Thanksgiving?

We went to the Christmas market in Kiel on Saturday and V fixed a wonderful chowder for supper out of some fresh cod a colleague of mine had caught out of the Baltic the day before (I cleaned it myself). Sunday we stayed home and had a nice large supper with stuffing, gravy, chicken, deviled eggs, asparagus, ... We missed Thanksgiving in all the recent chaos so we told the kids we were having a late Thanksgiving this year. In a sense it was somewhat appropriate. The original traditional Thanksgivings (before the Pilgrims arrived) were held in Virginia at the Berkeley colony and ended up on the first Sunday in December. Yesterday was a Sunday in December. Also it was the shortest day of the year, being the winter solstice, so from now on we can count on six months of steadily increasing daylight! I had to go to work today to set up some things for being untended for ~two weeks, but the loose plan for tomorrow is to go to the Luebeck Christmas market.

Update

It has been a difficult week. There is no easy way to say this. V lost the baby on Tuesday. She stayed at the hospital overnight and came back home on Wednesday. We were prepared for this so it has made it easier for all of us to deal with. This is the kids last week of school so we have been taking them to school to keep a regular routine for them. My mother, who is visiting, came down with a cold, probably from flying in the airplane, so I had to take the kids to school yesterday. Today I am back at work and catching up on everything. Also, we have a pay gap which will make it a little difficult to do things for Christmas. There was a note in my pay stub this week that they are switching from depositing the money in the bank on the 15th of each month to the last day of the month. Why they chose December to do this with Christmas coming up I cannot fathom. I am reminded of my father saying that bad things always come in threes.

Sorry to be so negative. On the bright side we have furniture in our apartment now from the kindergelt money and back taxes we received last month. Our living room and dining room is very nice and homey now. Also, some orchids that I have been raising for over six months now have finally bloomed and they are very pretty. We have a Christmas tree set up and some Christmas lights around the window in our living room. We are planning to go to a Christmas market this weekend so my mother and the kids can see what they are like. One thing that has been really getting to us the last few weeks is the lack of sunlight, but today, finally it is a clear sky and the sun is out. For my lunch break I am going to take a walk and get some sun.

One more negative point that has been a real frustration here in Germany. The kids had a "Christmas market" at school yesterday. I knew about this and this is one of the reasons I wanted them to go to school yesterday and took them myself. Because I don't yet have a German drivers liscense we have to take the bus, and it is so slow and expensive that it only makes sense to stay in town until the kids are out of school and them come back with them. I dropped the kids off, said hi to the people at school, then walked to town and read some things I brought with me to work on while I waited in a bakery. Then did some small grocery shopping to kill time and walked back to the school later to pick up the kids. It was then that the teachers there said that they were sorry I couldn't make it to the Christmas market--no one told me before hand that I could come. Apparently parents are expected to attend and we were the only parents that weren't there. This keeps happening over and over, especially at the kids old school. The teachers don't understand that we don't know which activities we are invited to or what holidays the kids are out of school. They seemed to think that I didn't know about the Christmas market or what day it was on. I kept trying to explain that I did, only I didn't know that parents came, this seemed to be off the radar for them. They seemed to think that we have school Christmas markets in the US and that parents attend, so why wouldn't we know to do this here? Just as they seem to think that the religious holidays are the same at schools in the US as here so why wouldn't we know about them? It amazes me that I keep having to explain to Europeans that different cultures have different traditions and that they are not always obvious to someone from another culture, so it is useful to us to point things out a head of time. Anyway, on the bright side the kids had a lot of fun and M actually made some real money from crafts she sold at the market.

Bad news

There have been some serious complications with V's pregnancy that we have found out about lately. There is a very large chance she will lose the baby; it is almost certain at this point. We are very sad about this and it has been difficult for me to keep up with the blog lately among other things. My mother is here visiting and has been a tremendous help watching the kids so V can rest and while we go to doctor's appointments. I'm sorry but this is all I can say at the moment.

Big News!!!

V is pregnant. We're expecting around early June. We had a visit from a midwife last week and got to hear the heartbeat! T is happy about the idea of a baby but M is very excited--fit to be tied.

To catch up on other news a bit.
It appears that we have finally received our kindergeld...(more later)

Also, November is a cold, rainy, dark month in N. Germany. I think this is as bad, weather wise, as it can possibly get. I have now been in Germany every month out of the year except for January, and if Jan is between Dec and Feb then it is an improvement over November.

T "likes" school

T told me this morning that he likes this school, which is very good to hear and I didn't expect so soon. It is such a difference from the public school that I know we did the right thing. They have assigned two kids to both M and T, one of each of which speaks English to help guide them around at the new school. The teachers are also speaking English to help explain how everything works. V pointed out that at first M and T didn't realize the teachers were speaking English, they are so used to not understanding what is going on at school they weren't even trying to listen--which illustrates how neglected they had been at the public school. Now we just have to work out a more permanent transportation solution.

PS - I am wearing my Hawaiian shirt to work today to celebrate our new Hawaiian president! (And we had "Hawaiian" ham and pineapple for supper last night.) I've been joking with my German colleagues that now with Obama elected I can return to the US.

Obama Wins!!!

I wrote a Luo acquaintance of mine in Kenya earlier in the day asking if he was ready for his "cousin" to be president of the US. I came back in to work at 1 am (local, Germany) and have been watching the results come in all night on the computer. Some other people were here earlier but it seems like I'm the last one left still awake now. About 10 minutes ago (5 am) all the major news networks projected Obama winning!!!

(7 am) I haven't been able to go home to sleep yet. I saw the concession speech from McCain which was really nice and the victory speech from Obama, with Rev. Jesse Jackson in tears in the audience. Some Germans are coming into work now and we were all cheering that Obama has won. I have waited 8 years for this, since the severely disappointing 2000 election, where the supreme court acted unconstitutionally, overruling the state of Florida's recount and, voting along party lines, appointed that dangerous arrogant clown as president, severing the link to the people (since the president appoints the court and they in turn appointed him)...but enough about that.

The face of America is finally changing at the highest levels. President Obama's first state of the union address will really drive that home with Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house and Obama as president. This is a great victory for the people of America. I have always been against racial and gender discrimination of any kind, especially when institutionalized like "affirmative action;" maybe now we, the US, can finally get past this and continue to take steps ahead to get rid of as many forms of discrimination as possible!

Great Days at School

The kids had a great first two days at their new school. M learned finger knitting and was showing it off to me last night, and T worked on a boat that they are building to sail next spring and put together and electric circuit he was very proud of. They played in a gym, and I don't know what all, and came home exhausted both days (V too).

Off to the new school

Today is the first day at the new school. I saw V and the kids off this morning. They are taking a bus route to school. I have to be at work because I have a new person working for me that is starting today, otherwise I would probably have gone with them. I'll let y'all know how it turns out. Fingers crossed.

Meteor Shower?

This morning, just before 4am, I stopped next to a lake while walking into work and saw three bright meteors within 5-10 minutes. They were very large and left long tails hanging in the sky, and reflected in the lake. The odd thing was they seemed to originate in different parts of the sky (usually meteor showers appear to come from the same part of the sky). Also odd is that there doesn't seem to be any regular meteor shower on close to this date, Halloween. By the way, happy Halloween!

M's Birthday

Trip to Bielefeld

On Friday I was invited to give a presentation at a festival in Bielefeld. It was 4 1/2 hours away by train. I was up all night the night before getting my presentation ready (because my computer crashed and I lost my earlier presentation) and I was supposed to be sent a code to get my tickets at the train station, but it had not come. I called the secretary in Bielefeld Friday morning and finally got her on the phone and got my ticket number at 8:40 am. I ran to the train station and had some trouble printing the ticket, I had never printed my own train tickets from a code before, I pushed the "English" button for help but that section was all in German anyway. Finally I got the tickets printed out minutes before my train arrived at 9:15 am. The rest of the trip was (oddly enough for me) without incident. I didn't get thrown off for having the wrong tickets and I didn't end up in the wrong stops. I guess I am learning how to really use the German train system. There are sheets printed in yellow at the stations that have all the stops for each train and the times they arrive there. Timing when to get off really helps when I am in a new area, otherwise it is hard to know which stop to get off at in time to get off before the train moves on. After my presentation was done I collapsed for a long nap at the hotel. On Saturday I walked around Bielefeld a bit, but the city was not that remarkable. It is in the industrial area of Germany. I hopped the train back to Hannover. There are some famous gardens I would have liked to see in Hannover but they were a long way out of town and I didn't want to spend any extra money until payday this week so I continued on to Hamburg. In Hamburg I went for a walk and stumbled first upon an anti-American parade and then upon St. Nicolai church. The parade was protesting "Yankee imperialism" in central and south America. It was flanked by police cars and had a line of people waving flags and a car with loudspeakers chanting slogans. I followed it for a ways to see if anything happened. I was comfortable with the "Yankee" protests. Being from the south, we have been fighting and protesting "Yankee" imperialism for over a century--since the Civil War. Despite the police presence the protest was uneventful and I went on and happened upon a church (a cathedral by American standards) that was bombed in WWII and was left as ruins rather than being rebuilt. The main spire is still standing and some of the corner walls but the center is gone with a memorial below ground. It is a real contrast to the office buildings around it. Some of the columns and the rose window in the spire are blasted out and the stone has a dark burnt look to it. I walked on to the famous Reeperbahn, the "touristic red-light" section of Hamburg. Here there are risque shops right next to McDonalds and KFCs, the contrast is amusing. It reminded me a bit of Amsterdam, only without all the drugs for sale in the shop windows. I walked back by the famous Rathaus (courthouse) and then on back to Ploen. On Sunday I took the kids "deer hunting." We snuck through some woods and found deer tracks, trails and scrapes (where they rub there antlers near the base of small trees), but no deer. And then this (Monday) morning a sighting that deserves mention. I saw two mink-like animals apparently hunting around an overpass around 5 am.

