Opa and Oma

Last week we were fortunate to have a visit from Erik's parents, aka Opa and Oma, who came bearing gifts of mac n' cheese and peanut butter. We met them in Berlin on their day of arrival and our sleep deprived group of 6 set out to explore Berlin on an icy cold day.  We finally waved the white flag and sought warmth and recovery in the form of Irish Coffee.  Not exactly a German beverage, but the quantity of  meat that was consumed shortly thereafter more than made up for that fact. 

 

We had a great time spending time with them in Wolfenbüttel, with day trips to Braunschweig and Goslar.  However, I got the feeling that they mostly just wanted to hang out with a couple of little girls.

Elsa and Oma's new "sledding" game.

And, on their last day in Germany, their Christmas market dreams came true.  The market opened just in time for a quick bratwurst, glühwein, and some extraordinarily speedy power shopping before jumping on the train back to Berlin.

(Planes), Trains, and Automobiles

Over Niedersachsen and through Hannover, to Patrick's house we go . . . went . . .

Okay, so that song didn't work so well.  Another belated Thanksgiving greeting from Wolfenbüttel.  The past 10 days have been busy with Berlin, a visit from Erik's parents (pictures coming soon), and a Thanksgiving trip, so I'm trying to get caught up and find my rhythm again. 

We celebrated turkey day by traveling by train on the dreaded Wednesday Before Thanksgiving.  As you can imagine, it was a breeze in a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.



Elsa was able to catch up on the latest issue of the train magazine.



 We went to visit our (American) friend Patrick, Erik's grad-school friend, and his wife and two little girls.  They live in the village of Heeslingen, between Bremen and Hamburg, that makes Wolfenbüttel feel like a sprawling metropolis.  Although life in WF is not particularly hectic or stressful, it was still great to have an extremely relaxing getaway to the country. 

We stayed on a hobby farm that rents out vacation apartments, and the menagerie was a thrill to our animal loving 2-year-old.  The collection included alpacas, goats, 21 Maine Coon cats, 100+ parakeets and parrots, geese, ducks, peacocks, turkeys, guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, and a dog. 

Look at that action shot

As I mentioned earlier, our turkey was f-r-e-s-h.  It was slaughtered at 6am Thanksgiving morning by a nearby farmer, and Patrick picked it up at 8.  Speaking of fresh meat, in the midst of the cooking craze, another farmer from the area delivered the family's annual fresh beef share.  There it was, a tub of raw beef in various forms, ready to be packaged by Patrick on Thanksgiving morning. We were definitely in the country.

Chef Patrick at work. Basting with wine and butter = delicious smells!

Despite the fact that we had four little girls, age 4 and under, we somehow managed to eat dinner while all of them slept.  It was the most peaceful meal I've had in a long time, and I didn't even have to cook it. Thanks Patrick!  We were also thankful for the instant friendship that formed between Sofia and Elsa, which gave the rest of us a few more moments of peace and happy days for the little girls.

So, Thanksgiving was observed with a rural North German flair.  It did sort of leave me ragingly homesick, however, for the first time since leaving the U.S. 6 weeks ago.  I missed running my annual Gobble Gobble Gobble run, missed the Macy's parade on TV, and just generally missed the feeling that it's Thanksgiving and everyone around you knows it.

But now, Holiday Hoolie is unleashed. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick note to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!   Most of you are probably just beginning your festivities and feasting as we are winding up a fun day spent with friends in the little village of Heeslingen.  Instead of beginning the day with 2,000 people at the Gobble Gobble Gobble run through Davis Square, I ran alone on this foggy North German morning past fields, cows, horses, and geese.  Our turkey was still alive this morning.  A great day, but we miss our families, friends, pumpkin pie, and sweet potatoes.  Please eat extra for us!

What we have to be thankful for far exceeds what I can post here.  Life is amazing. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

To the Red Cup

Some of you may know about my obsession with the Starbucks red cup.  I love it.   Around the first couple days of November when they begin to roll out, I exchange a series of texts/emails with various friends about the first red cup sighting, the first red cup purchase, etc.  Usually it involves my outward condemnation of the way-too-early arrival of the red cup, while secretly I run out to get one and bask in its crimson beauty.  In my opinion, this season is way too short, so why not enjoy it as long as possible?
I confess that I am a total sucker for holiday marketing . . . if you put a snowflake, Christmas tree, or candy cane stripe on it, I will buy it (or wish that I had).  I know better, but I just can't help it.  There, now you know my little secret.  So, inevitably, every year my once-weekly Starbucks stop steps up a couple of notches during red cup season.
Anyway, I used to hate Starbucks for the chain that they are and would avoid them at all costs. . . but after 7 years in a town where the choice is either this or Dunkin Donuts, it was an easy choice.  When I lived in Munich, I would go to the one there whenever I needed a little taste of home. . . or a red cup . . . or a couch.  However, Wolfenbüttel is too small to be touched by the Starbucks empire (thankfully, there are still such places).    SO, needless to say that when we were in Berlin and stumbled upon one after a very sleepless night (No, not because of our newborn. She slept through the night. It was Elsa this time), I nearly wept.  It was everything I needed in a coffee.  It was big.  It was strong.  It was in a red cup. 

