden (July 2 - 4) and our visit with Daniel Stigberg (one of my roommates from the International House, 1993-94).  Our train took us on the lower part of the relatively new bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden (Copenhagen to Malmö).  We enjoyed meeting Daniel's family--Maria and their boys Johannes, Jesper, and infant Ulle--and camping out in their house.  Daniel took us out on his boat and gave us a nice private tour of several of the islands that make up Stockholm.  Erin and I tried local fish soup at a little restaurant on one of the islands, while Heidi and Daniel tried the other entree offered, a nice thick hamburger.  We met the rest of Daniel's family for dinner at a restaurant on the water in Stockholm and had a great time.  It would have been nice to have a little longer in Stockholm, but I appreciated the time we had to reconnect and share family stories.  It's been really interesting seeing many of my old friends with kids now--it kids consume everyone's lives no matter where they live.

We spent most of the day July 4 traveling by train across Sweden and Norway to Oslo.  We had some time in the evening to walk around downtown and compare it to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and the other major cities we've visited this summer.  We saw the cathedral, ate At a Thai restaurant that Rick Steves recommended, and saw a big crowd gathered to watch the World Cup soccer match on a huge screen. We walked to the Akershus castle and fortress down by the sea. We had a great view from the ramparts and could see across the bay (and also see the crowd watching soccer!)

Our hotel was comfortable (at least for us--we let the kids have the bunk beds!) and had the best breakfast buffet I've seen anywhere.  A highlight for me was the ability to make a pot of loose tea to enjoy along with all the breakfast offerings (including scrambled eggs & sausages, fish cakes, smoked salmon, yogurt & muesli, fresh bread, jam, cold cuts, and more I don't remember. 

July 5 was reserved for meeting our new exchange student, Daniel Olaisen, and his family north of Oslo.  (Yes, there are three different Daniels to keep up with in this post.  It will be interesting having two of them in our house for the next school year!)  Daniel's mother, Carmen, and stepfather, Trond, had planned a wonderful day for us, starting in Lillehammer, which we remembered as the host of the 1994 Winter Olympics.  We took a morning train to meet them there and had a nice lunch.  We saw some of the Olympic sites there and in surrounding cities--we were reminded that Lillehammer was the last "small" city to host the Olympic Games.  Trond recalled having been there in 1994 and the streets were totally packed with people trying to get around.  

We walked across a bridge over the lake to meet a paddle steamer which would take us south to Hamar.  The ship was one of the old-style riverboats with paddles on both sides--originally powered by steam but now by fuel.  This one, called "Skibladner" (named after Freyr's ship in Norse mythology) still has regularly scheduled service on Lake Mjøsa and has been in operation since 1856.  We had dinner served during the trip on the lower rear deck; it was quite a treat to enjoy our meal along with spectacular scenery.

Carmen and Trond had left their cars in Hamar, so they transported us to their quiet lakeside home in nearby Tangen and treated us to strawberry pie and drinks.  Trond had been telling us about their special liquer called Aquavit, so we all tried it--it was very tasty, and (shock) even Heidi liked it (in small doses).  We enjoyed talking more with them about their lives and ours, and answering questions their Daniel had about the upcoming year.  I think he will have an easier transition to life in Jacksonville since he has at least met us now and will hopefully be less nervous about coming.  He actually leaves Europe the same day we do (July 23), as he is going to a 10-day "language camp" that EF (the exchange sponsor) is holding in Boston.  So by the time he arrives in Alabama on August 3, he will be fairly well acclimated to the time change and have more of an idea what to expect during the year.  Kira and Sandy really enjoyed their language camps last year and made several international friends there.

We reluctantly left on a late train back to Oslo to prepare for an early morning train west (July 6).  We took the Oslo-Bergen route, renowned for its mountain scenery, and it lived up to the hype. At one point the train stopped in Finse which was next to a glacier.  We got to get off the train and take pictures of the glacier and snow that was still present at that elevation (1222 meters).  The glacial river (the color of cement) reminded Heidi of her experiences hiking in Alaska as a child.  

