Wet 'n' Wild 'n' Mostly Cold

Anja finally slept well last night.  Ian was up every few hours.  I would alternate between giving him a show to watch or a bottle to drink.  But his sleep pattern was basically: sleep, bottle, sleep, Bubble Guppies. repeat.  My sleep pattern was slightly different: suspect Ian isn't sleeping, get confirmation, put him down, fall asleep with him screaming for 20 minutes, wake up to suspect Ian isn't sleep, put on Bubble Guppies, repeat.

Susi had a meeting in the morning with the kids and we skipped it entirely.  It seemed more important to try and convince Anja to eat a breakfast than it was to try and get everything out the door any earlier than we did.  The students had a swim-morning planned and we joined them at the "Freibad" which is a nice out-door water park with a few pools, including a children's pool with a small water slide.

It rained.  It rained and it was cold.  Neither of those two weather conditions prevented Anja from having a thoroughly good time in the water.  She loved the slide, loved the foam water balls, the water fountains, everything.  I was just glad I had a hearty breakfast because the chill went straight through me.   Had I slept, I would have probably been in a better mood but cold+wet is not a good equation for me regardless of my treatment by the Sandman.

After swimming, we returned home to concoct a plan for lunch.  Despite the great kindness of our host, we really did not have the necessary items to make a lunch.  Nor did we have time to run to a major grocery store like Real.  Instead Susi and I went in our little VW van down to the Aldi-esque grocery store in town called "Lidl."  Lidl is a fascinating little grocery store.  Featuring every item you could really desire in a grocery store, including but not limited to:

 - Fashion! Well, "clothes in a bag," but they did have "New Fashion Denim Skirts" (translated) and "Trendy T-shirts" (literally, this was on the bag).

 - Power tools!  A cordless electric drill was available for 30 Euros!

 - Booze! Because, damn it Minnesota, booze is a grocery store item!

While we didn't get any fashion items, power tools, or booze, and I really tried to find booze worth drinking, we went home to make some lunch.  I made up some traditional German fare with sausages and sauerkraut.  With no sleep and a full evening ahead, Susi and Emily let me take a nap.  Naps are glorious.  I wish Ian would take them.

I needed to be awoken by Susi pushing on my nose.  Yelling was ineffective she claimed.  I'm not sure she tried or whether she just wanted to poke my nose.  Regardless, we needed to get some phones.  Obviously, we are not living with our primary host this trip and it would be nice if Susi and I could contact each other while apart, without incurring substantial charges to our regular cell phones.  And since we weren't going to be staying long we thought some prepaid arrangements would be a nice way to go.

German cell-phone sales staff must not make a terrible amount of money on prepaid cell phone sales.  It also didn't help that the USB-stick she recommended didn't work particularly well with Macs.  In all honesty, it works just fine now, but I don't know enough German to explain the concept of "updated drivers" to someone.  They probably didn't know enough about computers to understand what I was saying even after I crossed the language barrier.  I decided I could get it working with updated drivers and paid the little amount of money it took to escape the office with the hardware I needed.  I will skip some of the drama with my "o.tel.o" USB stick and SIM card but recommend that anyone looking to this type of travel get Vodafone or T-mobile.  "o.tel.o" is technically Vodafone but, really, it's Vodafone without any support and without a website that makes recharging your SIM easy.  The other two have both of those things and have better connectivity.

I was at least able to get enough pieces of hardware working at the same time to have my weekly staff meeting with Ben and Zach.  Things are going well at work, even without me there on a Monday, we haven't scared off any customers or burned the building down.  All signs point to success.

We've found some play grounds for the kids to use around town but the real fun was for Anja at tonight's "Welcome Dinner."  I've historically found that when new people are handling a program, and they are nervous about its success, something will undoubtably go wrong.  I find that our German hosts got fairly lucky as the only failure of the Welcome Dinner was the food arriving roughly an hour late.  At least it felt like an hour.  It may have only been 20 or 30 minutes but Emily and I intentionally came 20 minutes late with the kids and it was another 20 minutes before there was any food on a table.  In the interim we were entertained by a student band, with the ever catchy name, "Catchy Tune."  They played all American rock 'n' roll, loudly and with a heavy German accent.  I won't be too harsh on the boys as the oldest didn't look like he could order his own beer.  And the drinking age here is 16.

None of this mattered to Anja.  Micheal, one of our German hosts, has brought his expansive collection of sporting equipment to the welcome dinner.  Anja entertained the high-school-aged-girls with her dancing antics -- more than once asking me to get off of her "stage."  "Stage" being defined as the top-most step of the staircase.  And she then had an entire group of high school boys playing frisbee and attempting to hula-hoop with her.

Our collection of serious professionals: Matt (the other Exchange Teacher) and our hosts Isi and Rudager.

The previously mentioned Hulu hoop.

I believe the soccer ball is "somewhere in the air."

Much international mingling amongst students.

"Episode 2: The Revenge of the Ian"

Night 1 did not go well.  Ian did not adjust and we suspect his teething is really bothering him.  He is getting in molars and some eye teeth.  Neither one of those sets were very comfortable, and really, both of his gums seem to be jam-packed with teeth ready to try and escape. Susi and I switched off between Ian and Anja.  She ended up hungry as she refused to eat the delicious Lasagna made for us by Isi, our host.  Oddly, as she also refused to eat any thing on the plane, she ended up being hungry.  Hunger will happen if she doesn't eat once every 24 hours or so.

I called my Dad to wish him a happy Father's day but he didn't bother picking up.  So, I called my Mom and chatted for a few minutes just to let her know we were in and settled down.  Of course, to do this I wanted to use Skype.  Their international calling setup is both functional, convenient, and reasonably cheap.  Unfortunately, despite the promised DSL connectivity, I found myself unable to stay connected to the Wifi network.  A chance run-in with our building manager garnered the information that we can't access the Internet in our living room but she did recommend that we use our bedroom with the windows open.  Since the kids will need to NAP and SLEEP in that bed room, I'll be off to Vodafone to get a mobile-data card tomorrow.  Of course, I need to do it tomorrow because every commercial outlet except bakeries are closed on Sundays in Germany.  There are no open grocery stores, no open restaurants, really the only open businesses are cafes and bakeries -- which have limited hours.

Those limited open hours did give me the opportunity to indulge in my favorite German breakfast: Chocolate croissants and coffee.  Unlike the anonymous and swidgy-bread found in most US bakeries, the croissants here are damned good.  Flaky, buttery, and when properly optioned, full of German (or Belgian) chocolate.  Anja enjoyed her chocolate croissant too, unsurprisingly, she was still hungry in the morning.  After some clean up we decided to head into town.  It has been two years since we last visited and wanted to see if some of the big construction projects that were in progress last time had been finished.  This adventure led us to down town and it was amazing to see everything that had changed.  There are large new buildings going up and Königstraße and the Hauptstraße have all been improved to be much nicer to pedestrians.  It was a little sad to see change in a place that holds substantial sentimental value but the new and improved is welcome.  When we arrived in the actual down-town area we were very sad to see the toy store had gone away.  The toy store and its owner were neither the most approachable.  Many of the toys had dust and the owner was as likely to yell at your for suspected shoplifting as he was to thank you for your purchase.  Despite that we had told Anja about all of the dolly-toys that were on the top floor and were disappointed we couldn't show them to her.

A proper main street.

A proper main street, backs up to mountains, of course.

We made up for this by getting her (and ourselves) an ice cream.  Pinnochio's is probably the most important feature of the entire city to Susi and Emily.  It is an excellent gelato-shop which can whip up just about any flavor of cone or becher.  It was the perfect warm up to dinner at Isi's.

I like Tex-Mex food.  I like Mexican food.  I've always enjoyed other Middle and South American foods.  I've enjoyed them so much as to try and become a bit of an expert.  When Isi, a native of small-town Germany, mentioned she would be making Chili, a very American-contential dish, I had my utmost suspicions.  I'd eat it no matter the quality as I am not rude and enjoy most combinations of tomato sauce, hamburger and beans.  But it was good! Suspicions eased!  I even got Anja to eat about half of a bowl with me.  Bribing her with more ice cream and feeding it to her manually helped.

Ian ate some bread.  He was mostly cranky about it.  He also ate some yogurt.  Got crank about that and decorated Matt, another exchange teacher, with the purple goo.

