Skip's Birthday Weekend

Skip's Birthday Ice Cream

Skip with Torsten, Timmy, Elke and Elfie

Skip had a great birthday weekend. He went Friday to the BVB game and watched them win 3 to 0. Saturday we went out with friends and relatives to Mongos--a mongolian barbque place in Duisburg. It's a restaurant where you pick a sauce and the go through a buffet line with a bowl picking out veggies and meats and then the chefs stir fry it all together and bring it to your table. This morning, he got breakfast in bed--Maddie insists that you should always have breakfast in bed on your birthday and later we headed in to Kaiserswerth for the annual Kartoffelfestival (that's a potato festival for you non-German speakers).

Maddie and I went to the welcome back picnic and school on Friday night. It's always fun to watch the new dads realize that there's a beer truck parked at the school. It softens the blow of still not having internet connection and the pain of the blisters they've gotten putting together all that IKEA furniture. Maddie had friend Riley's birthday party on Saturday morning and enjoyed having a new babysitter on Saturday night. We've started letting Rosie out in the little entry way to our house. We can completely shut it off from any other rooms or stairs and it gives her a chance to run around.

Maddie's Keen Fashion Sense

Maddie and Rosie

Okay, so my rant for the week is issue of waiting in line. I stood with Maddie in line on Friday to get animal balloons from a clown at the school picnic and I stood in line at the Kartoffelfest. Both times German children or adults cut in front of me. Now in the kids line, I just told them where the back of the line was and pointed. We had to wait for about 15 minutes and I sent three different kids (all Germans) to the back of the line. The Asian kids and the American kids just qued up at the end and waited. The same thing happened to me waiting in line for potato soup today. A gentlemen of about 75 walked up to where I was standing, looked back to the end of the line and then just wedged his way between me and the person in front of me. Nobody said a word. I didn't because first of all, I didn't know how to say, "back of the line, buddy" in German, and second of all because it would have seemed rude to kick the 75-year-old out of the line. I have seen this happen time and again (there was a fairly ugly incident at a clothing store with a friend of mine). It seems like the cultural norm is "if you can get away with it, don't bother waiting for your turn." What is that about? We've had to teach Maddie not to break in line, but to stand her ground and protect her place--otherwise she'd spend her life here waiting for a turn!