11 December: A Long Walk, Goodbye to Good Friends & Hello to Our Tiny New Family Member

After driving John to work, I had another relaxing breakfast and then spent the rest of the morning at the hotel. I finally signed up for internet service, for which I had to shell out a whopping 88 Euro for the week, so I could check our e-mail. Apparently they haven’t heard of free wi-fi yet.

I drove Cody over to the house in the middle of the day and took him for our last, long walk together in Germany, as I will be dropping him off at the Tierhotel tomorrow. I followed my usual running route, having finally calibrated my pedometer this morning, and discovered that I had been going about 3.5 miles on my typical 35-minute runs. It was a characteristically soggy December day, befitting my mood as we passed all of the familiar landmarks for the last time: the water treatment plant, the little wooden hikers’ shelter, the forester’s house along the Dog-o-bahn, the parking lot at the top of the hill, where more often than not a motorcyclist was learning to maneuver between orange cones, the trail crossing at the winding road out of Botnang, the straight path leading to Schloss Solitude, the long downhill that was always a pleasant respite at the end of my run, and the narrow footpath leading back into our neighborhood. I took some pictures and video of Cody on the trail and tried to commit to memory all of the details of this final jaunt through my beloved woods. I wonder if Cody will miss the freedom of running off the leash for an hour and a half every day. I know that I will miss the peace and solitude of the forest, disturbed only by the occasional deer or hawk, and the sound of traffic rushing by on Wildparkstraße. We didn’t see any of our old friends on our walk, but I will remember them fondly – Taro the Weimeraner, Tavalo the Bearded Collie, Tessie the long-haired Dachsund, and all the rest.

I drove Cody back to the hotel, where I discovered that the housekeeping service was finally cleaning our room. I’m sure they were horrified that we had kept the “do not disturb” sign on the door for several days: What??? No clean towels!?!? Evelyne called around 2:30 to tell me she was home and I could come over. I didn’t get there until nearly 3:30, and Oda arrived a few minutes later. We drank jasmine tea and ate lebkuchen while Oda told me about her debate competition in Lindau (they won three out of their five debates). Before I left, Evelyne pressed a copy of Der Wixxer into my hands, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it won’t work on our American DVD player.

After earnest goodbyes and promises to keep in touch, I left at 4:30 to pick John up at work and then we headed into downtown Stuttgart for my doctor’s appointment. This was the big day, when we would hopefully officially confirm the pregnancy with an actual heartbeat! By the time we arrived my bladder was seriously complaining, but fortunately one of the two designated spaces outside the doctor’s office was vacant so I didn’t have to search for a spot (or hit any other cars in the process). I had my blood drawn and then we waited for nearly half an hour to see Dr. Linckh. The appointment itself was short and sweet, but incredible! I had another vaginal ultrasound and she quickly zoomed in on a dark mass, brought it into focus, and there it was, a tiny fetus, its little heart galloping along. It took my breath away – I guess I wasn’t actually expecting to be able to see it beating. I don’t think I really believed in this pregnancy until that moment. Dr. Linckh said everything looked great; her assistant filled out some information in my Mutterpass (a practical little booklet that all pregnant German women carry listing their vital statistics and pre-natal test results) and sent us on happily our way. We returned to SI-Suites and dinner at the Biergarten, where I determined that their Käsespätzle is not homemade!

10 December: Stuck in the Hotel, the New Tierarzt & a Holiday Party

I had to get up with John at the excrutiatingly early hour of 6:45 this morning so I could drive him to work (yes, please tell me how sorry you feel for me). Traffic was heavy on the Autobahn and it took a full hour to make the roundtrip to Sindelfingen and back to SI-Suites. I had taken Cody for a short walk before we left so I went straight to breakfast and enjoyed a nice relaxing meal with my book.

I sat in the hotel room for the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting caught up on my journal. (Cody, meanwhile, has settled in quite nicely at SI-Suites; see photos.) It had been a glorious sunny morning with very dramatic clouds, but it started raining again (I think it has rained every day for the past two weeks) and I really had no strong motivation to go outside. It is difficult to believe that one week from today we will be back in Michigan, permanently. I have been so busy these past few weeks that I haven’t had time to get depressed about leaving Germany, but it is finally starting to become a reality. People ask me if I’m excited about going “home” and I say no, which is often met with surprise. I have to explain that Michigan isn’t really my home; I have no family there, my friends are all working in a field that I am no longer a part of, and we will be returning to a house that needs an enormous amount of work. If I wasn’t pregnant things would be looking very sad indeed, but at least now I have something new and exciting to look forward to. It’s been reassuring to get the occasional peppy e-mail from my friends saying they are anxious for me to come back.