Obama ahead

Obama is doing very well in the latest polls. The New York Times has an electoral map listing the solid and likely Obama and McCain states. It has a section where you can make your own maps so I made the map above, the states are placed into Obama (blue) and McCain (red) according to the latest poll results. Of course this is oversimplified and there is still more to go till the election (but not for me, my absentee ballot is finished); however, this result has Obama winning more 340 electoral votes to McCain's 174! I am amazed that NC and Colorado are now dead even in the latest polling.

Accepted!!!

We got the call from the alternative Montessori school last night. They met again and have now decided to accept T and M! We are very happy. We think this will be much better for them. Now for the pragmatic part. We need to finish getting driving licenses and need to buy a car! I had wanted to avoid getting a car until now, but on the bright side it will give us much more freedom to travel. There is a two week vacation coming up and the kids would probably start at the new school sometime in November.

On the down side our luck hasn't held completely. My work computer has crashed and refuses to start up now. Fortunately I have 99% of my critical files already backed up. Anyway, this is an easy trade (luck wise) for the kids to be in a better school situation.

(PS - V said when she was at the school the other day to pick up M all the teachers were "peaches and creme" to her. The pressure from the top seems to be filtering down.)

A good, busy day

Yesterday was a banner day for us. In the morning I went to the county building and met with the psychologist that observed T at school. She does not work for the school but is directly from the ministry of education and what we talked about was confidential. K went along to help with translating. I was curious how she did when talking with T since she didn't speak much English, but I was very impressed when she showed us her methods. One of them involved lining up toy animals from the one he liked the most to the one he liked the least to make a scale. Then she asked him where (which animal) different things (about school and living here and so on) rated on that scale as a way for him to communicate indirectly but relatively unambiguously. I have realized that this blog is starting to get some wider attention about this school issue (which is good), but I don't want to put anything too specific here that might get back to the people directly involved, so for now let me say that it was a very good meeting and we came to an understanding about what we felt the best course of action was, which reflects the course of action V and I wanted in the first place. It also turns out that the school can't block a transfer, contrary to what we have been told before (who knows what the law really is). I will continue to update our progress here and I can give more specific details off blog to people that know me personally. I am very hopeful that things can work out for T now regarding school. The next big event is hearing back about the alternative schools decision today after they meet.

(I forgot to mention, we were able to get a doctors note on Monday to legally keep T out of school, based on his weight loss recently; he has been throwing up regularly at school now from anxiety and his weight loss is becoming serious, but he is gaining weight again outside of school.)

Also, V's laptop from the US arrived in Kiel last week and we needed to pick it up or they would start charging us for storage. So I ran to Kiel in the afternoon and checked at the auto club first to see if they had my driver license translation ready yet; they had just finished it. So I picked that up and went by the post office. Here I had to open the package and lay everything out in front of them to prove what was in it and that we owned it personally (it felt kind of like going through an airport in the US). There were also a couple pages of forms to fill out so it took some time, but finally I was back to the train station with V's laptop. When I arrived back home it turned out our absentee ballots had arrived for this November's elections!, so I am filling those out now.

Unification Day

Friday was a national holiday here in Germany. It represents the reunification of East and West Germany. The schools and banks were closed. We visited the H family who invited us over in the afternoon. They have similar aged kids so the kids all got to play together. Their kids speak German and have only learned a little English so one of the aims, other than getting the kids out of the house, is to help our kids learn German and their kids learn English by playing together. It rained starting out so we all ate cake and drank tea while the kids disappeared into the apartment somewhere, then the weather cleared up and we went for a nice walk with the kids by the lake. The kids got along really well; unfortunately they are enrolled at the other public school in town that our kids have been blocked from transferring to, so they can only see each other outside of school, at least for now.

Visit went well.

The home visit by the alternative school representative seemed to go well. I was in a meeting at work at the time, but she came by at 3pm and talked with V, M and T. They were working on some crafts and V said the kids were very well behaved and chatted with the representative. So, we are awaiting the final decision from the alternative school. Also, some people did some calling around for me 'from the top down' to put some pressure on the principal and teacher, and we found out some more information about the school systems here. It turns out that once they are enrolled in one elementary school that the school can indeed legally block transfers to another school within the same system; so their refusal to allow T to transfer to the other public school in town carries some weight. However, they cannot block transfers to a private school like the alternative school we have applied to. So their blocking the representative from observing T and M may have been their only recourse to prevent a transfer. Also, teachers here are appointed for life and there is no significant role for parents or parent groups in the school system (in stark contrast to the US), which of course leads to a different attitude that they do not have to answer to or consider parents descisions about child education. The main consideration on the teachers end is for promotion within the system, and a transfer of a student to a different school 'looks bad' in their hierarchy. A next step is a meeting next Tuesday with a psycologist that the school asked to talk to T to identify the 'problem'. According to the psycologist, whom I talked with over the phone to arrange the meeting, (and my best guess at our mixed German and English conversation) it is just us meeting with them, but we are expecting an ambush like last time with the director/teacher present. I wonder what the psycologist will say when I bring up how T's teacher tries to get his attention by slapping her hand on his desk and yelling, drawing X's on the back of his hand to punish him, and (I just found this out) taking money out of his wallet ... and how this might affect how the other kids in the class act toward T. There is a two week break coming up and we are pulling T out of school, legal or not, until then.

Visit Refused!!!

Today was the day that people from the alternative school were supposed to observe T and M at their current school. We called the school on Monday and told them they were coming. Late in the morning I got a call at work explaining that the principal stopped them at the front desk and refused to let them in the school to observe T and M; saying something about how it was not necessary because they were staying at their current school...? This was all very confusing to all of us. We got a hold of the alternative school on the phone and explained the situation, so they are planning to just visit us at home tomorrow to see T and M and circumvent the school. This is nuts! The current school is acting like they own our kids and that we have no right to make any decisions at all. I also got a call at work and had to go to the school today (the principal was not around at the time) because T was sick. The stress of this teacher and classroom is making him sick regularly now. We have held back until now and tried to be 'nice' to avoid accidentally creating a worse problem for the kids, but I'm pulled out the rest of the stops and had a chat with some influential people that I had avoided involving until now (which of course I am hesitant to name, even indirectly, here), who said they would look into this for me and see what they could do (and they have an interest in resolving this). This is ridiculous and has gone too far.

Driver's License, Part I

Tuesday I started the process to get a German driver's license. If the alternative school works out we will need to commute by car since it is not on any of the rail lines and too far to bike to every day. Also, since I have been here over six months it is illegal for me to drive with my US license. On the bright side, since we switched our residency to NC before moving, I don't need to take a driving test, just a written one, and a German license is for life; it never expires. I went to the county courthouse and started the process, and picked up some extra passport pictures in town for the license. Then I hopped the train to Kiel and left my license with the autoclub there for an official translation, which is required before I can take the test.

School Visit

V and I caught a ride with another expat (that has a car) to the alternative school Friday. We were showed around and hung out all day then met with the director after school. It is Montessori based. The kids sign up for activities each day and the ages are mixed together, teachers volunteer on different days. There are some regular classes (math, grammar) during the week, but much of the time it is self directed. It is also much smaller, around 30 kids. There is a large school ground and the kids build slides and clubhouses and maintain gardens. I think T and M would do very well there, essentially take the pressure off so we can homeschool with the Calvert school curriculum in the afternoons. The director was a bit ambiguous during our meeting. He discussed his theories of personality development and that he did not want to accept new kids to the school, but that T and M speaking English was a plus because they could help teach the other kids English. We gave more background on T, that he was accepted to a Montessori school in the US but it was too expensive for us so he couldn't go and that we homeschooled until both of us had to work full time and had no other choice but to send him to public school. V put together a folder of pictures of T working on various modeling projects, acting in plays (that he helped write) and a working electric motor that he built completely on his own after seeing me put one together, as well as some pictures of M. The director said he wanted us to think about it over the weekend then call back on Monday (today) to see if we were still interested in pursuing it, so we did. The next step is the school is sending someone to observe T and M at the public school on Wednesday, then they will make their final, final decision. In the meantime we are drafting a letter to fax to the school to state our case to the committee.