(And the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack was playing in the background).

Berlin

I have been insinuating lately that WF is on the small side.  Charming, but small.  So, it seemed like it was time to get out of Dodge for a couple of days, and what better cure for small-town antsy-ness than Germany's largest city? 

So, in a routine that is familiar to us from our year in Munich (want a blast from the past? Here's my old Munich blog), we packed a little backpack and  hopped on a train for exciting things ahead.
Oh wait, that was then. This is now.
That little backpack is actually the diaper bag.  Then there's the large backpack with our clothes, as well as the pack n'play and the stroller.  Oh yeah, and the two little girls that go with all that.  And "hopping" is not exactly the word I would use to describe the movement of all the aformentioned gear/daughters from platform to train.  Erik was also clearly stuck in our "old" way of European train travel as we were packing, when I told him all I was bringing was a clean shirt and pajamas. He looked at the bag and asked, (totally sincerely, mind you), "What's all that other stuff then?"  Hmm. Remember those two kids we have?
Despite all that, it was exciting, thrilling, and even fun to get on a fast train with our girls and bop around Berlin for a couple of days. Erik was invited to give a lecture at Humboldt University in the center of Berlin, so the three of us girls decided to tag along to make sure he didn't get too lonely or sleep too well.  I love Berlin, gray November skies and damp, bone-chilling cold and all.  It's not just the big city hustle, the Brandenberg Gate, or the availability of Starbucks and Thai food.  There's just a sort of cool edginess to the (former) East Berlin that remains even 22 years after the fall of the wall.  And while we have never been cool or edgy, we did have fun 6 years ago soaking up some of that scene.
After wandering through the hip district around Oranienburgerstrasse while pushing my two kids around looking for a place for dinner and feeling a bit out of place, I was glad we did.  This time around, there wasn't much time for that kind of thing.  Instead, I found myself making a bee-line for a giant coffee at Starbucks to bring me back to the land of the living after a sleepless night.  Sleepless for different reasons than I might have had years ago.
ANYWAY, it was still a great trip, and yes, traveling with kids is still possible, worth it, and fun.  However, if you're out there and thinking about having kids, and thinking about taking that trip you've always wanted to take, do it. Now. Yes, you can travel with kids, but it ain't gonna be the same.

Clara's view of Berlin. Kind of looks the same as Wolfenbüttel!

Don't judge me too harshly. I was really excited about this.

Elsa's Wolfenbüttel- Part 2

Part 1 was getting a little too long, so Elsa's favorite thing in Wolfenbüttel gets it's own post. It's one of the best things that has happened to us here (along with Altstadt Bäckerei): Elsa's Spielgruppe (play group). 

When we arrived here, my first priority was to find Elsa some kids to play with.  My only strategy to accomplish this was to spot a little kid, shove Elsa in their direction, tell her to go say "hi", and hope that some sparks would fly and a playdate would be born.  As luck (fate, divine intervention, call it what you will) would have it, it worked and we met what must be the nicest family in town, and they just happen to live across the street from us. Wait, across the street? Isn't that the castle? Yes. They live in the "small castle", which is now rented out as some pretty sweet flats. I thought we lived close to the castle. . .

Besides being great people, they also pointed me in the general direction of a playgroup run by the church.  One day I woke up feeling bold and set off to lurk about the parish office and inquire, which led me to Gabi, the energetic, dynamic leader of  Elsa's Spielgruppe.  The best thing? I drop her off for 2 hours, twice a week, then go my merry way for the morning.  Gabi doesn't speak English, Elsa doesn't speak German, and it doesn't matter one bit.  They sing little songs to greet each child in the morning, and after turning out Elsa's light last night, I could hear her singing to her dolls, "Hallo, Bath Baby, schön dass du da bist, hallo Ernie, schön dass du da bist . . ."

Heading out to her first day with her backpack ready to go.

