Happy New Year!

Here are some pictures from our post-Christmas trip to Bavaria with our nephew, Zach. We took in some culture . . . .And lots of winter fun.

Neuschwanstein - if it looks familiar, it is because it was the model for the Cinderella castle at Disney World!
A brief foray into Austria - playing on a frozen lake. There were even ice skaters pushing their baby in a stroller!

Merry Christmas!

Our nephew Zach came in for Christmas. We are really enjoying having him. His first day here we dragged him out for a nice refreshing walk to try to counter jet lag. Here is the Mainz Cathedral and entrance to the Christmas Market. The cathedral is 1000 years old. On the 23rd we went to a Christmas concert there.
We did a Christmas tree in the German tradition, with lit candles.
Paul H. is also here visiting and we have really enjoyed having him. Looks nice and Mediterranean, doesn´t it?
A Merry Christmas to all!

krankenwagon

Yesterday (Friday) when I picked Abby up from school, she excitedly told me that she had finally seen the inside of an ambulance! And it wasn’t just a tour. While at the children’s farm she had fallen while pushing a wheelbarrow and sliced open the skin just under her nose. Luckily, she’s had a tetanus shot and I don’t think it will leave much of a scar. Luckily, Paul was with me and could translate the bits of the story from the school director I didn’t understand. Despite that she had a good day at the farm. This week they’ve helped clean and spin wool in addition to taking care of the horses. She had a ball.

Friday evening, Paul, Abby & I went to buy a Christmas tree! We went with the Charlie Brown ethos and picked a small tree that was missing its top. It needed a good home. We brought it home on the bus (which was one reason I wanted a small tree!) and spent the rest of the evening stringing popcorn and listening to the 5 Christmas carols we actually have along. Abby contributed the German children’s version of “Oh, Tannenbaum,” which involves grandma on the garden fence and naked firefighters. We put candleholders on the tree and plan to (briefly!) have lit candles on the tree as per the German custom. Don’t worry, we’ll also have a bucket of water handy!

I finished my Christmas shopping, except for the groceries, on Friday. We need to finish grocery shopping today as stores here are all closed on Sunday, will close at 2 p.m. Monday, and will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. With two guys visiting, one 20 and one 14, I think we need to have plenty of food on hand! We’re lucky to have four grocery stores, including an Asian one, within two blocks of our house. They are all small, though, and none of them sells everything we need.

Today is Wayne’s birthday, though at the moment he’s celebrating by assembling furniture.

Running in the cold

Wayne & I both officially got back into running this morning, after 2 weeks of moving and recovering from my washer-induced back injury. Many of you know that running in below-freezing weather is not exactly my thing, but it was OK. I ran through an area I hadn’t seen yet, and it was beautiful. I felt sorry for the ducks paddling in the unfrozen edges of a pond. If I were them I’d fly south. They must have read the brochure on the Mediterranean weather and been fooled.

We signed Abby up for gymnastics today. You have to love the community sports center here - 2 hours of gymnastics a week, taught by a professional instructor, for 5 euro a month (just over $7). Amazing.

Our first house guest arrives today, and the second comes on Monday, so it’ll be a full house for Christmas!

Furnishing the flat

This morning Wayne came home from taking Abby to school with a recliner on his head! He’d carried it about half a mile. One of our main strategies for furnishing our flat has been to scan the curbs for cast offs, and this was a real find. Last week wasn’t so good for finding stuff as it rained all week. We still managed to get a good drying rack (we have a washer but not a dryer, so this is a critical item!) and a kitchen chair, and a friend picked up a bentwood rocker, but it was not a good week for upholstered stuff. This week is sunny and cold, so better scavenging weather. Abby has begun peering closely at piles of trash on the curb, so she has the spirit. She really wanted a hamster cage we saw on the street the other day, but I vetoed that one.

Wayne has been picking up Wiesbaden tourist information, and here’s my favorite quote from the official brochure: “Due to its Mediterranean climate . . . .” We have had highs in the 30s every day since we’ve been here, and we’re not into the cold part of winter yet. Wayne pointed out that the Rhine valley is a couple of degrees warmer than the rest of the country. I say that doesn’t make it Mediterranean.

Oh, my aching back!

