June 25: Overhetfeld

Today was supposed to be the day I spent with my good childhood friend, Nicola. Since her parents and sister live in the same town as my Dad, she agreed to fly down from Sweden where she lives to see us for the weekend. Unfortunately, I received a message from her that she missed her flight. Apparently she lives on an island there and there is only one main bridge off it to the mainland where the airport is. The bridge was closed due to a serious accident, and she missed the flight. We were both so disappointed. :( She does not even think she can get the money back for the flight or the rental car. So frustrating and sad.

So instead, we spent most of the day here in Overhetfeld with my Dad. We went grocery shopping for a few things we will need in the next few days. Then we went out to eat at a new Döner (Turkish) Restaurant in Elmpt. Yummy! It's a bit like Gyros, but many more veggies! Then we stopped at a discount store that had a bunch of cheap soccer fan gear and bought a few Germany jerseys, flipflops with cleats on the bottom (hilarious!), and tattoos. 

Then, in the evening, I decided to call my old friend Dieter Höfer, and we were so lucky that he and his wife and daughter were able to join us right away for a walk around the Venekotensee (lake). 

Dieter and Jutta and 13 year old daughter Marie, and dog Anton

The "musical bridge"

 Then we went to eat ice cream sundaes at the Brüggen ice cream parlor. Ben and Alex were surprised that Germany does not worry about serving an ice cream sundae with alcohol topping to teens, so they had to try one, of course, "When in Rome, do as the Romans"!

In the front is Daryl's "After Eight" Sundae

Ben has a Lemon Vodka Sundae, and Alex a "Krokant" Sunday with nut liquör

After that, Dieter and Jutta invited us to their new home they built in Brüggen and we hung out there some more just talking and having snacks and drinks. It was a lovely evening! I felt so fortunate that it worked out at such late notice. The next day, Dieter had to travel to Munich for business. 

When we got home it was around 11 pm here, 5 pm US time. I got on Facebook and found a message from my mom that when she went to feed the cat in the morning the water faucet did not work. As there was no reason for this, I contacted her right away and asked her to go back to the house and check if there is a problem in the basement. Well, to make a long story short, it turns out a water pipe had burst, Yes, on our 2nd day of our 3 week European vacation!!! It obviously had already happened at least 10 hours earlier, probably more, so water had be gushing out and flooding our basement for that long. :(

Thanks to my Mom and our neighbor, Mike, the water main got shut off and thanks to a double sump pump running continually for who knows how long, the damage could have been a lot worse. The flooding was mostly in the unfinished part with a cement floor, only a few feet of carpet in the living area were wet. Still there is a lot of  "stuff", of course that got wet, and will take many hours of work to get it all moved and cleaned and dried. My mom has been a huge help as have been Daryl's parents. We turned the A/C way down and the dehumidifier is running non-stop. Of course this all had to happen on a Saturday night, so there is not much we can do about it until Monday morning. Not what we hoped to be doing here in Germany, hiring a plumber for the house back home, calling homeowner's insurance, etc. It is hard not being there ourselves to clean up, assess the damage, etc. Hopefully things will get figured out. :(