Winding down

This week started off with a holiday on Monday. Sarah came over and we strolled downtown for lunch. Even though the weather was cool, it was still pleasant to be outside as the sunshine was warm when it peeked from behind a cloud.

Adeline's last nature class was on Wednesday. The kids stayed closer to the school, due to the thunderstorms  and heavy downpours we have been sporadically experiencing. However, a tick did manage to cling to her shirt, which the teacher found and immediately removed. This was a the last straw for Adeline and bugs. Fortuntately, they are ALL gone and the remaining school days can be counted on one hand.

Wednesday afternoon, Emmie and I visited the toy store. She wishes to celebrate her birthday with her school friends since we will be in Michigan on her birthday, so we are having a party next Tuesday afternoon. The tradition here is to create a wishbox with items the birthday child picks out for their guests to purchase. She was very excited to walk around the toy store and fill her box up. There were moments when Emmie started picking things out for her sister and not for herself. I reminded her this was for her birthday and she replied that we needed to remember those toys for Adeline.

Adeline had no homework this week, so she was very excited about this every day. The class has spent about an hour everyday practicing for the program they will perform on the second day of the new school year when the new first class begins. Her teacher and the school have also sent home information regarding the last few days of school next week, plus information for the school year which begins again in early August. I really appreciate their advance planning. 

Early Friday evening, the girls attended a choir practice with me as Eric was working late. I will be singing with Adeline and the school choir in a few weeks during Hofheim's Summer festival. Her teacher is really nice and she made the practice fun for all of us. 

Sore feet

Hessentag 2011 started this weekend in Oberursel. It is a massive ten day festival hosted by a city within the Hesse area. Every year it is a new city that runs the event and this year it was close, so we spent the majority of our weekend at the festival.

Friday evening, Eric took me to You FM Night,  our first German open air concert. We drove to the outskirts of Oberursel and then took the train to the concert location. It was only 7pm and the train was already running behind schedule due to many people attending the event. We entered the stage area and worked our way towards the front as your viewing area was where you choose to stand. While waiting, I realized You FM means young fresh music and from looking around at the crowd, I was not young anymore. Fortunately, Eric was able to get me the last pair of earplugs they were handing out. 

The opening act performed and the crowd became deeper. We grabbed some cheap beer and sausages to pass the time, too. We laughed about the deposit on the plastic beer cup. The local radio station had some interesting music choices to pass the time. The opening act, Madsen, performed and the crowd warmed up with some singing and dancing. By the time Wir Sind Helden came on, my knees were sore from standing, but the German band was fantastic to listen to and enjoyable to watch perform on stage. The crowd was thick and really into the music, so it made for a fun time. It was late, so we ducked out, as the last performer had not even done their sound check yet. Unfortunately, they closed the train stop in our direction on the way home, so we had to walk into town to catch our train back to our car. Even though we missed out on Juli, it probably worked out, as it was pouring by the time we got back home.

Early Saturday afternoon, we returned to the festival. Our first stop was exploring through the German military exhibit. The girls liked climbing up in the tank, sitting in the helicopter, and going in the tents. There were also a couple nice display tents of the various equipment pieces they use for them to see and touch so they can understand how it works and/or what it is used for.  

Our strolling then led us to a children's sports area, where Adeline climbed to the top of the rock wall. She was a like Spiderman going up the wall. We then walked past the various vendors and street performers and ended up in the city park. 

In the city park, they had constructed three different areas: farm life, a children's area with pony rides and games, and an exploration area. The farm life exhibit resembled a 4-H fair with various farm animals and equipment on display. The girls were all smiles while on their pony rides. The woodworking area was a favorite for Eric in the exploration area. Eric and the girls were able to try out many old fashioned tools on the little piece of wood they cut from a log from using a two person hand saw. Emmie and I explored the small amphibian and insect tent. She liked passing all of the little cages and pointing out what was in each one. We also enjoyed the mathematical tent. The challenging puzzles and activities were fun to figure out. The girls had fun making music with the water based instruments that were constructed in the band area. We did not realize how late it was as we had been having a good time in this area, when they started to close the different sections. 

