Auf Wiedersehen, Würzburg!

We can hardly believe our almost year in Würzburg is over. It seemed like such am impressively long span of time when we first began looking for an apartment. Preparing our documents for residency application. Registering Maggie for third grade and searching for a kindergarten for Tessa. Unpacking our few cardboard boxes and finding the perfect uses for everything we had decided (months before) would be useful.

And we did all those things. Plus making daily routines and memorizing neighborhood routes and forming friendships (at least the kiddos). We accustomed our ears to not understanding everything. We formed preferences for certain shops and bakeries.

Never did we lock ourselves out of the apartment. Only once were we ever asked for our bus tickets. One appointment with the dentist for what turned out to be a loosening tooth and one doctor’s visit for antibiotics for strep throat.

We all acquired favorite pastry types: nußschnecke, quarktasche, Kissinger mit marmelade, butter croissant, mandel bretzel, bretzel bretzel, butter streusel, apfeltasche. (We were pastry rich. Now we will take a break and that’s ok.)

We will miss the bells ringing and glockenspiel playing. The weekends walking along the river to find an open ping pong table. The sight of the old castle perched on the hill and the glorious palace standing firm amongst modernity.

(We will not miss the teeny tiny kitchen or receiving official mail we don’t understand. Neither will we be nostalgic for homework or seemingly pointless school rules or random shop closures. And it will be nice to be able to communicate with strangers again: “Your backpack is open,” “That woman is trying to get your attention,” “Your kid fell off the top of the slide.”)

Living in such an historically rich, well-connected, safe, and beautiful little city was an overwhelmingly positive experience for all of us, individually and as a unit.

Thank you, Würzburg, for teaching us, testing us, enriching us, treating us, and sustaining us. Until we can visit you again: auf wiedersehen!