Travelin

In the last week we have spent time in Frankfurt, attended the Friedricksberg (maybe it was Friedricksdorf, I get them confused) Christmas market (Weihnachtsmarkt) and the Strasbourg Christmas market (marche de Noel). As is typical, I was too busy keeping track of little ones to take many pictures, but we had so much fun exploring the cities I am sure we will repeat the trips.


Strasbourg is one of the oldest, if not the oldest Christmas market in Europe. Our morning began with H1N1 shots courtesy of the Army with our friends the Fords. They are our friends because they also have six kids. After trading children around so the girls could ride together we headed off under the guidance of our GPS. I think our GPS has been taking lessons from my father, because it was back roads nearly the entire way. Beautiful! But, knowing we were going to have bad weather on the return trip we were worried. Plus, back roads means kids prone to carsickness. Cleaning up puke is never fun, but it is especially not fun when you are out in the middle of the French countryside with no gas stations within 30K. Because we were bundled for the winter we were able to find a new change of clothes for Miquia, even if he looked a bit strange wearing Ben's sweatshirt.

The city is old, with a center full of twisty alleyways and shops around corners you wouldn't expect. Most of the center is closed to traffic, but is full of pedestrians and bikes. The cathedral is beautiful,

and under reconstruction, which seems to be true of just about everywhere we visit. The kids were most impressed with the huge nativity scene--Noah's favorite being the elephants.


At one point we found ourselves in a neighborhood along the Ill which looked like it had been transplanted from Shakespearean times. White timbered walls, window boxes, vendors stalls selling confits and wine.

The drive home was even more horrific than we feared, but we made it home and helped a few stranded travelers make it to the train station in Bitche due to our trusty chains. I am going to stop complaining about how lackadaisical Germans are about plowing roads, because the French don't seem to bother with plowing at ALL.

Freezing

You know how I said I can't complain about the weather since this winter is so very mild? Today it was NEGATIVE FOURTEEN DEGREES CELSIUS. Last Sunday it snowed bad enough to make the roads scary. I'm going to start complaining now.

*cough, cough*

Well, seeing as how the LHC has not yet created a black hole large enough to put us all out of our misery, it's about time for an update, no?

I fed 27 people on Thanksgiving. The food was good, except for the stuffing. I have subsequently made a resolution to leave the country next year so I do not have to cook anything, clean, or even look at a green bean casserole. We may have to rob a bank in order to finance this traveling, but it will be worth it!

Noah is going on week #3 of a yukky croupy-sounding cough. The whining is enough to drive even a sane person up the wall.


My two eldest. Twins! (not really, but everyone seems to think they are)

Every time I want to complain about all the mud and the never-ending rain and the fact that we only get about 7 hours of daylight (although daylight may be too strong a term for perpetual overcast cloudiness) I remind myself that this is the mildest winter the Rheinland-Pfalz has had in years. Even mud is preferable to me freezing.

Ben and I ventured out (in the pouring rain, just like the locals) to see the K-town Christmas market, or Weihnachtsmarkt. There was the pervasive smell of gluhwein, a lot of overpriced stuff, and very few people. We bought nothing but enjoyed walking around and now I feel guilty that I haven't taken my children to experience this cultural thing.

Speaking of cultural, Zak and Em attended the play "Pinnocchio" with their school classes this week. They rode the train to get there, which means I had the opportunity to take the three youngest to the train station. I don't think the Germans have fully embraced the concept of park and ride since there were maybe 20 parking spots near the station and with all those American cars trying to find a place to park it was a madhouse. Add the graphic ads posted on the strip clubs across the street and you have me, carrying a very angry No, desperately pointing to the train tracks every three seconds saying things like 'do you hear the train? Let's look for the train!'. I understand that the European standard is different for ads and the like, but I'm still not happy with the preschooler seeing full frontal nudity.

Officially not a little girl

It was a thoroughly hectic day, and when I came home long enough to grab a bite and head off to choir practice the look in my little girl's eye made me reconsider. After all, there are always too many altos! So, I stayed home and paid attention to my kids and watched her become frustrated when the re-lighting candles refused to go out. After filling the kitchen with smoke Dad put the candles out and we decided we need to buy some fire alarms.

Armistice day

We didn't actually go to the Meuse-Argonne cemetery on Armistice day, but the weekend before. Great-great Uncle Lehi has a quiet resting place, on a hillside out in the French countryside surrounded by his fellow soldiers. The miserably soggy weather and the squelching mud only served to show what kind of conditions he would have been serving under before he died at the end of September.

The day of much candy consumption

We had a princess, killer whale, mad scientist (complete with gory eyeball and fishes in his test tube), kitty, penguin, and elf. The kids have so much fun dressing up I wish there wasn't so much 'gimme' involved. Let's face it, a trunk-or-treat where the kids march around the parking lot collecting loot from every trunk is all about efficiency in candy collection. The penguin and I sat in the back of the van and marveled at the lengths people went to in order to decorate their trunks and it was seriously amazing--one car had a blow up grim reaper, kept inflated with their portable generator. PORTABLE GENERATOR. ?? I closed up when I realized that kids were coming around for their third and fourth run. Yes, I am a halloween scrooge. Actually, since I don't do crafty for holidays you could make the argument that I am just a holiday scrooge--except for the vittles.

Burg Eltz

On our last school holiday we visited our first castle, Burg Eltz. The day was beautiful and misty, what I would call a nearly perfect autumn afternon. We hiked down by way of the paved road but the first view was a little disappointing, since half the castle seemed to be covered by scaffolding. In truth, the tour was nearly half under construction, which was a bummer, but not as big a bummer as not being able to take a tour in english--even though Rick Steves says you can just ask when the next one is. We had lunch at the little place next to the castle. At the end of dinner an old couple came down the stairs and asked us something in German. I told them I was sorry and didn't speak German (the extent of my german) and he then asked, with lovely pronounciation in perfect Queen's English "I suppose we must go down to get a meal?". Makes me ashamed to be such an idiot about learning German.
After lunch Ben went to buy our tickets and we nearly lost Noah out of the arrow slits. Zak was obsessed with the walls--which were filled with spiders. After realizing that even HE could have climbed up the walls he understood why the arrow slits allowed the archers to see the walls to defend the castle. On the way back to the car we took the hiking trail and were rewarded with a lovely view of the pretty side of the castle. And, while the tour wasn't all that exciting (Look! a picture of the tapestry and suits of armor we are restoring!) we enjoyed the trip very much.

Ribbon trees

Outside some of the pubs there are large decorative type trees, hanging over the doorway, festooned with some kind of ribbon, possibly crepe paper. They've been there for a while, and the rains have washed the colors out of them, from the top down. This particular one is in Thiesbergstegen, just a spell down the road. It has a stuffed bear hanging from the top of the tree. You can see it in the picture on the right just under the sign. (both pictures taken by Deanna while we were driving past)

For the record

Wheat flavored activia: weird

Milestones

I was having a minor sort of pity party on the way to Isaac's baptism tonight, because it would be the first baptism of one of our kids where no relatives would be there to celebrate with us. However, Mom's cousin Lorana came, so there was no reason for me to be like that. I'm still a little sad that we are so far from everyone, but you're all going to come and visit, right?

the crafty one

D loves to make things, and this year she is taking Home Ec (yes, I know it isn't called Home Ec anymore, but I can't be bothered to care what they are calling it nowadays). First project was this little pillow, which she made out of scraps from my sewing box and spare buttons from the button jar. See, it's a good thing I dragged my sewing stuff overseas!

blahbidibibbidy

The autobahn has no billboards. Actually, the only place you really see billboards is in the city (in our case, the 'city' would be Kaiserslautern)

I don't ever remember how to close ellipses

Even when I am bombing down the autobahn at 160 there will be someone coming along behind me even faster, blinking lights to tell me to get my slow self OVER.

The dial tone sounds different here, I wonder if I'd even recognize a busy signal?

Phone mail is really challenging when the instructions are all in German.

I love, love, love hearing the church bells every day at 11am and 6pm. It's just so. . . something.

All the -bach, -den, -sten, -ern, and -weiler named towns blend together in my head.

It only has taken us two months to realize that the sign by the fountain: Kein Trinkwasser means you shouldn't drink the water.

The lady at the bakery told Birgit that Ben is simply adorable. Even bald, he's adorable!

Most sidewalks are brick rather than poured concrete. Ben says it's for drainage purposes.

Rolling a stroller over cobblestones sounds cool. It sounds even cooler when the cobbles are loose--but the best sound is the van over loose cobblestones.

