Sushi

Not really something that I expected to learn to make here in Germany, but my Japanese friend, Mikki, had me and two other moms with kids in Maddie's class over to learn how to roll Sushi. Maike, who is from Holland, but has lived in Singapore, already knew a thing or two about it, but Joy and I were novices. (I bet you can guess who is who in the photos.)

I'm not sure it was technically Sushi, since only vegetables and rice were involved, but the rolls came out great. Mikki is going to take us some time in the next few weeks to the Japanese store to get all the tools we need to do this at home. I love all the flavors of Japanese food, so it's really neat to learn from an expert.

The afternoon helped make up for a horrible morning. I had several loads of laundry and some housework that HAD to be done today(there is a limit to what even I can stand), and we have some new neighbors. Most homes you rent in Germany don't come with kitchens. The renters have to have everything installed--and that's what was happening next door. Three solid hours of pounding. And since our houses are narrow and tall, there was no room in the house to get away from it. I'm pretty sure the the sushi making was really fun, but I was so glad to get out of this house, I might have felt that way about anything!

Blumen

Our little yard or garten has bushes that produce flowers (blumen). Again, who knew? They weren't here when we got here in September, so their appearance has been a nice treat.

Deutsche Dora

Maddie and I have been watching Nick Jr in the mornings before school on the German Nick TV. And when we watch Dora, we also learn a little Spanish to. Yes, my German has progressed enough that I can almost, sort of understand what's happening on a television show geared to 3 to 5 year olds. But I've turned it back on when Maddie is at school and found programs geared to slightly older children, and I have no idea what they are saying. Well, at least I can talk to the German kids on the playground.

I told my German teacher and my Norwegian class partner about watching Dora and they had no idea what I was talking about. It was very strange to be in a room with two people who had no frame of reference for Dora the Explorer.

It was the same looks I got earlier this week when I went to Maddie's school on career day to tell about being a preacher. Most of the kids don't attend religious services, so they just had no frame of reference for what I was talking about. Mercifully, I brought my guitar along, so most of the kids left thinking I was some sort of song leader who taught them a little Hebrew and Greek.

A land where people don't know Dora or what a preacher is--I definitely ain't in Arkansas!

Living and Leaving in Germany

Of course when you're in a foreign country, there will be foods that are not common in what folks around here call your "passport country." One of those things in Germany is tuna fish pizza. They love it here. I accidentally picked up a frozen one last week--meaning to pick up a shinken (ham) one. Not wanting to waste it, I thought, "what the heck?" I do want to embrace the culture here, but I'll have to do it without the fish pizza. Uggg!

One of the American women (mom to four--one of whom was born here) who has been here for four years and who has been waiting for over a month to find out when they are going home got her departure date last night. June 1. She was in the school parking lot today crying and saying, "I don't know why I'm crying. I HATE Germany." I guess the friends you make as you're learning whether to use der, die, dem, den or das and trying to figure out where to get American pancake mix and slogging through 4 to 5 months of near-constant rain are just hard to leave--even if you're going home. That, and the prospect of packing up a household of six, is enough to make anyone crack.

Now in true ex-pat form, everyone will line up to say how much they are going to miss her, and follow that up with an inquiry about what she'll be selling when she goes. We're all really just a bunch of scavengers.

The Power of Vitamin D

Omigosh! The Sun has shone here for three days in a row. This is actually a beautiful country. Who knew? It's been obscured for the last four months by gray skies and almost-daily rain. I didn't think I was suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but after three days of sun, I feel like an entirely different person. I smile without having to work at it.

At pick-up and drop-off at school, the moms are a little punch drunk on all the extra Vitamin D. I'm planning on purchasing a pair of sunglasses tomorrow. I never thought it would happen here.

Another bonus today: our dryer has been slowly becoming less and less effective. We couldn't figure out why. We were cleaning the lint trap and emptying the water (it's a condenser drier). It was taking all day to dry a load of clothes. So Skip finally took heed of those wise words Bill Irwin (father of my college room mate) once offered--he read the book that came with the drier and discovered that there's a part that needs to be removed and rinsed out once a month. After cleaning out six months of gunk that had accumulated, our drier once again lives up to its name.

