Visiting the former East Germany

I took two days off from work last weekend, on the 3rd and 4th of September. My wife, Jessi, and I decided to visit her brother and his family, and her godparents in the former East Germany. So, we rented a car and went on our way. (Ok, we were actually a lot less spontaneous than it sounds and this weekend trip took us weeks of planning, but you get the picture.) We left Munich at about 10 am. The drive itself took us less than we expected. We managed almost 500km in less than 5 hours. Let me guess, 100 km per hour doesn’t really fit the description of Germany’s Autobahns (highways). There were indeed many stretches where we could easily do 130 – 140 km/h (although we were allowed to do much more) but there were also several stretches where road works were underway and we were restricted to 60 -100 km/h. Besides, we didn’t rent a BMW M6, but a more down-to-earth Skodo Fabia.

We drove directly to my brother-in-law’s place and were warmly greeted by him and his family. They have two beautiful kids – a boy (El.) and a girl (Al.). After taking a drink, I quickly grabbed my camera and started snapping away. Some of the shots I got were truly priceless, as you can see from the two pictures in this post.

After dinner, we made our way to Jessi’s godparents’ place. Thank God, we have a GPS. Our electronic friend faithfully and successfully guided us to their place. Our GPS has indeed been such a great help to us here in Germany. We use it every time we drive and for the most part, it has successfully guided us to our intended destination. There have been a few exceptions, especially when some roads were closed due to repair works or so, but it has always been a great help in any case.

Anyway, back to our trip. We got to Jessi’s godparents’ place just past 7 pm. We arrived a little later than expected and they were already on their way out when we got there. So, we quickly said, “Hi!” and got out of their way. We then unloaded our things from the car and rested a little bit. They got back home about an hour later and we spent the evening chit-chatting, feasting and laughing. It was really good to see them after all this time and we had a great time together. At about 11, we all went to bed.

Next day, next post.

joel@jjsolomon.com