Frankfurt....whoa, where, what, huh?

Looking back on previous posts this seems to be the place I can sarcastically complain about our wacked trips. So, here I go again!

First off, I must discuss the difference between my approach to travel, directions, eating, walking (well, really anything) and the J man's approach to aforementioned events. It's all different, I mean 180 degree different. Nuff said.

My Way -- Last week, when taking a babysitter home to tim-buk-too I went about it like this:
1) look up directions on google maps
2) right them down
3) briefly think I should take the GPS as back up
4) totally forget about GPS, grab purse, kids, and water
5) turn wrong way while looking at directions and get back on autobahn!
6) get right off and end up amazingly going quickly back to where I was!
7) make wrong turn on B30 (well a B#'d main road, but not gonna tell you the real one here crazies!)
8) notice not going the right direction about 10 minutes later
9) turn confidently around
10) remember about the GPS about 4 minutes later
11) about 9 minutes later briefly hope I don't really need the GPS I left at home
12) finally see the village I was looking for and know I'm getting there, later than thought, but getting there nonetheless
13) Remember a 2nd direction to go and try going home that way with absolutely no problems at all (& even no directions this time, all from memory)!

His Way - J man, on the other hand had me go back to get the GPS when we were going to a new restaurant to celebrate my princess day. Which of course we get to the restaurant, fairly quickly, but now I can't tell you were it was or how to get there, and I was even driving!

Today, Frankfurt. Had to go pick up friends, take the man (hereto will be known as BioMan) to the train station and take his daughter (AKA "Pony Girl") home with us for the week. I had already looked up restaurants to eat lunch at on the web, because living here I have come to know that there are restaurants that are open for lunch, while some choose to only be open for dinner after 5pm, and still others will be open until 1pm then close and reopen at 5pm. [I had also looked up a sight seeing opportunity, but alas we all voted for lunch instead]. We put the destination in our GPS and started driving. Before we had even reached the destination, and before the "I'm the little red line on your GPS that tells you were to go" red line could even be seen ending, the J man started looking for a parking building.

This parking lot excursion took a good 20min, while we circled around the block a few times, went down a one way street, circled the block a few more times, and finally got the car in a parking lot. I'm skipping alot of the details, because if I told them here and the J man actually read this thing he might kill me!

Then we get out, and don't know where the restaurant is because we never drove past it. The GPS is completely screwed up at this point (might have something to do with the 40 laps around the sky scrapers, but it also might have something to do with the sky scrapers themselves. You choose to believe what you will!) And at this point are just walking in a random direction because we DID see the train station we were suppose to take BioMan to after lunch.

In our randomly picked direction to walk and cross the street, BioMan says "Did we find the red light district of Frankfurt?". Oh he's a card isn't he, walk walk, oh wait that place is named "American strip club", oh and look there's some names I probably shouldn't mention here! Then, me being the prior city girl I am, notice a group of people and grab corn niblets hand and prompt sweet pea and pony girl to walk faster. One of the group starts saying "Familie mit Kinder Vorsichtig! Kinder Vorsichtig Bitte!" [He was saying alot very quickly, but that's all I really heard while I was watching what was going on trying to judge what they might do. So I really only heard him say "Watch out family with children, watch out children please"]. Luckily they all paid attention and sat still, and there wasn't a lot of trash on the sidewalk. Corn Niblet asked me what they were doing and the honest mom who explains everything in detail found that all I could say right then was "bad things, very bad stuff"...which BioMan echoed. Later J man was shocked to find that the bad things was "shooting up". It's a good thing he married me, I notice all the things he doesn't even dream really go on! Lucky for us they already had what they wanted and weren't searching for anything else at that point. (Don't worry mom, you didn't raise a dummy, I told you I'm very aware of my surroundings now that I have my own kids to protect! Nothing you didn't have to deal with in SF back in the day!)

Since we now had no idea where the restaurant was, we ended up going to the train station and eating there. Needless to say, on the way back to the car we went down a block and stayed in the business looking area. See, if we'd just had directions we'd have still been looking for the restaurant and been driving around a totally different block 40 times and we wouldn't have been anywhere near the Amy Winehouse people!! It's all in how you look at it!

I'm German now...

Well, I'm mostly German now. A little bit German. OK! FINE! I'm not German at all, but I've been trying so hard, for over a year now, give me a break! I have really tried to embrace the German language and learn as much as I can as fast as I can. I thought I wasn't doing too bad, I mean I know some people that don't know any German at all. At least I can ask where things are, kinda read labels and directions on foods, order at restaurants and decipher enough of the description on vacation that we learn who and what each monument is for.

