Day 62: One Final Wander

‘Twas the last full day in Germany today…it’s a weird feeling…

We got up and had some breakfast before going into Hattingen Mitte one final time. We took the Straßenbahn. We headed into the Altstadt because I wanted to revisit a bookstore we had gone to early on where we found Hattingen postcards. I was hoping to relocate something small to get our nieces and nephews as a souvenir.

At the bookstore, they had some newer things I didn’t recall from the last visit, but they also no longer had a couple things I thought they had last time. For example, I thought that our first trip there involved a display that had some tote bags with a cute Hattingen/Ruhr logo. There were t-shirts with the same design, but no bags. Since I was really not trying to get anything big (or we’d have to ship things again), I was a little bummed. However, I had forgotten that the shop sold some souvenir euros that had recognizable buildings from Hattingen on them. I decided to get those as something different and compact to give to our nieces and nephews. I hope they’ll like them!

From the bookstore, we went to a few other shops in the Altstadt, and we picked up a couple other little things. Brandon found another German language book at the first bookstore, but nothing at the other one we visited. We got some lunch after shopping around and then headed back to the house.

In the mid-afternoon, Peter, Alina, and Alicia left for a few hours to go visit Alicia’s new school. It was the first day, but it was a short one that allowed for some “getting to know you” activities and handing out of supply lists and such. When they got home, Alicia had a lovely green drawstring bag with her school’s name on it full of goodies, including a pencil case (with colored pencils), a USB drive, COVID rapid tests, and some other things to start her year off right! She also opened the Schultüte from Alina and Peter, which was filled with sweets :)

We left shortly after this as a group to get dinner at Fabrica Italia where we enjoyed some pizzas. Then, it was back to the house for ice cream and bedtime :)

We’ve got an especially early start tomorrow as Alina is graciously dropping us off at the airport in Düsseldorf. Lots of flying lies ahead! Thanks again for sticking with us on this journey! We hope you’ve enjoyed!!