After we leave here, we will do some final touring of England before returning to Oxford for graduation on Saturday November 24. Thankfully our landlords are letting us store some stuff in their guest room in the meantime, so we don't have to take all our worldly belongings all over England. We'll pick them up after graduation and then head for the Continent.
Plans have unfortunately changed with regard to Ron's visit, since Jimmy Page went and broke his finger. The concert has been rescheduled to December 10, but Ron has successfully changed his flight and we will still make it.
So here's the latest plan:
Nov 12-14 - three nights in Brighton (we are booked at Hamptons Brighton B&B)
Nov 15-18 - four nights in Canterbury
Nov 19-22 - four nights in London
Nov 23-24 - two nights in Oxford for graduation on Nov 24
Nov 25 - drive to Dover and take the car ferry to the Continent! Hooray! We will land either in Calais or Dunkerque, France.
Nov 25-30 - five nights somewhere in Belgium, probably Brugge. Day trips to other places in Belgium or Netherlands.
Dec 1 - Move into our new apartment in Bonn, Germany
Dec 1-7 - Explore Bonn, Cologne, and especially Christmas markets!!
Dec 8-11 - Drive back to London to attend the concert, visit with Ron, and return our car.
Dec 12 - Train and ferry to France, and probably pick up a new rental car.
Dec 12-Jan 31 - Exploring Europe and attempting to learn German from our base in Bonn.
Feb 1-?? - yet to be determined! But somewhere in Europe, hopefully through the summer at least.
Probably sometime in Fall 2008 - Back home to the glorious US of A.
Here's a map of the main stops, including our new home in Germany. Use the buttons on the left to zoom in and just drag it to move around. Click the link beneath the map to get a full-sized version you can zoom more easily.
View Larger Map
So we will be driving our current car all the way to Germany, which will mean driving on the right side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong side. But David is talented and we'll try to keep driving to a minimum. Incredibly, it is only a two-hour drive to Dover, a two-hour ferry crossing, then less than an hour to Brugge.
Our New Home in Germany
After much searching, decision-making, international faxing and e-mailing, we have secured ourselves an apartment on the outskirts of Bonn. It is in a really wonderful location - right next to the Rhine River in a village called Hersel. It is between Cologne to the north and Bonn to the south, but closer to Bonn.
Click here for a good aerial view. The Rhine River is on the right and the tram line and highway are on the left. There appears to be a nice walking path along the river, although it may be too cold to use it too often!
We can go into Cologne or Bonn on the tram, and from there pretty much anywhere in Europe on a train. But it's also a great location if we have a car, since it's not in a big city with bad traffic, yet close to a major highway. We haven't decided if we'll need or want a car yet, but it's nice to have the option.
Another big plus is the price - it is nearly half our current rent! Part of this has to do with the better exchange rate of the Euro than the pound, but we also found a great deal. It is rather small, but quite livable, we think. We are in the upper floor of a house, just like here in England.
Here are some of the pictures of our new digs from the website. Basically all the rooms are in one long line, and there are some slanted walls due to being in the attic.
Our address will probably be this:
Salzachstr. 9
53332 Bornheim-Uedorf
Germany
But we won't be there until December 1 (so don't send anything yet!), and I haven't figured out yet if we will have an apartment number that needs to be included. The above address is for the house in general. I'll post more details as soon as we arrive and get it all figured out.
So those are the plans, and we will do our best to keep you updated from the road!
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