Side story (it's related to the topic at hand, cut me some slack already!) - I was in the grocery store, in line to buy things (by myself without corn niblet and sweet pea there chattering away in English, so read that as meaning I was quiet and not speaking at all) behind these loud Americans that had randomly thrown a lipstick in with their purchases and was stunned to hear it was a €15 tube of lipstick. They wanted to put it back, but the checker would have had to call over a manger to do that so one girl convinced the other girl to buy it. But the lipstick purchasing girl went on and on about how she couldn't believe she was having to buy a $25 tube of lipstick etc. Well anyway, they left, the checker said Hallo to me, I said Hallo back and then she told me my total in English, looked up and said I'm sorry in German and repeated the amount in German! I was shocked she thought I was German! Damned I'm getting good at this Hallo thing! I must have shed that American t-shirt tennis shoes and jeans look! I mumbled the numbers I knew as I looked for the exact change, and then of course had to say Dankeshün with my very pronounced American accent! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

OK, so back to me thinking I'm European. I can kinda follow the news on the radio now, and I only get the wide-eyed-blinking-doe-in-headlights look to me when people talk too fast. This I usually recover from within an awkard moment or 2, or 3 (ok I'm sure it doesn't take me longer than 5 minutes to figure out what they've said to me!). All in all I get around easily enough for my entire family to turn to me to accomplish everything while we're out and about!

Then, the other night, trajedy struck... in one night:

I had a friend "tell me" (well post a comment on a fb post, but that's telling me because I still don't get alot of social interaction and I have to talk to people however I can get it these days!) that I should stop murdering the German language! what ever, BGSU/ROTC friend of J man and FORMER friend of mine! See if I ever "talk" to you in German again! (Don't worry, he won't have a clue that I'm talking about him here!)

Because of that I decided that I should take a German language course here. I began looking them up online, only to find out that the only classes I could locate (with my obviously "POOR" German reading ability) were Monday through Friday from 9am to 12:30pm!!! WTH?!? Do all of the other non-German speaking population out there not have jobs?!?! I won't even mention the cost of them, because €1200 is completely reasonable to take a 6 month long, 5 day a week, 3 1/2 hour class that will allow me to order food correctly and impress my bakery ladies (but still won't rid me of my American accent)!

I was almost done with my humiliation for the night, when I got a brilliant idea to take an online placement test. I've been in Germany for a while now, I'm a genius, have a large IQ, am smarter than average, went to private school and should do well. Right? Wrong! 13 questions right OUTTA 50! A trained monkey could have accidently hit that many right buttons!!!! A random pattern could have netted pretty much the same score! That totally sucks! I'm not telling anyone about this!

So, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be making the following phone call:
Me: "Hallo, Fritz?"
F: "Ja"
Me: "I understand you tutor Americans in German lessons?"
F: "Ja"
Me: "I'd like to start some lessons with you"
F: "What was your online placement score?"
{insert cricket sounds here}

We're in Europe? Really?

Well I guess I won't be going to Egypt anytime soon. That's a real bummer, it was on my must see list. But no need to worry, that list is VERY long, and I think I'll have enuf other places to visit to keep me busy until Egypt settles down. But I'm telling you, I will get to take a river cruise down the Nile before we leave, I just know I will!

So I can't seem to buy the right amount of milk for my family. The J man eats cereal every morning ( I mean we could be in the middle of WWIII and he'd be eating his cereal every morning the moment his feet hit the floor!) I try to make sure the girls get a dairy serving for each meal...which sometimes includes milk but other times it's cheese, yogurt, etc. Sometimes what I'm cooking includes milk as an ingredient. But my point here is really that I'm either out of milk, or we can't drink it fast enuf for it not to spoil! I have tried to buy the same amount over and over, but it either spoils or I run out. Then I'll only buy 1 liter and it seems like I'm stopping for milk every other day! There is no easy solution, I have just resigned to the fact that I'll just have to stop and get milk more times than any other grocery item. I wish they had a milk man!

And the last thing on my mind is the Euro exchange. The J man is freaking out about buying anything on the economy because the dollar is down. Now, I might try to do more weekly grocery shopping at the commissary, but I'm not gonna kill myself in the process. I get things where I am when I happen to need them. Not to mention that there are alot of foods out there I haven't tried yet, the Eisman delivers, I need to find a milche (milk) man, and basically I want to buy European things while I'm in Europe!

I'm always saying we have to do as much as possible since we're here, and the J man always says "that's not true, we'll come back". Yeah right! I can't even get him to go on a trip in the states! He's really good at lying to himself, because he actually believes it!

Psssstt!

Pssstt...The Eismann is coming to my house Friday yeah! More to come on that subject after it happens.

