Deutschland

How is everyone? It feels like we talked just yesterday, right? No? No, of course not. In my defense, Liz and I haven’t traveled anywhere since New Year’s Eve—and that trip was super low-key—so I was trying to spare you from boring Germany stories. You know you didn’t want to hear about our daytrip to the doctor in Ulm. Ugh, Ulm. Language impairment or no, was the most confusing hospital I’ve ever encountered. The highlight of that adventure: I bought a German baby book, though I still haven’t bothered translating it. You see? You don’t want to hear stories like that. You’re welcome.

Honestly, our New Year’s Eve trip was excellent, although I’m confident you’d claim that we did it wrong. We spent 5 days in Strasbourg, which is a city right on the border of France. Very cute city, lots of water, lots of Christmas decorations.




We toured by foot a significant portion of the city and hit a museum, but overall the trip was very relaxed. Liz was tired a lot from baby-growing, and Strasbourg was rather chilly most days (France isn’t particularly sunny in my experience), and yada yada yada… we ate in the AirBnB several times. Like, more than half of our meals came from the grocery. To appease the party gods, I drank a beer on New Year’s Eve, and Liz and I ate 24 grapes. However, that, too, was done within the walls of the AirBnB. Midnight was genuinely entertaining, though. The AirBnB apartment complex was in the center of town, surrounded by numerous other tall apartment complexes, and so we got to watch drunken French residents on their balconies shoot fireworks at each other.

Travel news: I’ll be working in Florence for 2 weeks in mid-July. I won’t have a car, I’ll be staying at the Hilton by Cracker Barrel, and Liz won’t be with me… so, yeah. And I’ll be back again in early October for work. Also without Liz. But maybe with a car? Very little information at this point.

I’ve been reading an unhealthy amount of books lately. No—not books in German. Let’s go ahead and assume at this point that German will never come out of my mouth. Anyway, Liz bought me a Kindle for Christmas and set me loose on the Kenton County Digital Library (with mom’s help). I had serious doubts about owning a Kindle, but—especially considering my situation abroad—it has been a godsend. I still don’t prefer Kindles over paper books, exactly. But I love checking out books from my apartment. For free.

Everything else I have to talk about is babies. The baby is coming pretty soon. Liz has been taking (German) parenting classes in town. She’s been a champ, walking the mile to get there, walking back in the dark. Before you ask: no, I’m not invited. In fact, I’m banned from these particular classes. There are 2 classes I’m allowed to attend next week, the rest Liz must tackle on her own. We’ve accumulated a lot of baby stuff already. However, the room is blah. Apartments, you know. I can’t wait to be home in Florence (typically referred to as “home-home”), where I can go all out designing a baby room. I just need to be patient, I suppose.

Send us a message and let us know how your life is going. And chime in if you have any baby book suggestions (for adults, about babies). I’m willing to give anything a try… as long as it’s at the library.

I gather you aren't talking about Florence, Italy - which, of course, I thought at first - but another place somewhere in the USA. Google Maps says there is one in South Carolina, also called Florence.

Will the baby be born in Germany? It might be a bilingual child, then (which would be pretty cool).