Birthday Week

Maddie and her new cat Whitesa

Flying at Okidoki

Yes, Maddie's only six, but she wanted candles on both hot dog cakes

Maddie on her birthday with Oma and Opa

Maddie and me with her new Baby Born

Maddie helpingto decorate her hot dog and fries cake

Maddie with friends Madison and Meg at Okidoki

Liam blows the candles on his bug cake

This week has been all about birthday. Here are some pictures of Maddie's 6th birthday WEEK, including the actual day with Oma and Opa and her joint party today at Okidoki Kinderland with friend and classmate Liam.

A New Addition to the Family

Yes. We have a new pet--Whitesa the cat. Maddie must take on extra jobs, earn money to take care of the cat, feed the cat, take Whitesa in for regular checkups and make sure she is properly hydrated. And no, Whitesa is not a real cat. She is a WebKinz. A new breed of stuffed animal that comes with it's own special code so that you can go on-line and care for the cat in a virtual world.

Thanks Aunt Beth, Uncle Vern, Justin and Seth. We have not missed a day logging on to care for Whitesa. Hopefully, this will help us to hold off on obtaining the kind of pet that comes without a log in name and password!

Duesseldorf Days

Well, unfortunately, my in-laws have experienced true Duesseldorf living during their trip--it's rained every day. But Skip put it into perspective by telling them that it hasn't been that bad. The sun has shined at least once every day they've been here!

Getting ready for Maddie's big b'day party. It's a join venture with her buddy Liam at Okidoki Kinderland. And yes, Okidoki is absolutely as heinous as it sounds, but it's paradise for a bunch of six-year-olds.

Horst and Maja leave for Spain tomorrow and will be back for a couple of days next week before heading out on their meet-the-relatives-tour of Germany.

Of course, taking our attention today is the news that Acxiom has been sold. Will be interesting to see how all that plays out. Life is never boring, is it?

How did I get to the Froggy-cupcake-making stage of my life?

I was up at 8 a.m. on Mother's Day slicing sour apple gummies in half to make little froggy cupcakes for Maddie to take to school for her birthday tomorrow. Using the American can of frosting that my mother-in-law had to fight for (she put it in her carry on luggage without realizing it counted as a "liquid". When the security guard told her she would have to take it, Maja said, "You can't have it! It's for my grandaughter's birthday!" Guess they figured a terrorist wouldn't have used that excuse?)

Anyway, after coloring the frosting blue, icing 24 chocolate cupcakes and cutting 24 gummies in half, I got Maddie to put the gummies on the cupcakes, I added white frosting for the eyes and she placed mini-chocolate chips in the whites. Let's hear it for Family Fun.com. Stay tuned for the cake that looks like a hot dog and french fries for actual birthday party next Saturday. Maja hauled over a box of Twinkies for that one!

I really miss my friends at Community Bakery!

Maddie's teacher put together a book of what all the kids in her class love about their moms. Maddie's said, "My mom is called Anne. She is thirty seven years old. She likes to read. My mom makes books with me. I love her because she helps me go to bed."

My favorite was the kid who wrote this about his mom: My moms eyes are blue and her hair is blonde. When she pulls her hair up, under the blond hair is brown hair.

Nice.

Oma, Opa and the Cheese

With Horst and Maja still recovering from jet lag, Maddie awoke at 5 A. M. with some sort of sympathy pains or something. We took off for Wesel for an outing with friend Klaus's parents--Ulrich and Caroline.

I smiled and nodded a lot as everyone spoke in German--although I must admit, I understood quite a bit more than I would have several months ago.

From there we headed to a lovely castle/art museum. It was a lovely time and Ulrich and Caroline are delightful hosts.

But our big event today is that we finally cut the cheese I made back in Feburary. You can tell by the pics that Maddie was less than impressed.


Caroline, Ulrich, Skip, Maddie, Maja and Horst


Maddie tries the cheese

Life in Germany

Really exciting day today. I can now get snack-size Ziploc bags here in Germany. Since Maddie will only eat in the cafeteria about twice a month, this is a big deal.

Took friend Mary (who's only been here about 3 months) to the REAL for shopping. Showed her the good chicken nuggets and gave her the scoop on the super-concentrated vinegar here.

