Quality time

in front of the Cathedral at night

So it’s back to LDR again.
The last week with J was awesome. It’s amazing how much more important every minute of the day seems to be if you know that you only get to spend a couple of days together with your honey.

J arrived on Thursday, September 1st. I picked him up at the airport and surprised my Mom and Dad. They both thought I was visiting one of my friends when I showed up with him at home. Surprise = successful :)
In the evening we showed up at my sister’s place. She was totally flabbergasted to see J as well. I guess it really is baffling somehow if someone, who you expect to be 6000 miles away on a different continent, shows up out of the blue.
We also surprised my great-aunt and granddad on Friday afternoon, but we gave them a fair warning, because I was afraid that they would get a heart-attack if J just turns up on their doorpstep.

Friday night, Nina, J and I drove to Münster. Dirk plays soccer for Preußen Münster in the Regionalliga Nord and we got VIP passes. It was awesome. I have never been to any of Dirk’s soccer matches before [yeah, yeah, please don’t ask me why], but it was fun! Having a VIP pass, we were allowed to park in a special parking lot behind the stadium, we had access to the VIP area [where you get free drinks and food] and roofed grandstand seats :)
J was all excited. He totally enjoyed being there and seeing Dirk play. I usually don’t like soccer matches that much, because some of the fans really go overboard during the matches. So did the fans of Armenia Bielefeld, who were yelling some really unpleasant things and also threw firecrackers into the adverse fanblock.
In the end, Münster won and Dirk came up to the fence and shook our hands. Yeah, there might have been some jealous fans standing behind us… I must admit it was kind of cool to call one of the players my brother-in-law :)

On Saturday, J and I joined my Mom and some of her colleagues for some coffee downtown. Marita [my Mom’s friend and colleague] was so surprised to see J :) Afterwards J had the Turkish pizza he had been longing for since he left in June and then we took a nice walk through our local forest to the petting zoo. The goats were so cute.

The rest of the weekend was all about the Schützenfest. We watched the [torch] parade downtown in the evening. It was very special this year, because my Dad and some of his tennis guys joined the parade in honor of this year’s Schützenkönig [champion shot], who’s the landlord of our local tennis club.
After the parade, we had some drinks at a brewery and then went to the fairground to grap something to eat. J had his first “Backfisch” [fried fish] with my aunt.
Then we went into the Schützen-tent and partied till 4 a.m. in the morning. J really had a great time and he didn’t want to go home. Dirk didn’t want to go home either, so we were finally kicked out by the Schützenfest-personnel.
We walked home… I did barefoot, because I just couldn’t stand wearing my boots anymore. My feet hurt so much!
Sunday afternoon we went to watch the “Sunday parade” with my great-aunt and my Granddad and afterwards had coffee and cake at home. This is our traditional way of spending the Schützenfest sunday.

On Monday there is the traditional Frühschoppen [which basically means getting together at the Schützen-tent and starting to drink at 11 a.m.]. It usually also means that if you go, people that you don’t see all year, you will most likely see at the Frühschoppen. It has some kind of “reunion – flair” to it.

J and I went in the afternoon and stayed for a couple of hours and I indeed saw and talked to some people that I hadn’t seen in quite a while. It was nice to catch up [as always – there are also people that you don’t really care to see, but oh well].

The rest of the week was pretty low key… and it was mostly about just “being” together. We took long walks, read, watched TV and just enjoyed some good German food. We deliberately didn’t plan anything with people, because we didn’t want to get bogged down in two many appointments and commitments. We just wanted to have the time to ourselves and recharge our “LDR-batteries”.

On Monday we decided to spend the day in Köln. J had been dying to have the rump steak with Bratkartoffeln [fried potatoes] for lunch at the FRÜH and the weather was gorgeous, so we walked along the Rhein, had ice-cream and coffee in the afternoon and stayed for some Thai food and cocktails in the evening.

For photos, please click here

This morning, I took J back to the airport. He’s been gone for 5 hours now and I miss him already. This is the last time though… I mean, for good. Once I have the GC, they can’t separate us anymore. We will be able to come and go from and to each other’s country as we please. This is a good feeling. Like I said so many times before – nobody should be compelled to be separated from their sweethearts.
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P.S. I have read so many touching posts on Monday, the 5th anniversary of 9/11, and I decided that I intentionally omit writing about it and my own experiences. I don’t want to forget what happened [how could anyone anyways? I was in the US in September, 2001 and had kind of a first hand experience], but I do not want to reopen old sores either. Let’s just take a one minute silence to commemorate the victims of 9/11.

  1. Awwww you sound so happy talking about your time with J. Sweet! Hopefully that greencard won’t be much longer of a wait and you get to fly “home” soon!
    Smoochie!

  2. So great to read about the wonderful quality time you two had together! I can imagine how surprised everyone was! I love the pictures, you look so happy. J really enjoyed the Schützenfest, huh? So nice! I always love to see “my J” getting into our German traditions. Makes me really happy, somehow!

  3. Ooops, I don’t mean that they were surprised about you having a wonderful time, but more about seeing J at their doorstep ;-)

  4. hun, it sounds like a perfect week and a half. i’m glad you got to have a few more days than expected and enjoyed the time together. i could use some re-charging the LDR-batteries over here… *sigh*

    oh well, i will see you in about two weeks so you better be ready to hear some whining from my side mrs. i-just-saw-my-hubby :P big *smooch*

  5. :) that’s so sweet. i love the pics :) the waiting is taking forever, when can you finally go back and live with your hubby? *fingers crossed*

  6. Adorable pics!
    Im glad you had a great time with J. and I hope you managed to recharge your batteries well ;-)
    As you know, my fingers are always crossed for you!
    Hugs!

  7. thanks to all of you. we had a blast :)

  8. That’s great!!! Sounds like you had a wonderful time together. I hope you won’t have to wait much longer until you can be with your hun for good!!

  9. what’s the password??

  10. It sounds really like fun and that you both had a great time!!! Too bad that he couldn’t stay longer but like you said soon you both will be together for the rest of your life. I am jealous to read about your Schuetzenfest weekend…I really miss it. We also had our Schuetzenfest family traditions. And a Backfisch would be great. Gosh I hope I could fly to Germany for a visit, but since I got fired because of my pregnancy on Tuesday, it won’t happen until next summer..maybe. It’s gonna be my 3rd anniversary of being here. :-( Having a LDR with your family isn’t fun either…
    What’s going on with the visa stuff??? And what’s the password???

  11. LOVE the pictures! also the suprise stuff is pretty awesome. i wish i could have seen their faces as well! sorry everything is back to normal again…hopefully soon though you will be back over here and you will laugh about all this crap. :-) big hug

  12. hi sweetie,
    i don’t even know if you read this anymore, because it’s a late answer to a former entry. but i of course had to read the whole story. and better later than never, huh?
    i am really happy for you that you had such a blast with your hubby and you have the feeling inside that it’s for good this time. and i am happy that this will be the last time.

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