We have just about 24 hours left here in Mainz and we have spent this week saying goodbye to this chapter of our life. We made a list of a few things that we didn’t want to miss and all the food we wanted to eat before leaving and we checked everything off our list this week.

We went to two performances. We returned to the Alte Oper in Frankfurt for a mindblowing piano performance by Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili. She played Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Liszt. Some of the pieces were so smoking fast that it seemed like she wasn’t even touching the keyboard. In other moments, she seemed like she wanted to take all the time in the world in order to emphasize a phrase. Truly excellent. We also returned across the Rhein to Wiesbaden for the Verdi opera Falstaff. It was pretty good, but not world-class like the opera we saw in Leipzig. The production was set in the twentieth century, so they had an old car on stage at one point and the costumes were more 1940s or 50s. But the costumes for the last act got weird, with the men in these strange, modern-looking screen-printed sweatsuits. The staging felt a bit boring for a comedy. However, the singing and orchestra were really good.

We haved really loved living near this amazing, historical river, so we took one more adventure into the valley. We took the train to the town of Boppard and did a little hike into the hills above the Rhein. We spent a nice afternoon walking through the woods and wildflowers and seeing the pretty towns, castles, and vineyards one more time. Back in Mainz, we strolled around the old Citadel. Some of it is still in ruins and some of the defensive walls and tunnels have been reconstructed. We also couldn’t leave Mainz without a visit to the Gutenberg museum. We just scratched the surface there in two hours. They have two of Gutenberg’s original bibles there in the vault as well as printing presses, books, paper, tools, and many other print-related items through the centuries. I could have spent the entire day. They also have workshops where you can go print your own items, which would have been fun to participate in…next time! We also grabbed tacos with our friends from the apartment building. We had a great Italian meal (Sardinian, actually), great Viatnamese and sushi, burgers, and our last dürüm döner.

We have come to the end of our European adventure (for now). We have spent over nine months here and it has been quite the experience. We have figured out some significant things about how we want to shape our life going forward and what is most important to us. Travel always helps to remind us to be more empathetic and that the overwhelming majority of people in the world want the same things: love, security, and a chance to make a good life for their family. We are also reminded to “travel light” in the world and try to make less of an impact physically while hopefully making an positive impact on people. There are some things that Germans and Europeans do really well, like public transportation, bikes, and recycling. But there are things we have missed about the United States and we look forward to diving back into our own culture in a couple of days. Last, but certainly not least, we are so excited to start to visit our family again and get all the grandkid snuggles! Although this is the end of this trip to Europe, this is not the end of our travel adventures!