honeymoon in dresden

No wasting time on apologies. I’m back in the blogosphere and going to do a couple of catch up posts, then I’ll try to stay more on top of things.

This post takes us back to October. Fall break for the schools in Bavaria.

Let me first back up to mid-August, though. Right after our wedding, there was just no time to jet off some place for a honeymoon. Some folks expressed pity. I didn’t really mind. Instead of spending a ton of money on a 10-day honeymoon in Europe like lots of couples, we were just moving to Europe (which is expensive enough). And, there would be time enough for a nice trip in the months to come.

Furthermore, the time following our wedding in the States was full: packing, partying, saying goodbyes, moving abroad, coping with jet lag, bureaucracy, parents visiting, another wedding reception, apartment hunting, moving in, Julius starting to teach, me starting to job hunt, etc. And the whole time, I still didn’t regret not having a honeymoon, but… let’s be honest, that’s enough change in a 2-month time span to make anyone need a BREAK!

So, fall break was rolling around at the end of October, and the funds weren’t there to take the delayed honeymoon in Italy we would have liked, but we decided a long weekend away was definitely in order. And where did this long weekend take us?

The romantic, exotic destination in former East Germany, the capital city of Saxony… Dresden! Continue reading

intercultural holidays

When most couples start celebrating holidays together, they have to cross a difficult bridge: which family do we go to? do we alternate years? do we drive long distances to see both families? and what if both sides of the family see their plans as inflexible? Ah, the cause of much marital strife… When you add an intercultural dynamic, the questions multiply, as the holidays are traditionally celebrated in different (sometimes incompatible) ways for each partner.

And then for us, there’s the issue of the ocean between both sides of the family… Continue reading

some steps to marriage

In my last post, I wrote about some of the sight-seeing and fun things I did while in Munich at the end of May/beginning of June. One other great big event also happened! Julius and I had our civil wedding ceremony in Germany!

During the ceremony

This is one step along our path to marriage – and, like all other parts of our journey – it is more complicated because of the international aspect.

We’ve been asked by many Americans why we chose to do it this way. The shortest most pragmatic answer is that it de-complicates the immigration process considerably.

If you’d like to know more, you may read on…

Continue reading