Final post on our trip.

Okay, so I am here in a post office not far from Regs aunt in Bremen and I INSISTED on walking home so I could take as long as I needed to write, for a change. It is Friday afternoon and this will be my last post as we are coming home on Monday. The train experience was not as relaxing as we had hoped. For one thing, we arrived over an hour early like good little paranoid tourists, and we stood on platform 9 (we kept saying 9 and 3/4 like a bunch of Harry Potter geeks) for well over an hour, and the trains were passing us from right to left. Regs Tante Maria said our train was going to come from the opposite direction ON THE SAME TRACK, and that just seemed so wrong on so many levels. But I figured she knew what she was talking about as she has put many many people on this train before. So about 4 minutes from our trains arrival, I just couldnt stand it anymore as the trains kept travelling right to left. So after a couple of minutes of looking at our tickets we discovered that we were at the wrong platform,and had exactly 2 minutes to RUN with 2 VERY HEAVY suitcases and 3 EVEN HEAVIER carryons. UP AND DOWN 2 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. We managed to get there just as the train pulled in. Now in my naivety I thought " lots of time", but his aunt was practically shoving me on the train. Good thing too, the train waits for no man and I would have been standing there like a big dope on the platform waving to Ellie and Reg. So we get on this thing,and then we have to find a place for our enourmous suitcases. Let me put it to you this way... Ellie has heard virtually every swearword from her parents lips on this trip... and I am ashamed to admit mostly from her mother! We finally sit in our seats and then 3 hours later we arrived in Bremen. Bremen is very pretty. Not like Köln, which is (where we were at least) a concrete city. Bremen is very green and a lot of the houses and buildings are done in the old style. Even after they were destroyed in the war, people would build their houses in the old style. It is so interesting and eerie to think that bombs fell from planes in many of the places we have been going. 90% of Köln was destroyed in WW2... 90%!!!! And about 80% of Bremen. It is staggering to imagine. So we arrived at Tante Ediths, our destination for the entire trip. We love her. She has been to Canada a few times and has stayed at our house so we felt at home immediatly. Plus she is REgans moms sister and that also makes her very familiar. We were EXHAUSTED that day. We just walked around her garden, and she (of course) had made this giant cake from scratch with fresh raspberries from her garden, and 2 other cakes as well, and offered it to us immediately. I have never felt such pressure to eat in my life as I have felt in Germany. No matter how much you eat it is never enough. We tease her about it all of the time. Now I know how Ellie feels!! Thats another thing. If I hear one more time how skinny Ellie is I am going to scream. Yes she is skinny, and no she does not eat a lot at breakfast, and yes she eats breakfast before school. I feel bad for her. She knows she is very very skinny, and on this whole trip has been saying how she has to "make weight". In all my struggles to not give this poor kid an eating disorder, I am afraid it may not make any difference. We just keep telling her she is lucky that she eats until she is full, and that she is a very healthy girl, and on and on. But nevertheless, it is something I have worried about for years. Anyway, basically with the food situation it is like Thanksgiving dinner every single day for 24 days. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Those of your who have been here know what I mean. Especially at someones house. The cooking is amaying, dont get me wrong, but even after Regan explained that she should cook like she has "3 kinder", she still cooks too much. But we love her for it. I just LOVE her. We have done nothing but laugh the entire time we have been here, and mostly at Regan. And it is not always him intentionally making us laugh. He has had a couple of injuries, which unfortunately for him, are very funny by nature. Like for example yesterday we went to this extremely cool Serengeti Park, and he went down this giant potato sack slide and smashed his tail bone. I cant tell you how much material we have for yucks at this. It sounds mean, but seriously... tail bone... COME ON!! And the best part is that his aunt is like his mother and we tease them that they are "hex doctars" (witch doctors) and they have a salve, tea and ointment for everything. When Reg first got here he had a SMALL COLD. I mean barely even a sniffle. And of course was VERY DRAMATIC about it. I did A LOT of eyerolling that day. Anyway, she