Weinachsmarkt

Sorry for the long delay in posting, but Eliot decided to get sick, and Andy decided to make him feel better by getting sick as well! Everyone is feeling better, but now we're in the mad dash for Christmas, and preparing also for all of our visitors. This, however, did not stop us from enjoying some time at a Weinachsmarkt (Christmas market) in Otterberg this past weekend - a small town just 15 min away, that has a lot of historical old buildings including a church from the 16th century. Eliot liked the horses best (there was a horse and carraige ride for the kids), I liked the brats, and Andy liked the gluwine best (spiced yummy hot wine that is served everywhere during this season!)
We went with our neighbors who have a little boy, Michael, just a few months older than Eliot. He has taught Eliot a lot of things, most recently how to say "mine". I can see this is going to be a fun game in the future with Kaya -- he already drives that poor dog crazy!
They were nice enough to take a picture of the 3 of us... with Andy as the photo guru, we don't often get pictures together so this was a treat.

Thorpe or Ray Charles, you decide.

Who said potty training couldn't be fun for the whole family?

Do I even need to comment on Kaya's contribution?

Shadows

OK, the picture is a bit blurry, but I think you can all see the problem here. Eliot has recently discovered his shadow, and he is not at all a fan of this creature that follows him wherever he goes. This is a photo that captures him frozen, for fear of the shadow getting closer. Like a sheet of toilet paper stuck to your shoe, he just couldn't shake that shadow. Never fear, mom was there to save the day!

Meet our sheep

From our 3rd floor bedroom

So the story goes like this.....Once upon a time, our landlord (Peter) says to our neighbors, "By the way, you have to mow the grass in the back" Keeping in mind that it's like 5 acres of tall grass back there, they say, "I don't think so. Why don't you hire someone and I'll give you some money". We'll next thing you know these alleged sheep show up, 5 of them in our backyard. Our neighbor, Ed, looks at them, observes the prominate horns, and tells Peter that he bought goats not sheep. After some debate and consulatation of Mr. Google, we think that they may actually be some exotic form of sheep. Confirmation would be appreciated. I'll try and get some better close ups in the near future.

Salt, Salt, and more Salt

On Saturday, we took a day trip to the famous Salt Mines of Krakow. Once again Eliot's behavior was pristine. We are extremely appreciative of his tolerance of our travels at this age. Here are a couple of photos from the trip. This is an active salt mine with a ton of salt sculptures that have been carved by the miners over the last 500 or so years. It was 850 steps down, but we got to take an elevator up. Nice since we decided to take Eliot's stroller. Surprisingly, a wise decision.


Renee could probably translate, but I'm guessing it says "Salt Mine" or something
Walking the mines.


Top view of the main Cathedral in the salt mine. Yes, everthing you see is carved from salt including the chandeliers which are pure salt crystals also cut from the mine.



The Altar of the Cathedral


Eliot likes to push his stroller, even when it was folded up. Yes, the floors are made of salt.

Finally, we have the krasnoludki (gnomes). Some of the most famous salt carvings. Legend has it that the knomes, which are alive, can't move while being observed by humans. This is why they appear as statues.

Christmas in November!!!

Our x-mas present came early this year when Renee got a surprise call from the CDC today. Eliot got a permanent spot at the Landstuhl day-care facility. Woo hooo!!! Not only was our current rental slot (at the Sembach Airforce base) running out next week, but it was at a base that had us driving an extra 2 hours per day. We thought it could be up to a year before he got into Landstuhl, one of the most respected facilities in the area and conveniently located on the same base that Renee works at. It may not seem like a big deal, but this is huge. We're very excited.

Krakow

Wow. I did not know Poland could be so cool. I mean, I spent so much of my childhood trying to hide the fact that we were Polish (you know, all the Polish jokes, mom and dad spoke with a funny accent, it was uncool to be "different"). And of course, I eventually embraced the uniqueness of being first generation American, and began to appreciate being able to speak a second language fluently without having to struggle with learning verb congugation. But my visit here to Krakow transcends all of that. Krakow is just plain cool, amazing, awesome, you name it. It is unbelievably cosmopolitan and bohemian all at the same time. It has a vibe. It is "European" and shi-shi, without being full of itself. I am now embracing my heritage like never before (though apparently I've let my Polish get rusty enough that most Krakowians respond to me in English after I speak to them in Polish!)

The city is home to over 170,000 university students, and the cafe/restaurant/night life scene seem to reflect that... and actually, probably reflect more of the tourism industry which apparently is doubling year after year. It is truly amazing to walk into establishments that could be found in the heart of NYC or Chicago or any other major city. I guess that is capitalism and marketing at work - pretty powerful stuff, I tell you. I still remember visiting Poland in the second grade while it was still under communist rule -- everything was so gray, and the shelves in the stores were all empty as people waited in long lines with ration tickets. Much different today, though I wonder who is now paying the price (the street peddlers, homeless, those unable to take advantage of new times and economies, etc). What an interesting world we live in.