My friend who has been here for four years had the moving folks come to pack up her air shipment to send back to the US today. She says she feels like she graduated from ex-pat school. Her transition should be interesting since only one of her four kids has even a vague recollection of what life in the US is like. She never learned German because she arrived here with three kids--ages 5, 2 and 3 months. By the time she got the oldest one in school, the middle one in pre-school and found a babysitter for the youngest so she could go to German class, she found out she was pregnant. She decided that perhaps this was not the time in her life to learn a new language.

Skip's parents arrive here early tomorrow morning from Connecticut. They will be here a week before heading off to Spain and then they'll be back here for a couple of nights before heading off on the tour of the German relatives and then end up back here a few days before heading home.

And by the way, just in case anyone was counting, only 50 days until we're back in the states for summer vacation. Woo hoo!

Catch Up

Maddie hits the indoor slopes

Haven't posted in a few days, so here's a quick catch up on what's happening here in Germany.

The rain is back. No rain for almost six weeks, but now that it's back, it's supposed to stay awhile.

But the weather was great for the International Fest. There were booths from Australia, France, China, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, India, Latin America, Greece, Israel, the Alpine countries, Korea, Japan, Italy, Belgium and the USA. You can't even begin to imagine the amount of food! It was much bigger and have many more people than I ever would have expected.

Skip's cousin Joerg and his wife Annelie were able to join us for the weekend and they enjoyed the festivities as well.

Note Maddie standing next to the Canadian Mountie. It's one of her favorite countries, because that's where her friend Madison is from. We're losing Madison this summer to New Jersey, so that will be hard for Maddie. She only has six weeks of school left at at least three of her friends won't be back next year. Madison to Jersey, Brendan to Michigan and Meg to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. It's a weird world we live in here. Buddy Liam's family has signed up for another year, and they will be sharing a birthday party later this month.

On Sunday, Skip took Maddie for the second time to the indoor ski hall in Neuss, Germany. Skip is about to burst that Maddie is taking to skiing like a duck to water. She LOVES it. Finally, Skip has someone in the family who will be able to keep up with him on the slopes!





Maddie and buddy Liam at the Prep class's presentation of the Very Hungry Catapillar


Maddie with friend Eedra (Liam's little sister)


Maddie dressed for Team USA hangs out with our neighbor from the North

Birthday

Had a really nice birthday. Skip took me out to a new Mexican restaurant in Duesseldorf (hard to find here!) and the surprise was that he invited several of our friends to join us. We had a great time. The restaurant is called Sausalitos and is a chain here in Germany. Some of us had eaten at the one in Aachen--about 40 minutes down the road--and were excited to see they had come to Duesseldorf. Mexican food probably tops most American's list of what-I-miss-about-America.

I really got the special treatment because those same friends took me out for coffee the morning of my birthday because they didn't want me to think they weren't doing anything.

Today I pre-cooked 120 spareribs that will be barbequed and sold tomorrow from the American booth at the ISD International Fair. The International Fair is the main fundraiser for ISD and is quite the production. All of the countries represented at ISD have booths with food and drink from their home countries. The Americans will be selling ribs, hot dogs and lemonade. The Germans are selling beer and pretzels. You could pre-order some noodle dishes from the Koreans and of course, obtain meatballs from the Swedes who share a booth with the Norwegians. There are also games for the kids to play and a huge silent auction.

Cousins Joerg and Annalee will be joining us. They are coming down from Lubeck in the a.m.

Should be a fun day.

May Day

Yesterday was a holiday in Germany. Holidays here mean that EVERYTHING except for restaurants are closed. So groceries, beverages and anything else have to be purchased the day before. And there are two more holidays coming up this month.

Unfortunately for Skip, he was in London where May Day is not a holiday. Maddie and I celebrated with friends by going into the Altstadt of Duesseldorf for ice cream and taking a boat back to the Altstadt of Kaiserswerth and having dinner at the Italian restaurant that is one of Maddie's favs--as it is next to a big playground.

