Augsburg Confessions

Well, here I am in the land of the original Augsburg Confessions. When I signed on to blogger this morning, the instructions were actually in German!

It is so good to be here. After 18 hours of traveling, we arrived to a warm greeting from Don's parents who had arrived about 30 minutes before us from North Carolina, and his Aunt and Uncle and their two children, our host family. We've been made to feel right at home and had a wonderful day yesterday of eating, drinking, visiting, and loving on some dauchshunds which I can now pronounce with a real German Accent. We also got to meet an array of German companions yesterday, two sets of neighbors, grandma & grandpa, great grandmother, and retired Army friend Jose from Puerto Rico. We're enjoying the crossover back and forth from English to German and already picking up a bit of the language.

We're hoping to have already kicked the jet lag. We got expert advice from our family which told us the best thing to do is stay up as late as possible the first night and sleep in to about brunch time but don't oversleep. I limited myself yesterday to one 1 hour nap and I think that did the trick. We will see how we do today but so far I feel pretty good. Don and I are set up in a nice room in the basement, rather comfy for a hideabed but lots of privacy and room to spread out our luggage so we ware quite happy with the accomodations.

One thing I love about Germany so far: they have cake time every afternoon at 3:00 or 4:00. So yesterday as we sat around the picnic table and were presented with a Plum Tart, Black Forest Cake, and Lemon Cheesecake, or at least their German equivilants. I opted for the Plum Tart yesterday and today I think I may try the lemon cheesecake. I think we should start this tradition in the U.S. I also like the way Germans do their baking, subtly sweet instead of overladen with sugar.

I love that we have 10 full days here. Our host family has taken vacation too so we will all get to enjoy our time together. I haven't bothered to take many photos yet. I thought for the first day we would just enjoy our time and settle in. Plenty of time to take pictures later and will try to post them as I am able.