Noah's favorite time of day

Actually, his favorite time of day is whenever we go anywhere, but since we go every day to the bus stop it is a time of day to look forward to!Here he passes the time waiting for the bus to show up by reading 'Chuck the dump truck'. I have read this book about a billion times and I don't love it anymore, but boy, does Noah!
BUS! BUS MOMMA! BUS COMING! (the fact that the kids didn't ride the big yellow school buses came as quite a surprise to us, but they enjoy riding in the cushy seats of this one)
See how excited they are to see us? Such love as my children are brought back to me.
After we make it safely across the street we pass the town fountain, right next to the picnic benches and May tree. Isaac checks it every time we walk past to make sure that it is draining properly. There are two drains, you see, and he has taken upon himself the responsibility to clean them every day. I love the little dragon head fountain.
It looks like we are just walking in the road, doesn't it? In reality the sidewalk is only about two feet wide and in several places it is less than that. It makes for an interesting walk with me yelling about every 2.6 seconds: "Walk on the INSIDE of the sidewalk, please!" This particular corner gives me nightmares. That plus the speed of the cars coming around the corner makes me wonder why the houses on either side are still intact.

Home is the white house directly ahead, only you can't see our half.

Gr8

Zak is now 8. For his birthday he got 2 cakes--because he asked for an ice cream cake, and when I saw the little one in the bakery display I thought that it was too small to feed us and the party guests. So, he got 2 cakes and all the other kids whined about how unfair life is. Let us hope they retain this example of my favoritism to tell their therapists. The candles were the re-lighting trick candles, and I wish I had video of all the laughter around the table as he blew and blew and blew and the candles kept re-lighting. Hilarious!

Baldy

Ben has always been a little worried about the thinning state of his hair. Now that I've joined him in hair loss I've been a little more sympathetic, but my mother still teases him about balding and has told him that when it is time for him to shave it all off she will be the one to tell him. And, even though she did not instruct him that it was time to loose the remainder of his hair last weekend he shaved it all off. He asked me to give him a haircut that evening, but because I am a bad wife I was disinclined to acquiesce to his request and he simply took matters into his own hands. Result: He has a lumpy, bumpy head as a result of scars received in his misspent youth. The neighbor actually screamed a little when she saw him. I don't think he'll keep shaving it. Luckily it grows fairly quickly. Unluckily, we are scheduled for a family photo this Friday.

Views

On the right is the view from the little kids bedroom window. They've already named the pony.
Below is the view from my bedroom window









Noah out the front balcony

Hats!

Deanna got this picture of the guys out by the May tree celebrating. On most days there are at least one or two of these guys out at the table by the fountain. The kids practice saying 'guten tag' and the guys laugh at us. I need to learn enough German to understand if they're talking about the crazy americans!

Back to back

We started school this year living in a hotel room. While it was fun to walk the kids to school every morning past pieces of the Berlin Wall, by the time Emma started school we'd moved to our home. I woke up one morning, couldn't stand the hotel any more, and we just camped out in our empty house. Other than the air mattress deflating under us, it worked out well. Now we have all our stuff and the house is a maze of boxes, but the kids love walking to the bus every morning and back in the afternoons--we even got offered beer on Monday by the older men (wearing hats, Linnea!) sitting at the town fountain under the May tree. Since none of us were turning 18 we declined. Apparently the tradition is that every town has a fest night where all the youth who have turned 18 that year get completely drunk under the auspices of the town elders. Red hats are involved. Nobody in our little village turned 18 this year but it didn't stop the elders from celebrating.

Discouragement

Is finding out that all the pictures you've taken with the good camera have turned out blurry. So, now all the things I think I already have taken pictures of have to be redone. This is what happens when you don't download your pictures regular-like!
This is Noah, triumphant after peeling all the garlic. I thought the blurry was a random problem, but it looks as if our autofocus has gone out AGAIN. I don't love my good camera so much any more, and the little one is taking 20+ tries to get it to focus. My life lacks focus!

edible

So far, we've eaten a lot of fast food, and it's the same greasy mess over here that it is back in the states. The most obvious difference is that there are lots of doner shops. A doner sandwich is a little like a gyro, only on a bun. Plus, you can get shredded cabbage (what I would call slaw) on nearly anything. Pizza Amerikan comes with sliced hardboiled eggs on it.

I think Germans have a different relationship with ketchup than we do. When we had schnitzel and fries we poured gravy over the fries. Plus:

Curry ketchup! Ketchup chips! Genius! Only, nobody likes the curry ketchup. Noah ate the chips, but the rest of the kids declared them 'weird'
The pastries were our yummy celebration breakfast after finding a home, the yogurts I bought because I like hazelnuts. Unfortunately they were gross.

Pieces

Yesterday as I made dinner Noah took it upon himself to peel an entire head of garlic. There were little bits of papery skin all over the place, and one very, very proud little boy. Is he trying to curry favor with his garlic-loving mother? He should have put more thought into cleanup!