My one task today was to take the pets to the vet to get their health certificates signed in preparation for the trip home. (The basic requirements for re-entry into the U.S. are an up-to-date rabies vaccination and a medical clearance less than 10 days before the date of travel.) I didn’t end up leaving for the vet until almost 3:00 this afternoon because Scotty hid under the bed and I had a heck of a time getting him out. No amount of tunafish or kitty treats would make him budge. I think he knew something was up, because I put on Cody’s seatbelt harness first. I eventually had to pull the bed away from the wall and Scotty mauled me with his little needle-teeth, which required some first-aid before I finally got both pets out of the room. I eventually loaded everyone safely into the car and headed over to Botnang.

I had noticed several months ago that our Tierartz had apparently retired, as the practice had been taken over by someone new. I just hoped that the new guy had experience with the international health certificates. I walked in the door and noticed that the whole office had a bright new blue-and-yellow paint job. U of M fans would be pleased. I was shown into the office and met the new vet, an amiable young fellow with a friendly blonde assistant. He understood exactly what I needed and got to work on Scotty first. Unfortunately he had some unpleasant news; he said that Scotty was very stressed (apparently beyond the usual cat-at-the-vet stress level) and that he really needed to have a full blood work-up. We had noticed that Scotty had lost quite a bit of weight recently but he had not been acting otherwise ill, so we didn’t really know what, if anything was wrong with him. He isn’t a very happy-go-lucky cat to begin with, and of course his world has been turned upsidedown in the past few days, so I wasn’t surprised that he was more stressed than usual. The vet agreed to sign the health certificate because he knew that I needed to get the cat back to the States, but he urged me to take Scotty to the vet as soon as we got home to Michigan. Ever-robust Cody, on the other hand, checked out fine, although the vet did have the gall to ask whether he came to Germany without a tail (tail docking having been illegal in Germany for some years)!

I had to rush to get to the house by 4:00 because someone named Kerstin was supposed to meet me there to pick up the dining room rug. She never showed up, so I left, quite annoyed, at 5:00, took Cody for a short walk in the dark, and drove the pets back to the hotel. I left to pick up John just before 7, and then we drove downtown to meet everyone in his department for a holiday party at an Italian place called Sallini. We had some trouble finding it and were pretty much the last people to arrive. John’s boss had arranged the party and was covering the tab, but apparently he had to bill it as a “seminar” because they aren’t supposed to be paying for meals out.

Ironically, it was not until my last week in Germany that I finally met all of John’s co-workers and his infamous boss. I could tell you stories about John’s boss, but I’d probably get in trouble. Let’s just say that he is a bit…interesting. Gert and Jürgen were there but otherwise the faces were all new. Out of maybe 25 people, I think there were three women. I had to go around the table shaking everyone’s hands and smiling, doing the part of the dutiful wife. I ended up sitting next to an English guy named Mark. After several minutes of silence, he finally opened the conversation by asking what octopus tastes like (I had reached for a bite of it from the huge antipasto platter in the middle of the table). I ended up having quite a lengthy conversation with him about cars and driving on the Nürburgring. He owns a Lotus Elise but hasn’t gotten up the nerve to drive it on the ‘Ring yet, so I believe he was quite impressed by my relatively extensive experience.

The food was only so-so and I found myself getting tired rather quickly. I had a short chat with John’s boss’ boss, a rather stiff fellow who didn’t have much of interest to say, but at least he tried to make polite conversation. Finally John’s boss made a little speech and they presented John with a nice gift – a framed photograph of the whole department, with everyone holding up letters spelling out “Good Luck John.” Apparently not everyone had been available for the photo, so some of the graphic gurus had Photoshopped in the missing staff. A few people eventually started to trickle out, so we were finally able to make our exit. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Gert and Jürgen, but we will be going to Jürgen’s for dinner on Thursday night, which I’m sure will be a lot more fun.

