We arrived in Kuhlungsborn yesterday - after a night of very little sleep in a hotel in Hamburg. Sort of an ordeal to get the luggage (too much of it!) and Nana and the kids back to the airport to get the rental car. We had hopes of an Audi - which was the “type of car” I rented. My attempt to explain that a Ford wagon and an Audi are not the same “type of car” fell on uncaring German ears. The woman basically said take it or leave it...so we took the Ford. Anyway, thanks to our GPS, we navigated through Hamburg and out to the countryside very easily. Kuhlungsborn is a beautiful small village on the Baltic Sea. The town is in full summer swing, with crowded beaches and open air restaurants and markets all over. We have not heard anyone speaking english here and frequently find ourselves looking to Nana to translate. Cullen and I like to go out for short strolls to the market and then we are on our own! Cullen is picking up German phrases quickly and is constantly asking Nana how to say things. Tonight, as we were leaving the market together, he bagged the groceries and threw a casual “schuss” to the checker...”schuss” is the Italian version of “ciao” - it just rolled off his tongue and he thought nothing of it. Cullen is fascinated by the lack of excess and waste with the food here. The packaging is so minimal and the quantity per product is so much smaller. He keeps lamenting over the amount of waste in our system. One thing he really loves is this machine that accepts empty plastic bottles and gives you back euros. Tonight, he wanted to show it to me, but had only one bottle. We waited in line behind 2 girls his age who had a whole bag full and got back a few euro. Cullen put in his one bottle and happily received his 25 cents - only to look up and find the girls watching him and giggling...he got that sly smile and shrugged his shoulders in his very Cullen way of saying he couldn’t care less what they thought.
We are just taking it easy while the jet lag wears off - a little too easy..the kids slept until 2pm today. Little Ava is falling asleep all the time. Tomorrow we are going to try to be fully on German time...hopefully it works.
Aidan the sea glass finder extraordinaire already has an impressive stash of sea glass that he found....Ray would love it here. Lots of big pieces and some really cool blues. That luggage I couldn’t fit in the car will no doubt be heavier at the end of 2 weeks. He discovered a little shack near the beach that sells smoked fish, “just like in Cayucos” - we’ll give it a try tomorrow.
German soccer fever is everywhere. The flag is being flown from windows, buildings, bicycles and cars. Our plane broke into applause when the Germans scored their first goal against England and the Munich airport erupted when they won...really fun to be here amidst such excitement.
Nana is really enjoying herself and seems lost in her memories when she sits on the beach. She cried when the plane touched down in Germany. Kuhlungsborn holds many happy memories of playing at the beach with her cousins, but it also holds the terrible memories of the Russian occupation and the devastation that period inflicted on her family. Tomorrow we are going to look at the hotels her adopted mother’s family owned and she lived in.
The kids and I really miss Marc and we all keep saying how much he would love it here. They are not use to being at the beach without him and I’m not nearly as much fun. Ava taught me “Daddy’s sand castle tricks” today - she wanted to do it just the way Marc does it with her...wish you were here.
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