On our last day in Germany, we decided that we wanted a third car for our adventure. That is, the grinding brakes of our 2nd Panda decided this for us, so Sterling and I headed to the Stuttgart airport to pick up Opal (Opal Corsa, that is). Sterling realized as we arrived that the Stuttgart airport had tree-structures that he had designed in college, without knowing that Stuttgart already had them in place. Quite exciting to see them!
We then set out to find some sort of elevator/ferris wheel in Stuttgart and meet the rest of the Jochim's. No go on the elevator/ferris wheel (closes on weekends), but we had to head back to Esslingen anyway to get ready for Daniel's birthday bash.
And it was a good one! Daniel ate his risotto and loved his presents. I erred a bit when deciding to open presents before cake, and Daniel had quite the meltdown during his birthday song when I took him away from all of his exciting gifts for cake. He recovered by the time he had to blow out the candle though. By the way, you can skip the presents and just blow up balloons if you want to make a 3 year old happy. He was pretty fun to watch.
And then the next day, we packed up Opal and prepared to leave. As always, it is rough saying goodbye to the Jochim family, but their cute little smiling faces eased the blow. That and the fact that they're coming to the States this fall. Right? Right?
Directionally challenged Katherine couldn't find the right road out of town, which is why we skipped Strasbourg and headed straight to Luxembourg instead on a steely gray day in Europe. Pictures from our last couple of days to follow.
Comments