Day 7: Willkommen in Deutschland!

1 plane, 1 shuttle bus, 1 ICE train, 2 S-trains, and 1 city bus later, we finally arrived at Karen's grandparents home in Bochum , Germany. With all the traveling behind us, we took comfort in the fact that we were going to be staying here for the next ten days. The full weight of what we had just gone through on Day 6 was finally starting to set in. The irony was that all German train workers were actually supposed to be on strike the day we were arriving, yet postponed their job action at the last minute. Had they actually been on strike that day, I'm sure our travels from Cologne to Bochum would have been even more adventurous!

Nevertheless, by Day 7, none of us were anxious to travel anywhere far, so we mostly stayed put. Unfortunately, I was nursing a cold by now also, so resting was a good thing. In the afternoon, grandpa took us for a short stroll in the neighbourhood (Linden) and we went to have coffee and cake.

Before long Erich was settling in too. Here, in this photo, Erich Guenther looks up at his namesake (his great-grandpa Guenther) as the family takes a stroll down Ax Strasse (Ax Street).