Over the weekend we went to Eutin and walked around the town for fun, and got some winter clothes for the kids. I also took the kids buckeye hunting. M brought a bag to carry them in. I explained that they were supposed to be good luck and one of my grandmothers carried one in her purse. We got "lost" on the way back and used the buckeyes to find our way (tossing them on the ground and seeing which way they went). We met a british couple that were cleaning their yard at a second home they keep here. They seemed pleased to speak to someone in English and gave us some walnuts to carry back. The buckeyes "found" the way back to our apartment, proving to the kids that they were indeed very lucky. M picked out some to give to people as gifts.

Absebtee Ballot

I filled out and sent off my absentee ballot application yesterday. I found this website (http://www.fvap.gov/) that has useful information for what to fill out and where to send it. I can't miss this election; the last thing the US needs is another war (this time with Iran) if McCain gets elected.

Also, there is more news about the school appeal. The superintendent (who speaks English) called me at my work number last week to tell us the result of our appeal. This was the first time we had talked directly to them (before it had all been via a translator that did not know the full details to answer their questions) so before he could say anything I gave a fast sell with T and explained that we had home schooled him before, that he does very well with his own self directed projects, is not happy in a traditional classroom situation, and so on. He said that they didn't realize this when they made their decision before (of course, how could they without talking to us) and then said that he wants V and I to visit the school all of the school day next Friday (tomorrow) and then come and observe T in his class (without him knowing they are observing him/saying they are looking at the entire class) at some point before making another final decision. So, we will see what happens.

The school saga continues

We checked with an alternative school for T today, which we contacted last week, and have officially been turned down. In many ways it sounds ideal for T but it would create a transportation problem because it is out of town and we don't have a car, so maybe it is a good thing in disguise. We have appealed and should hear back tomorrow, but I don't expect them to change their minds at this point. If the appeal is rejected tomorrow we will switch to plan B, another school that is here in town, but has a very similar curriculum to the school he is currently in. However, we are told that there are more immigrant children at this school and that they are more geared towards teaching kids German language, at the worst it will at least get him away from his current teacher.

Six Months

We've now lived abroad as a family for six months. The longest any of us has been outside of the US. Overall all is going well. The biggest problem, obviously, is T's school situation, but we are working on possible fixes for that.

Last weekend we went to Kiel on Saturday for some shopping. M needed some special shoes for school so we picked those up. Then the kids played in a playground for a couple hours and T dug a hole in the sand deep enough to completely hide in. On Sunday T was sick and slept in. V and M went to Eutin to something like a Renaissance festival, people rode around on horses and dressed up in 300 year old styles. Then Monday it was M's turn to be sick. Hopefully it has cleared up by now and both the kids will be back to school tomorrow.

Follow up post regarding T's school

I want to clearly state some things "for the record" in a followup to the last post so there aren't any misunderstandings.

Almost everything related to moving here and living in Germany has been very positive thus far. The biggest and almost only problem has been T's school situation. There are some very negative stereotypes about Germans and Germany in the US and we are pleased to experience first hand that most of this is unwarranted. Germany is a beautiful country and there are many nice and helpful people here that we have met. The main negative cultural points that we are seeing are almost entirely related to T's school situation. There is a pervasive arrogance here that the official German way is the only right way and everyone else is wrong (not being able to see things from other points of view) and that German society seems to be set up to be very bad in dealing with individual needs (you're expected to fall in line with the group, nothing else is considered). Of course these are obviously things that do not work well with immigrant families from different cultures. These things are not unique in any way to Germany but there does seem to be "an edge" here in this direction.

Also, I can see how from my last post it might appear that I am being "the ugly American". I do not expect the school to learn English and use English only for T's sake and our convenience. I understand that this is Germany and we have to do our best to work with the German system and learn and use the German language. In fact I am amazed that so many Germans speak English so well; coming from America I was completely unprepared for how much English is spoken in the rest of the world. Believe me we have tried and are still trying to learn and use German. What I do take issue with is the schools refusal to teach T German, when it is clearly in all of our best interest. His teacher told us in a meeting last year (the same teacher both years) that she has 20 other students to teach and will not spend any extra time with T, so as far as we can understand he sits in a corner all day at school and has no idea of what is going on around him. She seems obsessed with making him learn the German style of cursive handwriting (that all the other kids already know), so this is what she has him work on over and over while she teaches the rest of the class--as far as we can tell. He is at school to learn, but he can't learn if there is no communication, either in German or otherwise. He does have a teacher this year, apart from his regular teacher, that teaches him math. This teacher doesn't speak English but T likes him. He works with T and shows him how to do math problems in a way T can understand. A little effort on an individual level are all that is needed for T to learn, but despite my best efforts his primary teacher does not seem to get this and is just letting him "do his time" until she can pass him off onto someone else.

A complete waste of time

Today V and I met with T's teacher, the school principle, another teacher as a translator and T's tutor. Let me back up...

Last Thursday we contacted another school, which has more immigrant children and a larger program to teach German to non-German-speaking kids. We asked if we could bring T for a visit and see what he thought of the place. They told us they needed permission from T's current school first, so we called them and AM, who was translating for us on the phone, got yelled at for a long time by the principle, denied the visit, said it was illegal, ... so we arranged a meeting for today to discuss. At the meeting before they could start talking I said the most important thing was for T to learn and in order to do that he needed to communicate. They seemed to nod agreement to this but it went downhill from there. Most of all it turned into a blame fest, they blamed us in various ways of not being good parents because T hadn't learned enough German yet, that this was entirely our fault, despite hiring a tutor, taking him to German school in the states and so on. We brought up that even German high school students that we arranged to help T with his homework, did not always understand the homework instructions. then the teacher illustrated to us how she tells him to do things, she slams her hand down on the desk and yells, she did this a couple of times in front of us (the example she used was to teach him cursive handwriting). I was amazed but the other people from the school there were unphased. We told them that he doesn't react well to that and that it was exactly the wrong way to get him to pay attention and participate, he will just withdraw further. --we can blame them and they can blame us but in the end it doesn't help T at all, isn't that why we're there? Then we restated that all we wanted was permission to visit the other school. They said of course we could but that it was a bad idea, T "shouldn't have a decision in this" because he would see it as a better place and want to go there because he had already had a bad time at their school--I kid you not. To cut a long story short they demonstrated they did not care at all about T learning but only that they wanted control over him, to keep him at their school. Why, I have no idea. If he is happier at the other school and learns there then that is what is important, but not to them. Then they listed examples of other kids from other countries that learned German in four months at their school; a) what does this have to do with T, b) T hasn't even been in school in Germany for four months, they moved him to a lower grade in only weeks and expect miracles over summer break, c) why should I believe them after all the other things they've said. Next we used the example of his last homework, there was a book he was supposed to copy a poem from, but he didn't have the book. His teacher smiled as if she could use this point against us and said yes, all the other kids took their books but his is still on the window shelf in the classroom. I asked if she told him it was his book, she said she told all of the kids, then I asked if she told him in English. She said she uses only German with him, but (saying this infront of the principle) that she will start to use English. My point seemed to be lost on them. If he doesn't understand German, then how is he supposed to know to take the book home for his homework. Then towards the end I asked the teacher if she could understand T when he speaks English (her English is very bad) she said no because he speaks in a dialect--which makes no sense to us. I pointed out again that this results in no communication, so how is he supposed to learn, but they seemed more interested in what small rural town we were from in order to verify their "dialect" excuse. They grinned to each other as they awaited the answer but V smartly said "New York". (Explanation, to many Americans New Yorkers do have a funny, sometimes hard to understand accent, but to many here in Europe it is seen as the ultimate cosmopolitan city and there seems to be a strong bias here in that direction as far as dialects and speaking.)

So that's it. Instead of expecting any help from them we're now focused on how to get him out of that class/school. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany so that is not an option. We even inquired with the education ministry and received a letter denying a waiver so we could homeschool. There are two other schools in the area that we will pursue transferring to next.

Back to School

The kids are back in the German school system this week. T started on Monday. He has been upbeat about school overall despite the usual frustrations from last year. His teacher moved up a grade with his class so he has the same teacher again this year... We have hired a German language tutor to work with him after school (who actually started a few weeks ago) and we are trying a lesson a day with Rosettastone to increase his and our German ability.

M's first day, of first grade, was today. It was a huge deal. Here kindergarten is separate from the public schools so this is seen as the kids first day of school. It started with a special church ceremony in town (the church is integrated more into the government here). All the new first graders sat together.