We also found a home. It's smaller than we would like and farther away from base, but we both feel good about it and our new landlords are glad to have us living next door! And, this: will be on Ben's daily commute. The picture was taken on a rainy, cloudy day so you can't see all that well, but it is lovely. The kids love seeing so many windmills, and so do I.

How do you explain to young kids about the iron curtain? I'm afraid we didn't do that great of a job, the kids still don't know why I was so excited about the pieces of the Berlin Wall.

Just one week in the emerald country

Seriously, so green everywhere!

Why don't German windows have screens? I love the option to open the window from the top or swinging open into the room--more kid safe options! Wasps everywhere, too, which makes even dining inside a little buggy.

The kids are seriously confused by the whole 2 different flushes option, this does not bode well for my future plumbing.

I am having the hardest time memorizing our new handy number (handy=cellophone). It's like the space in my brain devoted to phone numbers could only hold a certain configuration, and now it's all gone to mush.

Cloudy days here mean I cannot for the life of me stay oriented. No mountains, no tall landmarks, just long, green, windy, hilly roads. And then I get to the wrong town and realize that I should never, ever turn the GPS off. Or else I need to learn more German and pay better attention to the signs.

We're walking a lot and people driving past either smile indulgently or gape in astonishment.

The kids have been telling each other all morning about how they walked ALL THE WAY to the commissary (maybe 1/3 mile) yesterday. Should I tell them that they're going to be walking all week?

. . . . and walked and walked and walked and walked

Together Again

First of all, I want to know how we got everyone into that picture? Hyrum's camera must have a super power. Secondly, even though I was functioning on very little sleep the entire time I wish it could have been longer. The learned macrame skills came in handy when Deanna woke up at 2am and couldn't go back to sleep--I just handed her one of the belt and bead kits and took myself back to bed. Thirdly, I need a copy of Liz's poem so Ben can hear it.

Lastly, we thoroughly enjoyed the Toblerone award for longest distance traveled home from the reunion in the Chicago airport, where it was rainy and we watched our luggage sit in a sodden pile during the entire layover. It was a good way to mentally gear up for the rainy weather here!

When we walked out of the airport the humidity was so high you could see the humid haze in the air. It's like being in Georgia only with no air coniditioning--people here just open the windows and turn on a fan. Luckily it is not as hot as Georgia, but I'm still glad to blast the cold air when we get into the van!

Speaking of vans:
Or more specifically, trucks. Can you see the name on the grill? Ben thinks all trucks should have this label.

Adventure

My first glimpse of Germany thrilled me--look at all those cute little white houses with red tile roofs? Charming! Sweet little villages! Windy rural roads!

After a week of very discouraging house hunting those same things are bumming me out. It is impossible to get where you want to go without going through the middle of those charming little villages and their windy, narrow roads. I've never slalomed between parked cars so much in my life and I'm beginning to wonder if our american-made minivan is going to survive its European adventure. We've scoured the ads, made numerous appointments to view houses, gone into homes which weren't even available yet, and made so many calls we've had to refill the minutes on the phone twice. Yet we are still without a place to call home. Even if we found a place which was perfect there's no guarantee that we'd be able to rent as has been demonstrated to us with landlords telling us that we can rent the place--and then renting it to someone else before the papers have been signed. (I was under the impression that Germans took verbal agreements very seriously, and yet this has happened at least twice) We've found places which are big enough for us, but too expensive or places which are priced right but too far of a commute. Or else we have too many kids. Can't do anything about that one! Supposedly a landlord can't discriminate against you for having a lot of kids, but Ben's made offers on houses only to be told he has too many kids.

Is this the point where I decide that we aren't going to find a place that fits most of our requirements and just get that house on the busy road which smells of smoke? Bribe someone? (I have no idea who'd we bribe, but we're doing everything we can--surely there is something else we can do?)

Maybe I'm just so down because we rushed through our lunch to get ready and go see an apartment--only to get there and be told it had already rented. They're always so very, very sorry, but it's not their problem and no, they don't know what else you can do. I cried. Can't even blame jet lag for that.

In the meantime, I have sent Ben out to go grocery shopping with all the kids so I can blub while taking a hot bath.

I should have beautiful pictures, but we have been non-stop house hunting and all I have is a picture of our milk carton propaganda.

I'm re-considering all right.

Backhand

Talia this morning: "Mom you look so cute with that headband in your hair!"

a moment later: "why do really old people look so much cuter with headbands and stuff?"

This kind of excitement can't be contained!

Watching the Fourth of July parade in downtown Modesto, CA.