My mommy is here!!!

She arrived on Friday, October 3rd -- a.k.a. "Tag der deutschen Einheit," the national holiday celebrating Germany's reunification in 1990. Well, we had our own reunification to celebrate! Namely, by running around the Frankfurt Airport (and environs) in an attempt to ransom the cat, Lucy, from the Evil Bureaucratic German Customs Office. Who actually turned out to be quite nice. While still very bureaucratic. It took about three hours from start to finish, and we covered quite a lot of ground running from Office A to Office Z to Room X to Storage Unit Y to Vetrinary Service L and back to Room X. But in the end, we had a healthy, curious kitty and a towel full of healthy, curious cat poo (kindly presented to us as a gesture of thanks while still trapped in her kennel in the back of the taxi).

This was made up for the next day when we zoomed off to the Deutsches Weinlesefest in search of Neuer Wein:


We also poked around a farmer's market, and today, Sunday, we found The Perfect Apartment. Really! Perfect! One of my colleagues at the Fachhochschule mentioned that her kids don't come to visit so often any more, leaving her with a rarely-used, furnished apartment upstairs in her house that does nothing but gather dust. So I asked if a nice American lady can come rent it from her... We met up today to have a peek, and it's fabulous. Adorable, two-bedroom, hardwood-floored, newly-renovated, furnished, with an attic for storage and a washer downstairs and a cat-friendly garden. Not to mention the nicest landlady you could wish for. We walked in and fell in love. And then found out that the rent is completely reasonable and includes utilities! The house is in a nice residential neighborhood in eastern Mannheim -- on the other side of the Neckar river -- and only 40 minutes away from our place by Strassenbahn. It's also a mere 15 minutes away from downtown Mannheim... we're already fantasizing about meeting up of a Saturday afternoon for shopping and coffee downtown.

Life is good!!!