We got M a special present for her to carry around on her first day, a "schule tute". It is a giant cone filled with school supplies and candy and toys. At first I thought it was too large and was embarrassed for her to carry it around, too ostentatious, but it was right in league with the tutes the other kids had, about 2/3s their body length and in garish colors.

Apparently they lug them around the school all day, with their backpacks, and are not allowed to open them until they get home. After church we walked to the school and her old kindergarten class handed out roses to the kids, giving her something else to carry.

Then we saw T waving from behind the bars to the playground to us as the kids watched the newcomers file into the gym.

In the gym there were some songs and skits from the older kids, including T's class.

Then they called out the new kids names by class and they went up onto the stage with their new class. M did fine throughout all of this and was very excited (she has been for days).

I ducked out at that point but T's teacher cut me off at the door. She spoke to me in very fast German. Eventually I got her to use some English and slow down. Apparently she is upset T doesn't speak more German at this point (which is strange because she has told us she won't teach him German and that we must--hmmm, we're English speakers and she's a German speaker, and her job is as T's teacher, how does this make any sense?). We decided to have a meeting later.

Back to Germany

We returned to where we started, circumnavigating the Baltic, in the afternoon on the 27th. The kids were excited to see us and we gave them some small gifts we had picked up along the way, then the next day was V's birthday, we picked up an apple cake at the bakery and gave her some birthday presents from our trip, then late in the day DR and I went to Hamburg to spend the night and I saw him off at the airport, for his flight back to the US, this morning.

In Copenhagen, Denmark

... more soon ...

In Stockholm, Sweden

... more soon ...

In Helsinki, Finland

We took an early morning ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki and walked around town for the afternoon (and ate a lot of small fish for lunch). Then back to the harbor and we are currently on an overnight ferry to Stockholm.

In Tallinn, Estonia

We took a bus this morning from Riga to Tallinn. Tallinn is a much friendlier feeling city then Riga. It has a very nice old town. We walked around town, ate a late lunch at an African restaurant, then supper at "The Hansa" restaurant. While there I saw several people that I have met in the last few years at professional meetings file into the restaurant. Apparently they are having a meeting in Tallinn this weekend. We got out unnoticed except perhaps by one person that I saw last year in Cairo and they stared at me for a moment.

In Riga, Latvia

We walked around Vilnius' old town some more this morning, including a self declared breakaway republic across a stream, then went back to the bus station and took a bus to Riga. We arrived here over an hour early. The driver kept passing trucks and forcing oncoming cars off the lane while doing it. The weather got cooler and turned to rain along the way. After arriving in Riga the first thing we did was get some tickets for tomorrow to Tallin, but most of the routes were sold out and we ended up getting a bus that leaves at 8am, so we won't have as much time here in Riga. We walked around the old town a bit before it got dark but we were constantly bugged by beggars everywhere we turned. If I get up early and the rain has stopped, I might try to head back for a bit early in the morning.

(PS - The keyboard I'm using at the moment also has Cyrillic (Russian) letters on it.)

In Vilnius, Lithuania

... hard to write, touchscreen kiosk, all is fine.

I will update this post some more, I couldn't write much at the time and am running out of time again. One thing I want to mention is that we spotted several Georgia flags in Vilnius next to Lithuanian flags, like cars flying one of each through town, in an apparent show of solidarity with Georgia against Russia.

In Szczecin, Poland

DR and I traveled down to Luebeck this morning. We had an hour before our next connection so we walked around the old town for a bit and got some lunch. Then took a train all the way to the border with Poland. We checked into the hotel, figured out how to get to the airport in the morning (train), bought the train tickets to the airport, got some supper (sort of Polish kebabs) and are now at an internet cafe in a mall.

DR has arrived, Baltic trip begins

My brother, DR, arrived in a flight to Germany yesterday, our first visitor from the US. We picked him up at the Hamburg airport (and along the way were stopped by the train police). He rested at our apartment yesterday, but today we will begin a trip northeast and hope to get to Poland by nightfall. For about a year now we have been off and on planning to attempt a trip around the Baltic and now it has finally arrived, just in time for a much needed vacation for me from work for a week. I'll try to keep this updated on our progress and how it goes.

More bike practice

(sorry a series of empty posts "placekeepers" for now, will update as soon as I can)

Finally, Visas for the family

Birthday

The Rat Reappeared.

I woke up around 4am and it was clear again so I went down to the lake to look for some more meteors, to the same spot where I saw the rat last time. As I waited something small was moving next to the water toward me and stopped just a foot away. I could make out it was the rat again coming from the opposite direction (i.e. the direction it was heading for during the rain shower). I moved my hand and it took off back where it came from; so I suspect there is a nest in that direction. Then I saw a very bright meteor heading toward the sunrise just before I left.

Perseids

It turns out that the meteors I've been seeing lately (in my Weather post and during our camping trip) are the Perseids. A few nights ago the clouds cleared off just after midnight so I woke everybody up to go see them (the peak of activity is on the 12th). When I asked V if she wanted to go all I got was a weak "... no ...". T actually got up and got his coat and shoes on, but then after his mind had woke up some more he asked where we were going. I said to see the meteors. He looked at me funny then said he didn't really want to go. So I told him he could go back to sleep. He was relieved. M was more into it. She popped up and got ready. We walked a short ways to a lake where the trees screened out the town lights and the sky was clear in the right direction. Along the way I got to point out the north star to her, which she has been asking about and wanted to see. While we waited we saw several big bright meteors and M got to make some wishes. Then the clouds started coming back so we went back home, around 2:30am.

Belt broke and a rat appeared

This weekend not much of anything happened. We lazed around the apartment and just relaxed for a change. The big news was my belt broke. I have had it for 12 years and wore it almost every day. It has gone with me on trips to the South Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East and survived all of that, but it finally just wore out, so I guess I will have to get another one for the next 12 years (till 2020). Also, I went to the lakeside to read my book and it started raining heavily. Suddenly a rat scurried down the bank beside me heading for the water. It paused, then jumped in and swam toward me. I could almost have reached out and touched it when it seemed to sense me and did a 180 and disappeared in the grass in the other direction.

Shots Fired!

A night a few weeks ago there was a bang, bang, bang, ... of fire works outside. As a joke I told Vanessa, quick get the kids in the tub, it's a drive by! In retrospect, here in Germany is a huge change from where we first lived in Maryland. We were inside the beltway just outside of DC (New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring), and in fact we did occasionally hear gunfire at night. On the weekends there was an almost constant sound of police and ambulance sirens going back and forth. In the paper I would read about growing gang problems and armed robberies all around us. It is much nicer here.

Overnight Camping

This is a bit out of time order, but a couple weeks ago we went for a weekend overnight camping trip. We walked to a park area next to the big lake (Grosser Ploener See). Here is a shot of a rest break part way.



The kids were wore out by the hike. Here is almost all the way to the campsite.



Yes, T insisted on bringing his giant stuffed tiger 'Hobbes'.

We got there just before sunset. There was a beach where the kids got to play in the water.



We set up camp on the beach.



and hiked back the next morning.

International Political Hypocracy

The abundant hypocrisy from around the world is painfully apparent in the current Georgia-Russia conflict. Russia itself has had a breakaway province conflict that has raged for years in the Caucuses, Chechnya, which happens to border Georgia. Russia has fought bloodily to keep control of Chechnya and deny them independence while asserting now South Ossetia´s independence. The latest reports are that Georgia has withdrawn its troops and asked for a cease fire, but Russia is continuing to bomb targets in Georgia, outside of S. Ossetia, even in the capital of Tbilisi, has blockaded oil and wheat in Georgian sea ports and even sunk a Georgia navy ship (note that Georgia is outgunned by the Russian military by 100 to 1). The EU and NATO have tried to mediate, but since the EU has expansion interests in the Caucuses and NATO´s mission is essentially to counterbalance and control Russia (with it's own expansion interest in the former Soviet states), is it any wonder that Russia is not swayed by their arguments. Then the Bush administration has laughably said that Russia should respect the sovereignty of Georgia and not act unilaterally with militarily invasion. Has Bush forgot about his administrations actions in Iraq? What about recognizing Kosovo? Where was the outcry from Bush when Israel bombed Lebanon? When it comes down to it, Bush has squandered his credibility and intervention should come from a country or international organization without obvious mixed motives. The Ukraine may be a shining light in this growing morass. A surprise move from the Ukraine is their statement that they may bar the Russian Black Sea fleet from returning to its port in the Crimea (Ukraine). The Ukraine has had its own political struggle with breakaway provinces (Crimea, albeit less so than Georgia and Russia) and has already suffered punitive actions from Moscow with oil supplies and attempted assassinations. It's a long shot against horrible odds, but perhaps the former Soviet Republics can stand together and pressure Moscow to rein itself in.

