Goings On

Skip may still be recovering from the bowling birthday party he took Maddie to this weekend, but all in all we had a really great family weekend. Which is even more appreciated since with the transition to his new role in London, Skip has been busier than usual with work.

After Skip and Maddie went to the birthday party we all took the train into downtown Duesseldorf. We, of course, headed to Dunkin Donuts to get coffee for me and Skip and Munchkins for Maddie. The whole place looks exactly like an American Dunkin Donuts until you look closely at some of the donut flavors which include donuts filled with bananas or plums and see these huge apple dumpling-like pastries. The experience was only marred by choosing to sit downstairs where there was a group of small children whose mothers weren't watching them or expecting them to behave. Even Maddie was a little wide-eyed at the spectacle. Not even when one of the children set off the fire alarm by opening an emergency exit did any of the moms move from their own coffee and donuts. I'm sounding horribly judgmental, but honestly!

Then we all headed to the bookstore where Skip and Maddie bought purchases in German and I bought the latest Meg Cabot book in English. We headed to Galleria Kaufhof, which is the big department store here in Germany, and bought Skip some pants and shoes for work. His cords may not always cut it in the London office. Then we had dinner at the Galleria cafe. Some of the big department stores here still have in-store restaurants. This one is a buffet--which is the ideal set-up when eating with Maddie.

We are bad people who do not usually attend church on the first Sunday of the month because at Christ Church the first Sunday is "Family Sunday" and there is no Sunday School. The trouble is they don't do much in the service to make it more family friendly and Maddie is so restless by the time the long sermon rolls around that it becomes a worshipful experience for no one in our family. So instead, we headed into Kaiserswerth for the annual Easter Market and then headed to the circus.

Circus Hansa is no Barnum and Bailey, but it's a family owned and operated traveling gig. There were trained horses, Llamas and even camels. They even had a knife thrower and fire eaters. It was a little cold to be sitting in a circus tent, but Maddie really had a good time. I was a bit dismayed that after 18 months and 90 course hours of German I could understand absolutely nothing the ringmaster was saying. I'm still a lousy German speaker, but I can generally get the gist of something. Then Skip told me that the man was indeed difficult to understand and had some sort of accent.

I have an dinner outing tonight with the staff of the Radschlager--the American Women's Club magazine that I work on. We're going out for Lebanese.