Tuesday's group, ready to sing

Elsa's Wolfenbüttel- Part 1

If you have ever spent more than 15 minutes with a two-year-old, you know that their agenda quickly becomes your agenda.  So, really, this is pretty much my Wolfenbüttel too.
Here are some of Elsa's favorite things to do in town. I remind you that this town is small.  Not microscopic, like I had been led to believe (the population is around 40,000), but the center of town can still be traversed, slowly (i.e. at a toddler's pace), in about 20 minutes.  It is by far the smallest place I have lived, which makes me realize what a city slicker I am.
We try to spend our mornings out, since afternoons are dedicated to naps (hers, and slowly Clara's, but not mine! This is precious alone time). We might stop first to ride the horse,

and then stop to get a piece of bread to feed the ducks.

 If I manage to pull Elsa away from here, I can usually stop her meltdown by promising a trip to the library:

And if we're lucky, it's a Wednesday and it's market day, which means that sometimes Erik will meet us for lunch and she gets to eat her favorite food, bratwurst (and if bratwurst at the market is not the plan, insert meltdown here).

And at the end of the day, stories and bedtime in her own room, then quietly and quickly settling down for the night. Ahem.

A visit from Belgium

Four days of fog descended upon Wolfenbüttel last week, which then brought gray skies, wind, and damp bone-chilling cold.  But, on Wednesday night, a bit of cheer from Belgium emerged from the fog to cheer us up . . .

Our friends Demmy and Dagmara, who also brought us some cheer of the drinkable variety:

That should get us through the week! Kidding.
Demmy and Dagmara drove over from Belgium to be our first non-family visitors in Germany. We know these two from Demmy's year at Harvard a few (Four? Five? Really?) years ago.  Besides the highly quaffable gifts they brought, it has been great spending time with friends, laughing a lot, talking about something other than our kids, and staying up too late.  They were very patient with our chaotic existence and early dinner times, and taught me more than I have ever known about Belgian culture and politics. Here is some Belgian trivia for you. I could do something clever like make you read my next blog posting for the answers, but in the event that you actually care about the answers, you could just look them up on your new fancy iPhone 4s anyway.  Sigh. I'm having some smartphone envy.

1. There are three official languages in Belgium. What are they? (Dutch, French, German)
2. What language is spoken in Flanders? (Dutch)
3. Where is the Queen of Belgium from? (Tricky. . . ) (Italy)
4. Does she speak Dutch? (no)
5. Which language is in the majority? (Dutch)
6. Do French speaking Belgians bother to learn proper Dutch? (no)
7. Do you suspect that maybe Demmy is from Flanders? (Yes)
Bonus question:
8. Which of the beers pictured above is a true Trappist beer? (Chimay)

This is making me thirsty. . .

Two months!

Today little Clara is two months old already! Although normalcy is difficult to define these days, I have to say that the second month of her life has seemed a little more "normal" than the first, and it has seemed to move at a slightly more normal pace.  While on one hand it's somewhat hard to believe she's already two months old, I mostly feel like we've lived so much in these months that her birth feels like almost a year ago. 

So what's Clara up to these days, at the ripe old age of 61 days? Growing, now at almost 11 pounds.  I went to weigh her on Friday, which revealed to me yet again my inability to become familiar with the metric system for weight.  There's something completely disconcerting about my newborn's size being measured by the thousands of something, even if it's just grams (4,950 grams? Holy crap! She's a giant! Oh wait. That's only about 11 pounds). Anyway, she's becoming much more fun as she emerges from her newborn sleepiness and smiles, gurgles, giggles, and coos.  Her hair is a little on the wild side, but not quite as bad as Elsa's at the same age:

Elsa, age 2 months

She loves her sister, loves to hear music, and spends the majority of her mornings bouncing around Wolfenbüttel next to me in the Ergo.  This week, her 3rd month will be kicked off with a trip to her first major European city, Berlin, and a visit from Oma and Opa.



Elsa is showing her the ropes.



Sometimes a girl just needs to wear a dress.

Now available in Wolfenbüttel

I'm taking orders for the exclusive "Hamsters" and "Guinea Pigs" 2012 calendars.  I hear they're great this year.

