Dylan's Dream Come True - Open House at the Fire Station

One of Dylan's favorite things to do is walk by the fire station every day an see if any of the fire trucks are out in the parking lot.  He gets so excited he jumps up and down, points his fingers and shouts "Mommy!  Weee-oohhhh! Weeeee-ooohhh! Tee-tee taa-taaa!" (the sounds that a fire truck makes in Germany) and runs around the parking lot in a crazed state of excitement.

So, we knew it was going to be a pretty exciting day for Dylan when the fire station had its annual Open House last Sunday.  They had food and beer tents set up, all of the trucks were out and to Dylan's delight they allowed kids to sit  in the drivers seat, climb around and push all the buttons they wanted.

We planned on taking Dylan over there after his nap, but since we live directly behind the fire station there was simply too much noise and excitement happening outside of his window to make a nap possible.

The day would have been perfect had Dylan taken a nap.  It also didn't help that in the morning we tried to tire him out by taking him on a picnic to a nearby playground and lake, and let him run around for a few hours in the sun.  But it was clear after 45 minutes that he was not going to sleep, so we gave in and walked over to check things out.

Everything started out pretty well and Dylan was generally well-behaved until he realized that he was actually allowed to sit in the trucks and play with things.  He was good with sharing the back seats with other kids, but he went off the rails when he had to wait in line to sit in the driver's seat.  He cried and screamed a little louder with each kid who got a turn before him and, of course, like magic the tears immediately ceased when it was his turn.  He pushed all the buttons and pretended to drive the truck, but when his turn was over getting him out of the seat was a huge task.  Bryan had to grab him by the legs and was holding him completely horizontal while Dylan held on for dear life to the steering wheel and screamed at the top of his lungs.  Yes, we were those parents and he was that kid.  Needless to say, we didn't stay too much longer after that incident.  A pregnant lady looked on in disgust as she plugged her ears to stifle Dylan's nearby shrieks.  Bryan said to her as we passed, 'Just wait, your time will come soon.'

I asked him who he was talking to and he said "Oma" (Grandma)

This looks like a kid who's on a fast track to a meltdown.

Smiles after watching a demonstration of how the crane works.  

Finally, it's his turn!

"Don't you dare try to take me out of here!"

Watching another demonstration...

Dylan fought off some older kids to sit on this seat.  All those sit-ups and push-ups that he does at home (seriously... but that's a story for another blog post) have paid off.

Last photo taken on our way back home. He was one tired kid.  

Day Trip "mit Fahrrad" to Ramsdorf and Velen

Dylan is crazy over bike rides and multiple times a day he grabs his bike helmet and says "Mommy, Fahrrad? Fahrrad?  Yeah? Go? Mommy? Fahrrad? FAHRRAD????" Dylan prefers to call bikes by their German name, Fahrrad, and when I give in and take him for a ride he cheerfully claps his hands and shouts "Yaaaaaaay, Fahrrad!"

So this past Friday I decided to take Dylan on a long bike ride to see some nearby towns.  I particularly wanted to go to Velen, a town about 20 kilometers away (12 miles) because there is a famous Schloss (castle) there that we haven't seen yet.  So around 10:30 a.m. Dylan and I packed a bag with snacks, drinks and diapers and headed out.

Our area of Germany has fantastic bike routes from town to town that take you on lightly traveled country roads through farms and forests.  The paths are mainly 1-lane paved roads (farmers use them for their tractors and cars), but sometimes they are dirt paths and all are extremely well maintained. The route that we chose started in Borken (our town) and took us through Gemen and around the castle there, then Ramsdorf and Velen.  We've been to the castle in Gemen many time (it's about a 10 minute bike ride from our home), but I had never been on this particular trail before and saw the castle from a completely new angle that makes it look larger and more like it's from a fairy tale.

Schloss Gemen

Onward we went through the country roads about 8 km/5 mile to Ramsdorf, a tiny little village between Borken and Velen.  Another great thing about these bike trails is that although the majority of the riding is through the countryside, when you get to a town, the trail takes you directly through the center so you get to see the city instead of riding around the perimeter.

Ramsdorf, Germany

Church in the center of Ramsdorf, Germany

After our short tour through Ramsdorf, we headed out for the remaining 12km /7.5 miles to Velen.  I can't say enough about how great the bike trails are.  Another amazing thing is that whenever you begin to doubt or wonder if your going the right way, there are intelligently placed "Bike" signs on trees and fence posts the entire way.  At every crossroads there is always a sign with an arrow, and whoever put them up placed them in easy to see spots so I was never searching for a sign.

I did wonder a few times if pranksters ever flipped the signs around or tampered with them to mess people up and I had a few flashbacks of the "Jamborree" scene in the movie Troop Beverly Hills when the nasty Culver City "Red Feathers" turned the signs around so Troop Beverly Hills had to walk through snake infested swamps and cross dangerous log bridges to win the competition. Thankfully, no tampering has been done between Borken and Velen.

Rest assured, you're on the right track!

Taking this bike trail was very excited for Dylan because we got to see a wide range of farm and wild animals along the way. There were tons of cows and horses, and we also saw chickens, roosters, bulls, goats, sheep, bunnies and even a deer.  He's getting really good at his animal sounds.

The trail dropped us off in Velen right at the Schloss, and there really isn't a whole lot else going on in Velen. Officially called the Sport Schloss, this castle is actually a pretty swanky hotel and has a driving range, tennis courts, places for archery and a whole bunch of other sports and activities that you can partake in.  Dylan was super excited to get off the bike and run around, but unfortunately sitting in the bike seat for a solid hour make his legs immobile and he took two steps and promptly tripped and scuffed up his chin and his hands, so our first 15 minutes we spent sitting on a bench 'hugging it out' while he cried.

When he finally calmed down we walked around the perimeter of the castle, took in the beautiful grounds and fed the ducks.

Making around around the moat...

Dylan doesn't notice the ducks slowly creeping up behind him, but he soon will.

Lovely moat.  Even has a swan and lilly pads.

"Umm, Mommy? Why are all these ducks here?"

Dylan was happy to share his crackers with the ducks until one of the brazenly snatched one out of his hand.  Then is was time to go. One bad duck had to ruin it for the rest of them.

Velen's Church

The front of the Sport Schloss Velen

We got some lunch at a local bakery and sat on a bench outside the church and ate.  We walked around the town center for a few minutes, but it was getting late and I wanted to get Dylan home for his nap.  So we headed back to our bike.  We began our journey home and I quickly realized that the weather was not going to be cooperative.

No more than 10 minutes into our bike ride, it began to downpour on us.  Dylan really doesn't like to be wet in his clothes and I could hear him getting upset behind me saying "Mommy! Wet!  Oh, nooooooooo!  WET! MOOMMMYYYYYY!" So I turned into the nearest driveway and saw an open garage door.  We sped into the garage and nearly crashed into the farmer who was in there working on his own bike.  No explanation was necessary for why we crash landed in his garage, and he was friendly enough to let us hang out the 15-20 minutes it took for the rain passed by.

Onward we went and 25 minutes later we were back in Ramsdorf where it began to rain again and we took shelter in someone else's garage for another 15 minutes.  We finally made it home around 2:30 in the afternoon, 1.5 hours past Dylan's usual nap time, so he happily ran into his bedroom and jumped into his "sleep sack" to fall asleep.

So, for someone who normally rides her bike 3-5 kilometers (2-3 miles) per day around town, a 40km (24 miles) bike ride through the country was an excellent way to get some exercise.  Although, I must admit, I was in great pain just about every time I turned over in my sleep that night and my legs have been sore for many days.

Uh Oh.  We're going to get wet.

Taking refuge in Farmer Stefan's garage. 

And again in someone else's empty garage in Ramsdorf.  Dylan, who is not known for his patience, was excellent.

German Language Update

So, we've been here for 10 months now and our German is progressing ... slowly. Very, very slowly. We really underestimated how difficult this language is to learn and thought that surely after 10 months we would be able to speak and comprehend much better than what we're currently able to do.  Even though I had the advantage of taking a beginner German course, Bryan is leaps and bounds ahead of me with being able to speak. Now my course is over, I have completely plateaued with my progress.  Here are some common situations that I get myself in:

Going out with Dylan: Dylan is a chatterbox and he says "Hallo" and "Morgen" and "Guten Tag" to just about everyone we see on the sidewalk.  He also will say "Bless You" if he hears someone sneeze (even Oscar) and has been known to go up to strangers carrying recognizable bags from the bakery and holding his hand out for a piece.  He's so cute that even the most dour German passerby brightens up and talks to him. This usually leads to them talking to me, and I can get through about 2 questions (What's his name? How old is he?) before I just smile, nod, laugh if they are laughing at whatever they said and slowly walk away.

