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Two Weeks to Take-off

Two weeks left until we experience the adventure of a lifetime. This might just be a glorious vacation of 3 months, it might turn out that we're scoping out our new home. We can't know until we go see. Neither of us has ever been to Europe. As far as foreign travel is concerned, I've been to Canada a few times, and if it counts, just over the border into Mexico, Tijuana to be specific, to a tourist trap, for an hour. Oh, yes, for those who I haven't talked to in a while, I retired from my job this summer. All the kids and grandkids live in the Lower 48, we have no pets, and so, why not do this?

Our destination? Regensburg. You can google it and YouTube it, and learn all about it. I won't try to describe it at this time, until I can comment from personal experience, and I will include photos. We chose Regensburg because there happens to be an Orthodox parish there that uses German and some English in their services. Finding a church I can belong to was the number one priority. 

It helps that we know some German. On my part, I've been fascinated with the language since I was in middle school. I obtained a simple German/English dictionary, and not knowing that other languages use different pronunciations for letters, and different rules for grammar, I played with it and fancied that I could actually speak German. I took two years of it in high school, and another 2 years in college, and have kept it alive ever since. I am currently putting in several hours a day, hoping to increase my proficiency to a useful level. Still, I imagine there's going to be speaking shyness at first. Opportunities are few and far between to practice speaking with a native speaker, especially where I live. 

I love German, and the long words. My current favorite is Niederschlagswahrscheinlichkeit, which means "probability of rain". I think all I need is full immersion to make the jump to fluency.

We have an apartment for the first 3 months. If we want to stay, we'll apply for residency and get an unfurnished apartment that will be our home for awhile. The address is:

Puricelli Straße 24
93049 Regensburg
Bavaria, Germany

Public transportation is excellent, and we won't need a car and all the related expenses. We will have a modern apartment we can age gracefully in. Our mountaintop cabin with its stunning view was great for awhile, but we realized that we can't continue to live the rough Alaskan cabin life far off the beaten path as we age. 

They say in Europe a hundred miles is a long distance, while in the US, a hundred years is a long time. We hope to travel to see historic and cultural treasures that lie only hours by train away. Germany is bordered by 9 countries, so it will be a great launching pad for further adventures, not to mention all there is to see in Bavaria and the rest of Germany. 

I hope to use this blog to keep everyone who is interested informed of our adventures. We fly on September 5 in the afternoon and arrive in Regensburg in the late afternoon of the 6th. 

Until then, tschüss






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