Dinner Party

Daphne threw a dinner party this weekend for Mardi Gras since she was born in New Orleans. Mardi Gras is a very big deal here. Everything closes Monday at noon for parties and then all music and dancing ends at midnight on Tuesday.

We had two German couples over and one American couple. Daphne made Gumbo and etouffee.

The boys played Wii with our guest. He's the boy who asked Julia to coffee.

Super bowl

In case anyone was wondering - the boys and I did watch the superbowl.

With kickoff after midnight on Sunday (school) night - Mom said we couldn't go to the Hard Rock Cafe to watch the game. We woke at 6am and watched it via the slingbox/DVR thanks to uncle Chris.

The boys were sleepy the rest of the day. Not so different than many other people in the USA today I assume.

Grocery shopping

We went grocery shopping this week and this is still one place where we continue to learn German and feel like we are quite different. It's much less easy to head to the store and hope for inspiration for a dinner menu.

The boys are constantly goofing around in the aisles - that's what they do - so I try to keep them away from Mom who is concentrating on buying flour instead of rice.

As the pictures show, lots of meat choices. Lots of choice.
Choice also extends to the Ketchup aisle.

Although the brand is the same - they have many versions of ketchup that I have never seen in the USA. Both of these sound good to me.

(The curry one is good - we have it at home)

Finally I saw this poster. Pretty universal in its message - even in Bavaria.

 

I said universal, not subtle.

Sunday at the Schloss

Julia has been asking to go through the Castle (Schloss) near our home. We jumped on the bikes, grabbed an old loaf of bread to feed the ducks and headed out.

Dad's only advice was to stay far away from the swans. The other German parents were only too happy to have their 15 months old walk right up to the swans. Check out the pink legs in the picture.
I was wondering how the ducks would deal with us bringing the bread crumbs but I should have only worried about them deciding to carry off one of the children. These ducks/birds would have unhooked their bicycle helmets, unzipped the kids jackets, and unbuttoned their shirts if that's what it would take to get a piece of bread.
If you don't believe me, let me prove my point - they were multilingual.

Finally we went into the Schloss. I couldn't use the flash so you will have to believe me that we saw some beautiful rooms. This one with Daph and Julia is the main room to greet visitors.

Here David is viewing the pictures in the "room of beauties".


Hubba hubba.

Back to school night

We will soon be saying goodbye to our lovely Volvo for about 4-6 weeks.
It is completely my fault. I thought we could get Florida driving licenses in December, and hand them in for new German licenses after Christmas break. Unfortunately, we couldn't do that because we registered to live here in Germany in August and a license issued after our arrival would be invalid. That means we cannot drive exactly 6 months after our registration here in Germany, August 10th, 2009.
OK - we can deal with this. What does this mean for Daph and I?

First the prerequisites:
- Eye test
- 6 hour first aid course
- Biometric photo
- translated US driving license
- .... about 5 more things.

After that - 4 weeks for the application to go to Berlin for verification, then the written test, then the 20 minute driving test. No problem.

This weekend was the 6 hour first aid course (in English!). We went with Daph's friend Regina from San Diego (via Italy last year). Regina's son was the one who asked Julia out months ago.


Erste is first, Hilfe is help and of course Kurs is course in German.

Daphne and Regina had no problem with the first aid but Daph almost failed the eye test - even with her contacts. Daph is lucky the Germans all want her experience here to be thoroughly enjoyable. It's their natural service orientation here in Bavaria.

Our favorite part of the night was where each student had to demonstrate the ability to pull an unconscious person from a drivers seat, pull them out of the car and then put them into the "recovery position".
They paired people up so a 90 pound person wouldn't have to pull me out.

Here is a picture of our new friend (who works at Lego) rolling me into the recovery position.

We got this whole driving licensing thing licked.
What could possibly go wrong?

Look alike

I went for a run today. A small group of Japanese tourists took my picture when I running by the local castle. Then a Korean looking lady took my picture.

I found it a bit strange.

When I got home, Daphne said it was because of how George and I looked together running.

They say people and their pets start to look alike after a while. I have no idea what they are talking about.

Dogs

After sledding - Brian claimed he was "starving". I don't remember withholding food for several days, but Daphne wanted to offer him something from the shack at the base of the sledding hill.

MENU:
Beer
Warm wine
Coffee
Tea
Braut with bread

Brian said, "sure - I would love a Braut on a roll." David said that it also sounded good.

Daph walked off and ordered 2 Brot semmel.

Here's what she got.

Not quite a roll. 4 hot dogs in our vernacular.

We also had the world's most difficult dog with us. Brian insisted he could take a plate with 2 hot dogs and a piece of bread and eat them with George sitting next to him.

His mother and I disagreed. We offered bites of braut to the dog to keep him from taking Brian and David's fingers. Here David gives a bite to George so Brian doesn't get mauled.