Life as I know it.: Our Last Week in Heppenheim

Well, the time has come for us to move out of our little Bergstrasse town among the vineyards and cobbled stone streets. We won't be moving far, however; we will be moving into another vineyard lined town with cobbled streets and sidewalk fountains, down the Bergstrasse to Zwingenberg.

On Friday evening we will meet our real estate agent, Gaby, and our landlords for a walk around the apartment and to receive the keys. However, we can't actually move in until Saturday at noon, so I am wondering if our walk-through on Friday evening will be clean, or dirty. I really don't want to see a messy, dirty apartment right before we move in, but here's hoping! Anyways, we are dropping our belongings off on Friday night to be stored at the new apartment, dropping Simba off on Friday night at the cat pension - an apartment for cats to stay at while their owners are away - and then sleeping at our place in Heppenheim until we drive to Mannheim at 5:30am to catch a 6:40am train to Paris on Saturday morning. Whew.

We will be in Paris for three nights - from Saturday until Tuesday. We will arrive back in Mannheim, pick up Simba, then head to our new place just in time for the holiday. Tuesday is Father's Day, and also a reason to celebrate spring and the vineyards. Since wine is ingrained into the German culture, most holidays and festivals have something to do with beer or wine. On next Tuesday, people will be at the vineyards in Zwingenberg (which is out our backdoor) and they walk through the vineyards to Heppenheim, all while tasting wine along the way at different wine huts.

On another note, Derek was very intrigued and really shocked by an email sent to the entire company from his boss. Through Google Translate, it reads:

Colleagues from the given occasion, I would like to reiterate that no one working day of 10 hours maximum may be exceeded.

Unfortunately, there was in the first quarter of this year already exceeded 17!

I am sure that you want to do something good for the company and therefore sometimes lose track of time.

Please take care in the future better for the 10 hours policy, we will pursue every transgression and accept no exception.

Why can't we live like this in America? Action will be taken if you work over 10 hours a day. I am not sure if every company in Germany breathes these same values, but I feel like his company has it figured out.

Last Weekend Recap

We kept it pretty low key last weekend and explored a few towns around us - Schwetzingen, Lindenfels and Michelstadt. Schwetzingen has a palace with acres and acres of manicured lawns, parks, statues, fountains, etc. We could have spent an entire day strolling the grounds, but the weather was moody and rain showers popped up out of the blue. So we spent the rest of Saturday at the mall in Viernheim. On Sunday our goal was to go hiking in the Odenwald (the forested hills around us) but after a 25 minute drive through the winding roads, I was fighting nausea. So we visited the castle at Lindenfels and toured the small town of Michelstadt, then headed home before making a quick stop at the self-cut tulip garden. Here are a few photos: