Our New Apartment

I'm writing this from our new apartment in Fort Collins. An apartment that I did not even know about or could have imagined when we were packing our suitcases in Quito and saying goodbye to good friends there.

Here is what I can tell you: Fort Collins is green. Both in the eco-friendly sense and in the foliage sense of the word. Most of Colorado around this time of year is brown, beige, and yellow (trust me, we just saw this scene last week when we flew in). But Fort Collins feels like a little oasis. There are streams and rivers in the city. Huge trees line many city blocks. Even in our new apartment, we've got a huge green lawn that we look out over. Scoots keeps watch over the numerous dogs that frolic in the backyard.

The apartment we choose is by far the smallest place we have lived in together. It's a one bedroom on the ground floor with a patio that lets us walk out on to the lawn. It is cozy and peaceful. I'm unashamed of my love for the dishwasher after two years of hand washing dishes almost every single day. We are right next to an organic grocery store with reasonable prices, a vet, a pet food store, and a little neighborhood coffee shop.

This apartment will be our transition place to a house as we get to know Fort Collins and potential neighborhoods we'd want to live in. We already have bikes and Greg is going to build a bike trailer that we can take to run errands and more. We still hope to live without a car, although we are seriously considering an ELF. So many people bike here! There are nice wide side streets and bike lanes as well as beautiful trails along rivers.

I hope you all will hear more about our new location, but maybe this time in person rather than through the blog!

Fort Collins



Sunset under the storm cloud!

Fort Collins was our last stop in Colorado before heading back toward Wisconsin. This wasn't our first time in the city because a few years ago Greg did a charity bike ride for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (150 miles over two days!). We remember thinking that the city seemed like a really fun place.

The city has a fairly big university there, which makes everything more interesting. It has a nice main street with restaurants, ice cream parlors, coffee shops and street musicians in the summer. Greg was excited about a park with a water slide, but it was closed by the time we saw it.

But if you go a little way outside of the city, you get to prairie. We got to witness a big summer storm cloud roll over the city, which made for some amazing views. Storms in Colorado are so fascinating because it is so dry. When a storm does develop, you can usually watch all the clouds gather into one massive cloud that boils up towards outer space. You can see it let loose its rains without actually even being under a cloud yourself. This is unlike the Midwest where it usually is a whole gray sky before it starts to rain.


I loved the rugged look of the fence and wide-open land



We even met up with a friend while in Fort Collins. Our former German teacher, Sophia, from Denver who lives there now hosted us for a homemade German meal of krautstrudel (cabbage- and caraway-filled strudel) and topf-something-something. The last ones are dumplings traditionally made with quark - a type of spreadable cheese that we don't have in the US - but Sophia made them with tofu instead. Sadly, I can't remember the rest of the name, but I know how to make them more or less... and how to top them with lots of cinnamon-sugar!

Sophia had visited us in Munich for a much-less traditionally German meal of lentil soup and special small potato noodles (that I did not make from scratch). We were so glad to share our experiences with her. It was and still is refreshing to talk with someone who knows both cultures (German and Colorado/US) and likes to look at the cultural differences, too. Sitting out on her patio was a great way to end our trip in Colorado. Next up: the rest of our roadtrip... and then maybe Skipper Greg will post about his courses in August.

We'll be moving to Quito on Sunday so you all may be reading posts about past events while we're settling in. This summer has just flown by!