It's been a while since we last posted, but there was a good reason for it.  I promise.  Aaron was in Washington until last Saturday and I was in Michigan this past weekend to watch two close friends tie the knot.  I am so glad that I was able to be there to celebrate with them.  Cari was a beautiful bride and Murray seemed so excited to be marrying the love of his life.

The other awesome part about this last weekend?  Seeing my sisters and being in 'Merica!  Some of them I had seen in the past couple of months, the others I hadn't seen in quite a while.  I realized how much I miss them all and miss having friends close by.

I left Germany on Friday and flew Lufthansa, right before the strike they were having extended to their long-haul flights.  Thank God or else I would have been stranded in Germany, and this girl would not have been a happy camper.  It's been years since I flew international economy (ugh, that sounds incredibly pretentious), but Lufthansa was pretty awesome.  We got two (good) meals, free beer and wine, the in flight entertainment was great and the seats were comfortable.  I would definitely be willing to fly with them again.

While in Michigan, I also made sure that I took full advantage of all that the Great Lakes State had to offer (well, not all, but quite a bit).  First stop was the dive shop and the mall to pick a few things up that are cheaper in the US than in Europe.  Then it was on to a Grand Blanc classic for dinner and a craft beer (where my family lives).  Just in case you were wondering, the craft beer movement isn't alive in Germany.  Their purity law prevents anything other than water, malt, hops and barley from being added to beer meaning no pumpkin ales :(  

I also made a very important trip to Walmart.  Not because I wanted to, but because there were some more things I needed to pick up.  Among these were Q-Tips (the ones over here are terrible), popcorn, and chocolate chips.  Thankfully I had brought a big suitcase, and was underweight on my way over.  I pretty much filled it and was just under my weight limit on the return trip between my trips to the dive shop, mall, Walmart and all the stuff I had ordered from Amazon.

My flight home was on Air Canada, the World Friendliest Airline.  Just kidding, I'm not sure if that's their motto or not, but it should be.  I flew from Detroit to Toronto on the world's smallest airplane.  I couldn't believe it was considered a commercial plane.  There were a total of 12 rows, with one seat on either side of the aisle.  We could look directly up into the cockpit and pretty much see the controls.  It was bizarre.  And loud.

My flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was uneventful, but the plane was only about three quarters full meaning I didn't have a neighbor - score!  I'm not sure if this was a result of the Lufthansa strike or not, but I'll take it.  International economy on Air Canada wasn't as nice as Lufthansa, but the flight was on the cheaper side, so I'll take it.  I slept though most of it thankfully.

After a quick long weekend in the US, it did feel good to be back in Germany, mostly because Aaron was back too.  I realized there are more things than I thought that I missed about the US, but I am also acutely aware of how great of an opportunity this is for us.  Before long, it will be over and we will be repatriating to the US and I want to make sure I don't look back on our time here and think I wasted this awesome opportunity.

- Meghan -