This weekend kicked off Hofheim's summer of art, culture, and culinary with their Eroeffnungstfest. (Opening ceremony). The music events started Friday night, but the girls went to bed to early for us to enjoy The Queen Kings, a Queens tribute band. This band was the talk of the town and the place to be seen amongst the locals. Saturday morning it was quiet downtown, but everyone was walking in circles trying to find the market. There was a lack of signs posted stating there would be no market, so all of the little shops were quite busy. I found myself a little disorganized as I knew what I wanted at the market and where to get it, but now I had to make several stops and locate the items within a few of the stores. Emmie had fun shopping in the grocery store as they have little carts her size that she can push around, so that helped out with my load.
Eric and Adeline took off on an early adventure on the bike. They made it to a little church on the hill we can see when we walk to town. Adeline was very excited to show me the church on the steep hill and inform me it was built a long, long, long time ago-- when Grandma and Grandpa were very little -- like Emmie. The church was built in 1666. Their outing also took them past some horses and the steep hill made for a good workout. Although, Eric said he had to walk the last 100m as it was so steep with the bike.
Saturday afternoon, the Kuchera family joined us. For those that followed us before, Heather and Josh arrived from Michigan when we were in Esslingen as he was also with DiamlerChrysler at the time. We quickly downloaded them with information about living in Germany. The family is now 4 as they have a 2 year old boy, Carsten, and 4 month old girl, Anica. They now live in Koblenz (1.5 hours north of us along the Rhine River) as Josh now works for a German company. Heather has been giving me tips about living in Germany with kids since we found out we were moving here.
Our families spent the afternoon at the fair enjoying the summertime atmosphere. In addition to the stage performers, they had street artists walking around with a London theme to them and/or their costumes. The girls liked the characters walking on stilts, especially the royal couple. We found a tourist couple dressed in black outfits rolling big black suitcases and carrying black umbrellas which kept raining very funny. They had rigged the top of the umbrella to spray out water onto the umbrella, so any one passing by or them stooping over to ask questions would get wet. The girls knew there was a children's area so we ventured to that portion of the fair to enjoy a few rides they had not been on.
The first ride is a Seepferdschiffschaukel (sea horse ship swing is the translation). There was no cost to ride, just the muscles of daddy to keep it moving. The girls had fun despite Emmie bumping her head towards the end of it. The kids liked it, but it seemed as most parents were not to enthusiastic about having to work it for it to keep moving. The second ride,the slide, can be found in the drink markets. It is how they move the crates of beverages around the store. Both girls fit in the crates and had fun sliding down the conveyor belt.
The children's area also had a large printing press. Eric helped Adeline and Emmie print pages which had the city's crest on it. The first thing Eric told the girls to do (in English) was not touch anything. When it was Emmie's turn and all eyes were on them, Emmie reached out and touched the black ink curiously asking what it was. Everyone around who was decorating their page, just grinned or chuckled.
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