Maddie has recorder lessons tomorrow. She has been practicing faithfully since she began this two weeks ago. Please join Skip and me in praying that tomorrow, she learns to play a second note.

Uncle Theo's 70th Birthday Party

We went to Werle ( village just outside of Dortmund) on Saturday for Uncle Theo's 70th birthday party at a fantastic restaurant. We all had soup, main course and a light dessert. Then everyone got up an wandered around the village for a while before coming back to have coffee and cake. It was all very German.

Maddie has a great time with her cousins Jacqueline and Sabrina. One is a little younger than Maddie and the other a little older and they have great fun together.

Cousin Mark (son of Torsten and Elke) was kind enough to sit with me and Skip and speak English during lunch. Mark is the cousin who spent a semester in West Virginia as an exchange student, so his English is very good. The family gatherings are always very fun, but they wear me out from listening so hard, trying to understand things. I'm always really tired when they're over.

I still haven't figured out a way to label pictures in this blog, so here's who everyone is in order of appearance.

• Maddie with cousins Jacqueline and Sabrina (children of Skip's cousin Steffie and husband Johnnie. Johnnie is Beligian and also speaks great English and is a favorite of Maddie's because he does a super Donald Duck impression.)
• Cousin Detliff and Skip
• Elke (wife of Torsten) and Elfie (wife of Detlef)--both of whom are fabulous cooks!
• Skip with cousins Detlef and Torsten
• Birthday boy Uncle Theo

Nature over Nurture

Last week was Spirit week at school and Tuesday was "job day" and the kids were supposed to come dressed as what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Maddie went as a cheerleader. Good Grief!

On Foot or By Train

That's the only way we can get somewhere now because, as of today, we have been in Germany for six months and still have not received our German driver's licenses. Never mind that we couldn't begin the process until we got our residence permits (mid-December). The six months is counted from the day you touched down the first time.

Also, never mind that the first time we went in, the person we met with told us (incorrectly) that Arkansas does not have a reciprocal agreement with Germany and that we would have to go to driving school and take a written exam before we could get our licenses.

Everything is in process, but we have just not received them. Should have gotten a letter to pick up Skip's by now, but that has yet to happen. Skip has a business meeting in Amsterdam on Wednesday and has had to book a train ticket.

My big inconvenience is that I can't get to the gym (I know. Weep for me.) I'm hitching rides with friends.

You'd think after six months, we'd have all our ducks in a row. Au contraire. And the fact that I am using FRENCH expressions in order to express myself should give some indication of how well my German classes are going.

Tschuss!

CNN--Just in Time to Find Jesus

For whatever reason, ISH (our cable provider) just added CNN to our mix of stations. I'm not sure I can express to those of you not living in a foreign country where your vocabulary of that country's language is up to maybe 100 words just how exciting this is. It's not Headline CNN, but a European version with kind of an eclectic line-up of shows. And it's on just in time to hear all the press about this new James Cameron documentary about the Jesus/Mary tomb.

It's always interesting when something like this comes out. Everyone from cultural anthropologists to DNA experts to Baptist preachers to Larry King weigh in on the subject and why it is or is not significant.

But really. Come on. If you need the guy who brought us the movie Titannic to help you find Jesus, you've probably been looking in the wrong places anyway.

Disneyland Paris

Well, the French can't quite pull of the whole Disney attitude (note the expression on the "cast member's" face) that the folks in America can, but Maddie had a great time at Disneyland Paris. The Magic Kingdom is very much like the one in Orlando on a smaller scale. Instead of Cinderella's castle, this one has Sleeping Beauty's castle, complete with a dragon sleeping in the basement.

It was pretty cold, but that didn't keep the crowds away--French, Germans, Brits, Dutch, Italians, Americans--we were all there, bundled up and standing in line. It rained one morning, but that didn't slow anyone down either. It's amazing how living in Europe has completely changed our view of what "good" weather is. There is no bad weather, only inappropriately dressed people.

