A Day Trip to Germany

Earlier this month, Doc made some calls to immigration and our local registration office since my residence permit approval was taking longer than we were told. We discovered that my permit was approved a month after I got here, but that our local registration office had no record of it. Thankfully, the offices that deal with immigration and residency issues were quick to remedy the situation. Less than a week after we discovered the problem, I had my permit. On Sunday, Doc and I decided to celebrate receiving my long-awaited residence permit by taking a day trip across the border into Germany. We took the train to Konstanz and toured the old town.


Konstanzer Münster

From Konstanz, we took a ferry to Insel Mainau, an island located on the Bodensee (a large lake between Switzerland, Germany, and Austria). The island is filled with beautiful gardens and colorful flowers, even this late in the season.








This sculpture reminded us of Sideshow Bob!!


We took this photo in the butterfly house.

An Early Fall?

I was hoping that it was only my imagination, but it wasn't. It is mid-August and a tree next to one of our neighborhood grocery stores has begun to turn colors. I was flabbergasted. I picked up one of the fallen, red leaves and brought it home to show Doc. I'm used to Augusts that are just miserably hot and too often muggy, not ones with the early signs of autumn.



Ok, you expected to see a tree with red leaves and this one only has a few leaves at the top that are turning. Still ... August ... red leaves?! I didn't even see that in Milwaukee.

Fireworks

Here is a picture of people setting off fireworks in front of our balcony for Swiss national day. Compare the size of the people to the volcano!

Okies in Luzern?

We also went to Luzern with my parents. While there we saw this trailer parked along a main road. Unfortunately, it was just an advertisement and no one was actually in the park using a smoker.