quick rundown

Was just realizing how little I've blogged lately! We've been busy and I've written so many posts in my head but somehow they just never make it Online. Here are a few brief notes to bring you up to date:

An American friend took us onto the military base last Wednesday to see "Where the Wild Things Are" at the theater there. It was a real American movie experience including salty buttered popcorn (rather than the nasty sweet stuff they serve in Europe) Twizzlers and Whoppers. Oh, yeah, and the film, which was also really enjoyable.

S and B went off to sit up front with the other kids and when they met up with us afterwards they handed us their boxes of half-eaten candy-- it had been too much, even for them!

M popped a handful of S's leftover Whoppers into his mouth and was chewing happily when S piped up:

"You know what?! When I opened those the bag ripped and they spilled all over the floor. So I picked them all up and put them back into the bag. But I must have picked up lost candy from other people as well, because some of them tasted a bit rotten!"

If only I'd had a camera to take a picture of M's face at that moment!

***

I went to the doctor on Thursday and got myself vaccinated for the seasonal flu and the swine flu. When I asked if that wasn't a lot for my body to handle at once I just got a sneer from the perpetually crabby nurse who then barked at me to roll up my sleeve.

My suspicions were confirmed: For two days now I've had fever, chills and muscle ache-- I feel like I've been through a couple of rounds with Kimbo Slice! If only I could still move my poor shot-weakened arm I would head down and shake that sadistic nurse until her teeth rattled!

***

Speaking of roughing up evil Germans, we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark today with the kids. I originally saw that movie as a 11-year-old Florida girl who had never been further than North Carolina. S and B, on the other hand, could actually follow the German dialogue between the Nazis. That, and thanks to their trip to Cairo last year they were able to pick out discrepancies in the Egyptian scenes. Like the fact that Indiana Jones didn't become incapacitated by diarrhea after eating those dates which you saw get rinsed off with tap water...

Man there's a lot of violence in that movie! And the drinking!!! Do you remember Marion doing shots and drinking that Nepalese guy under the table? Well, I didn't either, but it was in there and was completely inappropriate for a movie supposedly targeted at children. Made for a very interesting debriefing session at the lunch table afterwards!

***

Thursday the kids attended a workshop at the National Art Gallery (Staatsgalerie) in Stuttgart, where they were able to visit a temporary exhibition of Edward Burne Jones' works. There was an entire section devoted to Sleeping Beauty with the treacherous briar wood where brave young soldiers and tender damsels fell into an enchanted sleep.

After the tour the kids were taken back to a studio where they painted their own masterpieces depicting how they would have broken out of the briar bushes in the enchanted forest. S came back with a lovely painting of a suit of armor and a sharp sword. B's solution? A formula 1 Ferrari with a protective mesh around the cockpit...

***

S and B are also attending the Kinder Uni, a special set of lectures for kids in which different professors from the University of Stuttgart give talks about 4 different timely topics.

A couple of weeks ago they got to learn how emails travel from one computer to the other. In November they will see how sounds are transmitted to your radio. The kids all get to sit together in a real lecture hall at the university and the parents aren't even allowed inside-- we watched the proceedings on a video screen in another room! I don't know who enjoyed the whole experience more, me or the kids!

***

Tonight is Halloween and the kids both have plans to stay over at friends' houses! Oma and Opa are here and M and I are going to take them out to dinner.

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Before and After

Yeah. This was the picture I probably should have posted yesterday: S channeling his inner Calvin. (of Hobbes, not of the Protestant Reformation...)

He's 10!!!

S hit the double digits today! Funny, because in my mind I'm still about 35-- so somehow he's getting older but I'm not! Not a bad set-up if you ask me!

Entropy

Ugh. B came home from school with some kind of stomach virus today. He was genuinely sick when I picked him up, but since then he's regained some color in his cheeks, is talking nonstop and ate a whole bag of cookies while I was out running an errand. Somehow I think he's out of the woods. ;-)

The problem is that I'm starting to feel really crappy myself. We have houseguests coming in tomorrow and I'm completely overwhelmed by the preparation. After a full day of puttering around the house still looks like a bomb went off in it. This thanks mostly to one little "sick" person who is following me around scattering the products of his birthday origami set. Every time I get a surface cleared it magically fills back up again with gum wrappers and other flotsam. His teacher is (understandably) gun-shy with viruses and has expressly asked me to keep him home tomorrow...

Maybe I could send him over to your place tomorrow? He's very cute, can tell you a lot about aerodynamics and would be happy to cook you lunch! PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU....

He's just as shocked as I am!

My baby turns 8 today! How is this possible?!

Expat meme

Ian did this meme the other day and since I'm lacking inspiration this morning I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

How long have you lived away from your home country? 17 years! (With one three-year period in which we moved to Michigan with M's job. Which was a funny situation because we lived there as expats and as the wife of a foreigner I was eligible for language lessons and culture training!)

Do you still feel like you’re just visiting? No. In many ways I feel like a foreigner when I'm in the US.

What do you notice the most has changed about your home country when you go back for a visit? The rise in the obesity rate-- it's shocking!

If you were to move again, would it be back to your home country? I wouldn't rule it out, but it's certainly not a goal.

Do you ever get homesick? Not really. We moved around a lot when I was small, and my parents and brother have left Florida, so there's really no place that I can go back to. I miss my family, and Florida's weather, but don't really have a home to get homesick for.

If you read the news, do you read it in your native language or that of your host country? I read the news online in English but that's about it. I see everything else as an opportunity to strengthen language skills, so any kind of literature, magazines, newspapers, etc. I read in either German or Dutch.

What do you like the most about Germany? It's clean and orderly. There's a lot of consideration for the environment. Lots of open spaces and woodland where we live. Abundant farmers' markets and organic produce. I walk or bike almost everywhere-- it's a very green way of living!

What grates you the most? The school system is very frustrating. It's preposterous to think that you can decide at age 9 if a child is capable of studying at a university later on in life.

Did you speak the language of your host country before you arrived? Not at all.

How long did it take before you felt comfortable speaking the language? To be completely comfortable? 1 1/2 years, but I couldn't have done it without intensive language lessons at the Volkshochschule.

If people switch to English when you speak to them in their language, how do you react? I HATE it! It's hard not to take it personally-- people usually only do that when they want to show off that their English is better than my German. Luckily it rarely happens anymore, but when it does I just stubbornly continue to speak in German. I need the practice!

(This has made me a lot more sensitive to this issue, however, and when the shoe is on the other foot I try to be very respectful of people who are trying to practice their English.)

What has been the biggest change you’ve had to make in leaving your home country? Funny, there have been so many spread out over such a long period-- no single one sticks out. Maybe just learning new languages. I've picked up three so far and have no intention of stopping any time soon! :-)

If there were a button to improve anything about your expatriate life, what would it say on the button? "Cheap flights" It would be nice to visit my folks more often!

Need a laugh?

While we're on a Russian video jag I had to post this one as well. This has to be the worst cover ever made! I apologize in advance...

Tainted love: Soviet style!

Don't tell anyone, but I think I might like this version even better than the original!

(*Am I the only nerd who noticed that one of the guards is wearing a Russian army cap instead of a German one?)

Once for S and once for B and that was it...

A discussion with the kids yesterday evolved into a sex ed opportunity.

How can those two people have had sex? They're too young to have kids!

Well, you're right. Pregnancy can only happen if you've had sexual contact, but not all sexual contact results in pregnancy. Women are only fertile a couple of days per month and there are things you can do to keep from making your partner pregnant. And thank goodness, because otherwise you'd probably end up with thousands of children!

WHAT?! THOUSANDS?! Am I going to be having sex that often?

*groaning inwardly*
Well, not anytime in the near future, I hope. But between two people who love each other sex is a wonderful thing, and someday you will probably be having it regularly.

OK. I think-- hey. wait a minute! Does that mean that you and Daddy have had sex more than twice?!

Photo update

Here is a bunch of photos that I took last week.

Customized souvenir brought back from Italy	Self portrait taken while riding a bicycle
As long as they don't blind someone with that umbrella S and cousin S are ready for any kind of weather!	This was the pictogram for the women's restroom at the campground. ???

The fastest person on the whole world! [sic]

My speedy little Dutch boy in his pajamas and crocs on the campground...

(S and B made and edited this themselves using S's mobile phone.)

16:Moments

Hi! We're back and are caught up in the maelstrom that is the first week of school. So far, so good, but I'm having a pretty hard time adjusting to the early-morning regimen...

