People have asked if this blog will continue once we’re back in the boring ol’ U.S. and although it’s been fun chronicling everything here, I doubt I can keep this up on a daily basis. So perhaps occasionally I’ll show up to let you all know we’re still alive and well, but don’t expect anything consistent.

So for now, tschüß to all and thanks for helping us, commenting here, sending good thoughts our way, visiting us, and most importantly loving us through this whole crazy experiment.

I’ll let you know how it tastes

UPDATE: In the meantime, I’ve come across a camera and taken this picture for you to view the beautiful masterpiece with your own eyes:

I’ve also now tasted it and can report back that it is just as scrumptious as it looks!

My lonely weekend without Travis involved cleaning (lots and lots and lots of it), packing the remaining few things, and more cleaning. Yesterday I did break free to enjoy an afternoon picnic at the river for a friend’s birthday.

Hard to believe only three days of work left! I get rid of the car today, so I’ll be completely dependent on Jenni from here on.

Travis’ flight looks like it will be as scheduled, so for the rest of the day we’ll be working on some final cleaning and tonight will be Travis’ last doner kebab. A sad, sad day for him.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful and we couldn’t have asked for better conditions to be running around, delivering furniture, moving boxes, hoisting a washing machine, etc. Mom, you’ll be happy to know the blue couch was a hit. Tonight, air mattress. Tomorrow, no more Travis

I’ve been losing sleep the last few nights over whether or not Travis will be ok getting out on Saturday. A lot of planes are flying, however United (which he’s flying) doesn’t even have any planes on this CONTINENT and every day they cancel their flights from the US to Europe. Basically, he can’t leave if no planes get here. But we still have a few days to think about that. And in the meantime, I’ve read there is another nearby volcano that has gone off like clockwork about every 80 years for… well, forever, and the last time it erupted was 1918.  So even if flights run today, what’s to say they’ll still be running on Saturday?

A lot of people have been asking us if we have dust everywhere, if it’s hurt the air quality, etc. And actually, it’s almost the opposite. These are some of the the clearest blue, cloudless skies we’ve seen in our entire time here. On Sunday we had a picnic by the river and enjoyed the beautiful weather and reminisced about our adventure. It was an absolutely perfect day, although the lack of jet engines over the city was a bit unnerving.

Confused yet?

A group of people (3,000 people, to be exact) organized a Pillow Fight in downtown Frankfurt. We heard about it through our friends who heard about it through the grapevine, and so on. Everyone was to go to the specified area at a certain time, holding a disguised pillow (we both had pillows in bags, but I don’t know how disguised that really is). Someone in the crowd was to indicate when to start and then… fight time! For 45 minutes, pillow chaos ensued. Onlookers were shocked and entertained (or at least I’d like to think so).

See YESTERDAY’S post for pictures.

And now, pictures of the Luminale:

The stages of the moon:

I guess first things first: If you haven’t heard the news, airspace is closed over much of Europe including good ol’ Frankfurt due to volcanic ash. Our friends from Berlin didn’t come down (and it’s a good thing because if they had, they probably would be stuck here still). And in spite of our disappointment of not being able to host them, it was probably better off as we had a pretty exciting weekend of packing, panting, and cleaning with a few flashes of fun thrown in the mix.

The first flash of fun was Friday night when we went to the Frankfurt Luminale, an art show put on by “light artists” every two years. We didn’t really know where to go, so just followed the crowds. We walked around for a few hours and saw some interesting lights. Here are a few pictures, although they’re not great because we didn’t have a tripod.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Weeks_Notice
Reference is made to Lynne Truss’s book “Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation,” in which she cites the example of the film title “Two Weeks Notice” as incorrectly punctuated because there should be an apostrophe after the “s”.

So, two weeks’ notice is correct, and two weeks from now I will be on a plane back to the U.S.

We also sold our last two pieces of furniture today, so that’s pretty much all we own! Time to update the “For sale” page…

Two weeks from today will be my last and final day here in the office. Today I started pulling things down off the walls and dusting off all of my junk in preparation.  We’ve officially sold all of our “big” items and have just a few items that don’t make sense to take back to the US - a hair dryer with an EU plug, a book on Germany, a big heavy uncomfortable couch. This weekend we’ll finish packing up the kitchen and then that will pretty much be it!