Ian's crankiness has given us some limitations.  Someone always needs to stay back with him at night.  We're still formulating a complete plan to get him feeling better but we know, for now, we can't have him out late.  This allowed me some freedom on Sunday.  After dropping off the girls and Ian, I headed back to Isi's flat to watch Germany play in the European Cup.  It was me and four fluent speakers of German sitting in a room watching a soccer game that was televised in German.   It was a complete blast.  Having some context and knowing some basic German let me understand much of what was happening around me and even contribute some.  But, basically, I spent a very fun night with four very friendly people who really made things enjoyable.  Oh, and Germany won, so they'll be playing again on Friday night.

War is Hell, Flying on Airplanes with Kids is War.

We started traveling on a Friday afternoon and stopped traveling late on Saturday afternoon.  There were seven hours of timezones in the middle.  There were also two plane rides, a bus ride, and finally a short drive in the middle also.  We flew out of MSP airport with the kids, both ours and the members of the exchange program. Our time spent in the terminal was interesting enough.  The terminal we used was very small.  It features one restaurant, one coffee stand, one news stand, and a substantial amount of chairs.  None of the airlines that use this terminal are known for consistent on-time marks.  Luckily, US security measures are stringent and inconveinent enough that travelers need to arrive so early to the airport that they never need worry about a late flight, they'll be there to agonize over ever extra second spent in the overtly beige environment.  This terminal does feature a single saving grace -- an indoor playground.  Anja was able to run around for nearly an hour before getting on the plane.  I'd like to think this helped but it wasn't quite enough to entertain her while we were waiting.  After she and I had spent some time in the play area we went back to see Susi and Ian, who were holding all of the snacks, to get a small bite to eat.  We did so and Anja's eye saw the small (dirty, gross, expensive) video game arcade that is also available to entertain children waiting for late aircraft.  Susi had the patience and fortitude to actually take both Ian and Anja in there for a while.  Excursions to these video game arcades rarely cost us any money.  The kids don't know the different between the actual game and just pressing buttons and watching things change on the screen.  They really don't require an action-reaction to have a good time.  To one strange man in the arcade, this was apparently too wild of a concept.  He repeatedly asked Susi if he could give them some tokens to play the games, and she both politely refused and informed him it didn't matter much to the kids.  Apparently, this made the odd man indignant and he decided to "win the kids a prize."

Much to our misfortune, this was a man of skill, and he managed to pull a motorcycle-rider dressed plush pig from the crane game.  This is a standard plush pig with a black jacket sown to it and a T-shirt embroidered with "Born to Ride."  Not that Anja can read, and not that she has any concept of the styling for this pig, but she now has it and loves it.  It is, quite possibly, one of the most terrible plush toys that has ever been pulled from a crane game and it is as I type this, still taking company with the rest of my daughter's bed-things in our little German apartment.

Then our plane arrived.  Ready to lift us to IcelandAir's main terminal in Iceland.   That's six hour flight for anyone wanting to score this trip themselves.  Anja slept on my lap, holding her pig.  Ian screamed on Susi's lap, holding on to any part of her body that might incite some discomfort.  He refused the use of his carseat.  

We enjoyed EU customs in Iceland and introduced the exchange kids to what it is really like in European airports.  Unlike the comfy American airports with chairs and restaurants, traveling Europe introduces the concept of a queue - large groups simply funnel themselves down into a single file line but only at the last possible moment.  A vast amount of time is spent standing waiting for the persons managing the little tiny gate to open it.  And at Iceland the gates are packed right next to each other.  If there is more than one gate open at a time, then there is a pleasant risk of entering the wrong gate the first time and having to start the process from the end of the crowd.  This was roughly an hour.  No students were lost and only one of them managed to lose their ticket on the plane.  Losing a connecting flight's ticket on the plane is a bit like losing a shoe.  I've never done either and think it requires some substantial lack in foresight which makes someone think it is not important.

Our second flight was from Iceland to Frankfurt, Germany, and we could at least begin to start tasting victory.  Oh, this was three hours for anyone still counting.  Again, Anja sleeping and Ian screaming.  It was an A+ time but at least it was shorter than the bus ride that followed it.  Yes, to get from Frankfurt to where we are actually staying in German it requires another three hour bus ride.  The bus driver was also an interesting case in culture.  I've found that the US is not the only culture which has people who take intellectual niches and dialect to the extreme.  The bus driver spoke a local dialect of German known as Schwäbish.  And while I can understand some German, Susi understands quite a bit, and has even studied in areas renowned for thick dialects, this guy was not comprehensible.  Even one of our hosts made mention of the fact that he was "grumpy" and "not trying very hard" to work with his passengers.  I picked up on that when he slammed the bus-storage door right in front of me while I was holding a stroller.  He had decided it needed to be on the other side but did not feel that it was worthwhile to communicate that with anyone but himself.

