Although the cats tried to organize a strike to prevent us from traveling, we prevailed! As always, we travel light and, thanks to Christine and Kai playing our personal Uber, we got to the cute AF Lincoln airport with our two carry-on size suitcases and our two backpacks, and had a marvelously hitchless trip via Chicago to Amsterdam. I could complain about the aches and pains caused partly by the fact that we were sitting in a row where the seats only tilted back by 2 inches for 7.5 hours, but I won’t! All in all, the flights were fine; bureaucracy at the airport was minimal, and the train ride to Osnabrück, notwithstanding two train changes in Holland, lovely and easy (thanks to aforementioned minimal luggage). My German train travel app kept updating me frantically about DELAYS in red, but all they came out to were 3 minutes by the time we arrived. And then we even got to skip the bus in Osnabrück, because we got out at the smaller, closer regional train station and just walked the mile (1.5 km) to my mom’s house. Of course, she welcomed us with coffee, cake AND ice cream, and we sat in her little enclosed back yard under the apple tree (we arrived to glorious weather) and listened to the birds.
We also went for a short walk through the nearby botanical gardens and got reacquainted with the flora and fauna. This is the first time for us to try out the Merlin App in Germany and we already heard and spotted several fun birds. No good photos yet, but a great name: the common chiffchaff, known in Germany as the Zilpzalp! We faded early tonight (after a lovely, simple dinner Imke had gotten from the nearby butcher, enhanced by a salad) but that’s no surprise, since the flight direction “stole” 7 hours from us. But: It’s so great to be here!