School days

The kids started school last Monday, and they are hooked. It was no difficult task really, since they had been longing for other kids to play with since early July.

I have to admit I shed a tear or two as I watched them walk off to meet their teachers on orientation day. So much anticipation on all of our parts for this day, made us all a little jittery with excitement and nerves.

When you are so happy in a place, leaving it is much harder. We all love Davis, and we especially love our elementary school, Birch Lane. I say "we" because I feel that I am as involved as the kids are. That may seem a sad statement to some, that I love my kids' school so much, or that I have no life of my own, but that is the truth.

I have been involved in their education since birth, from their days at the co-operative nursery school up until now. And it has been only natural to take an active role in their elementary school, whether it is fundraising, planting a garden with the class, or driving on field trips. I like to be involved.

Now they are in a new school and a new environment altogether, and I feel a little lost. The kids do not.

The school itself could not be better. It is an international school, with 570 kids from over 60 different countries, from ages 5 to 19. The school covers kindergarten through 12th grade and is needless-to-say quite diverse.

The teachers all appear to be enthusiastic, interested, motivated and involved educators, coming from a variety of English speaking countries. I'm sure my kids are going to come home with some kind of mish-mash American/German/British accent when we leave here.

Noah already loves his teacher, who is from the UK, which he explained is not just England mom, you know, Great Britain covers more than that! Ok, so world geography is going to be a natural course and topic of discussion.

Louise has kids from 16 different countries in her class, and the best thing is that kids are kids all around the world, they all like to play! There are 2 other Louises in the 2nd grade as well, (one is Lois actually, but she is French speaking so it is pronounced like Louise - I am told by my daughter, who now wants to learn French so she can play more with Lois).

The school days are long, the kids are in class until 3:20, but they don't seem to mind.

The kids' curriculum is very full. On top of the basics, they have music, art and computer lab as well as PE in a gym twice a week. They wear real gym uniforms and indoor gym shoes - something rather exotic for us.

They also have German lessons everyday, which means that we can help each other with our homework. I too have started taking German, which is good for my brain and my humility. I thought German would be a lot easier for me since I speak Swedish, but they are completely different languages, go figure - like Steve Martin says, "there is a different word for everything!"

Both kids have opted not to do any sports after school this first quarter, since they are a bit overwhelmed by their schedules, and I am all for it. But they are interested in the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts troops on offer, so we are off to check those out tonight.

Really, life is not that different from Davis. We have to rush in the morning to be on time, we bike when we can (if we are not too late in the morning or it is not raining). Play dates are always asked for, friends are fun, school is good, and in not too long I will be volunteering for one too many things again, just like at home.

For now, auf wiedersehen, or Tchuss as the say here.

Everything made it unscathed!

Did I really say stuff is stuff, and we can all get by with a little bit less? Well now we have way more than enough stuff, way too much stuff in fact. And it is not even all that we own, considering we have a large storage unit back in Davis.

What I really want to know is how did we acquire all this stuff and what can we live without?

So as you may have surmised, the awaited container arrived. 68 days after it left Davis! The same container that we watched pull away from our home so long ago, squeezed down our new street on Wednesday morning, right after the kids left for school. This was going to be a good day.

The first item off the truck was my much longed for bed. I cannot express how much I have wanted that bed. We have spent so many weeks bed hopping from what has felt like varying degrees of concrete in different groupings of kids and parents, that my bed looked like the best Christmas gift ever.

I was sure that the bed would not make it up the stairs, but if it did, I was absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the box springs would never follow. Olof said I was just being negative, that I should have faith. I felt I was just being realistic, preparing for the worst. For me this was a lesson in humility and gratitude.

The bed is up, with the box springs, and I am so so grateful for the ingenious and patient German movers. Though they did not speak English and I do not speak German, they knew how much I wanted that bed, and they did it! There is a place in Heaven for those guys.

The day was a steady stream of activity, with 3 moving men methodically going up and down the three flights of stairs, only to break for cigarettes and water. They never hurried, nor shouted nor swore (that I could tell). They laughed when they smoked, then got back to work.

