Although the trip has been enjoyable, we are all getting excited to head back to Maryland. Micah we singing a self-composed song this morning, “Only one more sunday until we go home.” He has been mourning the loss of his god buddy Josh. Frankly, I miss the company of other children to help entertain our own. I also miss a basement, where I can send the kids to play. Our car, dryer and dishwasher will also be a welcome sight.
The weather yesterday was beautiful, the best we have had. WE left the house at 8:30 to catch the buse to town. We finally made it to the Landstuhl city library. We have been trying to make it there the entire trip. It is nice to have internet access and a place for the kids to play on a rainy day,(we have had a lot of those). Since it is a lot closer than the one on post (ten minutes verses an hour and a half!), I was hoping to make it part of our routine here. Finally it was open. I was pleased. The kids were a little wild though and I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the German public watching.
I was also interested in checking out German Children’s books. Micah’s favorite book was about a boy who was scared of a monster in the toilet. His friend pointed out that he just could pee on his head! So he did and the monster never came back. After an hour, we soon got tire of translating books, so we headed to the park.
At the park there were lots of children out. I was beginning to think that the German people didn’t have children. there were plenty of kids to try to play with and moms to talk to. Sadie found a German woman and attached herself to her. Micah tried to play with a boy and had me come translate for him. I told him that he needed to try to play with him by himself. It didn’t work too well.
To end the day we stopped at a flea market to look for some deals. Micah and Sadie won the heart of a lady, who gave them a couple of beach balls. When we got home the kids played in yard and we enjoyed a nice meal on outside.
Sunday came after a long day of walking and long bus rides. Both of us were ready to get a car, but of course we decided against it, again.
Greg headed into work and ended up helping out more patients then he originally intended. There was a big group of soldiers that were being flown back to hospitals in the states. In order to make their flights more comfortable, they take care of their pain before hand. Greg usually does a regional block specific to the needs of the injury. Sometimes he hooks up a catheter, which is attached to a morphine pump. The patient or a nurse can then control the flow of morphine, directly to the injured site.
After getting the patients ready for the flight, Greg came home, ready to pick us up for church. Church has been fun because we have met a lot of people who are in the same situation as we are in. We have crossed paths with some people we have known in other areas. Some Greg has worked with and didn’t know were members. The military population is pretty small and add the church variable and the population is even smaller. We feel like we have laid a foundation here and are not staying! It has been pretty easy to make friends, because everybody is looking for them. Everyone comes out here alone. Plus, the Americans stand out. Greg also ran into one of his attendings from Walter Reed, who just moved out here with his family. They moved in just a street over from us and were out walking.
WE made it to the train without any problems and with nice weather at least at first. The Weather hasn’t been the case all of the time. We have been caught in the rain several times and have learned to take a few umbrellas with us. We have only taken the wrong bus once and on the way home from Church we missed our stop. Which added another 30 minutes to our trip, two more train tickets and a walk home in the rain. Fortunately, our children have been very flexible. They even enjoyed the wait for the second train home. Sadie fell asleep in her stroller. We made it!
On Saturday we decided to head to Ramstein Air Force base. I was interested in looking at a German Christmas shop there and heard there was some good shopping. Greg rode his bike to work and helped out a few patients, while I got the kids ready. The military has a bus that connects all of the bases that are close by here. Ramstein is about four miles from here. When Greg got home from his morning rounds, we took the city bus to Landstuhl hospital and connected with the other military bus. The ride to Ramstein was only about 20 minutes not, bad.
We discovered fun things to do there. We had lunch and shopped. I treated myself to a Schwibbogen carved out of wood. The are made in the Erzgebirge, where I served my mission. They are typically a Christmas decoration that is placed in the window and has candles and a Christmas scene. I can’t wait to add it to my collection of German christmas decorations, which were probably made in China. You have to start somewhere. NOw, I have an original.