Schmutzie linked to this video clip and I just can't get enough of it. It's simple, elegant, and manages to make me cry every single time I watch it for some reason... (Be sure to click on "Full Screen" for maximum tear-jerker effect!)

On the road again!

We're rounding out Travelpalooza this summer with a week-long camping trip in Holland with M's parents. Am packing the camper for the last time and it's bittersweet! We've had such a great summer and in some ways it's hard to see it winding down!

The boys go back to school on the 14th and are not sure what to think about that. It's probably a good thing that we'll be away next week so that they'll be distracted and have less time to get nervous.

See you when we get back!

The high price of cheap food

Schmutzie posted a link to this article and I read it with horrified fascination. The statistics, while not surprising, are scary and eye-opening. (and hopeless. unless something changes soon we're going to eat ourselves out of house and home...)

Here are some of the more titillating statistics, but the title links to the whole article for those of you like me who wanted to know more...

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Those hidden prices are the creeping erosion of our fertile farmland, cages for egg-laying chickens so packed that the birds can't even raise their wings and the scary rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among farm animals. Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming — our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

Despite increasing public awareness, sustainable agriculture, while the fastest-growing sector of the food industry, remains a tiny enterprise: according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), less than 1% of American cropland is farmed organically.
As the developing world grows richer, hundreds of millions of people will want to shift to the same calorie-heavy, protein-rich diet that has made Americans so unhealthy — demand for meat and poultry worldwide is set to rise 25% by 2015 — but the earth can no longer deliver.

According to the USDA, Americans spend less than 10% of their incomes on food, down from 18% in 1966.

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit.

With the backing of the government, farmers are producing more calories — some 500 more per person per day since the 1970s — but too many are unhealthy calories. Given that, it's no surprise we're so fat; it simply costs too much to be thin.

American farmers now produce an astounding 153 bu. of corn per acre, up from 118 as recently as 1990. But the quantity of that fertilizer is flat-out scary: more than 10 million tons for corn alone — and nearly 23 million for all crops.

When runoff from the fields of the Midwest reaches the Gulf of Mexico, it contributes to what's known as a dead zone, a seasonal, approximately 6,000-sq.-mi. area that has almost no oxygen and therefore almost no sea life. Because of the dead zone, the $2.8 billion Gulf of Mexico fishing industry loses 212,000 metric tons of seafood a year, and around the world, there are nearly 400 similar dead zones. Even as we produce more high-fat, high-calorie foods, we destroy one of our leanest and healthiest sources of protein.

The UCS estimates that about 70% of antimicrobial drugs used in America are given not to people but to animals, which means we're breeding more of those deadly organisms every day.
Since 1935, consolidation and industrialization have seen the number of U.S. farms decline from 6.8 million to fewer than 2 million — with the average farmer now feeding 129 Americans, compared with 19 people in 1940.

The USDA estimates that Americans throw out 14% of the food we buy, which means that much of our record-breaking harvests ends up in the garbage.

Sofia wrap-up

I'm back home, tired, but very happy.

The concert was a lot of fun. The sets were extravagant and she'd mixed a lot of her songs together in a really interesting way with a great mix of old and new. The stadium was full-to-overflowing. (I just saw in a Bulgarian newspaper that there were more than 50,000 people in attendance!) We had tickets out on the field, which turned out to be fun, because everyone was dancing and singing along.

The one complaint I have is that the show started 2+ hours too late! The audience remained remarkably cheerful and well behaved, however, true to my other impressions of the Bulgarian people over the weekend. During the entire evening I think I saw only three people who were visibly intoxicated, and everyone around us was friendly and relaxed!

When I mentioned this to Lyudmil, the owner of our B&B, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said wryly: "We are used to waiting..."

I just can't say enough about how friendly everyone was this weekend. For some reason I'd expected them to be gruff and distant, and I hate to say it, but more like the Russians. (Who can be very friendly if you get to know them, but who are very rude to strangers.) But people in Sofia consistently went out of their way to make us feel welcome! For example, L and I took some pictures of these guards in front of the President's residence. When turned around to leave when a woman suddenly came up to us, tapped L on the shoulder and said: "Wait, you're about to miss something great!" We walked back and got to see the changing of the guard, which was really impressive!

The city is full of green spaces, and the park in front of the national theater has a whole row of stone tables with chessboards on them. At any given moment most of them were manned, and there were small clusters of onlookers crowded around to watch the games.