As this could have been grossly overwhelming much of it faded quickly into memory.  Both because of sleep depravation and due to the incredible kindnesses we received upon our arrival.  The teacher that is hosting us actually can't.  As she is younger, her and her husband have a very nice apartment but it is not equipped to handle a three year old and an 16 month infant.  That takes up space, which is limited in Germany, and special equipment, which is generally expensive here.  So instead, she has helped by arranging us a very nice apartment with all of the "fixins." And even before we entered the door she had filled our refrigerator with all of the basic necessities to make it to Monday (beer, cheese, meat) and some niceties for the kids (two adorable plush dolls and some candy).  She also made two large pans of Lasagna.  We ate very well.

Ian and I, happy and settling in.  No that's not a zit, it's a gash from my children.

Our entire group gathered and ready to sleep.

The Terror

When Anja started to move on her own we were pretty excited.  Absolutely terrified of the impending doom that every unlevel surface seemed to provide but nonetheless excited.  We wanted her to crawl, walk, climb, and do all of it as early as possible.  This may simply be a reflection on parenting the first child.  Starting things earlier means they're doing better and that gives an internal sense of validation that parenting is going well.  

Ian has found momentum in the last week.  In a very short period of time he's gone from a stationary being with a surprisingly long reach, to a speed-crawling floor terror, to a mountain climber.  After what seemed two days of doing nothing more than crawling between toys, Ian found a way to escape his confines by grasping and going over any impediments.  We're back to checking for small pieces everywhere, padding things, and ensuring the outlets are all properly covered.

Ian, scaling the bucket of blocks.

And while Ian has the big accomplishment, Anja has been keeping her curiosity up and her tastes as predictable as you can imagine from a 3 year old.  Right now she enjoys wrangling her brother, going to preschool, dancing at dance class, and watching Super Why.  Dora, Boots, and the gang appear to have fallen out of favor.  The catch songs for Super Why are more likely to become ear worms, so I cannot really say that it is a great advantage to have made this evolutionary step.

Disney World

Ah, Disney. Happiest place on earth.

Sorta.

The night before we left, Ian woke up several times, which is very unlike him. And Anja puked all over her PJs and bed. We hoped she was just super excited and maybe that her dinner (Kid's Cuisine, which she never eats) didn't sit well, gave her a quick bath, changed her clothes and sheets and put her back to bed.

On the way to the airport, she puked again.

Luckily, my dad was driving us to the airport, so he and my mom took care of cleaning up everything while we were gone so it didn't sit in a closed car for several days.

Luckily, the flight went well, despite the fact that Ian refused to nap. But, as you can see, he was a happy camper.

And Anja was very excited by the train (ie: the tram within the airport). If that's all it took to make her happy, we could just hop the light rail at home next time.

Once in Orlando, we hopped the Disney Magical Express to our resort. With about 10 minutes left in the ride, Ian fell asleep.

Once we got there, Dan decided it was a good time to mention that he wasn't feeling well, either. A few phone calls later, I had arranged for a local clinic to come pick up Dan and Ian to take them for a check up. Meanwhile, Anja and I headed to Epcot since she was feeling better.

Once there, we met up with Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Ashley, and cousins Haley and Alexa. We went on the Finding Nemo ride. Anja was terrified, and considering it's mostly animation, that gave us a good idea of what was to come for the rest of our vacation. If you look closely, you can see Anja crying in this one. Good times.

Eventually, Dan and Ian arrived to join us - Ian with a clean bill of health (just teething + travel = "cranky" baby), Dan with all of the children's viruses he could handle (double ear infection, sinus infection, and probably strep throat). Sweet. Anja was very excited to see her Daddy, though, and to tell him all about the characters she had seen, but refused to go near.

The next stop was the Magic Kingdom. Might I add that I loved having the shuttles to all of the parks? Sooo nice not to have to deal with rental cars or car seats!

Once we got inside the park, Cousin Haley needed to find a princess dress, so we made a quick stop. Anja was trying to use the park map to tell us how to get out of the store!

