I'm here

Well, I arrived yesterday morning at Frankfurt airport. Grabbed the train to Wiesbaden and a short cab ride to Glen's house. And I've been spending most of my time since then getting acclimated and learning where everything is.

The two wonderful folks on the left are my hosts. Actually, not so much my hosts, since they're leaving for the USA tomorrow -- but the people whose house and dog I'll be watching for the next couple of weeks. That's Glen and Betina with Charlotte.

I'll soon post some pictures of the apartment building I'm in. We're on the third floor walk-up of an old apartment building surrounding very narrow streets and even narrower sidewalks. There's no grass around here for a couple of blocks. Just asphalt. Very hot asphalt. So Charlotte spends a lot of time running from shade to shade.

I think the two of us are going to get along pretty well. She's a pretty easy-going dog and is virtually housebroken. (Though I'm sure I'll learn for sure in the next couple of days.) She loves going to and being in the park (a small block of very dry grass surrounded by more concrete and asphalt). She also loves playing with other dogs, which is good.

But mostly, during the hot, sticky afternoons (no one has air conditioning around here, despite the fact that all of this concrete and asphalt reflects the heat something fierce!), she loves napping on the cool marble kitchen floor. Which I might also consider doing at some point. The afternoons do get pretty stuffy!

But the evenings are very nice. There are a couple very nice parks about a mile away and Glen and Betina have taken us there for evening walks -- but I'm not sure if they're too far for walking. We'll see.

Meantime, I'm learning that a mastery of the German language is about the least necessary skill you can have in modern Germany. The locals can spot an American a mile away and, when they do, they speak to you in the most perfect, unaccented English you can imagine. I keep forgetting I'm in Germany! Well, except that I'm also learning that a 5% tip is considered very generous in most cafes.

Tomorrow morn, Glen and Betina leave and I fly solo. That's when the adventure truly begins.

Ich verlasse auf einem Düsenflugzeug

Well, this is it then. Rehearsal is over. It's time to head to O'Hare for my flight to Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.

I've got my usual pre-trip jitters -- this time complicated by the fact that I'm going to flying solo (both literally and metaphorically, once Glen and Betina leave). But it does have the earmarks of all great adventures: Destination unknown; a canine companion. Is there a more classic adventure than a boy and his dog? Even if the dog is still a puppy and the boy has an awful lot of gray in his hair.

The photo to the upper right is, at least according to Google, the view from Kapellenstrasse (where Glen lives) toward the city of Wiesbaden. Which, at least to my eyes, looks an awful lot like the view west from Brady Street toward Schlitz Park in Milwaukee. So maybe I will feel at home very fast.

But, for now, I've got long ride ahead of me.

Here's looking forward to a wonderful trip -- and a great adventure! And a new, furry friend.

Here's an adorable picture of Char-Lot-Teh getting her hair styled.

I get my hair cut on Wednesday.

Book Learning

With just a little more than a week to go before I'm off to Deutschlandia, I'm working extra hard to prepare for the trip.

I wish I could say that I'm expecting to arrive well-prepared to fit right into the local culture but -- well, I'm doing my best, which I hope counts for something. I'm studying the language with a book called "Learning German in 15 Minutes a Day", but each chapter is taking me over half an hour, so either I'm an idiot or the author is just being snarky.

My friend Carolyn bought me a copy of Rick Steve's book on Germany as a "Gute Reise" gift. It's a terrific book, full of information about traveling by train and bus, ordering in restaurants, etc. But, ironically, it includes only one direct reference to the city of Wiesbaden:

"Mains, Wiesbaden and Rudesheim -- These towns are all too big or too infamous. They're not worth your time."

Fortunately, I've found other reference material that speaks glowingly of the city -- like this weekly publication by the local US Army base: http://www.wiesbaden.army.mil/sites/about/ttd/ttd.pdf

Meantime, Betina's mother met Charlotte recently and fell in love with the little pup. She's invited Charlotte and me to grab a train to Mannheim and stay with her for a few days. Now THAT would be a really excited adventure! (Particularly since Elfriede speaks virtually no English.) But I think I may wait until I'm actually in the country and see how comfortable I am in the town before I get out and make a real effort to get lost.

Still, that image of me and that sweet puppy riding a train across the beautiful German countryside is almost too cool to resist.

July 21?!!

Hard to believe my Germany adventure begins a mere two weeks from today!

I'm guessing I won't be fluent in German by then -- but I am getting pretty good at introducing myself, asking for a cup of coffee, excusing myself and asking for help finding my dog. (Just kidding, Glen.)

Meanwhile, a cool, new development. My nephew Henry will be visiting for a day or two while I'm there!

Henry's father is Jeanne's brother, Michael. Michael and his wife Ute live in Hamburg, one of half a dozen places in Europe and the US where Henry grew up. Henry is now a student at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and, during his summer break, he'll be in southern Germany visiting Ute's family.

Henry speaks fluent German and English and he's in his second or third year of college-level Italian, so it will be fun to explore the neighborhood with him and maybe shop and cook together.

This is really turning into quite an adventure!

Normalerweise jagt Charlotte die Tauben

Here's Glen's latest picture of Charlotte.

Some days you chase the pigeons. Sometimes the pigeons chase you. Sometimes you just sleep it off.

By the way, Glen is also insisting that I pronounce Charlotte's name as a three-syllable word. Char-laht-eh. That's the way Germans say it. If I don't, he's afraid she'll forget her native tongue.

Who am I to argue?

International man of action

As these things usually happen, the day Glen offered me the trip to Germany, I dug out my passport only to find that it had expired last May.

I seem to get about one trip per passport. In 1993, I got my first passport so that I could go to Japan.

I renewed it in 2003 -- and the next time I needed it was 2006, when Jeanne, Sarah and I went to Italy.

So, here we go, one more new passport for one more trip overseas.

Nicely enough, the renewal process was easy, despite the document being a couple of months expired. My new passport arrived today, and I'm officially good to go.

And, at this rate, my next overseas trip will be in 2023 or so.