L and I stopped to watch and one guy sitting at a table on his own kept urging us to play. Suspecting some sort of trap we turned him down a couple of times and he said: "No money! Just play!" So eventually L gave in and sat down and played with him. One of his friends smiled and boomed: "Welcome to open air chess club!" We ended up spending the better part of an hour just enjoying the relaxed, easy demeanor of these guys hanging around in the park!

In fact, we had such a nice time, that as we were leaving L turned to me and said: "You know, I owe you an apology. Yesterday when you texted me and said how lovely the city is and how nice the people are I didn't really believe you. Thought you were gushing, or just plain insane! But you were right, this place is fantastic!"

Another impression: The main streets in the administrative center of Sofia are paved with yellow cobblestones, which were a gift from Austria back at the end of the 19th century. It lends the whole area a warm, friendly feel. This morning I've searched the Internet to see if there was some sort of connection between these yellow bricks and the ones of Oz fame. Can't find anything, but can testify that these are definitely NOT in Kansas...

Another fascinating footnote: There's a residence hotel that's been built in the center of the city at the site where a 3rd century Roman amphitheater used to be. But instead of just building on top of it they've actually incorporated the ruins into the architecture of the building so that it's part of the lobby and decor. It was very elegant and lent the whole atmosphere a very sophisticated feel.

Oh, and the food was surprisingly delicious! I'd been expecting beige Russian-style mystery meats and simple carbs. Instead we got to sample a wide variety of salads and colorful dishes that satisfied even my picky vegetarian palate. And it was so incredibly cheap! We would eat these spreads of really delicious food and even with drinks and then coffee afterwards it rarely came to more than EUR12 for two people!!!

I guess it's time to stop gushing and close this. Of course we also saw our share of decaying courtyards, crazy electrical wiring, stray animals and a handful of homeless people, but on the balance my impressions of Sofia were overwhelmingly positive. It's beautiful, friendly, affordable and unpretentious. Really my kind of city!

I'll leave you with a few more pictures...

I heart Sofia!

Sofia is absolutely lovely! I am completely floored! (Seems this is the second time I've been surpised by a city in the last couple of weeks. Maybe I need to review my preconceived notions?)

Yesterday I got in at about lunchtime and spent the afternoon exploring. I'd forgotten how easy it is to sightsee sans enfants and managed to see almost all the major sights, including the Church of St. George, St. Sofia, and the Russian church.

Spent some time at the National Archeological Museum and admired its impressive collection of Roman (what else?!), Greek, and Thracian artifacts. They had some incredibly well-preserved helmets and armor from the 6th century BC, household utensils, jewelry, clothing, books-- it was fascinating!

My favorite piece was a bronze bust. Apparently no one can agree if it was the rendering of a philosopher or a homeless crazy person. It was lifesize and the eyes were made out of alabaster and glass paste in three different colors so that they were very lifelike, perfectly detailed even down to the eyelashes and the tearducts-- it really looked alive!

After that I walked down to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. I've been in a loooooooooooot of cathedrals over the years. Some of them were more beautiful, some of them were larger, most of them older, but I've never, ever experienced anything like this one. It was so atmospheric and subtly beautiful! I felt the presence of God in there. I'm not sure if I even believe in God, but I was so moved that I sat on a bench for a half hour soaking in the atmosphere with tears streaming down my face and dripping off onto my blouse.

I think that the main thing that's surprised me about Sofia is how lively it is. The streets are absolutely teeming with people! Even as I was walking back home at 8 pm the parks were full of people out enjoying the good weather. And when I say full, I mean jam packed-- the park benches were all occupied, and there were children running around everywhere! In one park I passed at least 5 different groups of people crowded around chess games.

I don't know why, but I came to Sofia expecting gray buildings and decaying Soviet drudgery. And perhaps that's the case in the outskirts of the city, but the center is colorful and lively. And the main difference I've noticed is that people are smiling and friendly. Even the guy who caught me surreptitiously taking pictures in the museum was nice! And when a cleaning lady caught me in a wing of a church where I didn't belong she shooed me back with a smile and a pat on the back.

The family that runs Casa Ferrari, my bed and breakfast is wonderful. Friendly, open, and very proud of their city and heritage. Yesterday evening I caught a ride with the owner out to the airport to pick up my friend. Her flight was delayed about an hour, and to kill time Lyudmil took me on a drive to see the sights that are not necessarily in the tourist booklets.

