texans on the autobahn

Visitors from our homeland. . .Texas!

As our time in Germany comes to an end, we are going to be having several visitors. Better late than never, I say! We started with a visit from my sister D’Anne, her husband, Dennis and their two sons, Davis and Dawson. It’s really so funny now, looking back on our beginnings in Germany. And I was reminded of that when my nephews left the customs area at the airport and came out happy and smiling wearing their baseball hats and talking with those Texas accents. I told my sister, we were told early on in cultural awareness training, “do not draw attention to yourselves as Americans”. .. but when your nephews arrive and they obviously don’t look German and certainly don’t sound German, that training all goes out the window, and really, that’s ok because it’s fun to be with those who just can’t help but stand out and aren’t afraid of getting in trouble!

Before my sister and her family left from Texas to see us, we had email conversations about what clothes to bring and what the weather was like. At the time we were having the conversations, it was still a little cool in Munich but I was wearing shorts. Maybe I was still just trying to convince myself that it was spring and it SHOULD be warmer. My sister, on my advice, had her family bring mostly summer clothing like shorts and sandals. My German friends will appreciate this because they always thought it was funny when I’d show up in shorts and sandals and they were still wearing long pants, long sleeves and regular shoes, not to mention how funny they thought it was when Sam or Joe would show up in really cold weather for soccer training wearing shorts! As it turned out, we borrowed clothes from our neighbors for the boys and then just did a bit of laundry while they were here.

Needless to say, my sister razzed me while visiting about how I didn’t give her the most accurate information about the weather. As it turned out it rained almost their entire 2 week stay with us. We finally had to leave Germany and drive to Italy to get some sunshine and dry, warm weather. It was certainly worth the 3 hour drive to Bolsano in Italy so that we all could see that somewhere in Europe the sun was really shining. But you know, I have been in Germany long enough to be able to say with ease, “this weather isn’t normal for Germany!” Of course, we still haven’t figured out what IS normal!

posted by stuckinthemiddle @ 9:48 PM