We went as far as Myrdal, where we took the famous train route down to Flåm, a small fjord town.  Many people arrive there on cruise ships and ride this train up and back just to see the scenery, and it is easy to understand why.  Over the course of an hour, the train descends about 880 meters down the mountainside.  Some of the track goes through tunnels—including one spot where there is an 180° turn inside a tunnel—but mostly there are spectacular views the mountains and numerous waterfalls resulting from the snowmelt.  

We had only been able to get tickets with a 4-hour layover in Myrdal (all of which we saw within 15 minutes of arriving), but we luckily got seats on an earlier train, arriving in Flåm midafternoon.  We checked in at our hostel (nice room with 4 bunk beds) and set out to look around.  It was nice to have some unexpected extra time to walk down to the water's edge and just look around at the gorgeous scenery.  While the kids found rocks to skip, I found a rock to sit on and just soak it in.  It was one of those rare quiet "God moments"--full of awe for the beauty around me and thanks for my family and the opportunity to travel with them.  (I also realized that, at the same time, church services were going on at home, so I guess that was my church service for this week!)

We decided to try eating at the Ægir brewpub built in Viking style (yes, Flåm is rather touristy, what with all the cruise ships coming and going--but it's not cheesy).  This turned out to be a great choice, as the food and atmosphere were excellent, and I didn't have to make much of a decision about what to eat--I chose the "Viking platter" which had 5 small courses (local seafood [shrimp, mussels, and their local small "lobster"], reindeer, fish soup, pork shank, and apple cake) paired with 5 locally brewed beers.  It was one of the best meals I've ever had.  We all liked it so much we ate there the next night as well; the only difference was that they had goat instead of pork.  Heidi and Daniel enjoyed the pork and then goat, while Erin tried a venison burger the first night and fish soup the next.  (This, by the way, was no ordinary fish soup--it had big chunks of salmon and whole mussels to fish out and eat!)

The next day (July 7), we took a fjord cruise around the nearby Sognefjorden area—a UNESCO World Heritage site consisting of the longest and deepest fjords in the world, including the offshoot fjords Nærrøyfjord (Narrow Fjord) and Aurlandsfjord, where Flåm is.  (The depth allows full-size cruise ships to dock in Flåm.  This is quite an odd sight, since there are many times more passengers on these ships than residents in the town.)  The day started out rainy, and it was still raining when we took our bus over to Gudvangen—not that it mattered, since the majority of the road was through tunnels, one about 3 miles long, and the other about 7 miles.  But then the weather was just sort of misty and overcast, and it was sunny later in the day.  Our ship left from Gudvangen, at the end of the Nærrøyfjord, with maybe 12 people sitting on the upper deck.  The fjord scenery is spectacular, with sheer granite cliffs rising on either side—one of the reasons Heidi took about 4000 pictures in Norway!  We enjoyed the 2-hour cruise immensely.  (The only issue we had was all the seagulls blocking our view at first.  A Japanese couple and their son continually threw bread to them for about half an hour.  It was cute for about 5 minutes, but very irritating after that!) After the cruise, we strolled along the pedestrian walkway in Flåm, around to where one of the waterfalls ends and the water rushes under the roadway and walkway.  All in all, this was one of our favorite places anywhere—I could easily spend much more time here just relaxing.

The next morning (July 8), we once again had to pack up for a long day of traveling.  The difference now was that we had to repack everything for air travel, keeping liquids and weight in mind.  We took the Flåm railway back to Myrdal, then a train back to Oslo, and then to the Oslo airport.  We were plenty early enough to figure out the self-service kiosks, print our boarding passes and luggage tags, drop off our bags, and then find somewhere to eat.  We laughed that we ended up eating at an American sports bar (O’Leary’s)—but at least the food was good and we got to watch the end of the Tour de France.  Our short flight put us in Helsinki, Finland, around 11:00 p.m. local time (an hour ahead of most of Western Europe).