In the meanwhile I was madly unwrapping as many kitchen items as I could, knowing that when the movers were gone, they would leave all the boxes that I had not unpacked, and I did not want to think about disposing of mountains of boxes later.

I did spend a few moments pondering why I had so many cooking utensils and baking pans (I don't even like to bake - no I really don't like making mini-muffins no matter how often I do it). Does a family really need 24 plates? Or Tupperware for freezing food for a year? The answer is no.

We have done without all these things for 68 days, and now I am putting all this excess in boxes to send to those who need it more than I do.

Don't misunderstand, I like my stuff. And most of it we are keeping. In fact we seem to be acquiring more things daily, but the excess is no longer going to be part of our life (at least for now). Keep it simple is my new motto.

Now I just have to figure out the phone and answering machine - so if you call and leave a message, I might not know it for awhile - but now we do actually have a phone so calls are welcome, as are visitors now that we have a few spare bedrooms ready for guests. Almost ready.

Stay tuned tomorrow for details on the first week of school from Noah and Louise.

Happy weekend - we are off to IKEA again to pick up just a few more items...really, just a few.

What makes a home?

I tried to post this from the library in Bad Godesburg, but did not manage very well, so now we are connected from home, oh happy day!

We have moved. Into a very empty house. But it is our home for the time being, and we couldn’t be happier.

We left our little apartment in the center of Bonn on Saturday and moved our multitude of suitcases and plastic bags into our fantastic 6 bedroom house (ok, 5 really, the sixth room we call the lego room, where the kids can build their lego creations, is a very small attic space).

Now we needed something to sleep on and closets and dishes…and lots of other stuff to fill in until our container arrives. So where did we go? Like a good Swedish (American) family we went directly to IKEA. Note here that like ALL stores in Germany, even IKEA is closed on Sundays, so we had one day to outfit ourselves.

We only bought essentials on this trip, along with the promised bunk bed for Louise, but that was plenty. We got our dish pack, our “starter kitchen” essentials and even vanities for the bathrooms - because those are not included in the house.
And the fun continued during the weekend. Being the savvy shoppers that we are, we scouted out the “Craigs-list” equivalent in Germany, and found four second-hand wardrobes (since we have no closets, really no closets, or drawers, or “where do you put the linens”-type spaces).

We also purchased a freezer at the spur of the moment this way (for the meatballs we bought at IKEA only to discover later that we had no freezer!). Figuring out the transport of all these items required a lot of logistics, but we did it.

Now my hands ache from assembling furniture. The kids and I spent most of one day getting Louise’s bed together and assembling wardrobes. We also worked very hard on the trampoline we decided to buy as a special surprise for the kids.

Thankfully Olof came home with the much longed for washing machine a few days later.
Today is day 4 in our house. Noah told me it feels like much longer, and I agree. Being in a more settled state has worked wonders for all of us. The kids have space to escape to when they need it; they can jump on the trampoline and play games out side, or go to their rooms and read. I can cook in my new (very white) kitchen and we are HOME!

There are still a few more days left until our furniture from Davis arrives, but we have learned that it really takes very little to make a house a home. Stuff is stuff, and though it is a comfort to have things from home, we can all get by with a little less.

Playing outside of the of the box

We happened upon a giant camera. That is what the kids called it anyway. There it was, rainbow colored and bigger than life. Big enough to climb inside of and walk around in. Right there in the middle of the park that we go to every day.

It was a kid magnet and we had to check it out of course. Situated right in front of this "camera" was a toy chest full of fun. All for the public use. There were big kids, little kids, grown up kids and babies even digging into this toy chest and playing.

From what I could gather of this public play station that it was somewhat of a living and traveling work of art. Maybe not art, but a public experiment of sorts. Give folks free reign of toys and let them play.

We stayed for hours trying to master a cylindrical toy that we could spin on a string. The aim was to throw the cylinder in the air and catch it again, which none of could really get the hang of, but we sure had fun trying. We also tried out the spinning disks and jump ropes.