9 December: No More Wardrobe & A Minor Incident

After breakfast at SI-Suites, we left Cody and Scotty at the hotel again and headed over to the house to complete the move-out. There’s nothing quite like the hollow echo of an empty house. Our place looks a lot bigger without any furniture in it. A guy named Dieter arrived at 10 am sharp to pick up the wardrobe. He came well-prepared with a battered leather toolbag and a large (by European standards) van. He was surprised at the excellent condition of the wardrobe and pleased that we helped him take it apart and carry it downstairs. It actually came apart pretty easily – Dieter knew just how to detach the hinges; hauling it all down three flights of stairs was the hard part. He gave us an extra 25 Euro for helping him out, which I thought was quite nice of him, especially since he ended up sitting in our driveway for another hour taking all of the hardware off so the wood wouldn’t get scratched up on his drive home. Beth and Axel arrived in their new B-Class to pick up their stuff just as we finished carrying all the wardrobe pieces downstairs. They already own two chairs that match our dining room set, so Beth had laid claim to our chairs several months ago and it was relatively easy to convince them to buy the matching table as well. I also convinced Beth to take most of my Asian cooking ingredients, including some fish sauce, crystallized ginger, and coconut milk. (We had been warned by the moving company not to put a speck of food or alcohol in our shipment to ward off the prying hands of U.S. Customs agents. Apparently if they find something edible or otherwise suspicious in your shipment, they are liable to break into all of your boxes whilly-nilly, destroying your possessions in the process.)

We took a nice walk in the woods near SI-Suites this afternoon, but the weather was pretty lousy and we turned back once it started raining in earnest. We had plans to meet Beth and Axel at 6:00 for dinner and we left a little early since we were also dropping off an old suitcase and our kitchen rug for their Sperrmülle (garbage) collection. (You can’t just leave large household trash out on the street in Germany; you have to call the city and arrange for a special pick-up. Fortunately Beth and Axel had a pick-up scheduled in a few weeks and had agreed to take a few items from us.) We unloaded the stuff and then I drove off with John to find a parking spot. I found a really nice spacious spot on the street a few blocks away and then proceeded to do something incredibly stupid. I turned the car around and pulled up very close to a car parked in front of me, with the intention of putting the car in reverse and backing into the proper position along the curb. Except I was pointing downhill and this particular manual E-Class is especially difficult to get into reverse, and it doesn’t have a handbrake, so I had no way to hold the car in place while I engaged the clutch. John took this opportune moment to point out, “You know this car doesn’t have a handbrake,” which only succeeded in putting me into a nervous state. Needless to say, I didn’t get the car properly into gear and ended up surging forward, stalling the car in the process, and slammed into the car in front of me. It was an old green Mercedes and I did a number on its rear bumper. There was hardly any damage to our car, fortunately, aside from a slightly bent license plate. I called Beth to find out what I should do. Beth was at a loss so she handed the phone over to Axel. We decided against calling the police (heaven forbid!) and I just left a note with my contact information on the car’s front windshield.

I decided to put the incident out of my mind and enjoy our dinner at an ancient Stuttgart restaurant, supposedly one of the oldest establishments in the city. We shared a cozy table in the back of the restaurant and settled in for a traditional feast of maultaschen, schnitzel, and apfelstruedel. Afterwards we said goodbye to Beth and Axel (they will be seeing us off at the airport next weekend so we were able to put off the official parting a bit longer) and I managed to get us back to the hotel again without further incident.

8 December: Emptying of the Home

We feasted on the fabulous breakfast buffet at SI-Suites this morning and then headed back to Botnang to preside over the emptying of our house. (We left Cody and Scotty behind at the hotel with the “do not disturb” sign on the door.) Jürgen, Sonja, and Uwe’s son arrived around 11:00 with a large refrigerated van to move out all of their purchases. Don’t ask me why or how they managed to borrow a refrigerated van, it’s just significant because a refrigerated van has a lot less space in it than a regular van, and they really had to do a stellar packing job to get everything to fit. We said goodbye to a lot of big items in one fell swoop: our beloved red microfiber couch, which had been the bright and comfortable focal point of our living room, two coffee tables, our TV, stereo, and TV stand, the china cabinet from the dining room, the small red convertible sofa from the office, and a variety of smaller items. I told Jürgen I was pregnant (to explain why I was unable to lift heavy objects) and I swear it brought a tear to his eye! We also managed to offload a bunch of odds and ends on Jürgen and Sonja that we hadn’t been able to sell to anyone, including our fire extinguisher and some random kitchen items.