We walked our way back through the vendor area for tasty fair food and to rest our feet. Before we headed home, we took a ride on the ferris wheel. It was another concert night and everyone attending the concert was dressed in white, so as they walked down the street, there were these large sections of white from where the people had been stopped in their procession due to trains. Overall, the view was terrific as we could see the Frankfurt skyline on one side and the Taunus hills on the other. 

Sunday afternoon, we biked to Hattersheim, a city that is about 4.8 km away. Our bike trip was short, so Emmie could get more time on her bike with pedals. With Adeline's enthusiasm and Eric's guidance, she finally did a couple 30 meter spurts riding by herself on the path. Unfortunately, our bike trailer wheel tube popped, so we called it a day. Us gals got some ice cream, while Eric rode his bike home to get the car. He returned with the car and and then we loaded up the bike trailer and Emmie's bike for me to drive home with Emmie. Eric then returned home with my bike and Adeline in tow. He commented after we were home that it was not the distance that was bad, but the last 0.5 km straight up hill at the very end of each trip that was the worst part.

Ready to celebrate by Thursday

Getting back into the swing of things this past week has challenging. Even though I completed my second semester of German class, I still found myself not having enough time to get things accomplished. It did not help that in addition to doing the normal laundry, Adeline contracted more lice from school on Monday when she returned from our vacation so I had to conquer them and our household again, and then I had to throughly scrub our fruits and vegetables due to the E.Coli outbreak.

Emmie's dance class performed some of the routines they have been learning on Monday afternoon. Uschi joined us for the entertainment of a firetruck dance and few other songs. We celebrated afterwards at the cafe. 

Uschi also collected numerous little WWF animal packets from the local grocery store for the girls. They are like trading cards, but are stickers. The teachers at school are into filling up the matching sticker books with them as they trade them with the students during the breaks. Adeline was so excited to receive these from her as she has been just watching the kids these past few days trade them. Emmie likes categorizing the animals. 

Tuesday morning, Adeline's class went strawberry picking. The children were taught field etiquette when picking strawberries and each child picked their own basket. The teacher drove there, so she could drive the strawberries back to school as I do not think the strawberries would have survived the walk back with the children carrying them. Adeline did a great job picking sweet ripe strawberries as we ate them all up in the afternoon. 

On Wednesday, I finally caught up on the normal household duties when it was time to make treats for my birthday party on Thursday. I made a cake with melted chocolate raspberry ice cream in it, since the Germans prefer to eat ice cream and cake at separate times. I figured with this recipe, I covered both culture's birthday traditions.

Our friends came over Thursday afternoon and we had a combined birthday party for Briggi, our neighbor who had a birthday earlier in the week, and myself. Even though the weather felt like it was fall out, it did not dampen our spirits, or maybe it was Strawberry bowl drink Briggi made. Anyways, I enjoyed the day celebrating another year filled with love, laughter, and happiness and am looking forward to what the new year will bring.

One last time

Saturday morning was our last morning of sitting on the outdoor veranda while enjoying the breakfast buffet. By the time we had completed eating, the girls had consumed enough tiny crepes for a small army. After breakfast, we headed down to the beach for a few hours and took one last plunge into the Aegean Sea. 

In the early afternoon we arrived to a packed little airport. Our check-in line was already outside and almost to the parking lot. Luckily our place in line was in the shade. Fortunately, we arrived minutes before the tour bus did. When we finally were in the building, we noticed the flight status board had numerous delays, so we became a little worried. We checked our bags with an hour before the scheduled boarding time. After proceeding through security, we came to a sea of people. We just picked a spot near a wall and waited. Then one flight boarded through one of the three boarding doors which opened up some seats. We managed to get two seats and some floor space to wait as we were supposed to be flying now. This is where I learned about the numerous delays from other passengers and that today was also the busiest day in the airport due to the beginning of the high tourist season, so this is why things were a little crazy.  20 minutes later, they showed our flight as boarding on the screen. We picked up our things and joined the long line to board the bus out to our plane. By the time everyone boarded, we were about 45 minutes late in taking off. The flight home was nice as we got to see the different islands we flew over and then the Alps when we were closer to Germany. 