Can you feel the magic?

First ride at the Magic Kingdom. Also the first ride she didn't get scared on...

Then off to the Jungle Cruise...

A little play time in the water squirting thingies...

Watching the Mickey show from a far off distance, and slightly from behind (for fear that she would be scared of the witch, volume, smoke, and fireworks)...

Street performers...

We finally gave in and rented a stroller and we agree that it was probably the best $15 we spent that day.

On her favorite ride - Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride

For months, she's been begging for an umbrella for some reason. At Epcot, she saw someone painting some, and then saw the same type of booth multiple times at the Magic Kingdom. So at the end of the day, we made her dreams come true and got her one with her name painted on it. She still loves playing with it and is very protective of it.

Dan and I had a few hours to ourselves one evening and headed to the French restaurant at Epcot for dinner. Token cheesy picture below.

The one thing I wanted to get the kids was personalized Mickey ears. I still have mine from the last time I went when I was 9. Now they come with chin straps, which is nice. So while out on our date, we got a set for both kids and surprised them with them the next morning. Ian didn't really care one way or the other.

Anja absolutely hated hers. She tried it on once and immediately ripped it off again. Granted, it was too big. We got the junior size for her, but she needed the infant size. But her biggest issue was with her name. We got it in pink, which she liked, but the traditional, cursive font. As someone just learning how to write her own name, she was horrified at how her name looked. We did finally get this picture, though, after many, many attempts.

Those are Ian's Mickey ears. Not hers. We did promise to get her a new pair when we went to the Magic Kingdom again, though. That's the only way we got her to take the picture at all.

The first day at the Magic Kingdom, Anja loved watching the parade. So we made sure she got to watch it again the next time. We got a good spot, right on the curb, and she loved waving to all of the princesses and characters. But, in traditional fashion, she hid behind me any time a character came close.

After the parade went by, we went into the store to get her new Mickey ears, but there was a wait to get her name on them (in a "regular" font, which still had a fancy "A" that upset her, but at least she was willing to wear them). While we were waiting, we went back outside and watched the parade come back. This time, Ian was cranky due to the noise and the fact that it was his nap time. One of Cinderella's step sisters even came up and made a snarky comment: "Don't you know this is the happiest place on earth?"

This time, we were by ourselves at the Magic Kingdom, so we didn't have anybody to pawn the Teacup ride on, so Anja and I braved it together. Luckily, she's not strong enough to really get it spinning, so we made it out unscathed.

Then Anja wanted to go on the "race cars" again with Daddy, so Ian and I hung out for a bit and waited for them to drive by. I think he was happy just to get out of the stroller for awhile.

This time we told Anja that we weren't going to rent a stroller for her, since we were only there for half a day. Instead, we bribed her like all parents do when at Disney World. Anytime she walked to the next ride without complaining or asking to be carried, she got one jelly bean. Yes, one. It worked great and we still have some sitting on our counter at home.

Watching the Mickey show again, this time from the complete opposite angle.

At "home" in the hotel (Port Orleans Riverside), we got our only family picture during the trip.

The last day, we went to the Animal Kingdom. The first thing we did was go on the safari, which was a ton of fun. We got to see lots of animals up close - giraffes, lions, elephants, rhinos, etc. If this gives you any idea how close the animals were, all of the pictures in this post were taken with my phone.

Later we had lunch with the whole group, which was the only time we were all together on the trip. The full group included the 4 of us, Grandma, Grandpa, Ashley, Haley, Alexa, Grandma Judy (Dan's Grandma), Andrea, Sara, Sherry, Jeff, Casey, Jaimie, Amanda, Sue, and her daughter. With a group that size, we got our own room at the Tusker House. Even Mickey came to visit. Anja wouldn't do anything other than wave, but Ian was fine with the characters.

Eventually it was time to leave and head for MN. So here's a parting shot of Anja pulling her princess suitcase down the path outside of our building at the resort.

The happiest place on earth? Not for us. This time. But we did have some fun, have lots of stories to tell, and learned a lot for the next time. Just give us a few years to recover, first.

New Years

This year, we were lucky enough to have my sister Kim and her hubby Mark volunteer to babysit the kids overnight on New Year's Eve. At a hotel. Because they drove in from Chicago.

We are very, very lucky...