Twenty-one years ago, almost to the day, I landed in Oldenburg for a month of language school. I was 16 and it was my first time in Europe. I've been sentimental about the place and always meant to go back, which Sabine supported since she, too, once lived there. So this summer, with airfare to the States too expensive and little time to plan, we figured there was no better time.

We rented an apartment in an old farmhouse outside Oldenburg with horses right in front of the door, fresh eggs gathered by the children and a small if not quite quaint town nearby. I ended up with too much work that prohibited me from relaxing much while forcing fat pictures through a thin cellphone connection.

As soon as we set foot in Oldenburg I wondered what we were doing there. The family I had stayed with moved to southern Germany three years ago and the head of the school died of AIDS more than a decade ago. I had no connection to the place. It was cute but rainy. Bored, we landed in Kaufhof and bought a soccer ball for the kids and a new hat for me. We eventually got in an argument with some 20-somethings about how Cy (a three-year-old) shouldn't lay a finger on their low-rider bikes. He wasn't about to and, guys, they were BICYCLES. I guess it's like John Cusack's character said in Gross Pointe Blank: "You can never go home again, but you can shop there."

On the bright side, Martha lost a second tooth (and apparently swallowed it). Tomorrow I'll tell you about how the three days of camping that followed that were a real vacation.