What a great idea. Just for fun, bring toys out and let people play. At first you could see the hesitance on the faces of the parents, was this okay to use? Who did these things belong to? As far as I could see there was no one in particular in charge. But the kids never hesitated for a second. See toys, play!

What’s for dinner mom?

It seems like my eternal question is what to feed the kids for dinner. This is not a new question. It was something I grappled with regularly before we left California. Rumor has it that this is something that plagues many of the moms that I know. So there is no reason why it should be any easier in a foreign country. Being in a makeshift kitchen here, with unfamiliar ingredients, it is even more of a challenge to put something delicious and nutritious on the table each night.

I do not really consider myself a housewife, and never really have. But this role has fallen heavily on me in my childrearing years while I have chosen to stay at home and not work full time (for pay). This means, amongst other things, that I am the primary food preparer in the home. Granted I really enjoy cooking. I love strong flavors and creating new foods from scratch. I would even go so far as to call it a hobby.

Unfortunately, my love of cooking has not flourished with having small children, and most of my meal planning consists of a starch, a vegetable and a protein, in forms that kids will eat and love. Read: pasta, salad, maybe chicken or tofu. Not very exciting.

Throughout the years I have spent countless hours appreciating the fact that we have the means to be able to provide food for our family. More than enough food in fact. And I still find it a challenge to create a meal that satisfies my criteria of being healthy and tasty for both children and adults. I recognize that this is an indulgence that I am able to gratify living in the circumstances that we enjoy, be they the U.S or Europe. Not every mother can provide ample and varied calories for her offspring, something that makes my heart ache regularly.

So back to the present, I am still making meals based on the three above named starches – though it is most often pasta, since I have a daughter who could live on pasta alone, and it is always easy to prepare.

If I really wanted to embrace the German culture, however I would be serving potatoes with every meal.

The vegetable selection here is very good, and so far and I am sure I can make just about anything I made at home, but it is different somehow. I miss exchanging dinner ideas with my best friend, and being inspired by her. I miss the farm basket that we subscribed to, and often planned my meals around. In that past life I made more delicious dishes out of kale than I could ever have I imagined for example, and the kids even liked them. Here I am stuck in a rut of tomato based sauces or soups.

I am slowly building up supplies, and can only buy a few supplemental cooking items each day like salt, parsley, oil and garlic. Eventually I will manage to duplicate my rather extensive supply of spices, herbs, condiments and other essentials, and my creativity will return. I am sure of this.

So, what is for dinner tonight? Pasta. Chicken in spinach sauce (that the kids will opt out of no doubt), and salad. At least they always eat salad. Not very interesting, not very German, but food, and plenty of it, so no one goes hungry in this house.

Ah the freedom of a car

Time to move away from public transport and I can hardly wait. Olof and I are reconciled to the fact that we are, quite frankly, car people.

While it is fun and amusing to take buses, trains and even ferries everywhere, and rather efficient most of the time, we are all tired of waiting at bus stops.

Initially we thought we would wait until we moved into our new house to buy a car, since there really is no great need yet, but after what seems like hours spent waiting for buses and trains, we decided the time is now! So we have been tackling the car market.

This has not been as easy as we thought it would.

Olof is no stranger to buying used cars, even buying used cars in Europe. I would almost call it a hobby of his, not the buying per se, but the perusing of what is available. Perhaps even the fantasizing about what to buy could be called a hobby?

Actually the car buying process began while we were still in Davis. Olof spent numerous hours checking out all the German made cars and researching which would be most fun to drive on the autobahn (BMW hands down) vs. which would be the most cost effective (NOT BMW, sorry Olof).

So we thought we were fairly prepared to buy something once we decided the time was right. We settled on getting a VW Passat, not too old, not too new, and looked at all the dealers within 20-50 kilometers radius. There seemed to be a lot to choose from in our price range, pretty easy so far, all thanks to the internet (i.e., my lifeline).

