30 Days By Train - September 21, 2003

Something happened on our first night in Germany that I forgot to mention. (You can blame my faulty memory on too much schnapps.) So I'll spare the details of the spectacular lunch we enjoyed today at the home of Katrin.

Well...not every detail.

Katrin -- Bruno and Bettina's daughter -- is an excellent cook. With her friend Rami, the two created a fabulous Persian feast replete with Juje kebab - succulent grilled chicken; salad Shirazi - a finely chopped blend of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and onions; Khoresh Bademjan - tender pieces of beef with grilled eggplant in a flavorful tomato base; saffron enfused rice; all accompanied by an assortment of dips, breads, and drinks; and followed with a rice pudding dessert. Even those love-addled youth had appetites. Generally speaking, making merry was had by all.

Now let me confess.

I'm a terrible parent and this is why: Eva still sleeps with a purple teddy bear. Well...okay she's only three, so the fact she sleeps with a purple teddy bear doesn't make me a terrible parent except that sometimes it falls out of bed, which it did on our first night in Furstenfeldbruck.

Now, that wouldn't have been a problem, except that when the purple teddy bear fell out of bed Eva woke up.

That wouldn't have been a problem, except she didn't just pick it up and go back to sleep. She woke her sister and asked her to look for it.

That wouldn't have been a problem, except that Inessa didn't look for the purple teddy bear, she looked for her mama.

That wouldn't have been a problem, except that when Inessa, no doubt bleary-eyed and half asleep, stumbled about in the house looking for her mama, she didn't find her.

And that wouldn't have been a problem if her papa or anyone else had been there. But no one was. Now this is the "terrible parent" bit: we were all around the corner at Bruno's house knocking back his powerful schnapps and telling jokes.

At approximately 10:35 PM on September 18, 2003, Inessa, crying and confused as to why she and her sister were entirely alone in a home they had never been to before, went looking for help on the streets of Furstenfeldbruck (refer to Exhibit 1).

Exhibit 1

I know what you're thinking but, no, we're not stupid. We used one of those baby monitors. Problem was, it didn't work. (Granted, Beate had to pull it out of the attic and dust it off, but what's a little dust?) Which might explain why we heard nothing. All I can say is thank God the girls' mother is psychic: at roughly 10:37 PM Gina suddenly announced she wanted to go to sleep, which is when she discovered Inessa wandering the sidewalk in her PJs.

Just thinking about it made me violently ill.

And, no, it wasn't the schnapps.

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