We also found a movie theater and decided to watch an English movie, barnyard. When the movie started Micah said, “Mom, get ready to translate.’ He was very happy to find out that he could understand what was going on.
The funnest part of the trip was running into one of my companions from my mission. I knew she was from the area (wiesbaden), but I was under the impression that she had moved to the states. Aparently, she had moved back and lives in Ramstein. Her husband works for the military and is an American. She was shopping in the BX. We had a nice chat and are planning on getting together sometime before we leave. She has a son Micah’s age.
After the movie, dinner and shopping, we hopped on the next bus. We where under the impression that it took an hour to get back to Landstuhl. One hour turned into two and by the time we got to the hospital, the city buses were done from the weekend. We walked home, which took another hour. OH yes, it was raining too.
Finally we can enjoy the weather. For the last few days we have been in doors avoiding the wet cold weather. Needless to say that it has been pretty boring. We have watched a lot of TV, listened to books on tape, and I started reading a German Novel I found in our apartment. We we saw that the sun was peeking through the clouds, we headed for the park. The kids spent some time playing. We grabbed some groceries and made the long walk to the American library.
Today is our anniversary and we are hoping to meet up with Greg at the end of the day and go out to dinnner. Micah asked if we are going to get a babysitter for tonight. I said no. He responded with the comment, “you don’t do things with kids on your anniversary.” hmmm….good point. Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone well enough here to leave our kids with them.
We have met quite a few people here, both through church and Greg’s work. It is pretty easy to spot an American family. They all have been very kind and helpful. A new LDS anesieologist just moved in around the corner from us. He has been taking Greg to work in the morning. Greg hasn’t needed to take the bus. I dropped in and met his wife. The kids were happy to play with other children. Micah has been lonely. He has approached several children and introduced himself. “I am Micah. I am from Maryland. My best friend is at his grandmas house and we are in Germany. I don’t know anyone here and I am lonely.” The first time I hear that, I almost cried. The kids responded to it well, probably, because they are in the same situation.
After pushing it on friday and wearing ourselves out, we decided to stay at home for saturday. We needed to clean our place, do the laundary, get groceries and yes warmer clothes for our kids. The kids also needed naps, after skipping naps over the last couple of weeks. Everything takes a little more effort here, because we don’t have a car and a dryer for the clothes. Since it has been so cold and rainy the clothes take longer to dry out than usual, which has left us drying socks for the kids using the hairdryer, which takes less time than drying my hair by the way. Jeans take a little longer. We are hoping the weather gets better for next week.
We headed out to Kaufland for the groceries. Greg came with to wrangle the kids and to help carry them back. We have enough to eat good for the next few days. I am introducing my family to the tempations of German cuisine, which includes the yogurt, cheese, chocolate and Nutella. Greg now knows why I gained 30 pounds the first time I was hear. Yes,the German bakery. My kids couldn’t believe that you can eat a chocalate sandwhich for a breakfast. Yup……you can and they are doing it. At least it is on whole wheat bread, well….Sadie just licks off the chocolate spread.
We also, bought our kids jackets. Now we wouldn’t look like parents who are neglecting their children, by letting them run around in shorts when the weather is 60 degrees and raining outside.
We ended the day at the park and getting to know our upstairs neighbors (who are renting us our apartment). It was nice to enjoy some time with nice people.
Greg got friday off so we headed out to the famous town of Heidelberg. It loooked a little cloudy, but we decided to brave it and crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t rain. We made it to the 9:40 train and it took about an hour and a half to get there. The kids did great. We enjoyed seeing some of the German countryside through the windows and played “I spy,” pattycake and some other disctracting games that Greg made up.
When we got there the clouds had not burned off yet, but we decided to push forward anyway and took a bus to the base of the castle. By the time we got to the castle, it was raining. Fortunately, we had an umbrella, but the kids were not dressed for the weather, since we hadn’t packed much warm clothing. A week before we left to Germany, we heard that it was in the high 90s and we planned for that kind of weather. Fortunately, we had a couple of blankets and we wrapped the kids up in them, but it was still chilly.