Friday, December 14, 2007
Did I say Whoo-hoo, we have a washing machine? The good news is that I hear the comforting sound of the machine washing clothes as I type. The bad news is that all didn’t go exactly according to plan. As we unloaded the machine from the rented truck (we had a dolly, but no ramp), I slipped and managed to hurt my back. Did I mention that this was a fully-loaded truck and the washing machine was the first thing out? So we got it onto the dolly and up the steps into the building, feeling hugely grateful that we’re on the ground floor, and discovered we had made a completely amateur moving mistake. We measured the space, which is quite small, for the washing machine carefully, but neglected to measure the last door the washing machine would need to go through. Door: 56 cm, washing machine: 60 cm. Oops. So we decided that the washing machine would look lovely in the kitchen, and Wayne has purchased and installed the necessary hosing to make that work. The first load is in now. I actually think it’s worked out for the best, as any machine less than 56 cm wide would wash about 3 articles of clothing at a time. Given that washing machines are slower here (a load takes from 90-120 minutes), that means I’d be doing laundry constantly.

The other furniture that was in the truck was moved in almost completely by Wayne. I could carry stuff, I just couldn’t bend, so Wayne gave me a couple of things, I carried it in, Wayne put it down. Luckily the cabinets we were moving came in lots of mostly not-too-heavy pieces. (All those pieces are currently stacked awaiting complicated reassembly. It took Wayne and one of his friends hours to disassemble it to move, and will presumably take even longer to reassemble.) We didn’t finish unloading until nearly midnight.

Thursday morning, while we still had the truck, we went to look at a couch advertised in the classifieds. We didn’t really like it, so we’re still without a couch. We did buy a bed at a furniture store – the only thing we’ve bought new. We brought it back, unloaded the pieces, and returned the truck.

To all of you with chronic back problems, you have a whole new level of sympathy from me! Thursday morning I literally couldn’t get out of bed by myself (it didn’t help that bed as of Thursday morning was a mattress on the floor). I had never hurt my back before, and so am learning new skills, such as how to pick something up off the floor without bending over, how to put on socks with the minimum bending, etc. My back is already much better, though still painful. Ibuprofin is my friend.

Abby’s first week of school has gone well. She’s only had one hard day, which given the language challenge seems like a miracle. She is very excited about the trip to the children’s farm next week, and we managed to get waterproof pants and rain boots on our shopping trip. Her job at the farm will be caring for the ducks.

Still no internet or phone at home – we did get a letter from our service non-provider saying that the waiting period would be longer than the month they had first told us.

Me Talk Pretty

Whoo-hoo, we have a washing machine! Tuesday morning (which is the good day for classifieds here, for some reason) we scoured the ads for used washing machines and found one. It’s being sold by a nice Polish lady who needed a bigger machine since she has 3 kids. I’m thrilled to have one! We don’t actually have it yet, as Wayne is renting a truck again today and he’ll pick it up later, but I’m saved from the Laundromat.

Tuesday we also took the bus to Real to buy cheap plastic things. Real is pretty similar to a super Wal-Mart (though smaller) and I have to admit that it made me very, very happy. Embarrassingly so. We bought some kitchen things we need, a car seat for Abby for when we rent a car, a door mat, that sort of thing. Plus they had a bigger selection of groceries than we’ve seen elsewhere, so we were able to get things like whole-wheat pasta and flour. It’s not in walking distance, so won’t be a regular shopping place, but it’s nice to know that it is just a bus ride away.

Bus fares are actually more expensive here than the price with an Oyster card in London, and Abby’s not free here. Luckily, we’re in a great location, in walking distance of most things we’ll need. The pedestrian/shopping zone is less than a 10 minute walk away, which is nice. This afternoon Abby and I will be heading there. Next week Abby’s class is spending the week at a children’s farm, and she needs to be outfitted with rubber boots and waterproof trousers. She had a good second day of school. She thinks it’s the “coolest school ever,” primarily because, as she says, “we don’t have to work.” (We’re implementing a daily journal requirement at home!)

Tuesday we also went to visit my school for a language assessment, which was humiliating. My German is still terrible. Evidently I have to actually be immersed in the language before I can be bothered to learn it! So, in mid-January, I start what I am calling “German boot camp.” It’s 4 hours a day, 4 days a week of German at the adult ed center. It sounds just like Peace Corps language training, and I know some of you will groan at that memory. The funniest part was when the lady asked how many years of education I’ve had. When I answered 20, she thought I must have my numbers wrong. I think she had difficulty reconciling my level of German (equivalent to David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day”) with someone who has clearly had too much formal education.