The princesses were featured in a daily parade, but didn't wander around to meet and greet the kids. Later we figured that it was because Snow White would need to know about 8 different languages in order to talk to all the kids!

Paris

Well, we were mostly recovered from what was being dubbed the ISD flu. I was still taking antibiotics for an ear infection and Skip sounded like he might cough up a lung from time to time, but we headed out for Paris. We used up three years worth of Marriott points to book a hotel on the Champs D'Elysee, and we weren't going to let a little phlegm stop us.

Getting into Paris almost did us in. Our navigational system in the car (Navi Girl, as we like to call her) to us through the rotary (or round-a-bout) around the Arc de Triomphe. It has at least 10 streets that feed into it. I thought after driving in Boston, nothing would faze us, but neither one of us had ever seen anything like this. Skip was driving and had just about sweated through his clothing by the time we made it through this.

Our unintentional theme for the trip was "the views of Paris". We climbed the Arc de Triopmphe, rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower and climbed the towers of Notre Dame. We also took an evening boat ride along the Seine. Paris is such a beautiful city.

Maddie really enjoyed the Eiffel Tower and getting to see the towers where Quaismodo lived. The highlight of the trip for Skip was Maddie riding on this old fashioned carousel that was operated by a handcrank. It was in the parc at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Here are the pictures in order:

Maddie on the hand-cranked carousel
Skip and Maddie in front of our hotel room
The view from the top of the stairs at the arch de triomphe
The view of Sacre Coeur from the top of the arch de triomphe
The gargolyes view of Paris from the top of Notre Dame
Maddie in front of the Eiffel Tower
Notre Dame

Coming soon: our pics from Disneyland Paris

Karneval

Well, Karneval has kicked off in Duesseldorf. Duesseldorf is one of the three big Karneval Cities in Germany along with Cologne and Mainz.

Karneval is like Mardi Gras--a time of partying before the seriousness of Lent sets in. Heaps of street-parties and pub-parties, with people disguising themselves in all sorts of ways. But it culminates not on Fat Tuesday--like in New Orleans, but on Rosenmontag (Monday). Buissnesses are closed and everyone gets in on the act. The tellers at the bank today were in costume. It's really funny to see all the serious Germans decked out in these outrageous costumes.

Today is Weiberfastnacht (women’s carnival night) and it is tradition that women are allowed to cut off the tie of any man within reach, and to kiss any man they want to. In Duesseldorf, women gather outside the Rathouse (city hall) and protest that they are not going to cook and clean anymore and demand a voice. The mayor of the town comes out and gives a speech telling all the women to go home, and then the women storm the Rathouse, begin cutting off the men's ties and drink free beer. I was supposed to go, but am recovering from a virus/ear infection. So maybe next year.

Maddie keeps wanting to do something for Karneval, but luckily we leave on vacation tomorrow. I don't think downtown Duesseldorf is going to be a good place for a five-year-old until after Rosenmontag.

Jello, Gelo Myrtol and Gesundheit

Well, after six months in Germany, we needed to take Maddie to the doctor. About half the kids in school have this virus that comes with a cough and a fever. We figured she had the same thing, but wanted someone with a medical degree to check her lungs and ears to make sure there was no infection. Sure enough, the doc prescribed fluids and rest.

Very informal process here. We had problems finding the registration area for the Kinder Klinik in the local hospital, because there is not one. The Kinder Klinik is just in the middle of the hospital. You just go to this closed door, knock on it to let them know you're there and then a nurse brings you in the exam room, asks for your insurance card and in about five minutes the doc walks in and in another five minutes, you're done. The doctor was female, wore jeans and spoke very good English. We'll get a statement in the mail. Didn't even go to a billing desk or office. We were told this is a little different than the norm because this clinic is only for private pay health insurance.

We did pick up some cough medicine at the Apotheke and I got another package of Gelo Myrtol. This is the German answer to Sudafed. You can't get pseudoephedrine here without a perscription. I don't know what Gelo Myrtol is or what is in it, but it does good things for a stopped up nose.