Inspite of the weather the castle was beautiful. We couldn’t see it from the city, because it was covered in clouds, but once we got to the top of the mountain, we could see the view of the city. Greg took some great pictures, which he is going to try to post today. The castle had a few museums and some resturants tucked away inside. We walked through the Pharmacy museum and saw this huge wine vat that could hold up to some huge amount of fluid , some 2,000 liters? I guess it pumped right into the dance hall or something.
It rained off and on, so we had to find places of refuge until the cloud burst passed. We walked around the gardens, got some great pictures of the city. Micah and Sadie also became a point of interest, to a group of Chinese tourists who thought they we especially cute. They all lined up to take pictures of each other with Micah and Sadie. It looks like our kids are going to be in the scrapbook of our new Asian friends, right next to the pictures of the Heidelberg Castle, and other German historical sites. Funny.
After Micah fell down, trying to get back to the base of the Mountain, we decided that we had reached our limit. We had planned on seeing a palace and going to a Christmas shop, but we were cold, wet and ready to relax at home. Since we had a trainride ahead of us, we left for home.
I was glad to get head out, because we soon found out that there was a Soccer game in Kaiserslautern and we got to share the train with drunken fans. A later Train would have been worse than the one we ended up taking. It made me nervous to take the kids on a train full of rowdy fans who think they are funny, and are not. One man yelped and ran to the back of the train. Or course, that freaked Sadie out. We made it home safe.
So we spend a lot of time watching TV, in the evenings when the kids go to bed. It has been fun getting to the know the German TV culture. They have a lot of the same types of shows as we do, their own versions of reality shows like American Idol, Judge Judy, American funniest videos etc. My favorite show so far is called Quiz Taxi. You can imagine what it is like. Taxi riders are picked up and are taken to their location while answering questions for money.
There are a lot of American shows and movies that are dubbed. I get to work on my translation skills translating for Micah and Greg. Micah’s favorite part of TV are the commercials. Every food they advertise he wants to try. When we go to the grocery store, he spends his time looking for whatever prepackaged yummy thing he thinks he needs. He is pretty good at finding them. I have been vary indulgent when it comes to food and the kids and they have been loving it.
Micah’s first German phrase learned from TV: SpongeBob Schwammkopf. I heard him repeating it over and over on the bus.
For those of you who don’t know, there are some pictures published on the website. Just go to the mainpage and click on pictures.
So after a week of trying, we finally made it to the American Library on post. We have been trying to get here all week, but because ofseveral unfortunate circumstances, we didn’t make it. The first time, I locked us out of our apartment, and spent the day trying to get a hold of Greg. The next time, after an hour of traveling by bus and on foot, I realized that I forgot my ID. There is not getting on post without it. So we spent the day playing in the park, waiting for the bus to come, missing the bus and then waiting again. (The bus only comes every hour.)
Today we got up early and made the treck again. The bus doesn’t go directly here, so we had to walk about a half a mile uphill. I had the stroller, so it wasn’t too bad. I rewarded the kids every so often with a cookie. The greatest reward was finally arriving. This place is like heaven. There is a huge play area for the kids, with books, toys and computers to play on. The best is that there are other American kids. I just met a family moving here. The happen to be LDS. Crazy. I think we will stay here all day.
We found out that Greg has the weekend off, starting tomorrow. We are going to make a trip to Heidelberg. We will get there by train and spend the day there. We will keep you posted.
We finally made it to the castle that overlooks the city of Landstuhl. It is called Burg Nanstein and was built in 1160. A famous knight lived there in the 1500s, when it got destroyed. It was rebuilt during the Renaisance Era. We have some pictures to upload, which a great view of Landstuhl. It is amazing to me how these people lived back then and got around. It was hard enough for us to make it to the castle without a car with two kids and two strollers. I can’t imagine building this place high on the mountainside.
