It's official...

Hard to believe, but we have been here for one month already. We made it over here and so did our personal belongings. Based on our current lifestyle, I have to say we are officially settled in.

We have mastered opening the windows with how the handle turns-- quarter turn and it opens completely like a door; half turn up and it vents open. Adeline likes to pull the rope to open and close the shutters (or shades as she calls them). I am getting used to not having a garbage disposal and separating all our garbage into the various bins and colored bags.

In the morning, the girls have their favorite tv cartoons in German they like. Emmie likes the KIKA blue rabbit and Adeline likes a wizard with his helpers. Initially, they both liked Dora as she spoke German, but the other characters speak English here.

When we are out shopping, Emmie will ask for a brezel (pretzel) and Adeline will ask for a croissant. I have noticed too my shopping cart looks like the other moms with the various type snacks and food items we are eating. We have already gone through one jar of Nutella. The girls love their chocolate sandwiches. The girls are learning their manners in German and I am getting more comfortable speaking German in the stores ordering items.

Some of the festive things the Germans do now too do not cause us to say, "did you see that?!" For example, the ladies who have bright fire red or purple patches of hair, the dogs in the stores, and the decorated cars. (Even the side mirror has a flag on it).

For our neighbor's German soccer party on Wednesday evening, the girls had fun getting ready for it. Adeline was excited to wear  her soccer jersey. Emmie wanted to wear the hat which Eric got from the drink market. It is a cowboy hat sponsored by Bitburger with the German colors on it. The guy in front  of him did not want it, so he asked Eric if he wanted it. Atisha and Brigitte put the German flags and tattoos on the girls! Our neighbors got a projection screen TV just for the game as they had 15 plus people over to watch it. We had a fun time at the party. I think Atisha's friends had a fun time speaking English with Adeline as I only heard them speak German in the beginning of the party, but then they were all playing and having fun by the time the game was over.

Roller coaster day

 Tuesday was a roller coaster ride for us- emotionally and physically. The morning started quite early with the farmer starting his old model tractor and leaving to go out to his fields, but it got me up and a few loads of laundry started. Then a 10am phone call from Emmie's kindergarten principal informing me Emmie lost her place in school and was now on a waiting list. This recently came about due to the recent families moving in and the city telling her the students were to be ranked by age and not when they applied. After a thorough discussion, she informed me there is another kindergarten around the corner from them that has openings. I finalized our conversation confirming their school dates and we would be in contact about Emmie still attending should a student not return in the fall. I immediately called the other school, but the principal was not in. I then emailed her inquiring about Emmie attending her kindergarten. 10:30 am I get a call back from Emmie's kindergarten principal informing me she just received information that a student will not be returning, so Emmie will be in the Sunflower group and the city will be sending us the enrollment package.  It is only 10:35am and I have been through the whole circle of emotions in getting Emmie into a school. Emmie is so excited to start school when she is 3 as she will be just like her big sister. Bike riding past Emmie's school in the late morning to the store and hearing her happily point out  her school to Adeline, made my morning frustrations quickly go away.

In the afternoon, our neighbors invited us along with them to the Kriftel park (this is also where the pool is). We each hopped on our bikes with our kids in the bike trailers and downhill we went. She showed me a new route to the park which was much easier than biking through the streets when Eric and I ventured there a few weeks ago. We met her friend and her son there who was learning English in kindergarten. He told his mom he wanted to say something but he only said bye when we were all leaving.

The park is made up of a few play stations and they are not what you would find in a US playground by safety standards- maybe at an old time amusement park. The 1st station  had 2 tall and steep slides. Adeline was brave to conquer them both by herself. I thought she maybe should have kept her bike helmet on just in case she went up and over the sides. I went on the slower one with Emmie  and then Emmie sat on Adeline's lap one time. The next station had a large mushroom that spun which the girls could hang from. They had fun until their arms got tired. Adeline spotted the zipline and could not resist. It was quite quick and long (about 50m) for the ride. On Emmie's turn, she hung on very tight and tried to cross her legs on the circular seat and just grinned from ear to ear all during her ride. The group then moved over to the dragon climbing structure for a few turns on the ropes and monkey bars. Finally, we ended up at the swings, large rope climbing structure, sanbox/ digging area and in-ground trampoline. The sandbox/ digging structure had pulleys with buckets set up high on a platform for the kids to fill and empty..or otherwise give kids passing by underneath sand showers. The girls loved jumping on the trampoline along with the other kids.

