The Rhine...Germany's River Highway

Hello from Mainz-on-Rhein, a small town on the banks of Germany's major river highway...the Rhine.  

The Rhine is to Germany what the Mississippi River is to the United States.  Not only does it play a huge role in agriculture and drainage, it is also a major transportation route.  

Our crew stays in Mainz because it is near the Frankfurt Airport where our flight lands after flying 9 hours from Houston.  It is a beautiful little town which does all possible to preserve its history and old buildings.  Even buildings which have been damaged or nearly destroyed are used as foundations of new construction.

Mainz is very far north and so, it is just now experiencing the height of the spring season.  There's lots of pollen in the air and the trees & flowers are in full bloom.

This photo was taken in a town square at about 8pm.  During the summer, it only gets dark for 3-4 hours every night!  But in winter, there's only 3-4 hours of daylight!

Tschuss!  (See you later!)

Oops! I almost forgot...

While we were in Maine, we met another one of our flight crew friends from My Friends with Wings.  Although Buddy Marcum and I are both flight attendants for UNITED and know each other through Facebook, we've never actually met before today.  It's really not unusual for us to not know all of our co-workers.  There are almost 100,000 of us!

In addition to flying for a living, Buddy runs an inn (bed and breakfast) in Portland, Maine.  He made time to have lunch with us as we traveled back to the airport.  

Nice to meet you Buddy!

Maine!

My mom and I are just returning from our annual trip to Maine to open the small house that our family owns there.  Maine is in the extreme northeast corner of the United States (upper right corner, if you look on a map).  Since it is so far to the north, the winter can be very cold with lots of snow and ice.  But the springs, summers, and falls are beautiful and much milder than in the southern part of the country. 

Our house is called "seasonal".  It was never meant to be lived in during the cold of winter and so, it has no insulation to help keep it warm when the weather is at its worst.  Every autumn, usually in October, we close the house for the year and our plumber drains and prepares our water lines for the cold.  Every spring, he reconnects our water service and we arrive to clean up any winter mess.

We call our small house MooseWalk Cottage because every spring, one or more of the local moose like to hang out in our yard.  Normally, moose are very shy and only rarely come so close to where humans live.  I guess they get "spring fever" like humans do and do things that aren't normal for them. Moose are very large and have huge, funny-shaped antlers.  Actually, they can be much larger than a normal car!  Since our house is in the country, we see a lot of different wildlife in addition to moose.  Turkeys, deers, skunks, guinea fowl, chipmunks, field mice, bats and other animals all share our spot near the woods.  They can be entertaining to watch but you don't want them to come inside!  We once chased a bat out of the house with a broom and a bed sheet.

My mom and I felt a little lonely this week.  One of our neighbors, Ruth Winter, is not here this year.  She died just last November at the age of 99.  Part of our trip each year is to celebrate Ruth's birthday on May 10th.  And even though Ruth wasn't with us, we celebrated her 100th birthday with her family and other friends last Friday.  It was a beautiful warm, sunny day; the kind of day that Ruth would have loved!  It was a sad reason to gather but we all agreed that having had a wonderful friend like Ruth Winter helped with the sadness of losing her.  We had dinner with Ruth's daughter and son-in-law and met several new friends that we didn't know before.

While in Maine, we mowed our lawn, put down mulch in our flower beds, cleaned the inside of the cottage and got the house ready for summer.  In addition to our visits, we sometimes have friends stay at the cottage when we are away.

Maine is famous for seafood.  So we ate fish, oysters, crab and clams while there.  Mom usually likes to have a lobster when she visits but I guess that will wait for her net trip up.  

There's plenty more to tell about visiting MooseWalk Cottage but I want to save some for later.  Right now, I'm looking out the window of our flight back to Atlanta and I see that we are passing over New York City.  It's a beautiful late-spring day and the skies are clear.  Everything looks so small from here.  It's hard to believe that New York is the largest city on Earth!

There's a great big world out there.  And its just waiting for you...

Berlin "Bears"

For many years, centuries even, the bear has been the symbol of the city of Berlin.  It's even the central part of the city's flag. Berlin is celebrating its bear connection with unique artist-decorated statues in many public places, indoors and out. The design lets the statues stand either on their feet or their hands.

I thought you might enjoy a few that Philip and I found just in walking on a beautiful spring afternoon...

Decisions...

When we arrived in Berlin this morning (after flying all night), the hotel didn't have our rooms ready! They told us it would be about half an hour. So Philip, our new friend Teresa, and I walked a block or two to a local bakery. What a good decision we made!

In big German cities, there are large bakery chains which make very good products. But the local, "mom-and-pop" bakery and pastry shops that make everything in their own kitchen from scratch are the best. Philip got an apple pastry, called an "apfeltasche" in German. Teresa wanted something with chocolate and decided on a chocolate croissant. I couldn't decide, so I got both...plus a marzipan-filled pastry, for good measure. (Marzipan is a paste made from ground almonds and sugar.) Mmmmmmm!

We were served by the owner of the bakery, a big German lady with bright red hair . She had a big smile on her face and a laugh that I will always remember.

Can't you almost smell and taste them?