We were met by the ever-reliable Kari Honkanen, my friend from the 1990-91 International House.  I had visited him in 1992, and I was glad to have the chance to visit again.  He now lives in Helsinki with his wife, Hanna, and 9-year-old daughter Siiri.  (Yes, she pouted when I showed her on my iPhone the next day that “Siri is unavailable.”)  After a good night’s sleep at our no-frills Omena hotel (no lobby staff, just a room code emailed to us), we met them downtown to walk around the market square,where we found the necessary refrigerator magnet and a few other items—and ate filled crepes at a small outdoor cafe.  We took the ferry over to see the Suomenlinna fortress (another UNESCO World Heritage site) and enjoy an uncommonly hot Finnish summer day.  (It was nearing 80° F, but that’s hot by their standards, since air conditioning is very rare.)  Afterwards, they went home to take a break and we walked around town some more, visiting the Lutheran cathedral—an iconic Helsinki landmark—and the equally interesting Russian Orthodox church.  (We missed an organ concert at the cathedral by 2 days; that has been common on this trip, but at least we were able to catch one in Salzburg.)  We met Kari and Siiri for dinner at a sort of organic Italian restaurant—excellent pasta.

After we slept in a little bit again (interrupted at 2 a.m. by our neighbors after the Argentina-Netherlands soccer game), July 10 dawned a bit cooler and windier.  (I use “dawned” loosely, since technically dawn was before 4 a.m.)  Kari took us and Siiri to his boat—a typical wooden Finnish fishing-type boat converted to having two sleeping cabins.  We had a wonderful afternoon touring around Helsinki and surrounding islands.  We stopped for lunch at island where there was a great little restaurant serving typical Finnish food.  Some of us started with nettle soup—something I would not have thought of but which was quite tasty.  It was sort of like broccoli soup, with fine bits of vegetable matter, which Kari figured must be young nettle leaves, as older ones would probably be too bitter.  Heidi and Daniel had meatballs, Erin had fish soup, and I had a nice salad with salmon.  We tried some typical desserts, including a French toast-like dessert which translated as “poor nights” (I suppose when you have nothing else, frying up some bread and serving it with strawberries makes a nice dessert!) and cheese cooked in phyllo dough, served with blueberries.  It was all delicious.  We stopped again later to see the Sibelius monument--which looks sort of like a conglomeration of organ pipes--and also, of course, happened to find some ice cream. 

After boating back toward Kari’s marina, he grilled some sausages and kebobs for us on his nifty little grill, which used a quick-starting charcoal block made from coconuts—handy both in that it heats quickly and that you can just dispose of the biodegradable “charcoal” overboard.  Siiri wrote and drew in her ship “logbook” and had us sign and draw as well.  Despite the fact that she hasn’t studied any English yet (she’s in a French immersion school and starts English next year, I think) we had a lot of fun with her.  I hope we’ll see the Honkanens in Alabama before too many years pass again, and maybe even at horse-camp in Oregon when she is a bit older.

We are now on a Norwegian air flight from Helsinki to Madrid (July 11) for a few days exploring Spain.  So we say goodbye to Scandinavia.  Scandinavia (or, more generally, Nordic countries) often gets lumped together as one place but, in reality, it is a huge land area, especially for Europe, so there is a lot more open space (at least once you get past Denmark, which is rather cramped).  The northern countries have a lot of similarities, but many things that make them unique.  Danish and Norwegian are similar languages, so they can generally read each other’s writing; their speech sounds quite different, however.  Norwegian has a characteristic lilt which somehow reminds me of the Southern U.S.  Swedish is a bit different, but we could follow some of it, since it is a Germanic language and they use quite a few words from English.  Finnish, on the other hand, is entirely incomprehensible to most people; it is only related to Estonian and distantly to Hungarian.  It is very clipped and measured, with very little rise in tone and very predictable pronunciation (once you know the letter sounds).  The Finns are a quiet, introspective people who are gracious and polite but not overly social (which I do not mean to be a negative thing).  Kari had told me this in college and I found it to be true, along with the fact that once Finns are friends, they’re always friends.  I have found this to still be the case with not only him, but with many other friends around Europe—and for that, I am grateful.

Moritz's House

Our tour of Celle after our ice cream stop

After leaving Nele in Schweinfurt, we headed to Celle to see Moritz.  When we arrived on the train Thomas (Moritz's dad) said that we had a little time to kill before heading home for our big lunch.  So, we walked around the town of Celle.  The town was beautiful!  There are lots of the old half-timbered houses.

Group photo!

