After a good night’s sleep we had a nice pancake breakfast with my brother’s family and my sister-in-law’s sister’s family, Rani and her son Elliott (former ring bear(er)). Johannes had a great time with his cousins Ronan and especially Lee, and curiously watched them either play Minecraft or watched somebody else playing Minecraft (as this seems to be common now to watch somebody play instead of playing yourself).
Later on, Ronan had a game of soccer that we followed from the side lines, freezing our heads off with the chilly winds (yeah, it is kind of a preparation on what to expect in Sweden, right?).
After the game, Katharina’s brother and his two daughters were waiting for us at the house. It was like a big family reunion, with Johannes’ four cousins, aunties and uncles present. Speaking of presents: With all the gifts being handed, cooking together, sharing a good time, this seemed to us as if Christmas came a bit early this year. Very much appreciated. Thank you all for making this possible.
On Monday morning we received a mail from the KVR office in Munich that Johannes could not be deregistered. We should appear in person at the office in Munich. We were quite startled and distressed. It’s not that I called the KVR twice two weeks earlier to make sure we could just deregister online and there would be no problem regarding our child. People on the phone told me: It should be fine. It’s not that we entered the deregistration a week in advance. Fun Fact: Normally, you cannot even book an appointment for deregistration. After Katharina sent a written and signed consent that I was not kidnapping our kid, we got a reply that the document was being forwarded to some other employee. That did indeed help to take the stress out of the situation.
Ever since my sister and I stopped talking more than ten years ago, I never had the chance to talk to my niece Amber again. I was so glad that Rakhee had arranged a video call with her. Oh my, I was so happy to see and talk to her. She’s such a good looking woman now and I’m glad she seems to have found her way through life albeit her mother.
We took it slow before we reloaded our car with all the suitcases and stuff and left for Travemünde to take the TT Line ferry. The full moon silently guided us through the night. We found our way to the right lane. As we were early, we had to wait about an hour in our car before we could drive onto the ferry. Our room was spacey and even had a shower. We had dinner (not too bad!) on the upper deck taking seats at a front window.
We could see the ferry leave the shores of the known realms into the darkness of the unknown future that lay ahead of us.