First step, we sent out email inquiries to a few interesting prospects. While in the states this would result in a flood of responses, here we heard nothing back. Ok, so perhaps it was the English that stopped people.

Next we decided to go in person to a dealer whose website showed having several Passats to choose from. If anyone has ever been to a car dealer, used or new, in the States, you know how popular you can feel. Two or three sales guys come rushing at you as soon as you show any interest. Test drive, no problem. Ask questions, no problem. Chit chat, wheel and deal, and you are out the door with a car. So far we have not managed to meet any salespeople at all.

When we got to the dealership, last Saturday, the one guy who was there seemed very uninterested in showing us anything. He told us the salesman was on vacation and may or may not be back the following week. He certainly was not over eager to sell us anything.

After that Olof tackled the market over the phone, calling dealers all around Bonn and beyond. Many of the cars shown on the internet were apparently not actually at the dealership, but "in transport". This did not sound promising.

Because of his persistence, Olof did actually get to test drive a car last week. It seemed great, but we still felt it would be better to at least compare it with one other car live and in person. We ended up having a comical weekend searching out two other vehicles in outer-lying areas of Bonn, with absolutely no results. Though we did make a great trip out of it all, which ended up with a beautiful boat trip on the Rhein from the quaint town of Linz, back to Bonn.

To wrap up this rather mundane blog post, we have decided to go with the one car we have actually physically gotten to sit in, with the confidence that we have done the best we could. As I say more often than not these days, it is all part of the adventure kids…

Since our weekend was much more fun than just searching for a car, the pictures at the top of the page are from our visit to Linz and the tantalizing treats that we indulged in. Note the grim faces on the kids - they were demonstrating how criminals were measured against the wall in medieval times (not convinced by us that the measuring posts were to mark the river levels).

Things kids notice about Germany

1. People talk different
2. there is more public transportation, like buses and trains and street cars
3. it is closer to Sweden
4. there are more icecream stores - and the lemon ice (like sorbet) is the best!
5. you can travel easier to other places in Europe
6. everyone has a dog
7. everyone smokes
8. there are lots of playparks and grassy areas
9. you can buy sausage from street vendors
10. some drinking fountains are left on all day and have very cold water (no water shortage here)
11. the libraries are in German, but they have English books (and now we have a library card, hurray!)
12. there is an outdoor vegetable market in town every day
13. people dress the same as at home
14. garbage trucks are different, the back is left open
15. there is a really good apple drink called "Lift" that is like bubble water and apple juice
16. police sirens sound different, police uniforms are brown not blue and police cars are green and white
17. taxis are cream colored and are usually Mercedes or VW wagons, and they have built in car seats for kids, cool.

Köln or Cologne?

We say Köln now that we are in Germany, but even people who live here say Cologne. I guess it is an honor to this city's long history, dating back to the Romans in 50 AD. But maybe we should say, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium instead?

Köln is only about a 30 minute train ride from Bonn, or 64 minutes by local train, as we found out last week (all part of the adventure kids). It is Germany's 4th largest city and it is where we decided to go last weekend.

We had planned to go to the zoo, but we were stopped by the rain, so we quickly changed gears and made our trip a historical one. Köln is home to northern Europe’s oldest cathedral. It is hard to miss when you arrive in the city, with spires jutting 600 feet into the sky.

I was worried that visiting a church would not appeal to the kids, nor suffice as a replacement for the zoo, but I was dead wrong. The kids at that point were happy to get inside out of the rain, and a huge, old cathedral was a mighty nice diversion.

Giving them free reign of the camera inspired them both to discover interesting details that we might have otherwise missed. Noah in particular loves finding secret doorways, and this curiosity led us to find the staircase to the upper towers.

Ok, it was not so secret, but we would have otherwise missed the best part of our day if Noah had not been seeking out secret passageways. Love the 9 year old sense of what is important, medieval weaponry, escape routes and war strategies (his favorite word right now is portcullis).

