We arrived. Kind of. Kind of as we’ve left for a holiday in France already as I’m writing these lines. But everything is in our new headquarter now. Although stuck in different corners of the hundreds of storing options available in the winery. We got a very lovely welcome by my parents with a gigantic loaf of bread from a local bakery coming with a box of salt of course, a soother and – of course – the good house Sekt.
The pit stop was short but intense amplified by the enormous heat we got these days with Kitzingen actually being the warmest place in the whole country with over 37°C/99°F. Not the most convenient temperature for a pregnant lady in week 26. So we had a long list of things to do before heading off again. Washing and moving stuff around for example as my parents are about to leave the big apartment in the winery we’ll get after our return from France.
We also wanted to register at the town hall – you’re obliged to tell German authorities if you move houses and where you live. Within a week or you pay a fine. Being well educated Germans both of us gave notice to the city of Heidelberg when we left the country. But German government IT can’t handle an officer entering “England” in the “county” field or “Großbritannien” in the “city” field. So we were marked as “moved to an unknown location”. Put all your prejudices together and imagine how we were looked at showing up at the town hall. We were aliens. Literally. And the system is never wrong, it’s always the citizen. So we got a severe lecture about misbehaving and as their system said I was still living in Leipzig I felt like being close to getting imprisoned. Absurd. We were asked to come back a couple of days later so they could check with Heidelberg and Leipzig if we actually lived there. But that’s not how you play the game. Being proper Germans ourselves we have a complete record of all our moves in our entire live in a specific folder. Which we brought the next morning. The officer didn’t apologise for his misbehavior the day before but was visibly impressed by our well organised documentation and finally we got the new sticker on our ID cards.
Similar experience with the local Sparkasse bank. It’s not a specifically great bank but we wanted to get our money to a local place and to a bank not making money by betting on food prices, creating absurd financial “products” and all this crap. But arriving twenty to four in the afternoon the lady at the counter sighed after a few minutes asking us if we could come back another day as she’d be really busy with not too much other staff being in that day. It’s not a small bank and I’m not sure if there is something worse you can do to get a sale … and if they didn’t have the best internet banking of the local banks we’d been gone to another one. But we came back the day after and got an account talking to her boss so that was another box ticked.
We also went to the house of our Tante Lotte (who passed away a few months ago) checking if we could use some pieces of her old furniture. We found some really cool items but we’ll have to discuss with my cousins so let’s see what we’ll get – Melanie might write a post about it when we’re there.
I also spent some time at the vineyard sticking vines in the wires so they don’t go too crazy. Although it was a really hot day I enjoyed the work a lot. Finally working in the vineyards again – had been waiting for this for a while. This is how the plants currently look:
And this is how it looks after I do my duty:
You get the difference? I just love feeling the plants between my fingers having their own will and direction but benefiting from some guidance and education (I might write these lines starting to feel like a dad …). Anyway this is a typical work which needs to be done when the growth goes bonkers in June.
There were many other bits and pieces we did but most importantly we packed our bags again and are now sitting in Belfort where we found a beautiful little apartment on AirBnB in the middle of the old town. It has a nice view on the citadel with the big lion from one window and the cathedral from another one. Simply sticking to cheese, baguette and a bottle of (natural) wine (from the supermarket!) we’re watching the evening rain falling down after a warm but cloudy day. Cheers!
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