We are staying in a very neat apartment/room rental place just a few minutes walk outside of the city square. The couple that owns this is very nice, and they have been incredibly helpful. They are setting us up with a babysitter tomarrow night (one that watches their own son) so that Andy and I can have a night out on the town. We'll update you more on that later :)

In any case, enough of my babble... let me show you some pictures of this enchanted place.

Rynek Glowny (Main city square)

Palac Krolewski (Wawel Castle)

Needless to say, we've all fallen in love with this city.

Happy Thanksgiving

We don't really have any Thanksgiving dinner photos. But, we were definitely thinking about the plight of the pilgrams as we ate in a Georgian (Republic of...) restaurant while visiting downtown Krakow. It was very good and made us feel very adventurous. However, after seeing two more of them in other parts of the town, we are suspicious that it may be the Georgian equivalent of Chilis. Oh well. Now we know.

Renee will explain more about everything that we've seen later, but for now I'll just say that we've done a lot of walking and Eliot loves the pigeons and horses and dogs and cats and anything else that moves. Here are a couple of photos. Renee will post some more later.



Eli in the main courtyard of the Wawel castle overlooking Krakow.



Eli playing with the Pigeons in the town square.

Masterpiece

Though unsigned, the peculiar use of whitespace and bold brushstrokes clearly indicate that it's an Eli. Probably early 21st century. It's obviously an original and in extremely good condition. Priceless of course.

A morning walk.

We have all these great trails that snake around the hills surrounding our town. Here are a couple of photos from our morning stroll today.
This was taken on the other side of the creek behind our house. It continues to amaze us how lush the fields remain even as we enter fall.

The last three were taken at the top of a hill that overlooks Hirschhorn and Katzweiller, our neighboring town. Eliot was in a great mood this morning.

Our Online Calendar

We're looking forward to having lots of visitors here in Germany. To help prevent overbooking at the inn, I have added a link to an online calendar. (top of the page, right column) Feel free to add your name to it and we'll send you an application.

It's here!

What, might you ask. Everything. In a flood of inbound goodness. Everything arrived within a span of 24 hours. All household goods and furniture, the Jetta, our home landline, and DSL connection. Our Vonage line is now back up and running which means that our old phone number works just as it did before. Please, no late night calls though as we're 6 hours ahead of the East coast. Now back to unpacking.

Eliot and KayaKaya really is a sweet dog after all. She and Eliot are best buds.

Demon Dog





I wonder why we didn't get any trick-or-treaters last night.

Shark Down!

No wait, I'm up.

Yep, let's get going. Plenty of candy to get tonight.

Candygram....

Plumber.......

Update...


OK, so I have some good news and some bad news to report. First the bad news -- we do not yet have our home phone or internet set up. I know, I know, I told you all we were going to get it installed this past Wednesday, and Eliot and I waited all day long for them to show, but no one did... that is until about 8pm that night when our neighbors came over with papers in hand, that showed Deutsche Telekom had come promptly at 11:35 to THEIR house!!! You see, they live at 59 Hauptstrasse, and we are at 59a Hauptstrasse. Never underestimate the importance of a small little isolated letter!!!
So, now we are back somewhere in the waitlist of people trying to get hooked up, and we are hopeful that since the company screwed up the address, we will get it next week, but that would be **fast** by their standards?!?!


Well, enough moaning and groaning, now on the good side, we picked up our new "sports wagon" yesterday. Very exciting!!! We are back to being a 2 car family and mobility out here is key, considering we live out in a cowpatch (as our German teacher put it!)


We are also getting very excited about our first visitors - Mitch, Molly, and Roman are coming to visit next week! We should have a grand time (if they don't mind sleeping on mats, no tv, and other limited services)! Four star hotel we are not!!! :)

That's all for now folks!

Car Clarification

Okay, I've heard some concern over this alleged "station wagon" that we are buying. I don't mean to sound defensive, but this is a finely tuned machine, not some grocery getter. It has "sport seats". Not that we actually have the car yet. We continue to learn lessons regarding transactional speed here in Germany. The combination of Germany thouroughness and military red tape is quite amazing. Since my last post, we are two steps closer and hoping for a Thursday pickup. After that we begin the long process of inspection and registration, but at least it will be in our possesion.

German Washers

Those of you that come visit will see this first hand. German washing machines spin very, very fast. We have not even set it up to the highest speed and it sounds like it might tear the house down if it lets loose.

Misc German Update.

Let's see, what's going on here....

Last Saturday we went to Ikea. There was something comforting about being in a somewhat familiar store even though everything was still in Deutch. As typical for an Ikea trip, we spent 4 hours in the store.

We finalized a deal on a car purchase yesterday. It a 2002 BMW 320d station wagon. Very nice with low miles (actually low km). We're pretty excited about picking it up this weekend. Here's a link if you would like to check it out. (this link will probably only work a day or two since the car is now sold) I had it up to 200 km/h during the test drive. Very smooth, and I wasn't even breaking the law.

I played in a Texas hold-em tournament on one of the bases last Friday. Not too bad of a result finishing 8th out 44.