(Disclaimer - In general I am all for self determination and minority independence, what I don´t like here is the apparent land grab by a bully Russia for essentially an additional Russian province from Georgia.)

Russia invades Georgia

I just read on the BBC and CNN websites that Russian tanks, with fighter jet air cover, are invading the S. Ossetia province of Georgia, and that Georgia has shot down two Russian fighter planes, reports of heavy fighting and mass refugee exodus. Russia and Gerogia appear to be at war.

The S. Ossetia province, with a large Russian minority population, has been in conflict with Georgia for many years. In the last couple days the Georgian military had launched an offensive to bring the province under its control and Russia announced it would defend the breakaway province. This may have some parallels and political connections with the international recognition of the breakaway Kosovo province (from Serbia) by many other countries against Russia's (and Serbia's) wishes.

Bike work

Saturday and Sunday it was working on the bikes and practicing riding them. I've had a flat on my back tire for a few weeks now and miss being able to ride it so I finally patched the tube with a kit. I did this with T and showed him how to take the tube out and find the leak with soapy water. We also blinged T's bike some more by adding a rear view mirror to the handle bar that his uncle D got him.



Then T, M and I went to a nearby parking lot for M to practice riding.



After some practice we went on a short bike trip on a nice, level, uncrowded trail next to one of the lakes. M did really well and is learning to bike fast (only her second real day learning). The kids went swimming for a while at the far end of the trip then we biked back. There were several tip overs and restarts for M, but she did very well, and only once almost rode off the bank into the lake, but she stopped the bike in time. The next day we went back for more practice, but V also came along and rode on her new bike as well.



When everyone gets up to speed I would like to do some family biking trips together.

Weather

Well, the little rat lied. In an earlier post I mentioned the German equivalent of groundhog day. Based on that day, we were supposed to get seven weeks of cloudy, rainy weather. However, it has been unusually warm and sunny here for the most part. This weekend the weather changed as a cold front came through and we got some heavy rain, but it has already burned off and now the wind blows almost constantly, but has trouble making up its mind what direction to go in. It is still raining in space however. In the last week I have seen several meteorites at night and just a little while ago, just after 2 am local, I saw three bright ones, one right after another, apparently originating somewhere between Cassiopeia (which looks like a hawk to me) and the Pleiades (seven sisters). We were told this was one of the rainiest places in Europe, but this spring was very warm and sunny too. V and I keep wondering if we accidentally relocated to a German colony in southern California (only without the smog), but the north star is too high in the sky for that latitude, so we must be in Germany.

M's last day of Kindergarten

Despite having a graduation ceremony two weeks ago, today was the last day of kindergarten for M. V and T went to pick her up on their bikes. They had a sort of ceremony when she left. The teacher and some of the students had brooms. When they saw V coming to pick her up they "swept" her out of the kindergarten, because she is not returning in September but going to the 1st grade, which here is in a separate building/institution.

V has a bike

As an early birthday present, V went and picked out a bike this morning. She has had her eye on it for a while. 3 speed, external generator for the lights, basket rack in the back, red, not too tall. Now everyone in the family has a bike (except mine still has a flat tire I need to fix).

Slippery Slope

Despite my best efforts, we have started down the slippery slope of home technology. V now has a phone hooked up and working. Until now we made it with no car, TV, phone, microwave, computer or much of anything of that nature at home, but now it appears this is going to change. V and M called me at work and the kids called Grandma and Gigi back in the states to try it out.

M the Translater

The kids are slowly but surely learning German (even though T denies it). Not only is M learning she is reading it to! The other morning we took here by the bakery and as we were sitting she pointed to a sign and said "that means cake". She was pointing at "Kuchen". It took me a moment to realize that she had read it in German and translated it for us. We have high hopes for her next year in first grade!

Best Beard

T going sailing

A weasel?

Berry Picking

M's graduation from kindergarten

Last day of school

Today is finally the last day of public school. M and T have been in school since last August! M has (another) graduation on Saturday to mark leaving kindergarten and going (back) to public school next year. I wonder if she will end up in the Catholic classes just to keep us guessing? T is much relieved to be finished this school year.

T has been assigned a religion

Last week we found out that T is being sent to Lutheran classes. This is another big difference between the public schools here and in the US. In Germany religion is taught at school. When we asked about what religions were taught the teacher told us both of them, meaning Catholic or Lutheran. We didn't hear anything else about it for a while till T told us he was being sent to the Lutheran classes. I can only imagine how a Muslim or Jewish family might feel living here.

Fishing

The whole family went fishing on Sunday. We walked to the Pluss See and each of us took turns casting the pole (T and M got the hang of it after a few tries and did well). We didn't catch anything (tried an artificial spoon/rooster tail type lure, a minnow and corn bait), but it didn't really matter. We did see some fish in the water and there were claims of some bites. After a while the kids played in the water and collected mussels and found a leech! and they ran around in the woods some.

Overnight

M is off for an overnight at her Kindergarten. I'll let you know how it goes.

Head wound!

Late in the day Tuesday T showed up at work out of breath and ran to me after someone let him in the building. "M was hurt and her head bleeding!" So I dropped everything and ran home with him. V was there in the bathroom sitting on the floor holding M and there were smears of blood on the floor and holding a cloth to her head. She had washed her some in the tub to clear away the blood that was everywhere. I found out that her and T were playing with a ball in the living room. She had jumped off the couch to catch it and hit her head on the edge of the coffeetable. It cut the top of her head and bled like crazy. There was blood all in the living room too. I grabbed my first aid kit and a freshly washed and sun dried sock. M said it hurt when V wasn't pressing on it but I told her I would be as fast as possible. I cut the top part of the sock off, put neosporin on the cut, put the "sock bandage" over it, and wrapped it to her head with an ace bandage to hold everything in place. Later she added a pink night-cap to cover the bandage over her head. In the morning everything was removed and M scrubbed to get all the blood out of her hair. She seems perfectly fine now.

Happy 4th!

This is a bit late. I fell ill last weekend-Monday and have been catching up on everything since.

The fourth of July crept up on us and suddenly we realized it was imminent. I had to do something for it so M and V came to the rescue and made up a batch of "snickerdoodle" cookies. I brought a piled up plate of them to work with five little US flags toothpicks out of the top ones, put them on the shared lunch table, and sent out an email saying they were there for everyone and why. As it happens I forgot to bring my laptop to work so I asked G to send the email for me and he refused (he is English), so I asked a German coworker to send it. Once the word was out they didn't last long. A little while later I passed back by and there were only two flags and some crumbs in the plate that avoided being devoured.

At home we had ice cream for the fourth. Next year I'll try to get some fireworks.

There was a negative note on the day. T was late to school in the morning and in retaliation his teacher drew an "X" on the back of his hand in ink (what century is this?). It was really mean and obvious she had marked back and fourth several times to make the lines thick. I helped him scrub it off with soap and water as best we could. It is fading already.

Fishing and Hochwacht

Saturday I got up early and biked to a lake, the Pluss see, and tried out my new pole. I was there at 3am and fished for 3 hours. I did get a bite and reeled it in but as soon as I pulled the fish out of the water it wriggled itself off and got away. It was about the size of my hand. There were bigger fish out there, I could see them jumping from time to time, but it was not meant to be on this day.

On Sunday I biked north toward Luitjenburg and on to Hochwacht on the Baltic coast. I biked up and down the coast before heading back. The beach here was very nice. Much less crowded then Timmdorfstrand. On the way back I got pretty tired and stopped to rest on a bench. As I sat there two other bikers came up a side road looking exhausted and said hi (moin moin) as they passed and got onto the bike trail. I thought to myself that they must have been lost and continued on the nice bike trail parallel to the main road. After a few more miles I realized I didn't recognize the route and was off the map, so I angled what I tought was south. After many miles more a giant sea opened up next to me and I saw signs for roads toward Kiel. At that point I figured I was way lost and realized I missed my turnoff and I bet the point where I rested and saw the other bikers come up was it. At this point my legs were burning but I had to turn around and retrace. Finally I got back to that point and sure enough there was the turn I had missed. Then it was a long slow return home in a race before sunset (which fortunately takes a very long time this time of year). I finally got back in as V was putting the kids to bed and my legs are very sore today from the workout.

Siebenschlaefertag

Today, June 27, is a special traditional day here in Germany. It is named after a hibernating door mouse. The saying goes that whatever the weather is like on this day, it will be the same for seven more weeks (obvious parallels with Groundhog Day in the states). It was rainy today, which is a good thing, the plants are very stressed here from lack of water. It has not rained much at all this summer and this is supposed to be one of the wettest parts of Europe!

A new nephew!!!!

I just found out that a baby boy was born to my sister, S, this afternoon (morning their time) 7 lbs 2 Oz. His older brother M was my first nephew and now my kids, T and M, have a second first cousin. Congratulations S and C!