When we got to Moritz's house, his mother had prepared spaghetti for us because Moritz remembered how much I liked it.  It was wonderful!  He had also bought a bunch of Cherry Coke and Dr. Pepper since those drinks were very hard to find in Europe.  So, we got used to drinking soda once again!  After lunch we got to take a horse-drawn carriage ride through the Lüneburger Heide (which means "heath) and it is an area where these pretty purple flowers grown and tourists come in August to see all of the flowers.  Apparently this is also the spot where Moritz and his family come to go sledding in the winter.

Looking at the church organ at Peter and Paul Church

Our tour guide when we went out on the carriage ride

After that David got to meet with the church organist at Moritz's church.  She showed them their pipe organ and then let David play several things on it (what he could remember or find in the hymnal to play).  Then she played some for us.  It was really nice!  Then we got to see the apartments where we were staying and they were lovely (the house was from the 1600s).  Moritz's family had stocked the fridges for us, so there was no way we were going to go hungry!

The next day we got to go into Hamburg and see Wunderland, which is a place where people have built a whole bunch of scenes with model trains.  They are some of the most elaborate scenes I've ever seen and there are even tiny humans going about their lives in these scenes.  They have a huge model of Switzerland where the trains wind their way up hills that are two stories tall.  They also have a big scene of Hamburg including their new opera house which is under construction.  The model was really cool because if you pressed a button it would open up and you could see inside the building and the little orchestra was "playing" and Peter and the Wolf music came out of the model. 

Model of Germany

They even have a model of the USA out west.  There are all sorts of stereotypical scenes from the US, like a huge line for the fast food restaurant and people getting giant amounts of food compared to their size.  Also, there were model freeways with trucks with triple trailers and even a "brush fire" on the side of the road.  They also had a scene from Las Vegas where all of the casinos light up at night (they alternated between 10 minutes of "daylight" and 3 minutes of "nighttime" in terms of overhead lights so you can see everything light up at night.  When we got back home there was lasagna to eat.  Talk about being spoiled!

The "old west" model and the huge line for the fast food hot dog stand (note the person with the giant sandwich and the mechanical bull and the CNN truck)

Western USA model

Snack break!  Note the fearless pigeon in the foreground

On Sunday we went to church at Mortiz's church and then came back home for his 18th birthday party.  There were lots of guests -- all of whom were members of his family or next door neighbors.  We ate and ate until I thought we were going to explode!  The party lasted for around 6 hours and ended with watching the soccer game between the Netherlands and Mexico.  Later that night we got to take a walk around the neighborhood and then light a paper kite on fire and watch it float away.  So much fun!

Thomas cooking at Moritz's Party (after they started the BBQ with a flamethrower)

Kids on the trampoline

Everyone playing a viking party game where you have to knock down the farmers (wooden blocks) with sticks before you can knock down the king in the middle

Moritz pouring champagne for everyone

Monday we had to head to the train station to leave.  We plan to meet Moritz's dad in Berlin (where he works during the week) for his birthday when we are in Berlin.  So, at least we don't have to say goodbye to all of the Nikolais.  But, we are very sad to say goodbye to Stefanie, Moritz and Robin.  We hope they will come visit us in Alabama in the near future!  We love that family and wish them all the best in the coming year!

Nürnberg (Nuremberg) and Schweinfurt - Visits with David's Host Family

Lunch at the Nürnberg "Bratwurstglöcklein"

[David] The week of July 23-27 was quite a reunion for me, as I saw my own German host family again.  Monday we took a morning train to Nürnberg (anglicized as Nuremberg), the city where I was first introduced to Germany in 1988.  Fresh out of high school, I had scored well enough in a contest to be Alabama's representative in a summer exchange program for a group of American students in Germany.  (Interestingly, in addition to Munich, our group also made a trip to West Berlin and had the opportunity to cross into East Berlin.  Few experiences have been as eye-opening for me.  I still have a piece of the Berlin wall, which came down a year and a half later.)  I lived for a month with a wonderful family in the small town of Großgeschaidt (Grossgeschaidt; not so "gross" [big] however!) outside of the main city of Nürnberg.  I had a wonderful time with the Hempels--Matthias and Ulrike with their children Cornelia (Nele), who was my age, and her brothers Götz and Tillmann, who were younger.  They treated me like family, and I was very sad to leave.  My host sister Nele came to the International House at Jacksonville State University two years later; I joined that program as well, and that was also one of the most fortunate decisions of my life.  I returned to Europe in 1992 after finishing college, spending 6 weeks with my friend David Burnham visiting friends all over Europe; I then spent 6 weeks in Austria, mainly Salzburg, with a music program sponsored by the University of Miami.  Nele came back to Alabama for my first wedding (with Amy, January 1995), and the kids and I saw her once more maybe 10 years ago in Orlando when she and her husband came to a veterinary congress.  (For those who knew me then, that was the fateful trip when my van’s transmission went out on the interstate in Florida….)