Because it's a good "sick" food, I made Maddie some jello. Not Jello-brand, but whatever the German version is. First of all, it gels in less than an hour. Secondly, I think it tastes really funny. The consistency is different from what we're used to in the states and the flavor is just a little different--like something I've had, but not in Jello form. I think the cherry is kind of like a cherry Jolly Rancher flavor, but I still haven't put my finger on the green. Maddie and Skip like it fine, but I think I'll steer clear from now on.

Maddie and I both had several things planned this week, but now all bets are off. Our only goal is to have everyone healthy when we leave for Paris on Friday!

Tanzania Night

We had a really good time tonight at an annual event at ISD. Tanzania Night raises money to help support a sister school of ISD in Tanzania. There's food and drink and entertainment was provided by faculty and students. The talent show acts were really cute and Maddie had a great time. Skip enjoyed drinking the local beer with his buddy from Great Britain.

Ever been to school-supported fundraiser where beer and wine were part of the mix? We're not in Arkansas anymore!

Fertig (Finished)

So I was heading back home after a week of intensive German classes. All day. Every day. Skip rearranged his schedule to pick up Maddie after school. The house was a mess and the laundry was piling up because in addition to both of us being tied up, our drier died and had to be repaired.

I'm on the train and two twenty-something girls sit down next to me and begin talking. I'm thinking, "Great. I just spent a week of my life in this class, and I can't understand a word these people are saying! A lot of good that did." Then after about 10 seconds I realized they weren't speaking German--it was Russian or Polish. Whew!

Today my big triumph is that I went up to the deli counter and ordered three different kinds of sandwich meats. Until now, I had just bought whatever was pre-packaged because it was too hard to communicate with the people behind the counter. I still shy away from the meat counter because not only am I not sure what some of the cuts are, I still can't think in terms of kilos and I'm not sure how much to get and how much it will all cost. Baby steps.

Here are some photos of the art we recently purchased. Skip took them on his phone. We hope to replace our camera today. We still have a lot of very white wall space, but getting these paintings has really helped warm the place up.

Backfire

I've taken this intensive German course to increase my enjoyment of my time here in Germany. After four days of 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. classes and one more to go, I never want to see a Deutsche worte again! I'm not even sure if worte is the right word here. My brain is fried, and my back is all out of whack from sitting at a table for 7 hours a day.

Will have completed 40 course hours at the end of the week and am planning to continue on for 50 hours more--but those will done 4 at a time, once a week. Das ist besser.

Schoenen tag noch (that's German for ya'll have a nice day)

Bureaucracy

Believe it or not, we are still dealing with protocals, permissions and permits. It is unbelievable the red tape one has to go through to live and work in Germany. I haven't seen anything like it since I went through the Presbyterian ordination process. Right now it's a toss up as to which one is tougher!

Intensive German

Am in my second of five days of an intensive German language class at the Goethe Institute. Boy does my head hurt! Skip has had to arrange his schedule to be able to pick up Maddie at school since class lasts until from 9:30 to 5 p.m. Like I said, it's intensive. Due to some miscommunication, we thought going into it, that the class would only last until about 1 p.m. each day, so we had to do some fast shuffling when we realized what I had really gotten us into.

My class partner is a woman from Norway who speaks excellent English (she and her husband lived in Boston for two years while he was in grad school) and is here in Germany for 2 years. She is a veteranarian. It's really kind of comforting to have someone else in the class who also has had quite a bit of education and who also can't remember if it's das auto or der auto!

Ingunn has a 16-month old daugher and have already had their own cultural run-ins here in Germany. Apparently in Norway, people put babies and children outside to nap. The fresh air is good for them, so Moms and kindergartens just bundle 'em up and put them outside in their baby carrier or wagon on the porch or in the garden. So when Ingunn and her husband were at a restaurant, they sat at a window and put little Henrietta in her baby carrier just outside the window to sleep. One of the waitresses got semi-hysterical thinking that someone had dumped a baby at the restaurant. When Ingunn told her the baby was theirs, it didn't seem to help matters. The waitress said that they could not leave their baby outside and Ingunn and her husband thought the whole thing was very strange and the the waitress really over reacted.

