Returning Home from Home

Things get a little surreal on a trans-Atlantic flight and sometimes your mind wanders. I mean if you really thought about the fact that you are sitting in a aluminum can that is 7 miles above the ground and traveling nearly 600 miles per hour, it could drive you a little crazy. So there I was traveling "home" to Germany, where Magda (and Frannie) where. But just a few weeks earlier, I was in a similar plane going the other direction, traveling 'home" to the USA.

That started me thinking where I consider to be "home". Yes, I know, "Home is where the heart is". But just what puts your heart in one place or another.

I'm willing to accept that "home" is a relative term. When I'm in Hilton Head, I might say "I'm ready to go home" after an evening out, meaning I'm ready to go back to our condo. But I don't consider a trip to Hilton Head to be a trip "home".

There needs to be some strong connection to a place that makes you call it “home”. I still have a strong connection to Columbus, but maybe a bit weaker than it was 6 months ago. With my house, the financial connections are still there. More importantly, there are friends and family there that I enjoy seeing and talking to. Finally there is a comfort level associated with a place that I lived for 49 of my 57 years. But work is no longer a part of this connection. Plus Magda and Frannie are now in Germany, forming the primary connection that I have to Koblenz.

Time will tell if the connections to one place supersedes the connections to the other. For the time being, I guess I have two homes.

Gegorian Chant at Kastorkirche

Spent a most pleasant evening last week at a concert in the Basilika St. Kastor.

St. Kastor is the oldest of the Romanesque churches for which Coblenz is known. There has been a church on this site, near Deutsche Eck, since the middle of the 9th century. The present from the the church dates from the mid-12th century although a careful restoration was done after WWII as the church was hit by British bombers.

Combining this small gem of a church with a program of Gregorian Chant made the even special. The group, Schola Gregoriana Pragensis, is a group of professional singers from Prague who specialize in this form of music.

Listening to the Latin text of these chants sung in melodic vocals that resonated from the thick wall of this 1200 year old Romanesque church -- a church that was in place during the period in which this music originated -- made for a fitting and delightful evening.

The German Corner

In the city of Coblenz at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers, sits the monument to German Unity know as Deutsche Eck. Translated this means "The German Corner". Frannie and I see this almost every day on one of our walks.

The monument was originally built in 1897 to honor Wilhelm I, who fought several wars for German union. Under his reign the German Empire included areas which are today parts of Russia, Poland, France, Denmark, Belgium and Lithuania.

The large central statue of Wilhelm I was actually damaged in 1945 and sunk in the Rhine. It was not recovered and restored until 1993, after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Today, the flags of the 16 German states fly around the monument with a large flag of German. Also on display are also 3 sections from the Berlin wall

The Flight to Germany

Checking in for the flight took an hour. This was because the NW/Delta agent was concerned that the date on Frannie's EU 998 health certificate was older than 10 days. The NW/Delta manual stated something to the effect that a dog need a "health certificate signed within the last 10 days or forms required for entry into the destination country". The requirement for German was a EU998 that showed following:

• a rabies vaccination at least one month and no longer that 1 year prior to travel
• a micro chip that meets the EU standard or a tatoo
• signed by the vet and authenicated by the US FDA.
  

There was no 10 day requirement on date on the vets signature.

The agent made about 10 calls looking for verification that the date was OK. I suppose the good news about this is that it took an hour off the time that Frannie would have to spend in the crate. We also met and talked to the TSA agents that would be inspected Frannie and her crate. Eventually, the agent got the OK to ship Frannie. TSA inspection went smoothly. The agent was kind enough to take Frannie directly to the plane. At our connection in Detroit, I was informed that Frannie was on the plane to Frankfurt. So far, so good.

Arriving in Frankfurt, it took a bit longer than normal for me to get through passport control. In typical EU fashion, there were 3 stations open, 2 for EU citizens and 1 for non-EU. And the non-EU station was shared with crew and handicapped both of which went immediately to the front of the line. So the 40 minutes seem longer not knowing how Frannie took the trip.

When I finally got through, I found Frannie's crate at the large baggage area. She was definitely happy to see to see a familiar face, wagging her tail and licking my fingers through the door of the crate. I was a little worried about taking her out of the crate at that moment, having visions of Frannie using the middle of the baggage hall as a WC. So I placed the crate with Frannie inside on a cart, got my bag and proceeded to customs.

Customs looked at the date of the rabies vaccination and the microchip. Did not care at all about the vet's signature, or the US FDA seal.

As we entered the arrival hall, I saw Magda waiting to the left, which was also the direction to the door to the crate was pointing. When the crate was even with Magda, the cart started to wave back and forth so that I needed both hands on the cart to control it. There was also a loud thump, thump, thump coming from the crate. Frannie had seen Magda through the door of the crate for the first time in 2 months, had stood up in the crated and was shaking her tail so hard that the cart was shaking. This continued as Magda greeted Frannie and through the airport as we looked for someplace to let her out of the crate.

Once out of the crate Frannie went back and forth between Magda and I, curling around as she rubbed against our legs wanting to be petted. Magda gave her a short walk, but as there was no grass at the airport, Frannie waited for the first rest stop before making her initial claim to German soil.

As a side note, while this happened I watched a kestrel hovering above a field dive down catch a mouse and carry it away.

The Adventure Begins

October 7th, 2009, 11:30 am, my adventure begins. For the next 3 years, Magda, my wife, Frannie, our dog, and I will be spending most of our lives in Germany.

I suppose if you ask why we are doing such a thing at this point in our lives, you might argue that our adventure began much earlier. Maybe on my 56th birthday, September 15th, 2008. Of course for most people, this is the day the most of us discovered the house of cards that had been constructed by the financial institutions that had become "too big to fail", that needed taxpayers to bail them out, and that felt that their management need to be handsomely rewarded for efforts. The resulting drop in the markets gave my company the opportunity to trim back compensation, particularly retirement benefits. While most were happy to still have a job, Magda and I had another option. I could take early retirement, and we could spend the next 3 years in Magda's home country where Magda could finish her teaching career. After that, with each of us having pensions, we can decide what to do.

And so, at 11:30 October 7th, my sister arrived to take Frannie and myself to the airport to fly to Frankfurt, Germany. There, we would meet Magda who had returned 2 months earlier when the school year had started in Koblenz where she had be assigned a teaching job.