We’ve fallen behind on our blog, partly cause our time has been action packed, partly cause I caught a bit of a cold (feeling better now though). So I’m just gonna squish this in – expect a list of happenings rather than my garbled musings.

Our next day in Dusseldorf started at K21, a cool modern art museum where you can walk on a spider webby net thing hanging at the top of the building – nothing but net between you and the floor four stories below. It was thrilling and more than a little scary when the net shook and your footing felt precarious.

Despite being sick, Wiebke insisted on taking us out again and Julian drove us and baby Clemens to Kaiserswerth, the site of an old palace and a beautiful, sleepy town on the Rhine. Then back to their house for a lovely eggplant parma prepared by Julian while watching the disappointing state election results and learning how their political system works (even after the votes are in, parties can spend weeks forming coalitions to govern). Our time with Wiebke, Julian and Clemens has been some of the best this entire trip and we hope to see them all again before Clemens grows up too much (given his gene pool, he may be taller than us soon)!

The next day we caught the train to the small town of Menden where Marthese did her student exchange when she was 15, with Wiebke’s family. While I slept my illness away, Marthese, Connnie, Matthias, and their lovely dog Leo went for a hike in the nearby woods. We all went for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant and then a drive up the mountain for a great view of the area, which is known as Sauerland. The Ostermanns are incredibly generous hosts and we will miss them too.

The following day Marthese showed me around town, taking her old route that she used to walk everyday on her way to school, and ducking into the fancy local church. Menden might be a small town, but it is bustling and seemingly on the grow.

After a  generous lift back to Düsseldorf from Matthias, and one more favour from Julian and Wiebke letting us crash on their couch, we caught an early morning train from Düsseldorf to Salzburg.

And that’s us up to speed! The Steinerhoff Guesthaus is gorgeous, and we are so looking forward to spending three nights here.