As we sat at the table after supper last Samstag (27 Juli),
Ines and I made a plan for the week. Little did I realize that our plan meant
that every day was there not only something going on, but every day we were
going somewhere! (minus Sonstag) I mean when you have two little kids around,
there is never a dull moment, but going places with little kids is also
tiring-but oh so much fun! Probably one of the best things to do is getting to
hang out with the kids at various places. Now we also spend time at home
playing games, and that is just as fun or entertaining at times-especially if
you were to see my room currently-it has become a mixture of my room and a
playroom! As I was told this evening-“is your room for a 2-4 year old or a
24/25 year old? I’m not sure I can tell”-well I’m not sure that I can either!
Here is a summary of the week: Birthday Party, Labrynth Maize, Swimming,
Errands, Party, Hamburg, Errands-walking, practicing clarinet/my room becomes a
play room (I couldn’t walk around my room by Friday evening), band practice,
and nine pin activities! 
So on Sunday-we actually stayed at the house since it was
the birthday party for the entire family. (I think I mentioned this before.)
The Heinemann’s invited a few families over and to start with we were all
around the playground and the slackline. As the day continued, everyone mainly
sat around the table talking or out near the playground/slack line. And yes I
have tried the slack line and successfully walked across, now the next
challenge would be to walk across a slack line placed higher off the
ground-maybe I will have to take Kai’s advice and buy my own slack line when I
return to the USA. Ha.
Montag-here is when we started going places. In the morning,
shortly after breakfast, we packed up the car, drove to Talina’s friend’s house
to pick up her friend, and then drove to the corn maze-or as it is called
here-Labrynth Maizfeld. I think this may have been one of my favorite days of the
week! It took Hannah a little bit to warm up to me, but very quickly, we were
going through the maze, the girls trying to scare me, or I them, or me tickling
them, or them pushing me, and of course throughout searching for the next
station. Of course when I followed the girls, I would ask “rechts oder links?”
(right or left?) And then I felt like Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz when Dorothy
is standing on the yellow brick road and he points right, left, and then
crosses his arms. (And yes I actually did the actions a few times in the corn
field). So I may not be the biggest fan of Wizard of Oz, but it seems that you
may take a girl out of Kansas, but Kansas travels with her. 
Donnerstag-Hamburg with Hanna (another IFYE) and friends. We
were shown around Hamburg by one of the girls who goes to school there. We went
to the Harbor, walked around the Reeperbahn where we found the “Monument to the
Fab Four”-which is for the Beatles, and the street is named “Beatles Platz”. While
walking through Hamburg made for a very long day, I did see various sections of
Hamburg-a few that would not be seen if I was only being a tourist. And my only
summary of the day has been: Hamburg is a city and with that comes everything
that makes a city. BUT-there are many cool things about Hamburg as well,
including street artists-I even purchased my own piece of art that I watched be
made and will bring home to put in my house somewhere! 
On Freitag afternoon, I got out my clarinet to play and be
warmed up for the band rehearsal that night. I ended up giving a private
concert to Talina, Bjarne, and Ines. We took a break for cake, and then Talina
decided that I must play some more, while in my room she created a space just
to play-only problem-it was very hard to get in and out of my room! That
evening I went to a band rehearsal for
the Klosterblatach band. They are performing in a Schutzenfest on Somstag un
Montag. It was fun to play with an ensemble, although this ensemble is a
smaller ensemble, but to get to play again is always fun for me.
Samstag: Nine Pin-a different kind of bowling-except not
really. So I learned what the game Nine Pin is all about. It is very similar to
bowling in that you are using a ball and an alley in order to knock down
pins-but it is different. The lane has a dip in the center, the ball is much
smaller, and the ball should start from one side, roll to the other, and back
to the other and hit off center. It is actually kinda fun to play. On Samstag
though there was a Nine Pin Session for students on holiday (summer vacation).
I am not actually sure how many students there were, but they were all split
into five groups. There were several different games that you played ranging
from regular, to only odd numbers count, and others. My job varied throughout
the day-sometimes it was taking action photos, later it was checking/doing math
(which is not my forte, and with lots of students staring over your shoulder
waiting for their score it is somewhat nervewracking!), ball retriever, and
finally a player. After the competition was done, we played two different games
with the jr. high group! I really enjoyed the two games, and hopefully I can
bring the one that was new to me back and we can play it while bowling! One of
the boys in the group even came up and spoke a little English to me since he is
learning English at school! I love it when the younger kids will try and speak
English with me to check their knowledge-it’s so fun! At the end of the day, I
now know what Nine Pin is, I enjoy it and although I should probably stick to
bowling since I can’t break those habits, I think Nine Pin is a great game and
one I would enjoy playing again!
*And for all you Dutch Blitz players out there-I finally
figured out what game it is in Germany! Remember me writing of learning Wurfel
Ligretto? Well there was a card game before dice, and I now have my own game (
a gift from the Heinemann’s) but in looking at the directions I realized this
is dutch blitz!!! How cool is that!
*This week I learned how to make Rouladen and Kartoffeln
Knodel! Ines taught me how to make the Rouladen and helped me with the dough
for the Knodels, but then both Ines and Kai had to go upstairs and get the
kids ready and in bed. So I was left on my own to Finish. I was able to figure
out how to shape the Knodel and then get everything else ready for supper-and
although I was nervous, everything turned out pretty good and tasted amazing! 
No comments:
Post a Comment