I told her that we came from the opposite end of the spectrum and we are shocked to see six-year-old kids get on the train by themselves to go to school. I told her you would never send a child that young off by themselves on public transportation in the States. She found that very surprising.

I have visions of Ingunn and her family coming to visit us in the states and we'll just send the two girls off to play on Bowman Curve while we eat at the Buffalo Grill.

Some things can't be duplicated

Well, we had Trunk or Treat for Halloween and a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner with friends on the non-German holiday of Thanksgiving, but there is just no substitute for Super Bowl Sunday. The game won't even be on here until 1 a.m., so only the die-hard Colts and Bears fans will be up (or perhaps some die-hard Prince fans will wait up for the half-time show). Just as well--you can't get Velveeta or Rotel here to make cheese dip, and what Super Bowl party would be complete without that?

Dead Camera and Simon Webbe

My digiatal camera finally died today. We've been having problem with it chewing batteries in about a day, so we knew we were on borrowed time. Will have to get another one before we go to Paris in two weeks.

We love our new paintings on the wall in the living room. The artist is from Portugal, but lives here in Duesseldorf. Pretty sure he's still at that starving artist phase of his career. But who knows? Someday we may own masterpieces. Pictures as soon as we have a working camera.

Are you all getting Simon Webbe songs in the states? He's a Brit who gets a lot of airplay for his new single "Coming Around Again" here on German stations and on the British Forces station. You can check out the video on his Web site. Just Click here: Simon Webbe

Maddie and Skip went to see the movie Flushed Away in German today. Between the visuals and Maddie's increasing language skills, she pretty much gets the kids movies--even when they see them in German.

At 5 p.m. today, it was still light out. Maddie couldn't believe it. Moving toward longer and longer days.

Reebok--The International Language

Went to a step aerobics class at my gym today for the first time. Apparently the language of step aerobics ("invented" by the folks at Reebok) is the same in any country. Basic step, repeater step, travel, shuffle and crunch were the vocabularly of the instructor. Of course, you had to know how to count to at least 8 in German in order to know how many more of those kleine (small) crunches were left!

A German aerobics class is a fairly intense experience. Germans tend to be pretty serious about whatever they do and the that includes exercise. Plus the German language already sounds a little harsh to the American ear, so you can imagine what it sounds like when an instructor is barking out commands over a microphone. Ein! zwei! drei! vier! Schmerzen Sie? Gut! You don't dare slack off in this class!

We purchased some paintings last week from a local artist and he's coming to our home tomorrow morning to hang them. Will have some pictures of them up tomorrow. We're very excited about this. As I may have mentioned before, every wall in the house is white. The paintings are going to be a really nice edition, and they'll look great back in our home in the states as well.

Baking in Germany

Am continuing to figure out how to do this. I realized how much we (Americans) just assume the rest of the world is like us when I made authentic Nestle's Tollhouse Cookies. In order to make the recipe with all of the correct ingredients, I used: all-purpose flour and brown sugar that I bought from the monthly international market at ISD because neither product is available here; vanilla extract, baking powder and chocolate chips that I brought back from the United States because there is no vanilla extract here (only vanilla sugar), no chocolate chips and baking powder is single-action, not double action like the kind in the US. The butter, sugar and salt came right here in Germany--and was cheaper than it would be in the US.

So my point is that the chocolate chip cookie is not the ubiquitous treat I thought it was. I always thought of the chocolate chip cookie as the snack/dessert that one could find wherever one found oneself. Not true.

On a food related note, my cheese in continuing to do well.

Monschau

Saturday, we bundled up and headed to Monschau, Germany. It's south of here in the Eiffel region of the country, but colder since it's in the mountains. Maddie got to play in some snow. We enjoyed the half-timbered houses (got a picture of one that seems to have settled unevenly!). It's really cute village...maybe a little touristy, but quite nice. We're planning to go back in the spring, when more in open and we won't freeze off any body parts by being outside too long!

