So you can only imagine the look of shock, disbelief and horror that shone upon her face the day I told her that Michael and I were moving to Germany. She was super proud of course, as she was herself born in Germany, and my dad was born in Austria, so she was pleased to see us choose such a meaningful country for our big adventure. But was she also upset - you bet. The day I boarded the plane I was a mess, and I have been told by many that my emotions were being mirrored back in the terminal by my mum.
Due to many reasons, my mum was not able to come and visit us - until now. After 665 days apart, I was overjoyed to welcome mum at Munich Airport in late May. Thankfully there are no photos of that teary emotional reunion, but I can say that it was such a good feeling to just hug my mum again!
So that aside, I am going to post a little bit of info about my mum's first few days in Munich with us. Quite easy to start off with - mum spent the first two days resting to recover from the jetlag! Day 3 however dawned early and saw mum setting off with me, bag of gifty things in hand, to my work. All of my colleagues were so excited to finally meet mum (cause of course I hadn't shut up about her arrival for weeks prior) and almost everyone said that we look so much alike (which of course I don't agree with!). All of my students were super excited to see my mum because in the weeks prior to her visit, each of them had had a 'hospitation' day, in which their mum or dad spent the morning at kindergarten with them, observing them and having fun. My kids all referred to this day as my mum's 'hospitation'.
Mum sat mostly in awe of my kids, and I think she was very proud to see all the work I've been doing over here. My whole class came one at a time to introduce themselves to 'Rosie' in English to show her just how well I can do my job. Even my littlest ones managed, albeit in Denglish... "Hello, my name is Bob und ich bin drei". But the best bit was when we went to visit my partner group, the Seepherdchen, in the Krippe. My mum couldn't seem to close her mouth from utter shock at how amazing my babies were. They were all sitting in their little chairs in the circle, singing and talking with me in Denglish. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her so speechless!
After mum had left (she had to attend to something in the city) almost all of my children came to me at one moment or another and said "Kristie, wo is your mum?" wo of course being German for where. I loved it! Later that day, as soon as I could leave work, I met mum in the city for lunch and then shopping time.
The next day we took mum on the free Munich City walking tour - a tour we have done in multiple other cities, but never Munich, so it was interesting for us too. The tour began in Marienplatz in front of (and perfectly timed for ) the Glockenspiel. 
For mum, seeing all the sights was great, and hearing the history behind our 'seen daily' place was cool. One church, Old St Peters, we found out houses a relic to a young girl who turns out to be the patron saint for single ladies. Our tour guide had a few good jokes about that, but in my head I was dancing away with Beyonce!
On this day in question mum thoroughly enjoyed her first serve of Bavarian sausages with potato salad and a variety of mustards. I took the schnitzel and Michael had a deer meat dish, which was delish! I could not however convince mum to convert to beer. She stuck to a white wine.
At the end, I insisted that mum try the Apfelküchel, which is a delicious dessert that can best be described as apple donuts. I cannot get enough of these, and we happened to be in the Augustiner am Dom, the best restaurant for said dessert. Mum was not disappointed.
What finished off the meal, or rather kept it going the whole time was our hilarious waiter - Enzo (the crazy Italian) as denoted by his nametag! He was a cheeky man who was telling all the other waiters about the hot girls sitting at the table next to us - but clearly within earshot of us and the girls. At one point he got his new trainee waiter's hand and started waving it at the ladies, then instructing the new waiter to say hello and smile at the pretty ladies. Michael, mum and I were in stitches. At the end, my mum begged for a photo of him, to which he said of course, dragging her into the photo with him! I think my mum will forever remember Enzo, the crazy Italian!
That evening, we relaxed and packed our bags for our first journey with mum. The following morning, we were off to Italy!
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