Shenanigans Crossing Borders

The rest of the week was pretty low key, but interesting. Elyce managed to participate in a couple of life events (birth of our friends son), and death of friend’s mother. Even from here we have the circle of life, with food in between!

And don’t forget the happy little garbage can that could:

We got some gelato, did some last-minute things in Kitzingen, and had our last Shabbat in Nuremberg. 

Wait?

What?

Finally?

Our last???

Well, motzei shabbat (after the sabbath ended), JP contacted the car dealership, and after weeks of haggling, pleading, waiting, and frustration, the car was finally repaired, painted, and approved by the German authorities!

We have a car!

JP and Vered got on a train back to Nuremberg, and JP’s amazing new friend, Mr David Kuperman (you really should come visit him, bring a bottle of whiskey, and protect your ears from him biting).

David picked them up form the train station, and drove them 35 minutes into the wilderness of Germany, and basically left them at the dealership, with the car. The dealership had left the keys in the lockbox, and the car was across the street, basically sitting in a field, waiting for us!

After hugs, kisses, and goodbyes, JP and Vered sat in the car for about 30 minutes trying to figure everything out.

Finally, after not figuring out much, they started driving back to Kitzingen!

As mentioned earlier, in order to own a car in Germany, sure, you could just buy it, but to register it legally and get insurance, you can:

1. Be a citizen with a property and register it to your property (we don’t meet these qualifications)
2. Have a friend who could be #1 for you (we don’t meet these qualifications)
3. Start a company in Germany, follow all the regulatory rules, don’t hire any employees, but purchase assets, namely a car, and register it (we don’t meet these qualifications, either)
4. Use a company called CarTurf, who registers the car, and purchases the insurance, making your life a helluva lot easier (for this we qualify)

The only catch, the paperwork is in the car, and CarTurf is near Köln.

ROADTRIP!!!

We packed for 1 night, and drove to a town south of Köln, to stay on a veritable goat farm!

This place is adorable, out of the way, cheap, lovely host, modern, and absolutely astonishingly perfect.

The host herself studied animal farming, and is running her friend’s parents farm, rehabiilitating it from nothing back into a goat producing powerhouse. They also have some cows and pigs, but the 2 male cows are useless, and the female is “crazy”, so no milk from her.

The goats were also having babies, so we got to see baby goats.

Like, 4 hour old baby goats!!!

So new, they had the umbilical cord still attached!

Whoa!

Undeterred from the long drive, we decided at 9p to drive into the suburbs of Köln and get some dinner at a high-ranked vegan place. What an excellent choice. Food, bathrooms, drinks, everything was spectacular.

The next day we met up with CarTurf, JP gave them the papers, and they took our van and lent us their car, so we went to get breakfast and food at a nearby cafe.

Back at CarTurf, we spent some time going over paperwork, drinking coffee and hot chocolate, and getting ready for the rest of our adventures!

BTW – CarTurf is great to work with (find them here: https://carturf.com/)

Back to the goat farm to get our stuff, we also made a deal with the host, that after we get the registration dealt with, we’d come back to the farm, and they would change and store our winter tires (an amazing deal, considering shops around Germany charge 100-150/year for this)

Done!

Now let’s get back to Kitzengen because we’re gonna blow this popsicle stand!!!

Beep beep!