M is off to Kiel

Kieler Woche

Szczecin

My brother is coming to visit in August and we are planning a trip around the Baltic. I previously scouted the route north as far as Denmark and this last weekend I went east to the edge of Poland! I spent Saturday night in the city of Sczcecin and returned on Sunday. ...

Summer Solstice

This was the view of the northern horizon at midnight on the summer solstice. We are far enough north here that a "twilight" passes by in the north between sunset and sunrise.

Home schooling

We've decided to homeschool T in the afternoons after school with a formal homeschooling program (it has to be in addition to the public school because homeschooling only is illegal in Germany). He is taking his placement tests now. This way he can keep up with the curriculum for his age and we'll view the German public school as a way for him to learn German and play with other kids during the day--not much more since it is very apparent now that we can not expect any help from them to teach him German or keep him on his grade level. We also have arranged for him to visit highschool age students three times a week for help with his public school homework.

M has a new bike!

As promised, we took M last Saturday to pick out a bike after payday the Friday before. She got a new pink one with lots of accessories. Now she just needs to learn to ride it. I took her practicing Sunday afternoon. She can keep here balance and pedal and steer around once she gets going but her main trouble is getting going. The bike is a bit on the tall side so it is a little challenge for her to start off, but once she gets it it should work well for her for several years.

Preetz

Sunday it was warm again with not a cloud in the sky so I biked up the road to Preetz. It's funny, I have been down to Eutin several times but never to Preetz. When I got close to town I stopped at a park and got out my map to get oriented. I chatted with an older couple that walked by about where I was on the map and what the name of the park was (all in German!). They seemed to really appreciate me making an effort not to use English. I went to the altstadt but almost everything was closed. evidently Preetz doesn't have permission to open on Sunday during tourist season like Ploen does. There were a few bakeries open so I stopped and got a kaese brot and a cappuchino and sat outside to watch the people walking by. There was a fountain there with some ducks lounging on it and a female duck waddeled over and stared at me intently for some bread. I tossed her some crumbs then a house sparrow, crow and sea gull all glided in on cue and watched me for more. It got hotter on the way back and I drank most of my half liter of water. Almost in Ploen I diverted toward the lake and jumped in. The water was unusually warm and I didn't want to get back out. By the way, it has finally cooled off some and clouds have come in the last 24 hours (Tue-Wed) but for several weeks now it has been very sunny and warm with almost no rain ... and people told me this was the rainiest part of Europe. So far it seems more like southern California! Lack of water stress is evident on the plants in the yards and fields, even in the forest under the trees plants are wilting, but the locals don't seem to be worried. Germans seem to love the sun. Growing up in the south I am used to avoiding the sun. In the summer we seek out the shade to rest in naturally, but here people do the opposite. They sit in sun wherever possible and seem oblivious to their pink sunburns, probably because they are so ubiquitous no one stands out unless you are not sunburned.

English

We are getting low on money (I was paid twice accidentally when I first came and they corrected it by suddenly not paying me for a month), but we wanted to do something for T, so we found a theater that is playing Indiana Jones in English in Hamburg and all went there on Saturday. It was a short walk from the train station and along the way we stopped at a bookstore that has a large English language section. There is a lot of English in advertisements here in Germany, especially hybrid part-English/part-German titles (and most of the music playing over the speakers in stores are American English songs including, rarely, country music). However, in the bookstore it seemed strange to see all those titles in English only. For some reason they had a UK flag up in the section but most of the books were American. They also had kids books that M and T flipped through. We went to the theater and bought tickets, they had assigned seats, then walked around the Rathaus to kill time and went back for the movie to start. The trailers were in German but the movie itself was in non-subtitled English! We had to cover M and T's eyes during a few parts but we all really enjoyed it and made it back to Ploen by a descent hour.

Another parent-teacher meeting

On Friday we went to the school in the morning to meet with T's teacher, as per her request. She was saying that he wasn't doing well, still hadn't learned enough German, needed to work harder and so on or he would be held back next year (again already!). She said she has her own students to teach and can't spend time teaching T also. A particularly awkward moment came up when she said he drew a picture in art class of fighting in WWII complete with Nazis and swastikas (which are illegal in Germany)!, and wanted to know why he drew this. We tried our best to explain that he didn't mean anything by it and wasn't aware of how sensitive Germans were about WWII. She had a list of things she wanted us to do, most of it was fair enough, signing off on his homework, making sure his pencil case was in his school bag, ... teach him German cursive this summer (how would we do that? we don't know German cursive). However, at one point the teacher asked me how long we would be here and she seemed to be very surprised when I said 4-5 years (I've encountered this before, people only expect us to be here from ~6 months to a year at most). It is becoming clearer to us that the school has been taking the path of least resistance/convenience with T, moving him down in grades and just tolerating him until we leave, which they apparently expected to happen after about a year. Also, there are very few students that are not local Germans so the school is not used to dealing with kids new to the country. Obviously V and I will have to work harder to make up for this. We discussed finding a high-schooler that we could pay to help T with his homework (in German) after school (also a suggestion of his teacher) and arranging times for him to go visit other kids at their houses so he would be encouraged to use and learn more German that way also, and we need to do some kind of home schooling to keep him up to grade level and not let him fall behind.

Schwerin

I bought a ticket the day before so we could all travel to Hamburg to watch the new Indiana Jones movie in English; T really wants to see it. However, V found out later the same day that the theater had stopped playing it two days before. Since we already had the ticket, and could
also travel with it in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Pomerania) we hopped the train heading for former East Germany. We went through Luebeck to a station in Bad Kleinen. This made a new eastern record for V and the kids, 11 degrees 28'3" E. On the former communist side the landscape was flatter with a seemingly constant wind, larger fields and sparser towns, the buildings looked more run down and neglected in general and one feature that really stood
out to us both was the old guard towers at the train stations we passed. From Bad Kleinen it is a short connection to the state capital, Schwerin, which has a famous castle I had heard about and wanted to see. We hopped on the next train and someone came to check our tickets. It turned out our ticket couldn't be used for the train we were on (IC rather than regional). In retrospect it was a very nice clean train and the people were very quiet, so something was amiss. But the purser let us get off at the next stop, which happened to be our destination. We ate lunch at the station then headed out. Schwerin has a nice altstadt (old town), dotted around town were painted rhinos(?), and the castle is striking when you first come around a corner and see it.
It is very large, has gilt gold statues and towers and is on its own small island. Some of the smaller towers have the Slavic style "onion" shape that reminds you of the Russian Kremlin.
It happened that there was a festival going on just in front of the castle island, they played music and the kids got to run around at look at the booths that were set up. They had a spring cable high jump trampoline set up for the kids and M and T went straight for it. They got to bounce 20 feet up in the air for a while and enjoyed it. Then we went to the castle which is a working state administration building, and they just happened to be having an open house that day. We walked right in with the crowd. They handed out bags and posters and pins to us and a stringed quartet was playing music. We went inside the castle and wandered from room to room for a while, then we all were winding down and started back. We made a quick photo op with a herd of painted rhinos in front of a museum and I picked up a business card of a man selling fossils that T liked. We made it back to the train station and grabbed some supper, then got on the correct train back to Bad Kleinen for our connection. This was a crowded regional train rather then the IC train. About half way the train pulled off onto a side track and stopped. From time to time the engine made strange noises and/or they made announcements in German over the intercom, which we could guess at the meaning of by the groaning it set off in the other passengers. We were there for hours as other trains passed us back and fourth on the main track. Finally just as the sun was setting it started back up and we made it to the station. Then our connecting train was delayed. After it came, it was supposed to go all the way past Ploen to Kiel, but they made an announcement that it would divert to Hamburg instead. We got off in Luebeck and had to wait an hour for the last train to Kiel for the night. We caught it after midnight and finally made it to Ploen around 1 am. Thanks goodness we made the last train and didn't have to spend the night at the station in Luebeck.

In retrospect I think we have defined the approximate limit we can travel for day trips and be able to reliably return on the train system. To explore further we should plan for overnight stays.

Haffkrug

On Saturday I got up early, bought a "state" ticket for the next day (we planned to watch a movie in Hamburg Sunday) and biked all the way to Haffkrug on the Baltic coast to the north of Luebeck. Finally I am in shape enough to make it to the coast without killing myself (after 4 months of exercise). I went swimming before it got crowded and biked south along the coast for a ways stopping to eat brunch at a bakery then headed back after going as far as Timmendorfer Strand (20 miles, 33km total!). For lunch I grabbed a Doener Kebab and I made it as far back as Eutin (12.5 miles, 20 km) before I was completely exhausted. They were having some kind of road rally in Eutin. Many of the roads were blocked off with crowds and judges watching from the sides as old fashioned cars with numbered stickers on their sides whipped around the track. I watched that for a while then bought a ticket and rode the train the rest of the way home.