Happy Father's Day!

We celebrated the day with starting out on an early morning train ride. The girls were impatient while waiting for the train. (Although we were 20 minutes early for it, as I did not know how long it was going to take all of us to walk to the train station). Seeing the train coming towards us, they instantly filled with excitement and glee. While holding their hands, Eric boarded the train with the girls and found our seats. Initially, they sat in the seat and then about 10 minutes into it, they were on their knees, peering out the window. With a stop to switch trains, the hour train ride took us to a small English speaking Christian church.

Upon entering, we were greeted and informed the children would stay with us for the praise portion and then they would be dismissed for the sermon to attend Sunday school. Emmie had no issues being left in her classroom with the seven other children as she was glad there was going to be snacks! Adeline's class size was small too, but she was not the only new one. After church, the girls were very happy to share with us their projects they had made. We then joined the members in the foyer for light snacks and learned  there are two other couples also from Hofheim. We did not stay long though as the train would be coming shortly and the next train would not be again for 30 minutes.

Since we had to switch trains in Frankfurt, we decided to have lunch downtown. I first showed Eric the Zeil, a glass cone like structure they built throughout the 8 story shopping tower.  Click here to see pictures of the curving twisty glass structure Not sure exactly where the non-touristy restaurants were at, we headed for the old city center as we were hungry and we knew there would be an abundant there.  We found a nice table inside as it was cool to be sitting outside, even though many people were but all bundled up. All of us enjoyed spargel (white asparagus) soup and the girls shared my spargel with hollandaise sauce and schnitzel meal, while Eric dined on a smoked wurst (sausage) and sauerkraut dinner.

Our journey continued around the city center as the girls wanted to see all of the various acts: people playing various music instruments, dressed up as statues, and doing anything or nothing to get money. On our journey home, Emmie fell asleep in the stroller. Even though it was brisk out, Eric still wanted to get gelato, so him and I each got a scoop for the walk home. I did not want him to feel lonely eating ice cream by himself.

In the late afternoon, Alex came and hooked up our landline phone, so now I am connected to the world with technology and my phones! We finished the evening eating Eric's favorite sweet raisin bread I had found Saturday by chance as I took a different route to the market.  I passed a small corner bakery and caught it in the corner of my eye as I was looking at the decorated desserts that looked like the German flag with black, red, and yellow toppings. The bakery only makes 2 loaves of it and it is by random when they do. I know I will be taking that route at the end of the week to check their shelves.

Aside from doing laundry this week, we have an invitation to a German soccerball party on Wednesday night, a mall shopping outing in the afternoon and a Stammtisch ( adult gathering in the evening) on Thursday, and a Friday morning appointment at the Audi dealership to start the paperwork process for our A3 Sportback that will not arrive till end of July. After what Eric has gone through to get me a handy (cell phone), we figured we should start the paperwork now on a vehicle- at the German rate to get approved, it will take 4 weeks to complete it, but let us hope that is not the case in this instance.

Great day for doing laundry

First thing Saturday morning, our moving team of Sarah, Jorge, Thorsten, and Eric gathered for the last moving in project.  God bless them all for their weekend time and help with us in making the transition over here quickly. For without their assistance, we still would be trying to get settled in. Today, they moved the washer, dryer, and two more shranks (closets) to our apartment. Luckily, the laundry room is on the ground level for them to place them, but for me I have to go down two flights of stairs to do the laundry that has been piling up. 

The washer was hooked up immediately and the slow process has begun. I read in the manual a complete cycle with prewash and extra rinse can take 169 minutes.  This next week will consist of laundry as the compartment can only only hold about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of our machines in the states and drying takes over 2 hours to get it closet dry. I have 3 laundry baskets overflowing with clothes and that does not include the linens. I hope we have sunny warm weather to help speed up the laundry process. Right now we are set with the major appliance items, the microwave and toaster can wait.

After lunch, Eric took Adeline out for a bike ride. The two of them took the path we walked a few weeks ago but farther. He followed some of the bike signs to Kelkheim, but said they ended up at a golf course. On their way back home, Adeline said they got lost and was nervous, but happy when she saw our apartment and realized Daddy was only kidding.