Cheese Making

Headed to the Netherlands today to learn to make cheese at Kaas and Kampeerboerderij "Hoekelum". Go ahead...try and pronounce that.

We began with bowl of milk that had come fresh from the cow this morning. I think that was my favorite part. I started to ask if we could get the name of the cow, but I decided against it.

Then we slowly stirred the milk with a special knife until we separated the curds from the whey. How Little Miss Muffet at that stuff is beyond me! We had to strain it and then add water and then strain some more. We learned all about enzymes and bacteria and what makes cheese cheese from the house cheese master. It was really cool.

After we drained the last time, the cheese master came around and picked up a handful of the curds. From the size of our curd, she could tell us how long our cheese would need to age before it came to its full flavor. Melanie, Susan and I had produced a three-month cheese. Which means we will have to care for our cheese for that period of time before we can eat it. For the next three weeks, I have to turn my cheese daily, until it gets dry. And after that, I have to turn it every three days or so and take care to wipe away any mold that begins to grow on it with a vinegar and water solution. Stay tuned for results on that one!

So we put our cheese into these little bowls. It looked all mottled like cottage cheese, but by the time all the water got pressed out, it looked like a little ball of white cheese. Ready to be cared for.

At the shop afterward, the cheese master (this is the title I bestowed upon her, I don't know what her official name is) let us try the the two different cheeses. Both were the same type of cheese, but one had been aged only six weeks and another six months. The difference in the flavors was amazing, and the only difference between the two was how long they had been sitting on the shelf. My nose is a little stopped up tonight after tasting all the cheese, but it was worth it!

It really was a lot of fun. We are able to buy some cheese that was ready to eat, and Maddie put away several slices of the Gouda that I brought home. Gouda is the cheese of choice in this area of the world and there are about 100 different varieties. Little tip I learned from another ex-pat today: gouda with cumin--really good with Mexican food. Don't even know if you can get cumin Gouda in the states, but it's plentiful here. Which is odd, since Mexican food isn't.

It is really cold here, but we're hoping to do some sightseeing this weekend in places where we can go indoors.

Legal and Living on the Edge

Only five-and-a-half months later, we are all official, legal residents of Duesseldorf. We had to take the train downtown this morning to present our faces and the proper paperwork in order to get our passports appropriately adjusted and become officially registered. No word yet on when we will get our check for having a child (the birth rate is really low here).

So now that we're proper and official, I decided life was getting to tame and took a walk on the wild side. Went with some girl friends to the Wednesday night Cinestar Sneak Preview. Every Wednesday, the movie theater in Oberkastle (a neighborhood of Duesseldorf--kind of like Back Bay in Boston) shows a movie in the original version (OV), meaning in English. The deal is, you don't know what the movie is until you've paid your money and sat down. Pretty risky, I know. Actually, it only costs 4.50 euro, so if it's something awful, like Saw 3, you can just leave.

We saw Dreamgirls, which I'd actually seen in the states over Christmas, but was fine with seeing again. It was a different experience altogether. In the states, everyone in the theater totally bought in to the whole musical thing--the big productions, people randomly breaking into song, fading spotlights, etc. People even clapped at the finish of one of the really show-stopper songs. Here, people kind of giggled whenever someone broke into song in a place where they would normally just be talking. In fact, the longer the movie went on, the more people laughed. Musical theater must not be big here.

Stuff

Skip went to cousin Detlef's birthday party last night, ate great food and enjoyed seeing Detlif and Torstein and their families. It would have been too late for Maddie on a school night, so we stayed at home. Tonight Skip is going to play indoor soccer at the International School. It's only the second time he's played since we've been in Germany, so beam some injury-free thoughts his way. He's ego is still bruised from the beating his favorite soccer team took in this tournament he went to this weekend with British buddy Steve.

Maddie is learning all about houses and homes at school. She told us yesterday that it doesn't matter what stuff you have in a house, it's the love inside that makes it a home. I like this school more and more every day.