Königstor and city wall of Nürnberg

But I digress.  It had been 22 years since I had seen my host family in Nürnberg, so I was excited to have the chance to see them again.  I called them on Monday, once we got settled in our hotel, and we made plans to meet them for dinner the next day.  (I actually could almost dial their number from memory....)  In the meantime, we saw some of the main sites in the city.  We crossed over into the old part of town, within the city walls, past the Königstor (King's Tower) and had a wonderful lunch at the historic "Bratwurst Glöcklein" (bratwurst "little bell")--which serves, among other things, the small sausages which are a specialty of Nürnberg (they're about the size of our breakfast sausage links in the U.S.).  The homemade sauerkraut was the best I had ever tasted.  Afterward, we looked around the surrounding market, where small shops sell handcrafted items.  There were all sorts of things--wooden, cloth, food, jewelry--but one thing that caught Heidi's eye was a shop where a silversmith made her own jewelry designs.  Heidi had been looking for a ring that would fit her better than her wedding bands, and she found one she really liked.  While the silversmith was resizing the ring a little bit, we set out to visit several well-known churches in town, since they often close early.

Nürnberger Brawurst, sauerkraut, Tucher Weissbier, and a pretzel--perfect!

Towers of the Lorenzkirche

We went first to the Lorenzkirche (St. Lawrence Church), a large protestant church (that means Evangelical Lutheran in Germany) that is one of the main sights in the city.  A church had been there since at least the 12^th century, but the style seen today is mostly from the 15^th century; it’s one of the best examples of late medieval architecture in Germany.  More interesting to me is that the Lorenzkirche has one of the largest organ ensembles in the world (160+ ranks, I believe)—the second largest in Germany (after one in Passau) and the largest in a protestant church in Germany, as we were told by a very nice lady who volunteers as a guide in the church.  There are actually three organs—a huge 5-manual main organ in the rear balcony and two smaller organs (“smaller” is relative) high up on either side of the front.  They are not that old (the oldest is from the mid 1800’s; the largest is from 1937) and have all been rebuilt and coupled together electronically so that all three can be played from one huge console down on the floor of the church.  We were told that more than one organ was needed because the porous sandstone in the church absorbs so much sound.  We unfortunately did not get to hear the organs, as we did  in Salzburg, but I did buy a list of the organ specifications, which is mind-boggling.

Altar of the Lorenzkirche

Great Organ in the rear

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We also went to the catholic Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) on the main market square in town, where the Schöner Brunnen (“Beautiful Fountain”) stands as a landmark.  We missed the noon chiming of the mechanical clock at the Frauenkirche, but we did enjoy looking around the market stands and planning what fruit to buy to go with our breakfast for the next few mornings.  (We decided on local cherries and small apricots.)  We continued on the the Sebalduskirche (St. Sebald Church), another beautiful protestant (Lutheran) church in the city.  (Nürnberg, interestingly, is largely protestant, making it somewhat of an anomaly in southern Germany.)  Parts of St. Sebald were being renovated, including the organ.

Frauenkirche and market square

Schöner Brunnen with the towers of Sebalduskirche in the background

Organ of Sebalduskirche

Inside the movie theater

After walking back through town, picking up Heidi’s new ring on the way, we rested in our hotel and decided to take a break from sightseeing by going to a movie that night.  We had found a movie guide and discovered that “Maleficent” was showing in English at 9:00, so we ate a quick bite (we made do with Burger King since we were short on time) and made our way to the nearby theater.  We knew from Kira that movie seating was different in Germany—our tickets were for assigned seats we could choose—but we were not expecting other differences.  This movie theater (Cinecitta) was apparently the largest in Germany—numerous screens (20+?) spread out on several underground levels, with several restaurants and bars throughout.  One section was the “deluxe” cinema where you had an individual recliner and table for your wine and dinner.  We did find out that we could change seats if any were empty (and there were lots of empty seats for this English showing!), so Heidi and I moved to a couple of seats arranged like a couch (love seat) so we didn’t have a chair arm between us.  We all really enjoyed the movie and the chance to escape from reality for a little while.

