Adoption

Our family gets stared at a lot here.

I took for granted how common adoption is in the States. There, we get some curious looks, but here we get out and out stares from Germans. It starts from about 20 feet away when we are passing people on the street, and they lock in on us. When I look back, they're still staring at us...

Turks have an even stronger reaction. Today at lunch was a common. We were having lunch at a kebab restaurant (yummy!) and a Turkish family came and sat next to us. They stroked his hair and patted his cheek and made a general fuss over him. They look at me, questioning. I've learned to say, "He is adopted from Thailand" in German. "Ah, yes. Thailand." They say. The conversation stops, but the family kept looking at us as Micah manhandled his pasta into his mouth.
.http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1719148,00.html

Casualty of War

We had a lead on a house. Great location, space for guests, easy walk to the train. But the landlord is so against the Iraq war that he won't rent to anyone in the military. He looked at Lockheed Martin's web site and decided that Andy was too much the warrior.
Andy just chuckled at the thought that the man could have any idea what he did based on the LM web site.
I chuckled at the idea of Andy The Warrior. This is the man who did his first Masters thesis on using military technology for environmental protection.
(Joe K-- hint, don't try to rent this house)
The search continues...

A Short Trip Thru Smugtown

Today, our family was invited by one of my co-workers to a pumpkin carving party in late October. I was hesitent about whether to RSVP (hey, we have a busy social calender here at 5fordhams).

I was persuaded to commit when I learned that these co-workers live in the former hunting lodge of the king of Baden Wurttemberg. If the occasion warrents, we'll post photos here at the end of the month.

I also learned today that the village where we have been trying to rent a house celebrated it's 1,000 year anniversary this past summer. Alas, I think that our hotel room was constructed much more recently than that village.

400 square feet

(Micah is supposed to be resting, but he is a poor rester. Instead, we took a short walk to the Markzplatz. )

Micah's cold has called a halt from the frantic house/apartment search. We love our hotel, but living in 400 square feet has it's disadvantages. Here we present our kitchen (the frig is the right-hand side of the cabinet) and all of our living space. The loft upstairs holds another bed for us. Micah has a bed tucked under one of the windows upstairs as well.

This is a crazy housing market. It was tight a few months ago, then Uncle Sam relocated AfriCom (African Command) here and 4,000 employees just jumped on a full housing market. Apartments are here for one day and then gone.

It has started a whole debate within TeamFordham of just how picky we should be. We want: close to the school, close to the town center, playgrounds, space inside (including guest bedroom), space outside to park one car, European charm if we can fit it in.

If we can't get it all, what goes first? Or, since housing is tough, do you just take the first thing that comes so you can spend your time doing something other than house hunting?

The house hunting struggle is amplified by jargon. Intro to German doesn't cover rental language so we try to piece together what might be the words for "central air" warm-meter and cold-meter (rent with or without utilities included) when it might be available. Also, most rental sites list a house by zip code and won't include a specific address so you don't know exactly where it is.

It's a crack up to come home from the market and see what you thought you bought instead of crackers (anyone for Melba Toast?). It's not so fun to spend an hour trying to translate a real estate web site, contact an agent who speaks no English and then find out the apartment was rented that morning.

School

The kids started school last week.

When they say International school, they aren't kidding.

Tess (here with her teacher on her first morning) has made friends from Germany, South Africa, Australia and Finland from her class. There are kids from five continents and five different home languages. She's getting used to math in German (learning how to count in German helps) and German writing is tough for her, but she likes getting herself to school and all the activities therein.

Maddie, on the other hand...

This is the child who liked sleeping late and dancing around in her princess pajamas until preschool at 9:30. Every morning is a battle to get her out of bed, eating and out the door by 8 a.m. For her, the good news of school is the playground; the bad news: "I had to write A's today!"

Their kindergarten class is not as international. Just German, American and Indian. Their teacher is from southern India as well.

As for Micah, our roll-with-the-punches boy just keeps rolling. He likes school and seems to be having a good time. He likes the projects and classes, but his favorite part of the day is lunch. He is fascinated by German trucks.

Out and About

We've had a great few days in Sindelfingen. I had my first Monday without kids in almost nine years. I wandered through the old part of Sindelfingen--400 years old-- and learned the word for lunch. Transliteration Middle day eat. It took me a mere 10 minutes to order lunch as I didn't know the word for "savory" in German and wanted to make sure I wasn't getting a pastry for lunch. Sindelfingen was heavily bombed during the War. There is one part of the original village still standing. It's a beautiful part of the town with window boxes everywhere.

Sindelfingen used to be one of the wealthiest cities in Germany with the Daimler Corp. here. Thus the white marble crosswalks. Now it's not so good, though the corporation is still the economic heartbeat of the city.

I talked to a safety engineer at breakfast this morning. He works on different materials to make a car safer on impact. He gets to design cars and then smash them into walls: Micah's ultimate job. He said it was fun to smash things like Smart Cars. "But the Ferraris... oh, that hurts to see."

Here are the kids hanging out in Klostersee park. We go through the park on our mile walk home from school.

Better & Worse Part I

Part I of a (probably) continuing series.

Things that are better in Germany.

1) Cars. And by a mile. Same companies but many way cooler models that aren't spec'ed for sale in the states.
2) Ducks. Leaner, nicer but willing to work a little for that crust of bread. Much joy watching them sprint after bread crumbs on the pond.

Things that are worse.
1) Breakfast. No contest though the chocolate cereal has gotten lots of requests (all disapproved by mom so far).
2) Can openers. Come on, it shouldn't take 10 minutes and an engineering degree to figure out how to open a can of beans.

Things that are tied.
1) IKEA. It's exactly the same, really.