Today she's having a playdate with one of her German friends. As Maddie's German skills increase, her English grammar is declining. It's true of all the American and British kids. Spending so much time with kids for whom English is a second language makes for some interesting verb conjugations. I heard a dad correct his American son yesterday when the kid said, "I rided here on my scooter." Oh well, small price to pay for bilingual-ness. Maddie's English may not be perfect, but she is a pro at ordering ice cream for the whole family in perfect Deutsch!

This Week in Germany

One of the things that has been hard to get used to here in Germany is that people on the street or on the trains don't smile or say hello to people they don't know. And if you smile at them, they kind of look at you like you're probably a little simple--or they ignore you.

So this week I got on the train to go to German class, sit down and the woman across from me says, "Morgan (morning)". I was stunned and kind of excited to have been greeted on the train by a stranger who was German. "Must be the nice weather," I thought. So then, she asked me something in German and I explained that I spoke only a little German and could she please repeat. She was asking me about the book I was holding and I simply told her it was good--which is about as far as my Deutsch will take me. Pleased with my friendly little encounter, I turned to my book and the woman kept talking. She wasn't talking to me. She was talking to herself. And she kept talking to herself. It didn't take long to realize that the woman who had greeted me so kindly was mentally ill. Which goes along with what my friend Sheree's German teacher told her--that the only people who will talk to strangers on the street are crazy people. MY German teacher --who knows about my ongoing battle to get Germans to smile at me--thought my encounter was the funniest thing he'd heard about all week.

On another note, it's getting warm here and no one has air conditioning. That includes businesses. It's really odd to walk through an un-air conditioned store--though nice not to have to take a sweater with you because they've got the temperature down to near-artic temperatures. It's not uncomfortable (yet), but it's a little stuffy. I wonder if income for retail takes a downturn here in the summer.

It's Spargel (asparagus) season in Germany and every restaurant has their Spargel menu and every vegetable stand boasts frische Spargel. It comes in standard green or big fat stalks of white Spargel. It's only here through May, so for about six weeks, everyone eats it until they don't want to see another stalk of asparagus until next April!

Corporate Bonding

In order to strengthen the relationship between the Acxiom and one of their clients, Skip and his cohorts decided that a cooking class was just the thing to help them bond with the group they interface with at the bank. So they all headed off on Tuesday night to prepare and eat a gourmet meal under the careful guidance of the master chef at Duesseldorf Cooking school. It was apparently fun and enjoyable and Skip escaped with only a minor cut on his finger.

But then, he had the nerve to forward me the e-mail with the recipes of the night in case I wanted to prepare those dishes in the future. I thought I might at least get a home cooked meal out of the deal.

Kruller-Muller

Sculpture Garden at Kruller-Muller Museum

Black and White Garden Sculpture

Dad getting up close and personal with the exhibits


Expert bikers


Mom and Dad and I hit the Kruller-Muller Museum and Park in Holland. The museum has a huge sculpture garden and one of the largest collections of Van Gogh on display anywhere. But the big selling point are the bicycles that any visitor can pick up for free and ride around the grounds. Mom and Dad are experts now, having bought their own bikes last year. We had a really great time.

Bielstein

Bielstein

Skip in front of the worlds oldest kloster (or monastary) brewing. This order has been brewing beer since 1050.



The view of the village across the river from Bielstein from the top of the Closter


Skip and I left Maddie with mom and dad for a night and headed off to Bielstein--a little village on the Mosel, pop. 135. It's a beautiful little village built right into a hill between a bunch of vineyards. We can highly recommend it.

Rothenberg om der Tauber

Maddie overlooking a grape field in Rothenberg

Yes. It's been there since 1374!






Haven't been very good at updating the blog lately, but I'll try to catch up.

Last week, Mom and Dad and Maddie and I went to Rothenberg, a Medieval walled city about 4 hours south. It is really beautiful and full of all this amazing history. We should have planned to stay longer.

There's a really great story about how they restored the part of the city that was destroyed during WWII. After the war, they sent out word across the world that anyone who would send 80 francs toward the rebuilding of Rothenberg could have their name embedded in the wall that surrounds the city. As you walk along the wall, you can read the names of people from all around the world who had seen and loved the city and helped it rebuild.



On the way home we took the scenic route through the little villages of the Bayern area of Germany. Just by the side of the road we found this little chapel that was open to whomever wanted to stop in.

