Saturday Morning Comparisons: by haiku

2 haikus

9 am Sunday morning in downtown Austin:

Cyclists in spandex spin by
Amidst the stench of vomit and homelessness
Empty streets save for a motorcycle parade.

9 am Sunday morning, Alstadt, Mainz:

The sun is shining

A giant farmer's market fills the plaza

Pedestrians, bikers, families smiling together.

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6 Months In (almost)

We're coming up to our 6th month here. It feels especially poignant because our kindergartener finished his first semester in an American school. And boy was that first day full of tears. That day, that week, I think the whole month - every dropoff for every kid, every whatsapp text from a friend back home - anything set me off with this horrible guilty feeling that we had made a terrible mistake. (Full disclosure: I still feel like this nearly every day, but at least I'm not in daily tears about it...?) I'll never forget that first day of kindergarten. Staying at a dumpy (yet somehow $120/night) hotel with a free breakfast (truly, free breakfast at American hotels is the saddest breakfast), our son asked us to pack him a lunch. How? I asked him to please buy, it would be warm, he could eat well, and ... I didn't have a kitchen. He said, how about an egg sandwich? I put together the saddest egg sandwich I'd ever seen: 2 dry pieces of toast (no matter how much I ad

3 Perfect Days in and around Hamburg

Road trip time! Hamburg is about 5 hours (plus kids = 7ish) north of where we live, and we had never seen the region... summer holiday seemed the perfect time. We drove up on a Monday, returning on Thursday, with 2 days in the city and one at a fruit farm in Jork. This region, apparently, produces the most fruit in western Europe! I bet it's gorgeous in spring. Day 1: We tried out wimdu for an apartment just north of the city. The price was right, the location was great, and the owners were incredibly nice. It was a bit tight for four of us (mostly because the kids wanted to stay up late with us / not sleep), but worked fine for the short visit. We had made afternoon reservations for Miniatur Wunderland , so we took our time getting to the city. We drove in, parking at Contipark (max 12 euros/ day, better than other lots that max out at 20 euros/day or so), which are all over central Hamburg. The plan was to walk through the warehouse district and make our way to Landungsb

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