Walking Oscar: Like Dylan, Oscar has a "freundliches Gesicht" (friendly face), and I get stopped on the street several times a week by people asking me what kind of dog he is.  For Americans, stopping a stranger to ask a question isn't that unusual, but for German's this is out of the ordinary and in general, people here don't acknowledge others passing by unless they know them personally.  One person even passed us in their car, turned around and pulled into a gas station, got out and flagged us down on the sidewalk just to ask about Oscar. The problem I run into with this is that even though I can easily see that they're going to ask about Oscar, the framing of the question is less predicable than the questions I get about Dylan.  Sometimes they start with "Is he a boy or a girl?" Which shouldn't be too hard, but boy (Junge) and girl (Mädchen) for people is different than a boy dog (Männchen) and girl dog (Weibchen). Do you see how girl/person and boy/dog are almost exactly the same? This is super confusing when you don't catch the subtleties of German pronunciation. (Side note about that: words that should be such an easy translation are hard because of the pronunciation. Example: I asked someone what "fan" was in German and they said what sounded like "fenty lahtour" which I thought was ridiculous in comparison to such an easy word like fan. Then I saw the German word in writing - ventilator. Also an English word.  Duh!)

Back to Oscar, I don't get through many rounds of questioning before my true identity as a non-native German speaker is revealed.  It usually happens when I say "Er ist ein Golden Retriever mit Poodle" and  Golden Retriever and Poodle are said with a completely American accent. Conversation ender.

Giving Directions: If you are lost and you need to ask for directions, what kind of person do you target to approach?  Someone who looks friendly and like they live in the area, right? Well, the lady walking a chatty kid and friendly dog are very likely targets for direction seekers, so I also get frequently stopped with this type of question.  If the destination is too difficult, like a doctor's office on a specific street (I still don't know any street names here, just landmarks), I shrug my shoulders and say "Ich weiss nicht" (I don't know).  Usually when I attempt to help give someone directions, it backfires.  A few days ago I very confidently told someone that the bank was on the "links" (left) while I emphatically pointed to the right.   

Dylan loves pushing Elmo in the cart!

This is his "sad" face. Drama students - take note.

At the park on a really cool pulley/trolley thing.

Cowboy hat and gym shorts constitute a complete outfit in our house.

With Mommy in Winerswijk

Dylan calls this the "Bunny Auto" for obvious reasons.

Day Trip: Liège (Luik, Lidje, Lüttich) Belgium

Earlier this week the president of Bryan's basketball team told us that the team van was available on Thursday and Friday if we wanted to use it.  Since we don't often have access to the car anymore and Bryan had a four day weekend, we took him up on the offer without really having any solid plans of taking the car anywhere.  But after waking up on Thursday morning, we quickly consulted Google Maps and searched for places to visit within a 2.5 hour radius, and settled on either Maastricht, Netherlands or Liege, Belgium.

A trip like this, where we generally pick a location or region and head there with no particular agenda or plans, we have dubbed "free stylin' travel" and it has been Bryan's dream to do trips like this for a long time.  I usually intervene his free stylin' plans and make concrete travel agendas for us, so he was pleasantly surprised when I went along with his idea.

1 hour later, we had packed lunches, Oscar's food and bed, an overnight bag anticipating that we would spend the night somewhere and we were on the road by 10:30 a.m.  About 30 minutes into our drive, as Bryan was making the comment of how impressed he was with our teamwork and packing efficiency, I said to him, "Don't we need our passports to check into a hotel?"

An hour later, after returning home to get our passports, we were once again driving through Oberhausen on our way to The Netherlands and potentially Belgium.  The good thing to come from our 1 hour delay was that Dylan fell asleep at approximately this point, giving him a solid 2-hour nap in the car before arriving at our destination.

We passed through Maastricht (didn't look like much was going on there) and continued on to Liege.  It was around this point where our Google Maps directions came to an end.  It's quite a difficult task to read our directions, which were in German, while also reading the street signs, which were in Dutch, and eventually French.  We kept seeing signs for 'Luik' 30 km's away, which was really confusing. Where was Liege?  To make matters worse, once we arrived in Belguim, the Luik signs became 'Lidje' signs.  (When we came home we told our neighbor we went to Liege, Belgium and he gave us a completely blank look.  Finally it came to him and he said "Ahhh, Lüttich!" This city apparently has many names.)

