This Is Now

I am officially  no longer living in Germany as a tourist! I now have my work permit and visa so I can legally stay until June 2009.

On Monday night I joined an orchestra in Bad Honnef. There is a youth orchestra but I cannot be in it because of a schedule conflict, so I’m the only person without gray hair in the adult orchestra! However I don’t mind, its close to my house and meets once a week which works out well. The adults are very friendly and excited that I will be playing with them. We have a concert coming up in November so I have lots or catching up to do, but the music doesn’t seem over my head at all. It a great feeling to go in sit down and be able to sightread 90% of the rehursal. The fast movements were a bit difficult but after running through them myself I’m sure I’ll be fine.

On monday I got my vote on, and I must say I’m rather dissipointed. Drawing a line to complete an arrow certinaly was not as fullfilling as I had imagined it would be. I can see why so many people think there votes dont matter! Then it cost $6 to send it back to the US, I was not so pleased about that.

My German is improving greatly I can now comuincate 90% or the time with the boys in German. This is mostly due to the fact that everyday they do more or less the same things, so I have the basics down. And if I cant understand something they will attempt to show me what it is they want. Pablo is currently obsessed with sports and so I spend all my free time with him playing basketball, football (soccer), and countless other games involving balls and me losing. If Pablo loses at anything there is usually a sceen. We also play table footfall, football uno, and spend atleast 15 minutes everyday reviewing his collection of football payer cards. I’m becoming pretty formilliour with the German football team!

I’ve started cooking atleast one meal a day. which is great for me because I love to cook and great for crisitna because she hates it! I’ve had to get pretty creative because the kitchen is lacking most basic untencials. (measuring cups&spoons, rolling pin, pie pans etc)

RIght now I’m off to make lunch before the boys get home

and by ricemilch I mean rice pudding, which pablo and i love. cristina makes it every monday because its a long day for Pablo, he has school all morning and then spanish class in the afternoons.
There has been a stretch of amazing weather the last week! It only rained one day The leaves are turning golden and littering the ground. Frank and Cristina’s way of dealing with them is to mount the ridding mower-this has to happen every couple days! They do not own a rake.

On Thursday my friend, Emily who I lived with on ocean classroom, came to visit me from London. She stayed for the weekend, and it was a total blast. It was nice to see someone from home, we reminisced about the OC glory days and raved on about how much better Maine is than Europe. Having her here gave me a great excuse to do touristy things. I finally made it to the Beethoven house, (Emily also loves classical music so she was the perfect person to go with) and it was amazing! I was on a Beethoven high for the rest of the day. On Saturday we went into Köln, which I had never done during the day. We spent the morning touring the Dom (http://www.koelner-dom.de/) and the afternoon wandering the shopping district. She left on Sunday afternoon.

Last week I had my first cello lesson. it so nice to get back into the familiar settings of a lesson. My new teacher is like no cellist I have meet before, very into modern twists. I hope to be joining an orchestra within the next couple of weeks.

 I spend my freetime catching up on election news and laughing at Sarah Palin.

After only spending two nights in my own bed, I geared up to meet Franks parents. They live four hours away by car (not only was there a massive 40minute traffic jam, but I was smushed between two car seats.) in a village called Grömbach. Grömbach is tiny tiny tiny. There is one road into it, and one road out. Every other house had a tractor parked in the driveway. Most people had some sort of small farm in their backyards. The most prominent architectural structure in the village is a church with a steeple. Fields surround the village and around the fields lies the black Forest. On Saturday frank and I want on a run through the forest and it was really quite beautiful, not as black as its name implies. Franks parent live in a very nice cozy house. Decorations included lots of dried flowers, pumpkins, and a collection of Waldorf style dolls. I wanted to take a picture of them, but thought it might be questioned. However anyone who has ever been to ashwood knows what I’m talking about, the hand sown faceless dolls stuffed with wool. It was his mothers birthday so on Saturday lots of relatives came over for a large midday meal. After a beautiful walk through the neighboring fields we returned to the house ´for cake. And cake. and more cake. And a some coffee to wash the cake down. I was completely stuffed by the end of the afternoon! Today we drove back and spent the afternoon around the house.

Here is a link to some photos I took while In Spain, enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000930&l=185c9&id=1220670006

    True I myself am not a parent, so maybe its unfair to judge, but somethings parents due just don’t make sense! My biggest beef is with counting-what happens when you get to three? If you really want a child to do something, there should be no ‘three chances’ and then you take action. As a parent I believe you should be able to say ‘Stop that’ and your child should stop! Or it should be  ‘if you don’t stop now I will (whatever is is). By counting you are essentially saying its not important enough for you to take action. ‘One, Two….and’ ‘did you hear me?’ and then they start again, ‘One, Two’…rarely do parents seem to make it to three.

Then there are parents who don’t count (thank you  mom and dad!) but at some point lose control. I was talking to my mother and she was telling me she couldn’t do anything about my younger sisters actions. how is it impossible to control a 15 year old?!?! when did parents become so reluctant to punish there children!

Oh the frustration…