F.Y.I....you can NOT leave, slightly freezer burnt, chicken drowned in Alfredo sauce in a 100C oven for 11 hours. You will come home to very shriveled and burnt pieces of something that doesn't even resemble chicken any more. Then to top it off, you will have to come up with something that cooks in 15 minutes or less so that you don't have to go out to eat.

NOT go out to eat you say!?! Need I remind you that I live in Germany where going out to eat is an event to be savored for an hour or two? Even though it's after 6:30pm when you get there, and your youngest child goes to bed at 7pm, it does not matter! No worries (said with a German accent) you will get home when you get home!

I was bummed to find out today that I missed a chance to see an old friend. He was less than 1/2 mile from me and I didn't know it. I know I'll get to see Gumby eventually though, at least I hope so! I mean, to know someone who lives 2 hrs away in a foreign land and not get a chance to connect would be crazy sad!

New German word - Bussi - German slang for a kiss - meant to make someone feel better when injured. It's mostly used to comfort children and is generally seen as a childish/immature word. "aww would you like a bussi to make it feel better?" See, childish and immature, right up my alley! It helps that I say the example sentence at least 10X's a month!

And my parting thought for you this evening? I don't know which person in the picture I'd rather be; the unshaven guy with a growth on his cheek or the elderly, older, oh crap I'm screwed, decent looking woman with bifocals having to have the creepy guy invade her personal space?

EISMANN!!!

I have found the Schwann man...German style!

"It all started one snowy day in December...."

I had a day off during the week in December once, and then mother nature decided I should not be permitted to have time alone in my own house so she created a snow day. There we were, Sweet Pea, Corn Niblet and myself cuddled together singing cumbaya (read as: I was trying to check FB, the TV was on, Sweet Pea was whining about not having pancakes for breakfast and Corn Niblet had no house shoes or robe on and had YET to respond to my 25th request for her to go get them) when the doorbell rang. Nobody moved, we looked at each other and said "was that the door bell?"

You see, no one comes to our house, our doorbell never rings unless it's the J man coming home from work or the girls have been outside playing and need back in the house. In my mind, I was quickly counting that we were all here, and then wondering why the J man would be coming home so quickly from work.

I opened the door to a teenager, asking me something (who knows what it was, I could barely register that it wasn't the J man, a wrong number, or the babysitters coming to save my day or offer to shovel snow) and then looking at me expectantly. I tried desperately to gleam on to anything I might be able to translate into some sense, but failed miserably and finally said the standard "sprechen eine English?". To which she replied the standard "a little".

Now, for some reason Germans think that saying they speak only a little English is something they have to say. Although it has been my experience that after they say this, they go on to lament in precise detail about the subject in question with perfect English and almost no accent at all. This is in stark contrast to me, when I say I speak a little (German, Spanish, French, whatever) I mean a little. As in -- I can throw in a word or two of German in my basically English sentence while I suddenly develop a European accent.

Well back to the story, she was the niece of the Eismann or something like that, and was handing out catalogues and getting the homeowner information. I jumped at the chance....a dream come true on a snow day....delivery of food! Now there is no need to go out at all when it snows, now all I have to do now is quit work!

We chatted a bit, her grandma makes this item # better but she loves this item # and can't tell her grandma that she doesn't like hers. We were very excited about the German ice cream being delivered, but of course this girl said that the ice cream store at the base (I won't mention it by name but it rhymes with Taskin Fobbins) has the best ice cream in the world! Really? Taskin Fobbins is what we're showing as our best? How embarrassing!

My cell phone rings a few days later with a number I didn't recognize. Yeah a call! Low and behold it's the Eismann asking if I have an order for him!! Well I had to say no, because what with the holidays I was a bit overwhelmed with life. He offered to call back after the new year.

Cut to Friday evening.........ring loud generic music,,,,

Yeah a Call!

Him: "blah blah blah"
Me: "scusa?" (because when I don't know the German word I substitute any Europeanlanguage I DO know. I use the Italian scusa for excuse ALL the time here! I also will use the french accented pardon depending on what comes out automatically)
Him: "is blah blah there?"
Me: "nine" (see here I do use German for no! I must sound BRILLIANT to people that call me!)
Him: "this is not Mrs. Siville?"
Me: "OOOooohhhhh! Yeah, ah Ja!" (once again I must sound BRILLIANT to people that call me here!)
Him: "blah blah Eismann. Do you have any order tonite?"
Me: really embarrassed sounding "OH, I haven't had a chance to look at the catalogue yet really, I can get it now, just a min...opps...(crash)...oh darn it...wait, yes, yes here it is!"
Him: "I can call you another time. Monday maybe? Is 6 a good time?"
Me: "Yes, yes, that is good. I promise I will look at it now, and I will be ready for your next call"
Him: "no problem, it is my job. I will call you Monday then. Thank you, bye"
Me: "Danke, Tschüs" (Now this part of the conversation I am sure of!)