Somehow, we found the city of Liege/Luik/Lidje/Lüttich without any problems.   There seemed to be ample parking, and we parked at one of the first available spots.  There was good reason for the ample parking.  We were in the hood.  Bryan summed it up when he asked, "Are we in Belguim or Tangiers?" To which I responded "If this is a culture shock to us, then we will never survive Tangiers."

The ghetto was a neighborhood called "Huy", and all the stores were either doner shops, hair salons, clothing stores where traditional Muslim apparel and head covers could be purchased, or import/export "emporiums" where a few Arab-looking fellows were haggling with each other over the cost of a cheap lamp or mattress.  There were virtually no people out on the street and it appeared as though someone in every building had recently been evicted due to all the household crap laying on the sidewalks.  We took a brisk walk around the block and headed back to our excellent parking spot in search for a more populous part of the city.

Just arrived in Liege, ready to see the sights!

The "Huy" neighborhood, French for "ghetto"

The worst part was that we couldn't read the map to find a new part of the city.  So, we blindly ventured on, crossed to the other side of the river and voila - a bustling, populous city emerged that looked much more like the one we imagined Liege would look like.  We parked near the train station, picked up a map from the Best Western and quickly got our near bearings of where we were. Dylan, Oscar and I took a 20 minute slow walk around while Bryan popped into an Internet Cafe to try to find a cheap hotel for the night.  His search was broad and he looked in Liege, Maastricht and Aachen, but the best deal was 100 Euros/night at the Best Western, which was more than we were willing to pay.  So, we did what we like to do best in a new city ... wander around.

Wandering the city...

The weather in this part of the world has been really strange.  It's been in the mid-60s (sometimes colder) and every couple hours a rain storm comes through, downpours, then the sun comes out again.  About an hour into our wandering, exactly that happened and we had to duck into a sidewalk cafe for a drink while the storm passed through.  We were looking forward to trying to Belgian beers, so I ordered a Leffe Blonde and Bryan ordered a Kriek.  I was also really hungry so I ordered a ham sandwich, mainly because the only word I knew in French on the menu was "jambon."  Unfortunately, they were out of ham and most other ingredients, so my only options were the "American Sandwich" or something else that I didn't know how to translate.  Our waitress suggested, in French, something about an American sandwich and I said, 'ok.'

I was really looking forward to having an American style sandwich, but when they brought it out, it was obvious that whoever put the menu together had never been to America and had no idea what an American sandwich should looking like.  It was basically a crusty hogie roll with a weird tomato paste scooped into the center.  There truly was nothing American about it.

Taking refuge from the rain at a sidewalk cafe

Kriek + Leffe + Peanuts = Yum!

The most un-American "American" sandwich.

3...2...1... Temper Tantrum!

It was really strange trying to communicate in a French speaking country after struggling so long to communicate in German.  French is a language that I know 13 words, total.  I can count to 10, say hello, goodbye and thank you.  Most of the time I forgot all 13 of those words and my communication was broken down to pointing and grunting, then saying "danke schon, I mean thank you, I mean ..... ummmmm ... merci!"  I'm pretty sure Bryan didn't even attempt to speak to anyone, as I did all the ordering and talking everywhere we went.

Dylan had his usual temper tantrum at the restaurant, so Bryan took him to a nearby park to let out some steam.  I drank both beers and ate my sandwich in peace, then joined the boys at the park.  We then made our way to the central part of town which was really cool.  Lots of sidewalk cafes, bars, shops and a  fair amount of Frites (French Fries / Pommes) stands.  It was around 6:30, so we got some fries and Dylan chowed down two foot-long curry wursts plus some fries during the hourly downpour of rain.  That's right - Dylan ate his age in curry wursts.

Dylan made two older kids sit down in the train while he "drove" it. 

The church in the town center.

Scooters...(Bryan's comment: What a random picture to add, Dear.) 

My free stylin' husband

Liege's cool town center...

One of the sights to see in Liege is this really long staircase that has over 400 steps and some historic significance of which I don't know (part of the drawback from free stylin' is that due to the lack of planning we have to read on Wikipedia the history behind all the cool sights that we see after returning home).  We couldn't decipher where on the map these famous steps were, but we found ourselves walking up a steep hill and thought surely this must run parallel to the steps and we'll be rewarded with a magnificent view of the city once we reach the top.  So higher and higher we went, taking turns pushing Dylan in his stroller up this crazy hill - even Oscar kept turning around to look back down the hill wondering where we were going.  Our effort didn't really pay off, except for burning a lot of calories from eating the fries, since there were some new construction homes blocking the perfect view.

