Tschüß, Heidelberg!

Our last two weeks in Heidelberg were crazy! Here's the rundown.

May 14th: Sean, Nathan's friend from childhood arrived to spend the week with us prior to studying abroad. I attended the final program/meeting of Heidelberg PWOC. 
May 15th: Nathan had his first and last follow-up appointment with Dr. Siebold, who told him he was making great progress in recovery. He told Nathan to take it easy over the summer and just lay out in the sun : )
May 16th: Pre-packing prep.
May 17th: The movers showed up at 8am and were done by 3pm. We had dinner in Schwetzingen.
May 18th: We attended Nathan's squadron farewell at PHV Park and then went to Luisenpark in Mannheim, which was beautiful.
May 19th: We had our farewell at PHV Chapel during the service that morning.
May 20th: Sean left for Bonn, where his program started.
May 21st: Our government-issued furniture was picked up - fridge, washer, dryer and wardrobes. We took one last walk around our neighborhood that evening.

the flight of stairs up to our apartment

 The back of the house/our "front" door.

The view standing at our "front" door.

our mailbox

our buzzer

 our parking spot/car on the left & Guenther's RV on the right

The second level of windows are ours.

our street

 the trail in the nearby fields we like to walk through

 The tree on the right is a cherry tree, from which we have picked delicious cherries.

My absolute favorite view in our neighborhood. We drove up this street to get to our house and the hillside is pretty no matter the season.

May 22nd: We had our final walk-thru of our apartment and ate our last chocolate croissant from Rewe. We always knew Guenther was an awesome landlord, but when our walk-thru was done within 20 minutes, the deal was sealed. The lady from Housing who came to help in translating, with paperwork, and in negotiating asked us, "Where did you find him? German landlords are never this easy!" Guenther told her from the start that everything was fine, that we were great tenants, and that he and his wife Monika were going to miss us. She told us how she had just came from a walk-thru that took 2 hours! She spent 45 minutes arguing with the landlord over a light switch. Insane. After we were finished, we moved into lodging on PHV and completed paperwork at Housing.
May 24th-27th: We went to Berchtesgaden/Eagle's Nest/Salzburg/Neuschwanstein. Read about our trip here.
May 28th-30th: We worked, ate dinner on post, and made the best of living out of suitcases in lodging. Ugh!
May 31st: Nathan and I had our last days of work and he dropped our car off in Mannheim to be shipped to California.
June 1st: We ate dinner one last time at our favorite German restaurant. I don't even actually know the name of it. We had been hoping to see the owner, whom we just call The Old Man, but he was out watching one of the big German soccer matches. We don't know his name, but if he's there, he will come sit with us at the end of our meal and chat with us while drinking his coffee. He's been all over America. Well, all over the world, really. It's amazing. He's traveled across the States, up and down both the West and East coast, and has so many stories to share with us.

June 2nd: Nathan called a cab in the morning to take us to the train station and we said goodbye to Heidelberg.