I Hate to Have to do This

It wasn't ostrich. It was beef filets...from Austria...or Österreich in German. You know, some German words sound like the same word in English. Others not so much.

Also, for those who might be interested the Boot Expo that is in town is not a tradeshow for shoes, it's for big boats.

By the way, Austrian beef is far superior to German beef, so I'm really glad we tried the ostrich. Can't beat the Germans when it comes to schwein (oink, oink), but beef is not their thing.

Really got to get that intensive German class scheduled.

Wacky Weather

Had to pick Maddie up from school on Thursday at 11 a.m. due to high winds. My parents said they saw footage from England on the damage the wind had done. Since houses here are built like bunkers, it wasn't very scary, and it was kind of cool to watch from inside your solidly built home. Lots of work being done this weekend cutting up fallen trees and branches around town.

The German train system was actually shut down on Friday so that they could clear away all the debris, and a friend of mine had to go pick up her husband at the border of Holland because he had taken the train in for business earlier in the week and couldn't get back home.

Today all is calm and damp and gray--business as usual. Skip is headed into Duesseldorf to see some kind of soccer match where four area professional teams play a kind of mini-tournament. It's stadium with an optional roof and I'll wager they'll need it today.

Went to the grocery store today looking for something beef-like to cook on the grill. Couldn't get a t-bone, but I could get ostrich filets. Let you know how that turns out.

Pictures

Someone commented to me that there hadn't been many pictures on the Blog recently, so I came up with some. The truth is that while our location enables us to take some pretty cool day trips and easily access amazing places for vacations, most days, we're just living life--in a foreign country.

So to that end, here are some pictures from my yesterday: the cupcakes I made for the American Women's Club new member Welcome Coffee, the grocery store where I like to shop, my gym, Maddie waiting for the train with her friend Madison and her brother Jake.

Soon we should have something a little more exotic to offer up!

More things realized and/or learned

We have our grill up and running. Skip and I had to haul it up the steps to our house (we'll let you know how our backs are in the morning), roll it through the living room and out into our "garden". I had no idea how little I used the oven for anything other than baking until I got here and didn't have a crock pot or a grill. Now that I have those again, I can make anything...well, except for some of the cuts of meat here that I can't readily identify. I really need cousin Peter (former butcher/current homeopathic doctor) to come up and give a lesson on meat buying.

Skip and I went by the travel agency in Kaiserwerth today to finish up our booking our Paris vacation. we couldn't book online with Disney because we have a credit card with an American billing address but a German mailing address. That kind of glitched the system.

Anyway, while we were there we asked about the South of France (or the "beach" as we tell Maddie). We're planning to go there right after school is out in mid-June. The agent told us most people rent houses becauses hotels in France are not children friendly. When we asked more about that he told us that in Spain or Italy, they have resorts with programs where you can drop off your kids in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon, but the French expect you to keep your children with you at all times. Those wacky French!

Although, I have to admit that after Maddie's behavior the last few days, I'm thinking of booking a Spainish or Italian vacation right away!

Am continuing to smile at people on the street--particularly on days like today when the sun was shining! I walked home from dropping off Maddie at school and walked back to pick her up. It takes about 30 minutes, and when the sun is out, you want to soak it up! I think I've mentioned that Germans don't acknowledge people they don't know out on the street. Even if it goes against the cultural grain, I just don't understand in a place where it's usually so rainy and gray how you can HELP from smiling when the sun is out.

So I spent at least an hour walking around Kaiserswerth and smiling all along the way. Got a mixture of reponses--some looked down, others kept a perfectly blank expression, at least one eyed me with suspicion and no fewer than three looked at me as if I might be a little touched in the head. It's a fun game for me.

Progress

We had a remarkable experience today. Before we went into Kroeger (large furniture store), we had breakfast at a SMOKE-FREE McDonalds! It smelled so good. We're hoping that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Here in Germany, decisions about smoke-free areas are made at the province level, so different areas have different rules.