We had a slight lull before the next round of pick-ups. A stylishly-dressed young woman in stiletto-heeled boots came with a couple of friends in tow to pick up our bed in the early afternoon. (I had taken the bed off of eBay because I thought that someone from John’s work was going to buy it, but that fell through. Then someone from the Stuttgart Newcomers group took an interest in the bed, but was unable to make the trip out to Stuttgart to look at it. I was getting rather desperate when, quite fortuitously, an eBay bidder contacted me to ask if the bed was still for sale, and I was able to negotiate a price of 100 Euro.) They were able to take the bed apart in no time and somehow managed to get the whole thing in their car, mattress and all.

Another eBay buyer arrived a short while later to pick up the bookcase from the office, for which he happily gave us 23 Euro. Brenda was next – she took a wooden crate, bathroom accessories, and a few other small items, along with some of my herbs and spices. And finally Katrina arrived with her boyfriend Sven to pick up our blue Ikea chair. They don’t have a car, so Katrina had already taken pieces of the matching ottoman home on the train over the course of several visits to my house. I felt badly that they had to lug the chair back with them in pieces all the way to Ludwigsburg, but they didn’t seem to mind.

By the end of the day, we were down to only a few large pieces – our bedroom wardrobe, which will be picked up tomorrow morning, my low dresser, the living room rug, and a few other odds and ends. An eBay buyer is supposed to pick up the rug on Monday afternoon. Last week John spoke to the guy who bid on the Spannungswandler (that’s the voltage converter), but he lives a couple of hours away and hasn’t been able to figure out how to get here to pick up. John told him that the converter was worth a hefty sum of money and it was really worth the trip since he was only paying 6 Euro for it, but we aren’t holding out much hope that he will come. I think John will be able to offload it on Jürgen if we can’t get anyone else to take it.

We haven’t managed to sell any of the light fixtures, not even the ceiling fans, so we are just going to have to leave those to the next tenants, along with some of the curtains. Which reminds me, after that huge fiasco with the Dörrs over the price of our kitchen, we finally settled on a price of 1000 Euro, only to find out later that the new tenants are actually going to buy the kitchen from us instead of the Dörrs. The Dörrs of course told them that we would sell it for 1000 Euro, when we would have naturally liked to get more for it! Oh well. I suppose we should be happy that we don’t have to rip the kitchen out and leave it on the street for the junk scavengers!

It was dark and drizzling by the time we got back to SI-Suites, so we could only give poor Cody, who had been cooped up in the room all day, a meager evening walk around the empty fields near the hotel.

7 December: Farewell to the Big E & Return to SI-Suites

It’s been one heck of a day. This morning I followed John to Möhringen to drop off the E-Class at 8:30 am. He turned in the paperwork and we bade our fond farewell to the Big Blue E. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll have another car quite like it in our lifetime. John may have gotten some funny looks from his Mercedes co-workers (E-Classes are not typically driven by 30-something design managers) but we sure had a lot of good times in that car. It carried us safely through the wilds of Wales and Scotland, up and down the length of Germany, and you simply couldn’t ask for a more comfortable, capable Autobahn cruiser. As evidenced by our previous E-Class’ performance on the Nürburgring, it handles pretty nicely too. And we have the Big E’s superb braking system to thank for saving me from colliding with the Polizei on our way to Rallye Deutschland last July. It was definitely tough to say goodbye.

We high-tailed it back to the house, as the movers were scheduled to arrive at 10 am. Being good Germans, they were already there when we arrived, even though it was just after 9:00. Fortunately we already had everything ready to go for them; all we had to do was make sure they didn’t pack up anything that we didn’t want sent back to Michigan. There was one funny moment when John pointed out (in our now near-empty kitchen) that I had forgotten my beer bottle collection. As you may recall, we had about 40 different beer bottles lining the shelves on top of our kitchen cabinets. I had no intention of bringing them all home, but I did want to take a representative sample. I snatched a few bottles and carried them into the living room, where one of the movers was packing up pictures. I held out the bottles and said, “I forgot these!” He looked doubtfully at the bottles, his eyes wide, and said, “All of them?” I laughed and said, “No, just these!”