had every possible cure all you can imagine, and it would take her until about 1130 to finally get him all tucked in in bed. The first night he boiled to death, and told her the blanket was too hot. She said, "No, it cant be! It is made from wool and camel hair!". Plus she had him sleeping on a sheep skin. Then every night he has to sit in front of a heat lamp and get this weird smelling stuff put on his neck, because OF COURSE he has a stiff neck along withevery thing else. There is also a special tea for his stomach he has to have after breakfast, and there is a seperate tea he has to gargle with for his throat. You may think I am exaggerating, but Im not. Very very hysterically funny. So you can only imagine once he realized he hurt his tail bone.... many many tear forming laughter from me and him ensued. So she had a salve for his rear end,which at first she said "maybe LIsa would put on". Oh yeah.... again... laughing. Then there is the autoban with Tante Edith. Imagine this.... she is a very smart, quick and hilariously funny 78 year old woman. And we decided to go to this Serengetie park that is an hour away. So on the auto ban we go with ME IN THE FRONT SEAT. Remember I said before that the speed limit (when there is one ) is 130 km per hour. Once she got into the left lane, she then said "now we can drive faster" and sped up to 180 KILMETERS PER HOUR!!!!!!! I have never been so terrified in my entire life whilst trying to appear completely calm. So remember I told you that trucks tend to pass going 90, so imagine now her heavily breaking off and on going between 140 and 180, and passing trucks and cars, and tail gaiting. At one point we were about to exit and we slowed down, and I thought... oh good, this is a nice slow speed. THIS I can handle. And I glanced at her speedometer and she was going 150!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THe Seregeti park was amazing, we rode on a double decker bus for an hour and were surrounded by animals like Giraffes (that would stick their heads in the window to get carrots from the driver ) and Rhinos,(again, would get food from the driver) and on and on. FANTASTIC!! Then there was a whole amuzement park area with nobody actually working at a lot of the rides. For EG we rode on a few of those cars on tracks and you just hop in and press start,and away you go. The park was dead which was great, and it was our only day with sun we have had. There was this other section called Monkey land, where you go in the cages WITH the monkeys. THat was AMAZING!!! We were in the same cages as various lemurs , maqaces, and other monkeys. So so so cool!! THe lemurs would come right up to our camera dn tap the lens! Or tap your hands. It was so so incredible! Otherwise it has beennothing but rain. Anyway, the other day we went to town and had a tour of the churches and down town. It was lovely. THen on auto ban back from Serengeti. This time I sat in the back with my eyes closed the entire time. It was not only too fast but stifling hot. WE find that the people here generally can tolerate it much hotter than we can. We are actually grateful for this cool weather, or we would be dying! Tante Ediths house is lovely, and is surrounded by a very large garden with every vegetable and fruit. Ellie just loves her and they are always partners at every game and are always ganging up on Regan and I. Sometimes Ellie will just bounce into the room where she is and ask if she wants to play uno, or some other game. It is so adorable. We have been also having a great time watching German Television. The shows are hilarious. Much too many to tell here. It is amazing how much German I can actually understand now. I plan on learning more when I get back. Ellie too understands a lot more now. This morning Tante Edith made Ellie and I little tiny fried quail eggs. They were awesome! Everything is very special and always for Ellie. It makes me feel very good... her too. She has special clown napkins, special toilet paper even!! Only for Ellie!
All in all we are having the best time in Germany, and have loved everything here. We are planning on having an Octoberfest at our house for our October birthdays and we will make and serve all traditional German food... and everyone must eat a lot!!! We are all looking forward tocoming home on Monday. We are all missing our house, animals, beds and family and friends.

Thank you to all who have followed our trip. The next few days will be just around the house, I think, today we went to the mall. WE are even winding down our site seeing and just spending time withTante Edith playing games and thinking of more ways to laugh at Regan.

Much love to all of you! Choos!! (not sure of the spelling, but it is a cute way they say goodbye here.. pronounced chooz!!)