We weren't at IKEA, but the pieces we bought have just as many screws and will take just as long to put together. You can pay someone to do it for you. It always sounds really expensive in the store and then becomes more and more reasonable with each 100 screws that you twist in.

We went to see a Night at the Museum tonight (original version--in English) and all of us really enjoyed it. We are just now able to venture outside cartoon territory with Maddie and the movies and it is really nice. They dub movies like that here in Germany, but I feel like the Germans are really missing something when they don't get Ben Stiller or Owen Wilson's real voice.

Stuff

Got a crockpot today. Pretty exciting! They're very hard to find here, and we had some really great spareribs tonight so tender they fell right off the bone. We bought a gas grill right before break from some Americans who were returning home, so between the grill and crockpot, I am back in the cooking game.

We're about to get back in the groove of being back in Germany, back to school, back to work, etc. Making plans to head to Paris over winter break in February. It takes longer to go from Little Rock to St. Louis than it does to get from Duesseldorf to Paris. You can get to Amsterdam in about the time it takes to get to Memphis. It's kind of weird.

We may be a little extra careful in planning our travel from here on out. One of the women in the American Women's Club was in Tanzania over the Christmas break and got a speck of bacteria of some kind under her contact that caused an infection in her cornea, and she's had to have a cornea transplant. It's been really sad and a little scary. People in the know are saying that it's a bacteria you can pick up anywhere, but I think it's made people in the ISD community a little more wary of taking advantage of those North Africa vacation deals.

On a totally different topic: a question for your cooks--is there a good substitution when a recipe for cookies or cakes calls for shortening? It doesn't always work to just sub oil or butter. Shortening almost impossible to find here and if you can, it's ridiculously expensive. Also, it would let me make "homemade" Bisquick. You can't find that here either. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Weird Things and Good Friends

Maddie and I couldn't get back to the house today after running an errand. We returned from the Real (pronounced Ree-Al) and a police car was blocking the turn onto the road that led to the road where our house is. So I went around the world to come at the road that leads to our road from what I think is the north (or is it the east) and cop car was blocking that entrance as well.

Maddie was really upset that we couldn't get to our house and even more so that I couldn't explain to her what was happening or when we might get to our house.

Unannounced, we landed at the doorstep of my friend Joy who fed us dinner and let Maddie play with Matthew and Madison until other friend Melanie let us know that the coast was clear. Apparently, there was a really bad wreck, so we could have parked the car and taken the train home, but there were workman digging up sidewalk near our home earlier and I was afraid there might have been a gas leak.

It's nice to be safe at home, but I imagine we will be making a late entrance to school in the A. M.

TV Stars

Our landlord came by to welcome us home and told us that on the day we left for the states, the local news was doing a story on holiday travel. Guess who the video was of? Yes, the Lentz Family--pushing a cart piled with six suitcases through the Duesseldorf airport.

Got Maddie up and to school this morning. We are still not on a good sleeping schedule. We got to walk to the train in the dark and in the rain. All the moms at school were really dragging--whether or not they had been home for the break. It's hard enough to get back to the school routine, but the icky weather made it doubly difficult. Wonder how many kids will nod off in German class today?

And We're Back

It only took us 21 hours door to door to arrive back in Duesseldorf, but we're back. Just a tip for those of traveling here...make sure if you use a different airline for domestic and international, the international has a baggage agreement with the domestic airline. Also, those from Little Rock should avoid JFK as you have to connect somewhere else to even get there. Go through Atlanta, or if you can travel on Monday, Orlando has a direct to Duesseldorf.

Well, Duesseldorf is the same as we left it...overcast and rainy. Although not quite as cold as it was when we departed, so that's a bonus.

We all slept until after noon today and are trying to get back on Germany time before Maddie starts back to school on Monday. I imagine at an international school, the first couple of days back after a long break are a little dicey when all of the students have returned from different time zones.

Now we try to unpack from our trip as well as put away the stuff from our shipment that arrived the day before we left.

Had a great Italian meal for dinner tonight at one of our favorite restaurants. Who knew that the best Italian food could be found in Germany?