Last Day in Münster

I promise that I'm not just trying to prolong our time in Germany. Oh wait, yes I am. 

It was so weird to say goodbye to this city that we lived in for almost a year. On our last day in Münster, we finished packing up our things, swept and tidied, and ran around doing last things and saying goodbye to this place. 

We've taken a picture in front of all the places we've ever lived so far (including Marburg!), so it was on my list to take one here, at Kolde-Ring Sechzig (60).

Our toaster oven went to a good home: a friend and colleague of Carson's who's staying in Germany. We provided a delivery service and walked it to his office.


Packing the last few things.

The forecast for the last week had predicted rain, and I was so sad about that. I prayed that there would be sunshine and warm weather, and honestly what a blessing to have had such a lovely last week in Germany. It felt like a silly prayer, but it was meaningful to have had beautiful weather that last few days.


A raised map of the city.

A last visit to Carson's office to turn in the keys and make sure he'd grabbed everything in there.

We had lunch that day with Ben, our Fulbright friend who lives in Cologne and is a fellow Southerner. I didn't get a picture of our delicious Flammkuchen (click the word for pictures of that lovely dish), but we savored every last bite.

Another map of the city.

 This day was actually rather hot, so we sat in the shade near this church for a little bit and talked about the things we'd loved and disliked about our year in Germany.

We walked down the Promenade.

And past the sea of bikes at the train station (Hauptbahnhof).

Then we walked to the Hafen (harbour). It was a lively Friday evening and there were plenty of people out enjoying the sunshine and good food at restaurants along the water.

Every ten years since 1977, Münster hosts the Skulptur Projekte (Sculpture Project) where a variety of artists put up exhibits all over the city. It lasts from June to October, so for several weeks we've passed these interesting exhibits on our way to various things. We aren't crazy about really modern art, so we haven't taken the time to see everything, but it really is all over. The harbour isn't on our way to anything, so we hadn't seen this "walking on water" exhibit before, but it was a nice thing to see on our last day. The artist put up a walkway under the water connecting one side to the other and there were tons of people removing their shoes and wading across, so we followed suit. It looks solid in the pictures but it's actually a grate and boy, did it hurt my feet. Such a fun thing though!

We had dinner at a restaurant over there: Hot Jazz Club. We ate outside, so I have no idea what sort of Jazz Club it is, but we enjoyed the dinner and the people watching as we ate.

We walked home at 10pm after our late dinner through Süd Park and down Hammerstrasse, commenting all the while that it was our last time to see all these places.

View down Hammerstrasse (Hammer Street) toward the Altstadt (Old City). You can make out the tops of two churches.

And we walked down Kolde Ring (our street) for the last time.

We decided to run out to the bridge instead of going home, just so we could see the sunset and capture the view of the city from the bridge one last time. Like most cities in Germany, there is no distinguishable skyline in Münster, but I took a picture anyway.

And as a last evening surprise, it was the night of the Skatenight which happens every other Friday night during the summer (read about it here), so we watched hundreds of roller skaters fly by to upbeat music.