Weekend wanderings: The search for a church

We spent the past 3 weekends hunting for a church to attend.  The first weekend we had the car, we turned up at the York Barracks as they had an English service there... only to be told that their regular service was cancelled, as they were scheduled to have a parade for their troops coming back from Afghanistan.

Then we arrived next week, to find out that the service we were attending would be the last one for the barracks!  Thankfully we met a lovely Taiwanese lady in church (who was married to a local, and was the only person who bothered to talk to us at all) and she helped us to inquire about other English services.  Turned out that they would be continuing services in another barracks, so we headed down there yesterday.  We nearly didn't make it for the service, since we got lost in the army grounds and the guard at the gate was not sure where we should be headed.  Thankfully, we found the place, and attended their service.  It was a tiny gathering, with only 10 people (which included the four of us, plus another mother and her baby)!  So I guess we'll just be attending this service from now onwards, since I doubt we'd be able to find another church that has an English service.  Junior J and baby J will just have to play quietly during the service at one corner of the room, since there certainly would not be any Sunday School!

I guess I'm just glad we are not churchless over here... and meanwhile, we managed to do quite abit across the past 3 weekends:

:: The first weekend was a rainy one...

... and we sent my mum off to the airport...

The view from the car, on the way home from the airport.

:: And since there was no church service, we thought we'd go to the zoo instead.  However it was raining, so we drove down to Dusseldorf to hunt for Japanese food instead (Dusseldorf has a huge Japanese community).  We parked and wandered around the old town area, but couldn't find any Japanese eateries, so we settled for Spanish instead:

:: Then for the 2nd weekend, we went to this really good Italian place just a few minutes walk from our place for lunch on Saturday:

... and also tried Asian food after church on Sunday:

Fortune cookies, that predict your fortune in both English and German! 

I liked the lotus salad, really refreshing!

:: And for the weekend that passed, we spent some time at the farmer's market, where our pram had a really difficult time getting stuck into the cobbled paths.  We managed to get our groceries (including the white asparagus which seems to be the rage right now), and along the way Junior J got presents from nice shopkeepers, like a tulip from the florist, and ham from the butcher!  And we ended up with lunch at another Italian place near our home:

The table was filled with Junior J's finds that he picked up along the way!

:: Yesterday saw us heading to the Aasee (the lake in Munster), and having a nice lunch with the hubby's friends after church.

Weekends here are pretty quiet, since the shops are closed on Sunday... but its nice to have quiet Sundays spent with family!