I am sitting on a plane from Amsterdam to Houston. John and I have just spent a week exploring Celle (in picture--charming, yes?) and Hannover, Germany. In about two months one of those fair cities will be our new home for three years. John is taking a new position with his company, Baker Hughes. He will be continuing his work in materials research but changing the focus of his efforts to a broader range of drilling tools (those were his words). We have always imagined that we would live overseas one day, but this opportunity came sooner than we thought and in such an ideal location that it required almost no discussion to reach a decision. Before graduate school John participated in an internship in a small town near Cologne, and later that same year (unbeknownst to each other) I moved to Vienna to begin two years of teaching. Fourteen years later we will again cross the pond, this time together and with two kids in tow. Elisabeth, now six, will begin second grade at eithe...