John left for work when it looked like everything was under control. The movers were quite efficient, packing up all of our stuff and loading it up in the van in less than three hours. A little while after they left, Carole came by to pick up the rest of her purchases (her husband had come by for the black leather chair and ottoman last night), including the living room rug and coat rack.

This afternoon I took Cody for a walk and then waited for John to come home around 5:00. We packed up our suitcases, loaded up the dog and cat, and drove over to Möhringen to check in at SI-Suites, back where it all began so long ago. We were given a nice spacious suite on the sixth floor – much better than the small room we had on the first floor last time around. This time we have a kitchenette, a separate bedroom, a dining table, and a comfortable sitting area. We only had a short time to settle in before we had to drive back to Botnang to await a couple of people who were picking up furniture. First Axelle’s husband arrived to pick up the dining room buffet, my small dresser, the iron and ironing board, and a bunch of smaller odds and ends. He ended up having to make two trips, but he managed to fit it all in. A woman named Marita arrived with a friend to pick up my large dresser at 7:30. She had contacted me via the Stuttgart Newcomers email group and agreed to purchase the dresser for 40 Euro. Unfortunately, she took one look at the dresser and determined that it wouldn’t fit in her car. She would have to return next week with a larger vehicle. She gave me 25 Euro to secure the sale, and promised to call when she had the transportation lined up.

Finally we got to call it a day and headed back to SI-Suites and a much-deserved dinner at the Biergarten. Tomorrow, the great move-out gets underway in earnest – we have a whole string of people scheduled to come by the house, starting with Jürgen and Sonja in the morning and then a steady stream of people all afternoon.

6 December: Movie & Cookies

Speaking of German bureaucracy, something strange happened this week. I went outside one morning and discovered that someone had put up two “no parking” signs on the sidewalk in front of our house. These weren’t any flimsy cardboard signs either; they were the real heavy-duty metal street signs, mounted in heavy plastic blocks. (The symbol for no parking in Europe is a blue circle outlined in red, with a red diagonal line through it.) A piece of paper was attached to each sign indicating that the parking restriction would be in force on the date the movers will be here – Friday, December 7^th from 8 am to 1 pm, including the sidewalk. We have no idea when the signs appeared or who put them there, but they looked quite official!

This morning on my way to Evelyne’s I ran into the lady up the street walking Sophie the Newfoundland, who has grown from a fluffy puppy into a dignified adult, but still retains her youthful charisma. Sophie’s owner had obviously noticed the moving signs and asked about our imminent move back to America. We chatted for a few minutes and I couldn’t help marveling at how much my German has improved since that first day when she asked if Cody was a boy or a girl and I accidentally said that Cody was a girl!

Today marked my last morning walk with Evelyne and Marlene. It has been getting harder and harder to drag myself out of bed in the morning (although I should be thankful that the only pregnancy symptom I have suffered from so far is fatigue!) but I didn’t want to disappoint Evelyne by telling her I couldn’t go walking anymore. Nevertheless, I was secretly grateful that this would be my last early morning outing. Marlene was so busy talking that I don’t think she realized it was the last time I would see her. I promised Evelyne that I would come over next week sometime to visit her and Oda one more time.

Today we picked up our interim car, a silver diesel E-class wagon, in preparation for turning in the E-class tomorrow. Then this evening I picked up Beth and we took the E-Class for its final trip out to Emily’s house in Schwieberdingen for movie night and the annual IWC Cookie Exchange. To participate in the exchange, you are supposed to bring three dozen cookies and you get to take home a selection of cookies from each of the other participants. Beth had kindly volunteered to make my cookies for me since I’ve had quite a lot to keep me busy lately, and she seems to be on a baking kick. I was, however, responsible for bringing the movie: The Princess Bride. It seems that several IWC members are long-time Princess Bride fans, and Emily and I have been repeating our favorite line from the movie ever since our last movie night (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”). I mentioned that I had a copy of the movie that we could watch, so long as Emily scheduled one more move night before I left! The movie was well-received by newbies (including Anne W.) and of course loved by all (me, Emily, Beth, Shannon). Unfortunately we didn’t have time to watch the many fabulous extras on my special “Buttercup Edition,” including interviews with the stars some twenty years later. Finally we had to drag ourselves away. I said a last goodbye to Emily and came away with a huge bag of cookies to get us through our last week in the hotel. I dropped Beth off and returned home for our very last night in the Botnang house.