Round Tower at Nürnberg Castle

The next day we slept in a little and walked to see the castle (Burg) and castle museum in the northern part of the old city.  We learned a lot about the history of the city and its place in the former Holy Roman Empire.  After Charlemagne, the ensuing empire was called “Roman” because of the supposed biblical prophecy that the world would end after four major empires (Rome being the fourth); so this name sidestepped the possibly embarrassing fact that the world had not, in fact, ended after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  The empire had no capital city; rather, the emperors moved around among major cities, including Nürnberg—at least until the city became Protestant…  This has been the case since the mid 1500s, which is why the Holy Roman Emperors stopped coming to Nürnberg so often and the castle and city walls have remained mostly unchanged since that time, making it a famous example of architecture from that period.  We learned a lot of history and saw examples of medieval weaponry, art, musical instruments, and so on. 

View of Nürnberg from the castle

Hempel's home in Großgeshaidt

We had to pick up our pace halfway through and barely made it out in time to walk back to our hotel to meet my host father, Matthias.  He had arranged to pick us up and take us to their home in Großgeschaidt for dinner.  Even after so many years, I recognized where we were when we neared their small village, and it was a great homecoming of sorts to see my host mother, Ulrike, and also Tillmann (who now works with his father’s cosmetics company) and his year-old son Theodor.  As always, they were gracious hosts.  Matthias grilled all sorts of meat, and Ulrike’s potato salad was some of the best we had eaten.  She kept my wine glass filled, told Heidi stories of when I lived with them, and showed us all the flowers and berries in their garden.  Erin found a new friend in Geisha, their huge, energetic black schnauzer.  I remember that the Hempels had a pair of big schnauzers when I lived with them (and a mynah bird that took pleasure in calling them!).  It was wonderful to enjoy a meal and catch up with them, but sad to leave again; I feel blessed to have had the chance to visit again.

Host father Matthias

Host mother Ulrike

Tillmann and Theo

Reunion with my "sister" Nele!

The next morning (Wed.) we took another train to Schweinfurt, an industrial town like Pforzheim that was completely bombed during WWII, since they produced tanks and other heavy machinery.  Nele and her husband Roger have a veterinary practice there, as well as clinics in two smaller nearby towns.  After a happy reunion at the train station, Nele showed us their Schweinfurt practice and took us to Gerolzhofen,  where she had to check in at their second practice. We walked around the town a bit and looked in the catholic church there (Stadtpfarrkirche).  We ate at a wonderful local restaurant and then went back to her house near Gädheim, where we spent a relaxing afternoon and met their three children, Ferdinand, Johanna, and Helena.  In addition, they have a big schnauzer named Emma—the half-sister of her parents’ dog—along with a half dozen ducks (a strange-looking variety I had never seen which like to eat garden snails).  Nele has a wonderful family; we shared stories and found it generally found it somewhat strange and interesting that we are parents now.  They live in a very small village, surrounded by fields of wheat, corn, and rapeseed (canola).  We, of course, compared notes on living in small towns—it’s similar for us.  Rather than sightseeing here, we took great pleasure in taking it easy; they made us feel right at home.  

Daniel and the ducks

The kids making themselves at home....

Helena cheering on Germany!

We, of course, had to watch the Germany-USA soccer match on Thursday.  Nele and Helena (with her drum and whistle!) were really into it.  It kept catching us off guard to hear “Dempsey” occasionally from the TV, as #8 on the US team has our last name.  But he wasn’t enough to keep Germany from winning….  But at least we got to eat supper—Nele had jokingly said we wouldn’t get any if the USA won!  Overall, we had a very relaxing visit and we very much enjoyed talking and looking at photo albums from college and their wedding (which I unfortunately missed the year after Daniel was born).  It was another sad goodbye on Friday when we went back to the train station to continue on to Celle to meet Moritz and his family.  One thing is for sure—we will remember Germany well, as we got to visit so many people who are like family to us.