We gathered our luggage in the Frankfurt airport, which somehow managed to be one of the first pieces and the last pieces to be put on the conveyor belt. We then made our way back to the apartment to cool off as it was warm and muggy and we needed to begin the adjustment back to our normal schedule after a fabulous memorable vacation.

Savor the Moment

Today was our last full day of vacation and the girls choose to spend the day at the wave beach, Mastihari Beach. We picked out our sunbeds and unpacked for the day. In the late morning, the clouds rolled in and a cool breeze started, but it did not stop them from playing in the water and building sandcastles. After about an hour, it cleared up and then it became intensely hot. Playing in the waves was now very refreshing. For our afternoon snack, we had a delicious piece of baklava from a beach restaurant. Eric and the girls constructed their best sandcastle of the week, too. 

In the evening, we dined at the hotel's Thalassa restaurant. The meal was courtesy of the hotel as the fire alarm went off spontaneously a few times throughout the week; however, one time it was on and off for a half hour in the middle of the night. It took a few tries to speak with the hotel management about the situation and when Eric finally did, they apologized for the inconvenience and offered to host a five course meal for us on our last evening. We savored the Greek specialties they prepared for us while taking in the beautiful  beach and pool views.

A "Sun" Day

We began our morning in the Sunken Forest. The forest is home to many wild peacocks and you can walk around with them and feed them. When we first arrived, two males were having a fight, so it was interesting to the see the large feathers move quickly as they squawked at each other. Our attention quickly turned to a family that was strolling by and then watching a few of the peacocks fly up into the nearby trees. When we glanced up, we noticed there were five huge peacocks sitting above us. It was perfect time for leaving as the local elementary school arrived on a tour bus to have a picnic lunch. 

We spent the day at Sunny Beach. It is in the same cove as Paradise Beach, but a little farther north and  less touristy. There was only one row of sunbeds here and very few people. The breeze became a little uncomfortable into the afternoon, so after a few hours of sand activities and a couple walks along the beach, we called it a day at the beach.

 Our evening activities started with a drive up the mountain. The view was gorgeous looking out over the shoreline. The girls found the goat crossing sign funny since we had only seen cow crossing signs all week along. After some tight turns and narrow roads, we arrived in Zia to watch the sunset. Our reserved table was in the perfect spot for watching the sun go down. The meal was delicious and the timing was perfect, because as we finished up our meal, the sun disappeared behind the island. Our waiter instantly became very busy taking everyone's picture as the sun was setting. After dinner, we strolled through the tourist trap shops on the main street and had a laugh as I have seen some of the same items with Florida printed on them. Adeline did find some pretty shells for her souvenir of our trip. We had another fantastic vacation day on the island.

Ancient Ruins

This morning we visited Asklepion. It was very interesting to walk around the large archeological sight and see the different items they have already excavated. By just seeing the detail on the pieces which are displayed, one can only imagine how grand the sight must have been when the four levels were fully constructed. 

We then went into Kos town to see some more places of archeological interest. Unfortunately the smaller excavation sights are not being well maintained and we could not see anything, but we did find the Odeum and Adeline did a little performance on the stage for us.  Hippocrates' tree is being supported by a steel frame due to its age, but it still is a massive tree. The Knights Castle was nothing special, but the view over the harbor and town were very nice.  After a snack break, we did a little shopping at the local market for some Greek spices and treats.

We spent the rest of the day at Mastihari Beach. Even though it was windy, Eric found a wind shield and we enjoyed the sunshine.  The girls had a fun time playing in the waves, especially since the water was warmer on this side of the island. We stayed all afternoon and concluded the day with another dinner on the beach.