Why I love this place

1. It's a bakery. I could stop there since it is very self-explanatory, but there's more. . .
2. Great croissants, which come with a little container of Nutella upon request.  Because you need Nutella on your croissant.
3. DECAF coffee.  Whoo hoo! It's a rarity around here.
4. Cute cafe, almost Starbucks-ian in comfort. 
5. Changing table in the bathroom (if you are a parent who enjoys leaving your house, this is invaluable).
6. Kids play area.
7. They give you a little cookie with your coffee.
8. They give Elsa an extra cookie so I don't have to give her mine.
9. Great little breakfasts with breadbaskets. I love the German breakfast breadbasket.
10. Frequent-buyer beverage stamp cards! Few things say "I live here" like collecting stamps on a frequent- buyer card.
11. I made a joke this morning in German and the nice old lady laughed.  I think I pulled it off. That might be the first time I've ever attempted humor in German.  Milestone reached.  I will always remember you for this, Altstadt Backerei.
12. Open on Sundays! That might seem like a strange reason to be excited, until you've walked through the quiet streets of a quiet town on a Sunday morning in search of somewhere to go. 
13. Another older woman came over and openly supported my ability/choice to feed my baby in public, and admired my hootie hider (thanks Katie!). At least, that's what I think she was getting at, but she smiled a lot and said "genau" ("exactly") to everything I said, so I think I'm on the right track. Anyway, this is something I've had some anxieties about since being here, so I feel just a teensy bit more comfortable about it now. I'd feel more comfortable if I was 100% sure that's what we were talking about. A lot of my conversations in German are based on some guesswork . . . maybe I should do something about that.
Anyway, I digress a bit, but it seems like I add a new reason to love this place every time I'm here.
Good things happen at Altstadt Backerei, but if they don't, just get a croissant with Nutella and everything will be okay.

Die Puppe

Here is your funny German word of the day: Die Puppe (POOP-uh), which means "doll".  It's a word that's been making me chuckle for 6 years.  It is completely ridiculous, but for some reason there's nothing like a word that sounds like "poop" to summon my inner second-grader.  I can't imagine trying to teach this language to high schoolers if I, a 30-something mother of two, can't hear a world like Puppe without snickering to myself.

So, that's why you might see me giggling my way through Wolfenbüttel these days, as I carry my little Puppe around with me through the streets of town.  A tiny baby is a great way to invite spontaneous conversation, especially with older women (who seem to be in abundance here in WF) . . . and about 90% of the time, the conversation begins with an "OOOOhhhh...." and something about die Puppe, or even better, Puppchen (little doll).  Just say it to yourself a few times . . ."Poop-chen. Poop-chen. Poop-chen." Are you giggling yet? Just a little? No? Okay, I'm a freak. But Erik is with me on this one.

Mein Puppchen

Meine Puppen

The Putzfrau cometh

I love Fridays.  It's the start of the weekend (something I find that I still look forward to, even though I'm not working outside of the home), Elsa goes to her playgroup for 2 hours in the morning, and . . . it's Putzfrau (cleaning lady) day. This is one of the best things about life in Lessinghaus. Before you get any ideas that we're living super high on the hog here in W-Büttel and you're thinking "Shoot. I should have gone into history instead of _______" (insert your decently paying, employable profession here),  let me assure you that we do not also have a doorman, a nanny, a driver, or a personal chef.  But we do have a once-weekly cleaning service. It's awesome.

My friend Maureen has a fantasy that my story in the little town of Wolfenbüttel will involve me developing a deep, mysterious, and heart-warming friendship with our Putzfrau that will become the subject of my best-selling novel which will then of course be made into a movie starring Meryl Streep as The Putzfrau.  I'm not making much progress on that so far, although I did say good morning and that it looked fabulous.
Here is a little taste of her handiwork.

Sheets changed, pillows fluffed, comforters neatly folded . . .

Ditto with Elsa's bed, plus her "friends" sitting neatly on her pillow. . .

and the clean towels all hung by their hooks with care.

Sauber ist Zauber.
(Clean is magic)



ä,ü,ö!

Ääääääääääääääääääääh!
Öööööööööööööööööh!
Üüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüh!
Umlaut!

Thanks Matt!

A small triumph

 Today was one of those less-than-awesome days.  I was going to post something about Elsa, but that's going to have to wait. I kind of need a break from my kids at the moment, so I'm going to steal the spotlight and talk about. . . me . . . if I can mobilize myself out of my crumpled heap.  After a day of feeling like I can't do anything right, I think I need to publicly toot my own horn.

 I am beginning to remember how hard it is to live in a foreign country and try to function in a foreign language.  It's isolating and sometimes humiliating, like the time in Munich I asked for teeth in my coffee instead of cream.  I would really like to reply with something pleasant when the old ladies in Wolfenbuettel (umlaut! I need you!) comment on Clara's hair, but sometimes all I can come up with is nodding and smiling like an idiot.  Some days are great, and then there are days when I feel like I open my mouth and only crap comes out.

Yesterday started out that way, which is why I was a nervous wreck when I had to take myself to my postpartum check-up later that day.  I will spare you the details, but somehow I managed to answer health history questions, explain why I was there, and negotiate the details of our complicated health insurance and how it is billed.  Since I was on a roll,  I marched right over to the pediatrician's office to straighten out an issue with our vaccination schedule and problems with our insurance's reimbursement.  Anyway, it's only a baby step, and I could very easily ask for teeth in my coffee again tomorrow.  Now that I think of it, I think I might have told them that Erik's birth year was 1967. Oh well.