5 December: IWC Brunch & My Last Jazz Class

I had missed the IWC’s annual international holiday brunch last December, when I had to go home to Michigan to close up our house, so I was really looking forward to attending this year’s event. Originally I was planning to make my grandmother’s fresh apple cake, but I ran out of time and ended up bringing leftover chocolate chip cookies instead. I didn’t have to worry: this was an opportunity for the culinary expertise of the IWC membership to really shine, and we had the most incredible spread of international delights laid out in our usual meeting place at Café Merlin in Stuttgart-West.

Anne M. was greeting guests when I arrived. She took one look at me and said, “Oh, I may have thrown out your nametag already.” Leave it to sometimes-caustic Anne to make me feel like I had already been erased from the register! Inside, Anne W. and the other members of the IWC committee were still busy setting up the tables and passing out pieces of postcards depicting Stuttgart monuments; each guest was supposed to find the matching half of their postcard from those scattered amongst the tables to determine where they should sit. I found my place at a table of four, along with Carmel and Anne M., but my partner’s seat was vacant. Meanwhile more and more women were arriving, and I kept busy rounding up the participants from Beth’s party so they could sign her memory book before she arrived. I kept looking back at my table, but no one had claimed the seat across from me. Finally Beth came strolling in – just after I had stashed her book out of sight – and was given one of the last remaining postcards. Was it mere coincidence or odd fate that her card matched the one on the table across from me? We giggled about it like schoolgirls.

The IWC committee had put together a quiz about important women in history and we all spent a few minutes filling these out in our teams of four. Beth and Carmel did an astonishing job of coming up with answers to the questions, which included such items as, “How many women have been awarded the Nobel Prize?” Our table ended up with the most correct answers, for which accomplishment we were awarded the price of going through the buffet line first. (Good thing, too – you don’t want to keep a couple of pregnant women away from their food.) The feast was simply splendid – pastas and dips, salads and skewers, cookies and cakes of every imaginable variety, representing cuisines from around the globe. We ate and ate, and ate some more. Anne gave a short speech, raffle prizes were drawn, and donations were made to our charity, a women’s shelter in Stuttgart.

Beth had to rush off to a doctor’s appointment afterwards, but I didn’t want to leave. Finally, as the crowd was thinning out, I said my goodbyes to those members that I wasn’t likely to see again and then returned to the sign-in table, where I solemnly removed my IWC nametag for the last time. Anne M. told me to keep it.

This evening I attended my final jazz class. (I figured it would be pretty tough to get all the way out to Feuerbach next week with only one car between me and John, and we would have plenty of other things on our plate to worry about.) It was the Wednesday class, which was my least favorite of the two, but I had a good time and even mastered most of the combination. Marilena gave me a big hug at the end and wished me well. I can’t emphasize enough what a wonderful experience this has been and how happy I am that I worked up the nerve to take dance classes here. I only wish I had done it sooner. I have vowed to keep some element of dance in my life from now on.

On my way out, I stopped at the front desk to let them know that I was moving back to the U.S. and needed to cancel the automatic monthly withdrawal from my bank account. I ended up talking to the same bleached-blonde girl that I had spoken to on the first day that I walked through the doors of the New York City Dance School. I thought I explained my situation to her well enough, but she rattled off some long explanation about going to city hall and getting an official letter. Most of it was lost on me, so I sheepishly asked her to explain it again in English. She said that I had to get a letter from my city hall stating that I was leaving the country in order for them to cancel the bank order. She acted like I should know all about such a letter. I was dumbfounded, but figured that I could talk to the relocation people at Daimler and they would surely know what to do. (Apparently this is standard procedure when cancelling this type of membership in Germany. I honestly wonder what one does if one is simply unhappy with the service? What if I just wanted to stop taking classes, or switch to another school? Obviously the idiosyncracies of the German bureaucracy are still mostly a mystery to me. I can only be thankful that I have had the luxury of shouldering the relocation people at Daimler with most of the burdensome dirty work!)