John and Nancy in Germany

things are bluming in Duesseldorf

It took a bit to recover from the jet lag, but my mom and dad are here in Duesseldorf and having a good time. At least, Maddie is having a good time with her Nana and Papa John.

We went to a castle yesterday and Maddie got Nana and Papa John up on what she calls the "flying benches" and what is in reality a chair lift that takes from Oberburg to Untersberg. Even those of you without formal training in German may be able to figure out those names.

Tomorrow, we head off to Rothenberg--a medieval city just about 3 hours south of here.

Skip takes advantage of the Grandparents' visit


my mom and dad on the "flying bench"

good ad space, dontcha think?

London

Me in front of the Tower Bridge


Maddie at the Natural History Museum

Big Ben

Maddie and Big Ben...Parlaiment

Maddie at the Gates of Buckingham Palace


Maddie at the London Zoo

Skip in front of the Tower of London

Got to tag onto one of Skip's business trips and see London. What a spectacular (and spectacularly expensive!) city. Of course, when you're seeing it with a five-year-old, your experience is a bit different than if you're simply on your own. We saw the zoo and the aquarium, but we also made it to the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace and the Natural History Museum (the movie Night at the Museum has done great things for Maddie's interest in Natural History!).

Maddie and I hit London on our own on Monday and Tuesday and thoroughly mastered the London Underground train system. The long escalators, tunnels and moving sidewalks made the subway one of Maddie's favorite attractions. Of course, everyone speaks English and everything is written in English, so I can't really take much credit for not getting lost. We took a hop-on, hop-off bus tour to see the sights of London.

My two favorite parts were learning that Sir Robert Peel founded Scotland Yard and that is where we get the expression my father taught both me and my daughter, "Keep your eyes Peeled." And then when the tour guide told us that we had entered the round-about made famous by Chevy Chase in the movie European Vacation when he coudn't get off and just kept circling, shouting, "Look kids, Big Ben! Parlaiment!" Maddie's favorite part when the tour guide pointed out a shop where the Queen buys her underwear. Are we highbrow or what?

Probably our favorite part of the trip was getting to see Mary Poppins on stage. What a fabulous show. Only slightly dampened by the fact that when Mary Poppins flies out over the crowd (amazing set!) Maddie is sobbing because Mary Poppins has to leave.

We will probably go back at least once before we come back to the states for good, and I've made a deal with Skip to take Maddie somewhere for the afternoon so that I can explore Westminster Abbey.

My mom and dad are arriving first thing tomorrow morning--Good Friday. I don't believe we'll have much luck observing the somberness (is that a word?) of the day.

Cultural Notes

My friend who is going back to the states after living here for four years was trying to prepare her eight-year-old daughter for the transition. The child has never been to any school but the International School of Duesseldorf. When her mom told her that everyone there would speak English, she said, "Okay mom, I'll help the German kids. I speak pretty good German now." And the mom had to say, "There won't be any German kids. Everyone is American. Everyone speaks English." To which the daughter replied, "Well, what about the foreign kids from all the other countries? Do they speak English, too?" The mom figures this is going to be a process. The suburbs of Detroit Michigan don't have a large ex-pat population.

On another note, I have written often about trying to find certain products here in Germany, but my Jewish friend gets the prize for effort. Passover is coming up, and in order to get what she needed to prepare a proper meal, she and a friend drove two hours to Antwerp, Belgium. I suppose many Jewish people in the more rural areas of the states have to make similar trips at holiday times, but they generally don't have to cross national lines.

Went to a restaurant last night to celebrate a friend's birthday. Ireland is now smoke-free, but Germany is still not completely there. The restaurant was so smoky that when I got home I had to dump all my clothes in the laundry room and take a shower before going to bed. More and more places are going smoke-free and the weather is getting warmer, so you can stick with places where you can sit outside.

Caught a story on CNN about the whole American Idol/Sanjay controversy. Apparently that's big news back home. Sometimes, it's good to be in a foreign country.

We are headed to London for a few days. Skip has work there and Maddie's spring break begins this week. We're going to try to get in to have tea with the Queen. We'll let you know how that works out.

