Under the Bridge

Blipping a day late. Yesterday I was on the go from too early until too late and collapse, exhausted in bed after midnight. But it was a mostly good day.

I had a visitor from the US with me - a young lady who had been best friends with one of my exchange daughters in Maryland eight years ago. The following year, she did a semester exchange here in Germany. The young lady's own mother was also a summer nanny to my kids for two years and coach of my daughter's high school field hockey time.

In any event, this family friend is in town for a few days as part of a three-week vacation in Europe and offered me the perfect excuse to do something I've wanted for ages - take the local ferry Die Weiße Flotte on the Ruhr from Mülheim to Kettwig. The nearly hour-long ride passes under the Ruhrtalbrücke, which I have blipped before from a different vantage (and in better weather!).

It was pouring rain for a couple hours before we arrived (that was the time we were traipsing through town, getting drenched while seeing the local sights, despite our rain jackets and umbrellas.) As luck had it, the entire interior of the ferry cabin was reserved for a group of seniors having a coffee and cake cruise, so we had to sit on the open upper-level, which was very wet and fairly cool. But by time we launched, the sun actually came out for a bit and the staff provided towels for us to dry the benches with - so our river trip was fairly pleasant.

When we arrived in Kettwig and were touring the historic old town, we ran into a dear friend (KettwigeFrau) and had no trouble convincing her to join us for coffee. Hubby met us there as well, bringing the car to taxi us home. I then cooked a big family dinner and we all enjoyed catching up on news from back home. In the evening I drove our guest back to her host family and stayed to visit for a couple hours :)

Now it's Friday, and hopefully I'll find time after dinner to blip for today - but I've got a party to go to - so I might be late again! Happy weekend, friends!