Farewell to our neighbors

Bye bye, my dears!

One Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang and Birgit stood beaming in her own unique way, saying that we absolutely had to come out onto the street with her and...

We were quite astonished:

It seemed like all the neighbors in our neighborhood had gathered on the street and in our dear neighbors' driveway to bid us farewell as we embarked on our journey from Uthweiler into the world, leaving the neighborhood we had grown to love over the decades. After we had closed our mouths in amazement and greeted everyone, we first remembered our dear neighbor, friend, and musician Philipp, who had recently passed away, with a song that we used to sing together in the neighborhood, a song he had accompanied in his own special way on the harmonica.

A beautiful day

And that's exactly what it turned out to be. Alli – yes, I was thinking of the second ELL ;) – spoiled us as always with his excellent grilling skills. We also had no shortage of drinks of any kind. The weather cooperated perfectly, too. Thus, the stage was set for a cheerful, engaging, and sometimes even thoughtful exchange of ideas.

What was it like back then?

What did we experience together?

Which neighbor left?

Which new ones moved in?

What's your plan? Uthweiler received little attention, but:

Why Dubai?

The most frequent question was linked to the many prejudices: expensive, veiling, cutting off hands, sexism and enslavement of women, loud, sterile, chaotic, a loveless, hastily erected fantasy land....

Of course, we are also aware of these prejudices, which we were fortunately able to completely disprove during our extensive research. More on that later.

All the neighbors are already here…

We were also presented with a booklet signed by all the neighbors, in which we can record our future experiences. Personally, I find it a bit small… for what we hope will be many experiences…

We found it quite remarkable that Ms. Lux made the trip dressed in her finest attire and accompanied by her daughter Ulrike.

A particularly delightful surprise came when we spontaneously and, of course, remorsefully returned the original shovel that we had stolen from Albert and Claudia at their pre-wedding party over 30 years ago.

It was also wonderfully organized that our newest and future neighbors, including Doro and Tobi, the buyers of our little house, were invited and could get a taste of what our future neighborly life will be like.

We were especially pleased that almost all the long-time residents of the neighborhood were there, allowing us to say goodbye to our dear Marga, Chocolate Maria, Josef and, last but not least, our cat whisperer Brigitte.

There was a lot of chatting, about old and new times, drinking and eating, until it suddenly got dark, which some didn't even seem to notice...

What we are left with is a day filled with many wonderful memories that we will fondly remember.

Of course, we now know why our daughter Rebecca wanted to come to us on that particular day and at that particular time “to try on her wedding dress”.

Thank you very much

We say THANK YOU to all our neighbors for the wonderful decades we have been able to experience in this vibrant and musically enthusiastic neighborhood.

Thank you for your continued willingness to help.

Thank you for the great community.

Special thanks to Ulli for his tolerance when we did justice to the musicians' quarter by playing at full volume until late into the night.

Thanks for the occasional barbecue smell, sometimes even daily.

Thank you for the occasional painting of our midday dreams with so many garden tool symphonies, which we have gladly reciprocated on occasion.

Thank you for everything

Our very special thanks go to Birgit and ALLi, who orchestrated and masterfully organized everything.

We also fondly remember the words of Trude Herr:

You never truly leave.

You will live in our hearts forever.

The Rhinelander would of course say quite casually:

BYE

Later, we'll look for synonyms in other languages ​​for this simple word.

Anyone who's interested is welcome to check back on our page from time to time to see if we've found another new word for these five Cologne letters. Feel free to join the search! Or perhaps you already know some translations? Maybe we could create a "Bye-bye" blog where we collect all the translations?

We'll occasionally share our experiences there – both the good and the bad.

Perhaps some of you might have a few tips for us.