Dublin

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Had a wonderful time in Dublin. I tagged along with the group of women from the Bayer Women's Club. Only got to scratch the surface of a fascinating city and a beautiful country, but Skip and Maddie and I hope to go back together next fall.


Dublin is not as picturesque as Duesseldorf, but the people there are SO friendly and they love to tell the stories of the history of Dublin--often in quite colorful language! And there are so many stories to be told. It's the city of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker and Jonathan Swift and many other writers and poets. There are stories of the potato famine and of battles back and forth between the Protestants and Catholics. Stories of the architects who helped build the city and the bridges over the river Liffey. And in most cases, there is the historic version and the version that has been embellished over time.

The Book of Kells (an ornate manuscript of the four Gospels) created around 800 A. D. now rests at Trinity College in Dublin. It was begun by a group of Monks in Iona, Scotland who had to flee to Ireland with the book when the Vikings invaded.

The Irish love their folk songs and even have a statue of the famed Molly Malone selling her cockles and mussels right in the middle of town. One of our funniest moments is when we were searching for a pub with "live Irish music". The first two we tried were too packed to even enter. We finally found one promising the authentic Irish music, muscled our way in and got a table. Waited for about 20 minutes when a young woman and man got up and began their program with, "We're going to start out with a song that was recorded by a group called Fleetwood Mac." We were all pretty sure that Stevie Nicks isn't Irish, but since we had worked so hard to get there, we stayed and indeed they did work their way into some "traditional" music.

Dublin has a number of Georgian Squares and all the homes that surround the squares have brightly colored doors. Dubbed the "Doors of Dublin" there are quite a few posters and postcards one can obtain bearing pictures of the doors.

There are many artists--from painters to glassblowers to potters to weavers. I brought Skip home a traditional wool fisherman's sweater so he can pretend to be the guy from the Irish Spring commercial.

The Irish were so friendly and helpful--the only people we didn't find helpful were the ones who worked at our hotel (and several of them came from other countries!). The mood of the city was light and fun. Of course that could be related to the fact that Dublin is the home of Guiness Beer and Jameson Whiskey--and both are consumed quite liberally. Every day in Great Britain (Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England) 1 million pints of Guiness are sold

We had fabulous food--from Irish to Thai to Persian. And being in an English speaking country just made everything easier. Even those in our group who speak excellent German enjoyed having a break from having to communicate in something other than their native language.

On Sunday, several of us went to the Sung Eucharist service at St. Patrick's cathedral. The sermon wasn't very good and, in fact, had absolutely nothing to do with the scriptures that were read, but the all-male choir sounded heavenly. I have visited many cathedrals, but I hadn't ever had the opportunity to actually worship in one. And sure enough, when we left the service, there was a line of people waiting for the church to open to folks who just wanted to look around. Keeping with what seems to be the theme of Dublin, even the informational sign outside the cathedral was sponsored by Bailey's.

I don't have that many good pictures because in the city of Dublin, things are so close together, it's difficult to get a good angle to get pictures. Mainly, I got a lot of pictures of signs that amused me!

I think it's my favorite place I've been so far. Maybe because here in Germany, my voice carries and everyone looks at me when I laugh to loud. In Ireland (land of the loud and boisterous), no one ever even glanced at me. I blended in perfectly!

Headed to Ireland

Am tagging along with the Bayer Women's Club on a weekend trip to Dublin. Looking forward to a great time.

Skip and Maddie have a busy weekend ahead as well. There's the American Women's Club sponsored Easter Egg hunt on Saturday and on Sunday, they're going up to Werle to see Maddie's cousins, Sabrina and Jaqueline.

Skip has been traveling a lot for work, so he and Maddie are looking forward to spending some time together. Maddie has promised to look after him.

Kuala Lumpur

We just found out tonight that our friends Ann and Steve (parents of Maddie's friend Meg) will be moving to Kuala Lumpur sometime in August. For those of you as geographically challenged as I am, that's the capital of Malaysia--a country just south of Thailand. Steve will be starting up and heading a Mass Media studies department at the British school there.

I used to think it was a big deal when someone in Arkansas headed off to Jersey or California. Boston seemed like light years away. The world is definitely getting smaller the more places I go and the more people I meet.