Our New City

The Rhine and our new home town.

Enjoying the last of the fall colors!

We spent the weekend exploring our new city! It's quite picturesque with two big bridges crossing the Rhine, cobblestone streets in downtown, and bakeries, coffee shops and eateries galore. Yesterday we had our first taste of "Gluhwein" (spiced wine), Yummy! And today we stumbled upon a Schokolade shop that served fresh, deliciously rich hot chocolate as well as so many tasty chocolate treats. We haven't been disappointed by the food or drink, everything is delicious and we can't wait to find more favorites.

Delicious hot chocolate from Gut & Gerne

We've both had a few "what did we get into" moments. It's crazy to be in a new city where you don't understand what people are saying and then realizing that this is your new reality for the next two years. Luckily most people have been friendly and have spoken back to us in English when we tried speaking in German and a few times we have successfully completed an order or interaction all in German (we're quite proud when that happens!). We are also working on slowly enjoying the city. Right now it still feels like we're on vacation and need to go go go to see everything before we leave, but we continuously remind ourselves that we have two years to explore. Plenty of time to go and plenty of time to sit and relax. We're still learning that you pay with cash for everything, that the red brick side of the sidewalk is for bikers not walkers and that everyone really does wait for the green light to cross the street (don't cross on red!). Jeff's still trying to figure out how to watch American football (right now they have darts and skiing on instead) and we're both hoping to figure out a way to watch our American shows in English and not with German voiceovers... hopefully it will be easier to access when we have our own place!

Overall things are going well and we're excited to continue to explore our new home town and settle into this new life. Jeff starts work tomorrow which will bring a sense of normality to our crazy life. While he's doing that I'm planning to take a second peek at our potential new home and spend some time at the local bakery, drinking coffee and searching for jobs. Fingers crossed I'll find something good!

Seven story bookstore! So many escalators, so many books,
so few we can actually read.