So, I sat down and circled an ice cream choice, a fish choice, a potato (hopefully a good tater tot substitute for the J man) choice, and an apple dessert choice. There is alot Sweet Pea and I wanted to try - although she was pointing to everything we already knew what it was; like chicken wings, and chicken strips while I was trying to figure out what gooey stuff they could have put into some kind of meat lump?- But I only have 4 tiny drawers in my freezer so I have to try it all slowly.

Any way, I get the feeling he's gonna be calling me alot and I have to know what to say this time! I plan on getting to that gooey filled meat lump, but I need to start with things my family will like. Begin on a successful note, and then slowly deteriorate into the gooey meat lumps and the soup that looks like an eyeball may float up anytime.

I AM NOT WHINING! WWHHHYYYYEEEE ME?

New Year's Eve, my children had a party to go to....their parents? Nope, Nada, Nothing, no place to go! But I felt very nauseated, and didn't eat very much at dinner. Then the J man and I came home and I crawled up on the couch to veg in front of the movies I rented. We ended up going to bed at 11pm, I know, it is so completely sad that it's embarrassing to even type!

But there was something cool....an hour later we woke to the church bells going off and fireworks. Not the little measily Californians are rather idiotic and will burn the whole entire dry state up illegal type either. These were the go to a 4th of July city celebration type of fireworks! We live on the top of a little hill and we were surrounded by them. Every window we looked out had fireworks everywhere! The J man felt like he was in Bagdad, he was ready to duck and cover at a moments notice! It was really neet. They went on for a good 30minutes, accompanied by the church bells the whole time! It was really neet. Next year we're having a party so I can set them off! Nothing excites me like playing with dangerous things that are fire related!! So if ur in Germany, come ring in 2012 with me!


But anyway...it was all my fault we didn't do anything exciting on New Year's Eve and New Year's day. But then the J man and Corn Niblet got my semi-flu symptoms too and they understood. But alas....I came home last night to get hit by the same thing!! So tonite I still have a headache and am trying to fight off the Nyquil sleepiness long enuf to finish the post.

zzzzz

Must call people...really want to talk...in 5 minZZZzzzzz

The time difference!!! I tell you, it's killing me. Have you ever tried to connect with people, on a regular basis, who are living 9 hours behind you? It sucks, and I don't do it very well. GASP! I KNOW! Something I don't do very well and have the courage to broadcast it over the net for millions... hundreds... lots... four people to read!

I always have great intentions, I wake up wishing I had time to talk to people in Calif., Illinois, Ohio in the morning. But alas, I barely have time to get myself and the kids together to make it to the bus and work on time. Unfortunately there are many more days than I care to admit when we don't make either of those very important time requirements. (I mean really, who decided the day should start so damned early anyway?? Crazy. I protested but no one -besides Hawaii- listened to me.)

I think about so many people and so many things I want to tell them. All throughout the day I wish I could pick up my cell phone and ring you all. I could do that, if we had gotten the 'free calls to the USA plan' on the cell phone for an additional 25€. But the J man and myself, in our infinate wisdom, waited to get that plan on our home phone at no additional cost. We also were incrediblly zuper (because we're in Germany it's zuper not super) smart and chose not to add internet to the cell phone. Which we quickly found the error of our ways when we were looking for houses without any kind of satalite intervention at all..that's a completely seperate post, in fact I think it is somewhere near the begining of my blog! But of couse we still don't pay for internet availability on my phone. Psst...we're slow learners, and I use the term "we" loosely here!

Then the evening routine kicks in....all you out there with children know this by heart:

come home from school (and/or after school activities),
do homework and review it while making dinner,
eat, drink and be merry
then supervise bath time and dessert comsuption,
get 15 minutes of free time (if ur lucky) after cleaning up from dinner,
and then do the bedtime up down and sideways dance.

By 9pm I am thinking of calling people but I still have hope to get in a little laundry, facebook, picking up and next day prep work. By 10 or 10:30 I try to will myself to get up and go to the phone.

But, here it is, the last hurdle, the one I so rarely get over. The only phone in the house is a small corded phone, teethered 12" from the wall in a corner of the kitchen 2 feet from the nearest chair.

See????? So now you can plainly see that it's not that I don't love you.

.....it's that I don't love you enough to stand in the corner of the kitchen for 30 minutes or so at 11pm at night!

There, now don't you feel better??