Blogs from Schenefeld (Pinneberg), Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, Europe

Anne lived with us in Seattle for a year, 2011-12, attended Highline High School as a member of the senior class, and got to walk in the commencement ceremony at the end of the school year. Of course our entire noisy mob of a family attended commencement and did our best to embarrass our kid at it, as loving families must do. When she came home to Hamburg, she still had two years of Gymnasiumahead of her: not university, not high school, not quite but probably closest to what American students do at community college when they're planning to transfer to a four-year university to complete a Bachelor's degree later. Anne told us Gymnasium has nothing like the American high school graduation ceremony, and she wasn't wrong, but she didn't entirely give us the complete picture ... read more

After 15 months of business travel that turned my and our family's life upside-down, I've wrapped up my international client engagement and we're celebrating with a 3.5-week family vacation to reconnect with our loved ones in Deutschland. This week, we're all together in Schenefeld, outside Hamburg, to see Anne, Lars, Andrea, and Ulf, our German family. Truly they're enough like our siblings that it's just easier to describe them that way, except Anne was our daughter for a year, so "niece" doesn't quite cut it, but whatever, family. :) Tuesday, our arrival night, was a comedy of drowsy. Greg and I got in about noon from Amsterdam and were whisked away in a taxi by Ulf and Laura, who arrived here last week. A couple of hours later, Barb and Joe arrived from Reykjavik and were ... read more