The highlight of our Saturday afternoon was watching Sweden's Princess Victoria marry Daniel Westling, a man of the common people. The guests started arriving at 2:30pm at the Stockholm Palace and then walked a long gray carpet lined with soldiers to the church. It reminded me of the red carpet we watch with Hollywood events. The girls were in awe of the attire as the ladies wore jewels and their crowns or tiaras with their fancy gowns  and the men with their sashes and medals, one even was carrying his sword. The commentators said everyone's attire was for an afternoon wedding. Personally, the dresses were gorgeous, so not sure how more exquisite it could have gotten if it were an evening wedding. The King and Princess arrived 45 minutes later and the ceremony in the church began. After the ceremony, the newlyweds toured the city in a carriage, and then boarded a vessel that had about 30 men rowing it. The boat took them around the city harbor where they then got back in the carriage and arrived at the castle for the evening festivities. For Eric and I, it was awesome to see the city again, as we had visited these places when we toured Stockholm. Adeline even noted one time the shimmer on the princess's shoes when she was walking down a few steps. Throughout the airing of it, Adeline thought it was some type of movie produced by Disney as she asked when it was going to be over even, though we had informed her this was a real true princess's wedding. I can understand though as the media called it a Fairytale Wedding and there were many similarities throughout it to Cinderella's story.  

After 3 hours of wedding watching, this is one of the few times I  truely enjoyed our high tech TV Eric picked out as I think I had the best seat in the house to see the entire event. 

We spent the evening hanging pictures and mirrors. The apartment now feels homey as the walls are not naked stark white. Although, of course, on the last one to be hung, the hook broke which took the same amount of time to fix and rehang as it did all of the other items. Why is it all house projects, big or small, always have a glitch!

Ready for 1st Class

Friday morning, I took Adeline to the Kreishaus (clinic)in Marxheim. Marxheim is Hofheim's sister city directly on the side of the train tracks, but it is all uphill. The school requested she have an appointment with a doctor to make sure she is ready for 1st class. I gave them all of my health papers from the USA indicating she was ready for kindergarten, but they wanted to conduct their own tests. Adeline performed great on the hearing and vision test. It was more of a cooperative test though as the secretary spoke some English and I instructed Adeline what to do from what I could see her trying to achieve at each station. We then visited the doctor who initially questioned our requests since Adeline spoke no German, but I told her she was playing with German friends and would quickly adapt. The doctor also ordered me to take a language course too! She performed some basic tests of following instructions, matching, and writing to see Adeline's cognitive ability. She then did a health check-up and finished the visit by having Adeline play hopscotch on her rug. We left with the doctor saying she would write a letter to the school indicating Adeline was ready for 1st class even though she was underage for when the children attend. 

Perfect timing as we came home and had a letter in the mail from Adeline's school! It had upcoming important dates of a parent's meeting and school starting on Tuesday, August 17 for her. Melanie tells me too that is tradition to host a party for her starting 1st class as it is a big ordeal here! Yippe!! We also got a school material list. Not just pencils and crayons, this list is very detailed to the color of crayons, size of pencil, etc.. those Germans and their details.. We are going to ask our neighbor, Atishe, who is in school to go school supply shopping with us. I think it would take me a whole week just to find the specific items in the stores. (It took me 3 separate tries and the help of Melanie to find nail polish remover! -- the little bottle even said nail polish remover in English, but it was on the floor and in a different looking bottle than I am used to.)

We spent part of the afternoon watching the German soccer game and the rest of it at Adeline's new school. Steinburg Schule was hosting their year end school  party. Teresa, Ines, and Matthias came with us. The girls clicked right away as we were walking to the school. At the school, the girls had a great time playing together, eating the various cakes and goodies and exploring the school. Emmie enjoyed riding the Bobby car which is a toy all of the toddlers here have to ride on. All of the father's joined in the festivities when the German's lost as they had been in the hallway glued to the TV. We also entered a lottery and won a soccerball!

Not a slow week after all

What I thought was going to be an easy week, has turned into another busy week. However, I seem to have finally gotten a little ahead with grocery shopping as we did not have to go the grocery store on Monday for milk and juice. The weatherman intially said we were going to have rain showers all week and it has only rained one day, Thursday. All the other days have been pleasant partly cloudy summer days in the low 70s.

