Quote of the Day

Took MAA in to the local beauty shop for a trim. He is used to the barber at the base. Instead, he was greeted by a young woman with hot pink hair, yellow, glittery fingernails and green lips. She smiled sweetly through the face piercings and told him to take a seat. He looked thoughtful for a moment and said, "I don't think I want that haircut."

May

She who is delinquent with her blogging is here to catch up.

Mom and Tracy bravely spent two weeks with their youngest grandchildren and did not once try to skive out of the visit by saying that they forgot to turn the coffee pot off and needed to fly home immediately. We had a wonderful weekend in Munich and got to see what German's call the fairy-tale castle, Neuschwanstein. It is indeed something to revel to see. We did the full bit: carriage ride up the mountain to the ridge and a short walk to the castle. We were there on May Day weekend (FYI: May Day is a national holiday in Germany but I think the reason is that they hadn't had a national holiday since the previous weekend and they go a bit off if they have to work 20 full days in a month.)

The castle has an efficient system for moving the 1.3 million annual visitors a year through the relatively few furnished rooms. I have greater empathy with a beer going through a bottling factory. It would have been a little easier if they had dropped us into six-packs and zoomed us through on rails, but that would have damaged the authenticity of the building. So this was the next best thing. 

We bought our tickets in advance, got our number, passed through two turnstiles which divided us into groups and then were lined up in shoots, about 40 at a time, that were sorted by tour language and off we went. Worth it. The place is amazing.

It took years just to do the wood carving on the inside of Ludwig's bedroom. The top of his bed is covered with small carved models of gothic church spires of Europe.

On the way back to Munich we stopped at Tegelburg. It has a gondola that takes you about 5,000 feet up the Alps. On beautiful days, which this was, hang gliders and para sailers take off every few minutes and land at the bottom of the park. For us, there was a luge on a track that we went down. Micah took a pass, but the rest of us,  Matcy and Granddad included, took a ride. MM begged for more speed.

Sunday was downtown Munich, a stunning city with parks and ancient buildings. Lunch at the Hofbrauhaus. It was the first time the kids had seen a German oompa band. Most of the people were tourists like us. But it was fun to see Real Germans there. Older people still put on traditional German dress and stroll the Platz on Sundays. At the Hofbrauhaus there are a few walls of stein holders for the personal beer glasses of the regulars. Special to see a man in a Bavarian suit and hat take his stein to the massive copper sink, wash his glass and lock it back in the massive metal rack. 

Maddie's New Trick

So Maddie (age 6) can do a nearly perfect back dive off the side of the pool. It's quite impressive for a little kid. She was practicing it at the pool and the Germans were all watching her.

Honesty compels me to add that she won't do a front dive. We've considered trying to motivate her by telling her that front dives are much easier. We're all afraid to do that. In the right hands, such knowledge might be inspirational. However, this is Maddie were talking about--sensible and reasonable plans flee when placed before her.

My homework assignment is to post video. That'll have to wait until I return from my business trip next week.

Tess's German is coming along nicely... she's starting to correct me. How did that happen.

Quotes of the Day

"Daddy, you're a superhero."

-- Micah

"Daddy, I think the tooth-fairy is actually mommy."

-- Maddie

I'm back from a month of working away and will be catching up on my e-mail (this means you Brad.)

Updates, various

Visitor Update: Matcy and Granddad are here! We drove to Strasbourg to pick them up. They had flown into Paris, visited with family friends and then taken the train south. We are having a great visit. I got to show off Sindelfingen in bloom. Matcy has taken up knitting so we've been to the knit shop a few times picking out wool and trying to learn new techniques. The woman at the knit shop is eager to help. She is probably in her late 80s and has forgotten more than I could ever learn of the art. She patiently explains in rapid German with vocabulary I've never heard (anybody know the German for "cast off a thread then pearl one").  She then looks to me to translate. I tell Mom, "she said the word 'left,' and 'once' and something about 'needle'. Mom smiles broadly and "Yes, I see. Thank you!" She'll return with her knitting supplies and watch where she can copy. TG has taken up learning (a friend in Pennsylvania had started to teach her last fall) and the two of them sat on the sofa last night working on scarves.

Tracy toured the Mercedes plant yesterday. We'll go to Rothenburg for a daytrip, then Munich and Schlossneuschwanstein this weekend.

Spring update: We are on to tulips, pansies, flowering trees, quince, grape hyacinth. But the landscape is mainly blooming lambs. White, puffy, bleating lambs skipping after ewes have cropped up throughout the fields.

MAA update: he has discovered the hilarity of voluntary burping. 

MM Update: still climbing her twin peaks of learning to read and ride a bike (but not at the same time). She was promoted up a lane in the swim club!

TG Update: daily scootering and rollerblading with a neighbor friend. They are discovering all kinds of new paths and trails through the neighborhood.

Quote of the Day

Piper: "Maddie, exactly how much candy were you hoping to get for Easter?"

Maddie: "um... infinity?"

Sigh. It was only 3 short years ago that Maddie thought 7 was the biggest number ever.

My blogging is going to be light this month. I'm working all month in Wiesbaden (no access to e-mail) with only weekends at home.

Spring!

Spring arrived at 11 a.m. last Thursday. I happened to be outside at that moment. The flat gray cloud ceiling that covered us since February rolled back, as if a celestial push-broom had moved across the sky.

Warmth and light flooded the air.

Neighbors were ready for the change. By 6 that evening, gardens were bustling as if they had bloomed gardeners during the afternoon. Everyone was out with mulch, shovels and flats of plants to go in the ground.

During the next few days, crocus jumped out of the ground and forsythia, which had looked a little scraggly on Wednesday, were in full bloom by Saturday.
For those who remember the view out our window in the snow, here is the same tree prepping for green.

Now instead of stopping at the park for a few frozen moments before the sun set at 4:30, we are out at the park in the 65- to 70-degree afernoons until well after our usual bedtimes. M and MM have returned to previous loves of digging and swinging, their fiercest summer devotions.

We spent the first day of Easter holidays at one of the biggest city parks I've ever seen. It's Stuttgart's version of Central Park: on a ridge overlooking the city (historical tangent: Stuttgart is in a valley, a hard-to-defend position. I have asked several people from random residents to castle guides why a fortress was built in a valley. Most of the responses have been blank looks. My favorite so far is that there were other defensive castle to protect the city, but the castles named were over 30 kilometers away. If anyone knows please share. If I find out, I'll tell you)

Back to the park.

It has terraced gardens, huge soccer fields, ponds, fountains, giant playscapes, a small-scale coal train that takes you in a big circle around the park, a miniscule fair with two rides and a popcorn stand, a tower-ish thing in the shape of a christmas tree with spiral stairs going up. The reward for going up five long flights is a view of the city that is amazing.

The flowers there are just starting to bloom bringing waves of color into the sculpted flower beds.

Last weekend, it was to the Junges Ensemble Stuttgart for a kinder jazz concert. Four musicians (one plays with the Berlin philharmonic, one is a teacher at the local conservatory) get together once a month for a kids jazz concert. They write many of their songs and get everyone involved clapping and singing. It was our first time there, so it felt like being newbies at a Great Big Sea concert.

Now it's an easy Saturday of Easter egg dying and roller blading/bike riding.

Then next week, it is to Strasbourg to get Matcy and Granddad. Hooray!