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.