Tuesday, the girls and I spent at the dealerships. In the morning, we went to the Audi dealership and climbed all over the A3 Sportback. Lucky for me, there was a salesperson who spoke English. Initially, he asked me if I wanted diesel or benzine (gasoline),  how much horsepower, and then the list started of engineering performance questions. After the 4th question, I informed him I was looking for an A3 with air conditioning, cruise control, and I would drive about 15K km a year, plus I needed the transaction to occur  very soon. I think it caught him off guard a little bit since I was not interested in the technical aspect or the different interior packages of the vehicle. He did  find some possible vehicles. I collected lots of data and figures for Eric about the current inventory, plus future inventory. Since Aldi's was right next door, we did our shopping. To our surprise, it is Asian week. This means the entire center of the store is filled with all types of Asian food. Of course, we picked out some items based on the pictures and with the few food words I know in German about what the flavor should be (like chicken or just veggies).

After getting the groceries home, we went to the BMW dealership and climbed all over the 1 series 5 door. I liked it, but after collecting all of the data and figures on it, I do not think it is suitable for our family. It is just a little too small for weekend getaways in comparison to the A3. I never did drive either of them,  as I am more concerned about the size and being able to park it and making sure we all fit in it for holidays. We'll see what we end up with when Eric comes home to actually sit in both vehicles and see how he thinks we, along with our gear, will fit.

Friendship, fresh air, and a fine chocolate store!  Our Wednesday could not get any better. We spent the morning with the Wendel ladies downtown shopping at the market, relaxing outdoors at the cafe with an Apleshorle (apple juice mixed with bubbly water), and Melanie showing us where the gourmet chocolate shop was on a side street. Adeline and Emmie found lots of soccer themed chocolates from little soccer balls to 8" tall soccer players. Looking forward to sampling our selection on Friday when our teams play again.

Thursday, we woke up to a steady rain. Unfortunately, we had to go out as my bike's appointment was for today. It is a good thing the bike trailer is equipped with a rain shield for the girls as it kept them mostly dry. As for me, I did my best to take the side streets to the bike shop, but of course, there was that one car that had to drive so close to me and splash a puddle all over my legs. Germans and their lack of personal space- applies too while in cars -- that will be another blog I am sure. We made it to the bike store, then over to meet with another salesman who sells Volkswagens, and finally to the grocery store. We made it back home, a little wet, but we won't melt.

Tomorrow should be interesting as Adeline goes in for a doctor's visit to make sure she is okay to attend school and the Germany and USA games are on in the afternoon.

Opel Zoo

Sunday started off slow from all of the excitement on Saturday night, so we were just relaxing when the Wendel family invited us to the Opel Zoo. We packed some snacks and were on our way in their 2 cars. Once we arrived and got the strollers and kids all situated, we started our afternoon zoo visit.

Our first stop was the petting zoo. The goats were a little aggressive and this frightened Adeline, so she stayed out of the area. Eric managed to photograph one goat jumping up on Thorston (he is at least 6'2") while he and Hanna are trying to feed them a carrot. Melanie and Thorston were surprised by this as they commented how when they come late in the afternoon, the goats are very calm because they are full from everyone feeding them all day long. We did find a lamb born in April the girls enjoyed petting. From there, we walked over to the elephants. 

The zoo is in the Tanus Hills, so you walk around the zoo in a circle, starting downward and finishing the zoo walking up hill. The exhibits are free range exhibits, so we had to look closely for the animals. It was neat at the elephant exhibit because in the background you can see a small town with a castle up on the hill. As we walked around the various exhibits, it was interesting to see the different species we do not have in our zoos.

After we walked through the zoo, we took the girls to the play area. The area had bumper scooters/ cars,  a small swing device with 6 swings attached, playground area, large ball area for them to jump, and numerous other children's activities. Thorston said this was all here when he was a child as well. He also informed us that these motorized activities  were never attended either. This surprised Eric and I  as these were bumper cars and no official zoo person was there to oversee the activity. To them these activities were so fun, we think it may have been more fun than seeing the animals.  After putting in a Euro here and there in the various rides, it was time to head home to watch the German soccer match.

At home, the girls had a quick shower, and then we headed back to the Wendels for the FIFA World Cup game with Germany playing this time. We did not even have the game on and within the 1st couple of minutes we knew Germany scored from the sounds and cheers we could hear around us. The streets were absolutely silent with the game going on till there was a goal. An evening with excellent company accompanied with yummy German sweets and a solid win by Germany was a super way to end our weekend. 

I am looking forward to a not so busy week, although Eric would like me to try to get out and test drive a few cars. Yikes, I am not sure I am ready to drive over here yet.