Visas!

This morning I went back to the "Kreis Haus" and, finally, I got temp (3 month) visas for V and the kids and my work visa stickers in my passport. It takes up two pages! I am quickly running out of room. It is shiny with holograms and lots of colors and official looking seals and a picture of me. I need to renew it in one year. V and the kids only had two weeks left for theirs. Later their 1 year visas will come to put in their passports.

In all this paperwork there have been mistakes made with birthdates and name spellings for everyone except V. Now it was V's turn. In flipping through the temp visas later I noticed that they had V down as born in Venezuela and as a Venezuelan/US dual citizen with a "VEN" passport! I asked her what she thought of Venezuela and she said that she couldn't remember it; she must have left when she was young.

Visas for the Family, step ... I forgot.

Annaversary

Goddy Superfresh

Last week M learned that her hamster, Goddy Superfresh, had died (she named him herself several years ago, superfresh was the name of a grocery store we used to go to in Maryland). He was staying with Grandma in Georgia. He was getting old so it was not a surprise to us and M was a little sad but took it in stride. He was a very tolerant hamster and got played with a lot.

Uber Busy

Hey everyone. Very sorry about not keeping the blog up to date. I have been hit with a series of deadlines the last few weeks that have demanded a lot of my time. The next big one is this Thursday then next week things should settle down for me a bit. I have been posting titles to remind me of things to go back and fill in later. I will try to flesh it out a bit from time to time.

Luebeck

I took the kids to Luebeck on Saturday. The ancient capital of the Hanseatic League. I had promised to take M to a giant craft store that was there. It is their first time to the old city; they had only stopped to change trains in the hauptbahnhof before. We entered through the Holstein Gate (castle!) and saw the entrance to the museum, but planed to return there later. We got some snacks at a cafe then visited Nedriggers marzipan wonderland. It started raining so we ducked inside and walked around in some old cathedrals. In one there was a roped off section where the giant bells had fallen and crushed the floor in. The force had crumpled and broken the thick metal of the bells. It was impressive. We found a few other places to file away for future activities (climbing a cathedral tower and a paint-it-yourself ceramic shop). In several places there were small covered alleyways that lead into hidden courtyards. The kids made a lot of fun exploring and running through them. We made it to the craft store and the kids were in heaven! We must have spent hours there wondering around looking at beads and model kits and paint and yarn and ... We all got some supplies then went for ice cream at a shop nearby. It was indoors and there was also a two story slide nearby that the kids played on for a while. We wandered some small side streets on the way back to the station and it started drizzling again. I fell asleep in the train on the way back (a combination of the kids exhausting me and too much activity and lack of sleep for several days). Thankfully they woke me up before our stop so we got off in the right place. They correctly recognized it! I think they could have made the trip on their own now that they have seen me buy tickets and everything.

Sylt

Pentacost

Spring has Sprung

I have been home sick for a while (with no internet access) and have fallen behind on blog updates.

Now spring is really here in full force. The portion of the day in sunlight has increased dramatically. The leaves are out on the trees and it is warming up. The bugs are out. Some "mayflies" have made huge clouds in the air and last Sunday T and I rode our bikes through them and got a face full. So much has changed so quickly. I have never been to Germany this time of the year so it is really something to see the changes.

Some updates. Last week we finished painting M's room. V taught her first class last Thursday! It was an hour and a half English class. She said it didn't go perfect but not so bad either. T had his first day in his new class today. It seemed to go fine. M has had pony riding in her kindergarten! We picked up the marriage certificate translation last Friday. Walked to Princes' Island Sunday and the kids got to play in the water. There's also a flock of sheep out there that have some young lambs. And today I finally got my tax rate reduced with the marriage translation at the Rathaus.

May Day

Today seems to be something of a national holiday in Germany. In the US May Day goes by unnoticed, probably because at one time you could lose your job as a suspected communist sympathizer if you were caught at a May Day celebration. Here, no one showed up for work and there was a parade and events in town. I was still sick (I stayed home Wednesday) so I slept in but V took the kids to see what was going on. The restaurants put out extra tables and chairs outside on the street. They had games for the kids to play and a big ribboned maypole that was carried and put up in town. M was very excited about it and got dressed up for the occasion.

We were warned not to travel today, that there would be large protests by socialists against neo-fascists in Kiel and Hamburg. In Ploen everything seemed nice and peaceful.

Visas for the Family, step 1

On Tuesday afternoon I walked to the county courthouse for the third weekday in a row, through the rain (probably why I was sick the next day), and finally caught them open for business. I didn't have to wait long and started the process of getting visas for V and the kid's passports. At the moment they are on tourist visas and would have to leave the country after 90 days, so I have to add them to my work visa. The person there was very nice and helpful and we got halfway through the process. There is a form I took away with me that I have to fill out with V's and the kid's information and I need a passport photo for each of them when I return and that should be it.

Translation

On Monday afternoon, on the way to the "kreis-haus" again, to try to process our visa's (I stopped by Friday afternoon and they were closed), I stopped by the translators house. She wasn't there but an elderly woman asked me to wait in German and 10 minutes later she showed up. She said the translation of our marriage certificate (so I can attempt to change my tax bracket at the Rathaus) will be ready on Friday.

Meeting with T's Teacher

Trouble has come up in paradise. We had a meeting with T's teacher on Wednesday that we rescheduled because of a work conflict I had to Thursday. When we got there, there wasn't only T's teacher but all the teachers for the third grade, plus the principle and a teacher from the second grade. It was pretty intimidating. T's teacher was very nice however and translated for us. Basically they are worried that T is not learning German, and the German third grade curriculum (something about a special German style of handwriting, math problems, and so on), fast enough (he's only been there a few weeks) and that they are transferring him to second grade for the rest of the year. There were also some more problems like he is not allowed to ride his bike to school until in fourth grade and only after he passes a test--all of which is news to us. All the other teachers were there because they all have to meet together to change a student's grade assignment. They were polite, but I don't think it was handled very well. If anything they should have brought up concerns earlier so we could be working on them and given T some more time to adjust or have him go directly to second grade when he first arrived (they knew ahead of time he was coming and didn't speak German), but this is probably a new area for them as well and they are not used to kids coming in that don't already know the language and all. At least this will buy him some time to adjust and learn more of the language and German specific curriculum. We plan to essentially continue to home school T and M in English and American style curriculum in parallel to their work at the German school.

Lohnsteuerkarte

OK, so far things have gone reasonably smoothly with paperwork associated with living in Germany, at least from the German side, for the record US-NIH gave me a lot of trouble however. Today I went to the Rathaus (town hall) to register my wife so I can get a new tax card (Lohnsteuerkarte) with a lower tax bracket. I took a registered copy of our marriage certificate, our passports and our Anmeldung (registering our residence). The woman at the Rathaus said that I need a translation of the marriage certificate first and that I get this from the Amtsgericht (courthouse). I walked to the courthouse, asking directions along the way in German (I was a bit proud of this). Everyone there was very polite, but first of all it took a long time to find someone to understand what I wanted, then a woman explained to me that the courthouse does not do translations and she didn't know why the Rathaus sent me there. Apparently translators are private and I have to find one and pay them to "officially" translate the marriage certificate. Then she got someone else to come talk to me, who spoke English very well, and he explained that the translator needs a certificate to show that the marriage certificate is accurately translated and a further certificate for the certificate (no kidding) that the first certificate and the original marriage certificate are not fake. (Why you can't make a fake certificate of the certificate I'm not sure.) Then, if only he had stopped there, he went on to say that unlike in my situation, some "isles in the Atlantic that are part of America have a fire that people dance around and then the chief says that they are married" and that "this is not acceptable in Germany." And something about how many judges in America are not really acceptable as judges in Germany and that how did they know who this judge was that married us. (He pointed to the clerk of courts stamped signature...?) I was very surprised and uneasy at his arrogance, but kept quiet. He went on to say, but since I was married in a courthouse (apparently he thought the record I showed him said this somehow) this was not a problem for me. I said "what if I wasn't married in a courthouse?" He said that a church was also acceptable. I knew to keep my mouth shut at that point; he was no one to me. (We were married outside by a *Unitarian* of all things.) So apparently the state of Germany will charge me higher taxes if I can't prove an "acceptable" marriage ... indoors ??? I will try to fly low under the radar with the translation and take that back to the Rathaus, but if in fact American law is not good enough and my marriage of 11+ years turns out to be a sham we may have to jump over the border to Denmark some weekend to get officially married according to the local culture. I'll keep you posted. G (male) has already offered to be V's bridesmaid and we can release fruitflies at the wedding! --unless this somehow nullifies the marriage under German law, who knows?

By the way, while walking form the Rathaus to the courthouse I overheard some more Plautdeutsch. "Alles Clour" rather than "alles clair" in "high" German. Like the kids, I am slowly accumulating some local dialect, another post about that later.

