Stefan’s parents visited us for almost three weeks in May (20 days, not sure why they didn’t make it an even 21). Stefan comes from a tight-knit family that is used to seeing him every day, so our move to the USA has been really hard on them all. He left Germany a year ago, and while he did get to see his parents for a few days in the Fall when he was in Europe for business, this was their first extended visit together in a year. They were really, really happy to see each other and be together again.<\/p>\n
One thing I’ve learned from people visiting me over the years: when people say, I just want to hang out, we don’t have to do anything<\/span>, they don’t really mean it. So I researched for days to have a long, long list of things to do, more than could actually be done in three weeks. But that was assuming there would be more than just two or three non-rain days while they were in Portland. It rained more than it didn’t while they were here in Canby (though, thankfully, not during their week South), and that proved challenging to the visit. I got so desperate for things to do that at one point I posted to FaceBook for suggestions — and every suggestion was something we couldn’t do either because it was outside, because of the language barrier (movies) or just wasn’t at all something three of the four of us would want to do (art museum, opera…).<\/p>\n Still, I came up with just enough to keep everyone from getting too bored. Among our various activities:<\/p>\n On their own, they visited Sea Lion Cave along the Oregon Coast, Lassen Volcanic Area, Lava Beds National Monument, Crater Lake, Salem, Bend, and the only hotel in Canby, California<\/a> (which I think sounds like a great amount of fun).<\/p>\n Here are some of the photos from their visit<\/a>. And here is me about to be crushed by a replica Apollo Command Module<\/a>.<\/p>\n German wikipedia<\/a> made this visit HUGELY better — it could explain all sorts of things I couldn’t (like what the “Spruce Goose” is, and why Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea<\/a> are important and have monuments all over the place). I wish I had printed out several pages and put it together as a booklet for them.<\/p>\n Near the end of their visit, Stefan figured out how to stream the German TV station ZDF through his computer and onto our TV. His parents and he were all very<\/span> content watching the German evening news. Wish we’d figured that out earlier… could have made a lot of evenings more enjoyable for them.<\/p>\n Albi loves<\/span> Karin and Klaus. I can’t figure out if it’s because of how happy they make Stefan, or if they smell like Stefan and so she naturally likes them. When they left both times — to travel South and then when they went back to Germany — Albi went into mourning. When they would show up, she was beside herself with joy that they were back.<\/p>\n In the last few days of their trip, Eyjafjallajokul (pronounced ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl; let’s all say it together) started acting up. If my in-laws were going to be stranded by a raging volcano, I was hoping they would be stranded here in Oregon and not at their midway point in Chicago (though there are certainly much worse cities to be stranded in; I just didn’t want them stranded at an airport).<\/p>\n\n