Eliot's nap schedule is starting to sync up with that of the on-base child care. It was a tough transition though. He was still at two daily naps and they are at only at one. That and he had a tough time napping with other kids in the room. Today's report was very good with him sleeping through the entire nap and almost no fussiness all day. Way to go Eliot.

Next week we start our German language classes. It's mandatory for Renee, but they'll let me participate as well.

We still don't have a phone line or DSL, but they are now scheduled to come next Wednesday (10/25). They only have us listed to set up phone then, but hopefully they can go ahead and do DSL at the same time.

Finally, I will get back to posting photos soon. I know that's more fun to see.

Andy

We're mobile!

We both passed our driver's tests today. Evidently, this is not a small feat. There were several people in our class on their 4th or 5th attempt. Renee scored a blistering 97% while I followed with a respectable 91%. 85% required to pass. I figure that I just optimized my studying level a little beter than she did. So then we bummed a ride with some other Army people to a car rental spot, and rented ourselves a '97 VW Golf. Sweet deal at only 350 Euro/mo. Tomorrow we'll go car shopping. In another big accomplishment, Eliot got a rental slot at one of the on-base child care facilities through the 1st week of December. He had a great time there today. Evidently, he is temporarily replacing an "Amber". I bet they'll like Eliot better.

First Day of Work

Renee went off for her first day at the hospital today. It was still dark out when she left. Eliot slept in until 8, and then woke up about 3 minutes before the movers came with all of our "borrowed goods". The army lent us a fridge, washer/dryer, dining room set, couch, 2 loveseats, full size bed, 4 wardrobes, 2 dressers, cofee table, 2 end tables, and 2 night stands. Pretty darn nice of them if you ask me. They even sent someone out from civil engineering to hook up the washer/dryer. Combine that with the bed and kitchen table we borrowed from the neighbors and we're not doing too bad.

Tomorrow is the big day. Driver's license examination. Once we pass, we'll go buy a car and then finally....FREEDOM. It has been tough without our own transportation.

Haven't heard anything from the phone company yet. Hopefully they'll still show up today.

We're here.

We have finally moved into our own place in Germany. Here's a quick rundown on our activities to date:

Thursday Oct 5. Dmitri picks us up at the airport. We drive to some location North of Frankfurt to check into something. Then we drive to Kaiserslautern to check into her unit, but the guy was going to lunch and said to come back later. So then we met the realtor and and landlord at our new house. It was exciting and disappointing in many respects. We still love the house, but there way a lot that was unfinished. Still waiting for the shower walls to be installed for example. We have already decided to take Dmitri up on his generous offer to stay at his place. Later, Renee checks into her unit and we head back to Dmitri's for dinner and bed.

Friday Oct 6th. Renee, Eliot, Dmitri, and myself head to a famed grocery store in Luxembourg to pick up good beer, wine, cheese, seafood, and meat. Only an hour a way. Nice to have that in our back pocket.

Saturday Oct 7th. Renee heads into town to make appointments for telephone and dsl and to buy initial groceries and supplies. I stay back with the kids( Eliot and Dmitri's) It was a sacrifice worth making. Dinner include oysters and a huge salmon filet. I am now skilled at shucking oysters. No major injuries to report.

Sunday Oct 8th. We finally make our way to our new home. Fabulous new neighbors help out wherever possible (including sharing this wireless net connection). Dinner is canned soup cooked on our stove.

Monday Oct 9th. We took the train into Kaiserslautern today. Fabulous. It's only a 5 min. walk to our station. From K-town, we can go anywhere, Paris, Berlin, Prague, ect. Very easy. After getting back we spent the afternoon/evening with our neighbors. They have a 18 mo. old who gets along wonderfully with Eliot. We finalized a deal to share a cleaning lady every Wednesday. (very important) and had a nice bottle of wine (or two) on their patio along with dinner (wings and green beans).

Renee checks into her unit at Landstuhl tomorrow. I will stay at the house to recieve our much anticipated borrowed goods shipment ( fridge, microwave, bed, shelves, ect.) in addition to our dsl and phone connection. With any luck, our old phone number, through Vonage, should be back up and running soon.

Andy

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Beaver for getting my one year photos done! These were taken during my first field trip away from home without my parents -- I got to spend 5 days in Springfield with my grandparents! We had so much fun!

Friday night, we went to Ben and Evelyn's going away party (friends pictured above). They are moving to Turkey in 2 weeks -- we hope to visit them soon!

Today, we had a little going away gathering ourselves, out at a local park. It was a beautiful day, and we spent a wonderful afternoon with our friends. It was so nice to all be together! It will really be hard to leave behind all of our great friends and family here. But we know you'll all come visit us overseas!!! :)

Germany, here we come!!!

So, the movers came and took all of our stuff last week... house is pretty empty now -- it's starting to feel real!

Not everyone is cut out to be a cowboy.

Belated Birthday Photos

Look at all these cool kids at my party!
Enjoying my cake
Thanks Babcia and Dziadek for hosting the grand event!

Visiting friends and family

Is that Andy and Eli riding on a Deere Tractor???

No worries... they're really Cat boys at heart!

First hayride

Is that my cousin Paige driving???

The big BLUE ball