The Missing Bag

Around the Grosser Ploener See

More number trouble

Here's another one to add to my earlier post on number differences. I write my fours with a closed top, but apparently here in Germany all fours have open tops. At work this was mistaken as a seven (with the cross bar) where the ends happened to touch and "corrected" to a seven. Now I am trying to relearn to write fours with open tops and in the meantime we have ordered preprinted stickers to label the stocks. The irony is on the printed stickers the numbers are exactly the way I write them, one as a line (1), seven without a crossbar (7), and four with a closed top (4), but this doesn't cause any problem because they are printed ... ?

M had a great day at Kindergarten!!!

I fully expected everything to work out well for her, but it is nice to see that it did. She made a friend (Lela?, something like that) and they hung out together the entire day. V took her to the toy store after school and M got a sports car. I went home for lunch and waited for them. T got home first on his bike and told me they were coming. I met them part way and M and I snuck up on a family of geese with new tiny, fuzzy goslings that were out grazing next to the lake. They were enjoying the froggy weather today. M really enjoyed seeing them. Then it was back to work for me.

M is off to Kindergarten!

She was so excited she hardly slept last night, which made it difficult to get her up this morning. Her kindergarten is very close to T's school (and her future school) so they can commute together in the mornings. It will be total immersion German, they do not speak English, which is good and will help prepare her for school.

Flensburg

Deer Tracks?

On my daily commute walk to work I noticed some irregularities in the concrete blocks on the sidewalk. Many of them just look like chips or bubbles in the concrete but some are suspiciously similar to deer tracks. These blocks are poured elsewhere and brought in. I wonder if they are accessible to deer at night as they are drying?





Here is a fresh track in mud for comparison:

Painting M's Room

We started painting M's room with the bright pink color paint that she picked out. Here are some results so far.

T had a great day at school!!!

I showed up half an hour early and waited outside the building. While waiting I noticed a liquor store across the street (a big difference from the US). By fifteen minutes after he was supposed to get out there were a lot of kids waiting around outside and walking off but no T. I walked around and saw some kids playing in the playground behind the building. I walked into the playground (BTW - security is very lax compared to the US, this morning the doors were unlocked and we walked right in with no one to stop us) and I saw his backpack by itself on a bench. I scanned around and sure enough, he was in a cluster of four kids playing on a big basket swing. I watched quietly and they seemed to be talking with him and using lots of hand expressions. After a few minutes one of the kids noticed me and pointed me out to T, then he came over. They all said "bye T...," then the larger group of boys that were playing soccer nearby called out lots of "bye T..." as well. I was amazed that so many kids knew his name. He was happy when he came over and I asked about the day. He said he made 9 or 10 new friends today, he wasn't sure because there were so many! He said that he learned some German words and listed them off "nine means no, ja means yes, bitte means thank you (actually I'm pretty sure it means please but I wasn't going to argue), moin moin means good morning and moin means hi (he's learning Plauttdeutsch!), and so on ... I cautiously asked if anything bad happened and he said he didn't like gym. Why? Because you have to change clothes. Whew ... I'm glad that was as bad as it got. School seems to be less brutal here then in the states. I asked about homework and he showed me his math work and so on. I asked what he wanted to do and we went to a store in town to look at lego sets. I told him to pick he wanted out one and bought it for him to celebrate his first day at school. Then we walked back home and I went back to work. I hope things at school continue as well for him. This was one of my biggest worries about moving to Germany and now I feel much more relieved.

T is at his first day of school in Germany

We got up early, V fixed us breakfast, and T and I walked to school. He was very nervous but brave and held control as we walked to the school and tried to be upbeat. I am very proud of him. We went inside and found his room but no one was there (the lights were off and T said it felt "creepy"), so we walked around and found where the kids waited outside behind the building. I was talking to his art teacher inside the door and T was outside for a few minutes with the other kids. When I got out he said they were making fun of his name. We sat on a bench by ourselves in the playground for a while and the other kids played and stared at us. When it was time to go in the kids were running up to the room, grabbing a bag, and running off. We waited for a while and his teacher didn't show up, then we followed the other kids and found his teacher. She said she forgot to tell me that they have PE in the gym as the first class today. T didn't have any clothes or shoes to change into, but she said he could just wear his socks. She told him to follow two girls there (she doesn't teach gym, another teacher does that we haven't met). So that is where I left him. He was too shy to look anyone in the eye but held himself together and followed them quietly. I went back to his room and dropped his book bag off there. I am proud he was so brave but very worried for him and hope his day is not too bad. Gym class is a hard way to be immersed into school in another culture/language, but perhaps this will get the hardest part over with at the beginning. I will meet him when school lets out and see how things went.

T and M are registered for school

The publics schools opened today after Easter holiday. This morning we walked to the school, met the headmistress and signed T and M up. T got to meet his teacher. She is young and speaks English very well and seemed very nice. T will start his first day tomorrow, from 7:30 am to 1:05 pm. M doesn't start until the fall but we signed her up anyway, while we were there and had the paperwork. M had already started public school in the US, but here kindergarten is separate from the school system so she doesn't start until first grade.

After visiting the school we walked to the paint store and bought several liters of a pink paint that M picked out for her room. She got to see it mixed up and pushed buttons on the mixing machine to start it. Then we stopped and grabbed sandwiches and hot drinks at a bakery. The people who worked there remembered us and were very patient with our attempts at ordering in German. T made his order in German and they asked it back in English to verify, but didn't know some of the words in English, so we were both learning from each other. There was a customer in there that asked V if we were from Finland! -- I can't imagine why they thought we might be Finnish, perhaps my beard, the kids blue eyes and our accent...? Another customer also recognized us from before and told us about the card system the bakery had to get free drinks if you make so many orders and get stamps on the card. I thanked him and then he went to the front and talked to the workers to tell them to give me a card, without my asking, then gave me the thumbs up before he left. I was a bit embarrassed because they were so busy with other orders.

Ruine Neuschlag

It was a sunny morning and both T and I wanted to go out on our bikes. We started out no where in particular but happened to be heading north. There was a ruin marked on the map that I was curious about so we started heading toward it. It was quite a trip and I asked T several times if he was tired and wanted to head back. He said "are you kidding, I love riding my bike"! For most of the way we followed a nice bike path that was separate but parallel to the road.



Off and on the entire trip T would sing "Life is a highway, and I want to ride it all night long, if you're going my way, ...". We stopped and got some snacks at a gas station both on the way out and on the way back.

Most of the way to the ruin, T was up ahead of me and going downhill pretty fast toward a relatively busy intersection. He forgot about his pedal brake and the front brake wasn't stopping his bike so he veered into the beginning edge of a sloped rock wall which ramped him up into the air. I saw him fly up and over onto his side, the bike falling on him, and he skidding to a stop on the sidewalk just before the intersection. I jumped off my bike, shoved it toward the bank, and ran toward him. At the same time a truck coming the opposite direction saw what had happened and did a U turn and pulled up onto the sidewalk behind us. The man hopped out and asked if he was OK (in German). T seemed fine considering. I pulled his bike out of the way and sat him down to rest for a minute then went back to pull my bike out of the bank. T wanted to keep going but first I had him practice the pedal brake a few times to get the bike to stop quickly. I'm sure he won't forget it again.

Eventually the road petered out and we ended up following a muddy trail in a field. There are deer stands all over the place here and T made use of them as lookouts to see if he could spot anything.



In a cluster of trees we came to a ditch full of water and followed around it to a road to cross.



Then there was another, higher ditch, with a small cemetery behind it, and it occurred to me that this was part of the ruins defenses. There were many concentric rings, perhaps four or five inside each other, and each one got higher then the last.





Finally we were on top of the highest central part. We were much higher then the surrounding land but it was hard to get an idea of how it all fit together because the forest limited visibility. On the back side the fortifications were very close to a lake and spring flowers were blooming.



We eventually headed back




(by the way, this is the "Rotten See," I presume translates as "Red Lake")

and part way it started sleeting on us. The small frozen pellets stung. We got to the gas station and T got a lollipop that was half red candy and half white candy (it becomes important later). Then the sky cleared up and we continued back to town. Going through town there is a ramp over the train tracks and then a narrow quick turn to an underpass under the highway. T and I collided on the turn, he came up fast behind me, and hit a rock wall and flipped over the bike. When I got stopped and looked back he was face down and I saw red and white on the sidewalk under his head and thought his teeth were knocked out! But thankfully it was just the crushed up bits of the lollipop. T was again fine, but the impact bent the fender around the front wheel so it wouldn't turn and smashed the bell to pieces.
I straddled his bike over the back of mine so I could roll them both on my wheels and we limped on the rest of the way home. The first thing he wanted to know was when I would get his bike fixed so he could go back out on it.