Here we go up the hill...

Would have been a great view had it not been for those new homes!

And, back down the hill.

It was getting close to 9 pm, which was the time we agreed to leave and head back home, so down the hill we went and back to the car.  Poor Oscar passed our from exhaustion as soon as we got to the car, and was even so tired the next day that he didn't even ask to go for a walk until close to 11:00 a.m.  Dylan eventually fell asleep in the car as well, and we were home before midnight.

All said and done we spent about 60 Euros on gas and less than 20 Euros on food/fun while getting to see a new city and go to Belgium in the time it would take us to drive from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Detroit..  I would say it was a good day for free stylin' travel.

Also, Dylan saw this ad and insisted that it is a photo of his Mommy and Daddy. :)

Stupid Finger/ Stupid Bryan

My broken finger is feeling better these days, but it hasn’t without drama.

When I originally broke my finger in the first week of April, the Dr. put my finger in a soft cast and told me to come back in 10 days for a checkup.  In my cynical, American capitalist mind, I figured the Doctor wanted me to come back in 10 days so she could take a 30 second look at my cast, tell me to come back in two more weeks, so she could bill me and my insurance company for my extra visit.  At least that’s how it works in America.

So, for the next month, I decided to play Doctor myself.  The pain in my finger wasn’t going away, so I decided to forego the 10-day checkup and ended up coming back a month later, on my own prescribed timetable, when the pain in my finger still wasn’t subsiding.   When I finally saw the Doctor, she took off the cast and inquired why I wasn’t in two weeks earlier.

As I tried to answer her, I tried to move my finger.  I couldn’t move it!  I couldn’t move it at all!  Was it still broken?  What was happening?   I started to panic.

It was at this moment that the Doctor started to yell at me in German.  “This is really bad!  This is totally bad.  Why didn’t you come in earlier?”  She stormed out of the room leaving me alone with an immobile finger.

I sat in the room alone trying to move my finger.  It hurt now worse than even breaking it in the first place.   Would I ever be able to move it again?  Was it still broken?  Did it heal wrong?  I remember breaking into a huge sweat from both the pain and stress of thinking I was done playing basketball and would only have to live with this pain for the next 50 to 60 years of my life. 

After a couple of minutes of sitting alone, the Doctor and her assistant stormed back into the room.  She said that if I ever wanted to move my finger again that I would wrench on it every day until I got movement in it.  There is nothing more scary than, 1. Someone yelling at you in German 2. A Doctor telling you that you may not be able to ever move an important body part for the rest of your life. 3. Not knowing 100% if you are understanding what you are hearing correctly.

Any thoughts of not understanding what I was hearing became clear a couple of seconds later when the doctor grabbed my finger and began to push and pull on it to a point where I thought for sure that she was trying re-break my finger so we could start the healing process over again.  As tears swelled up in my eyes (I am almost 100% I swore at her) she finally relented, gave me some final yelling instructions ('Immer Bewegen' or in English, 'Always Moving') and stormed back out of the room, leaving her assistant standing there shrugging her shoulders at me.  She told me to come back in two weeks and that she 'hoped' I would be able to move my finger by then.

Technically, my finger wasn’t broken anymore, but, because I left my finger immobile in a cast for too long, my capsule became inactive and it needed to get reactivated.  For the next two weeks, I would have to push and pull on my finger until either a.) I couldn’t take any more pain and/or, b.) my finger would swell up too much and become too tender to touch.  The next day, the swelling would go down and I would repeat the process.

Exactly two weeks later, I was back in the Dr. office to show her my progress (I wasn't going to test her on the timetable again.  I am terrfied of the Doctor now).  I had regained about 90% mobility in my finger since I had seen her last.  She was really cold to me at first, but was really happy to see my progress.  I even thought that she might actually even care about my well being (I also learned that you don’t even need to pay a copay to come back for a re-visit, so it wasn’t a revenue making scheme in the first place.)  She shook my hand as she was leaving and told me that I could start playing basketball again.

Since then, I have regained a total of 95% of my total finger mobility, which is not perfect but a far cry from my time a month ago in the Doctor's office.  I have started to practice basketball, and my finger hasn’t given me any problems.  In fact, the extra time off helped my ankle recover more fully.  It’s nice to be healthy again (knocking on wood right now) and I can't wait for the new basketball season.