Amazingly the kids were totally game to climb the 533 steps to the top of the tower. I am sometimes taken off guard by their enthusiasm, in a very good way.

We climbed a very narrow spiral staircase for what seemed like an eternity. There were no points to stop and take a break until we got to the top, and we had to share the narrow space with the folks on their way down. The air quickly got thick with people smells in that tight space, much to Louise's dismay, but eventually we came to a doorway and we had to explore.

This was the bell tower with its eight massive bells, overseen by a benevolent guard who offered to take our photo. We decided his role was to close off this part of the tower when the bells were going to ring, and protect tourists and their delicate ears.

We still had a few more stairs to climb before we came to the top of the tower, so up we went. When we got to the top we were rewarded with a panoramic view of this ancient city, the Rhein river and beyond. The cool, fresh air on our faces brought everyone joy to be so high and free and alive.

When we came down to earth again we all decided that the this had been better than going to the zoo, which we could visit on another trip to the ancient city of Koln.

Always look on the bright side of life, tra la

It is not always so easy to see the glass half full.

I really wish I had a constant sunny approach to life like some people I know, but I have found it hard to see things brightly these last few days, mainly because of my kids.

Noah and Louise are not particularly happy right now. They are missing their friends deeply. They are tired of living out of their suitcases, without their toys and books to keep them amused. And they long for their own beds! It has been 46 days of "transition" so far (but we are not really counting), and the end is still at least 2 weeks away, if we are lucky (our ship is due to come in on the 13th of August, but we will have to wait for customs to release our household goods, which may take another week after that).

I have to say though, that my kids have been real troopers. When we walked an extra mile or so to the car dealership, just to find it closed, they did not complain. When the rain poured down and we did not have our umbrellas, and we decided to skip the zoo, they happily went to McDonalds instead. Yes, I have resorted to McDonalds as a comfort for them, and will continue to do so as long as necessary.

It is hard to carry the burden of my children's joy, or lack thereof, and keep a smile on my face as we head out the door for another day of exploration. I am trying to keep a "we are camping approach" to it all. Meaning, lots to discover, creating our own fun, but not quite home.

Going out to buy a puzzle and a new book really help sometimes, and apple cake, and our daily ice cream treats are a must.

We did discover a wonderful water park this weekend, only a bus ride away. And even though the icy water took my breath away, I dove in and swam for hours watching my kids laugh and splash, just like at home.

No, we are not quite settled yet, and each day is a little bit different, and not always very fun, but we still manage to remember that we have each other and our adventure is what we make of it.

Musings on Bonn by Louise

July 8:
Bonn - we are in Bonn today. It rains almost everyday. The rain feels very good. We live in a small alley. Bonn is a nice place to live.

The cheese is different. The bread is different. Streets are different.

I love Bonn!

July 9:
Today me and Noah and mom went to a castle. The castle was awesome! You could see over Bonn. I got locked in the bathroom. You can see the flag. The flag is 5 feet long. The castle has a spiral staircase. The castle was very very very very tall.

July 12:
Today I went to the Rheine river and picked up shells. I found 2 pieces of pottery. The water was warm. It had glass and glass bottles. The Rheine had mostly shells not rocks. I love being at the Rheine river!

July 14:
Today I wrote a postcard for Jenna. The postcard had a castle on the front. I have been on the castle before. I climbed up to the top of the castle. I could see over Bonn! I could see to Koln. It looked pretty from up there. It was nice up there!

July 18:
Yesterday me and Noah discovered PBS kids.com. We like Fetch's website. Me and Noah like Whoalercoaster. You get to build your own track and see if Ruff likes it. I got on level 2. It is fun. Not just fun. Super fun!

July 22:
Today I went to a ruins of a castle. I climbed on rocks. I was very high. We rode a lot of trains today. One was very old.

July 31:
Today I am gonna go to the park and have fun today. It is a fun park that we are gonna go to today. It has a teeter totter, a very rocky bunny, a slippery slide, a rocky horse and a rocky boat, a slippery pole and a high climbing structure!