The Stecherbush Abroad

Planes, Trains and Automobiles for days. These girls just picked right back up. Being back in Virginia is surreal. It's all so familiar and yet, it feels like another lifetime that we were there. So much has happened. The Patees had us over for dinner when we landed. Thankfully we were feeling pretty good. Brigham seems to be the only one with very noticeable jet lag.  After some desperately needed sleep we headed to the Christins. The girls were so excited to see these friends. I wish we could've recreated our neighbor situation and had our own place there with another yard and basement to bounce back and forth too. Brigham was a great sport but visibly bored.  Visiting with the Spigarellis was a huge blessing in our lives. Not only do we love hanging out with them, they saved our bacon. Brigham was especially grateful for the respite from the girl intensity.  They fed us. Taught us new games.  And showed us a fun time!   Our first trip was to see the Rosenlund...

As Matt said, "We're snakebit with trains!". We got reserved seats, 1st class compartments, hoping for the best and we left early, walked the 30+minutes to the train platform, then waited, and waited, and waited for an hour or more. And FINALLY we got on and had a very lovely ride to Berlin. Another chap reserved our same compartment but because it was 6 to the compartment everyone joined the boys in theirs and played cars for the entire 4 hr journey. I sat, chatted with that most interesting fellow who was a master at working systems and perhaps a little dishonest. I got my seminary calendar all set up and did what I could with the blog with spotty wifi. Welkomin to Berlin. Home of the Appolmann. He comes in red...  and he comes in green. There are whole stores devoted to souvenirs of him. We just happened to come during Gay Pride week. I think the security of the city was pretty ramped up. This is as close as we were allowed to get to the Brandenburg gate. Not the most ...