We slept in again, until almost 7:30! Imke had made us a big breakfast with fresh rolls—delicious!—and then we walked to the little-known second train station (Altstadt, formerly Hasetorbahnhof) about 25 minutes from my mom’s house and took the train to Oldenburg to spend a few hours with Uschi. As before, she picked us up from the station, but we went around and through the old downtown on a slightly different route that also included a bit more water (along the former defensive moat) as well as two churches and a few more old houses that we hadn’t seen before. But mostly we had come to have bit more time to chat and catch up, and we did—just for a few minutes at her house, and then at a lovely restaurant overlooking the locks that connect the main river that flows through Oldenburg (Hunte) to a canal. We saw two large river freighters and several small boats go through the locks as we sat in the shade (on what proved to be the hottest day we’ve had so far, at 85 degrees/30 C for a high) and had a lovely lunch, with a little panna cotta for dessert. Yum!
We had gotten out to the restaurant by car, but Mark and I walked back (barely half an hour, along the river and then through the shady palace garden). We were all ready for a little rest, so Mark and I sat on the sofa and enjoyed Uschi’s shady apartment—while her rest was interrupted by the construction workers that just started to clean and repaint the facade of the house yesterday and needed some input. Eventually, we just had to quickly say our goodbyes so she could focus on the renovation logistics. But we were so happy to spend a few more hours with Uschi, and thrilled that the house is getting its long-awaited makeover—this has been a long time coming, with complicated negotiations among the three owners (one floor each). We took off around 3:30 and, fortified by some gelato purchased along the way, walked back to the train station and then caught the train back to Osnabrück, which took almost 2 hours because of a series of delays.
But we were not in any hurry and were still home around 6 pm. We had a simple “Abendbrot” dinner with my mom and, because it was so gorgeous outside, went for another walk through various parts of downtown, partly with the goal of scouting out some restaurants for a nice meal with my mom this week, and partly to take some of the “secret” foot paths that are off limits to cars (sometimes even to bikes) that criss-cross the area between my mom’s and downtown. To our delight, we saw that a villa with a complicated history (its owners had been driven out during the Third Reich because they were Jewish, and the later owner neglected the gorgeous home but also refused to sell it) has now been beautifully redone and modernized, with a nicely preserved art deco doorway and enclosed round staircase. We were home around 9 pm and wrapped up our day. We ended up walking 11 miles over the course of the day!