Because he knows I'm interested in Sofia's Soviet past he drove me out to a neighborhood populated with towering concrete soviet-style apartment buildings and showed me the central heating system, where gas supplied by Russia is transformed into steam and piped out to heat the city. As we were driving back he asked me wryly: "And? Did this remind you of Russia?" and I had to tell him that it didn't. Not at all! The main street was in a good state, the cars parked along it were relatively new and clean. There was no garbage littering the street, no hopeless air hanging over the place. (Of course I only viewed these things at night through the window of a speeding car, but even at night it's hard to ignore the depressing atmosphere emanating from run-down Soviet-block neighborhoods in Russia...)

I guess I'll close this long travelogue for now. Am happy to see my friend and we've got the whole day to hang out and then the concert this evening, so I'll be posting again soon...

Ve vill rrrock you!

I'm going to pop on over to Bulgaria this weekend.

No, seriously! I'm actually not kidding. A friend and I will be spending the weekend exploring this enigmatic city and will see this controversial pop star whip a staunchly Catholic country into a frenzy.

I'm such a sucker for contrasts, and I can't imagine a bigger one than this trip. Am really looking forward to entering the Twilight Zone!

More photos

Goofball will probably be relieved to see that I've removed the Wikimedia photos and have uploaded my own pictures into my vacation posts. Here are a few more that didn't fit in with the posts, but which I wanted to post anyway.

Why is there an enormous spider on this sex shop?!	Why on earth, in a country overflowing with delicious ripe peaches would you advertise a dessert with the can in the picture?!

And finally, here's a mosaic I made with a fun tool from Big Huge Labs...

Pulling up stakes

Yesterday we spent the day in Venice, and I'm probably the only visitor on earth who was actually surprised at how lovely it is!

I spent a blurry evening there 23 years ago at the tail end of a blowout European tour. It was the umpteenth stop in ten days and we'd already seen so much that I think my brain's memory card was full. We gobbled down pizza, sat in a gondola and then got herded back onto the tour bus. I was so tired and overstimulated that I didn't realize just how spectacular a city it is!

John Berendt wrote that he used to have "random photo days" in which he wandered around and took pictures at random moments, just to see if he could find a single corner in Venice that is not photogenic. (he never did.)

We were completely and utterly charmed by the city despite the heat and the hoards of tourists. Even S and B enjoyed sightseeing, and that's saying a lot considering how we've kind of pushed our limits with them lately with city tours.

M and I really enjoyed seeing the Fenice, Palazzo Barbaro and other sights mentioned in "City of Falling Angels".

The kids spent about an hour feeding pigeons on St. Mark's square and B even coaxed one to sit on his head.

We ate an excellent lunch at VinoVino-- B, being the ever-curious epicurean, ordered polenta and cuttlefish in ink sauce and I enjoyed an exquisite Venetian risotto.

Later we found a little alleyway named after M, which was very funny considering his name is never heard outside of Holland.

D was really suffering in the heat, so every hour or so we would toss her into a canal. This turned out to be doubly useful-- she'd rolled in something unmentionable before we left because she smelled HORRENDOUS! It was really embarrassing-- people would come up to pet her and then would stop a couple of feet away with their smiles frozen on their faces. The canal water cooled her off and thankfully, over time it even neutralized the stench.

Once we'd seen the manditory sights we explored picturesque sidestreets and alleyways. And at the end of the day we took a vaporetto along the Grand Canal from Plaza Roma down to St. Marks.

What a fantastic experience!

Our vacation is drawing quickly to a close. Today we visited a local winery and tasted wines and olive oil. I came out feeling a bit blurry around the edges-- must have been the oil...

We swam for one last time in the lake and I took D for one last hike up the cliff at the shore near our campsite.

Tomorrow we'll pull up stakes and head for home. Although it will be nice to sleep in our own beds again we've all said that we could easily stay another week-- this has been a really great vacation!

Vacation update III

Aida was a wonderful, absolutely amazing experience. I was kind of worried at first-- when we got to Verona it was 38 degrees C! But then the music started, and we forgot the heat and got sucked into the magic of the performance. All in all it lasted more than 3 hours-- the kids were tired, but they still enjoyed it, especially B.

This morning he confided that someone in his class once told him that his parents had forced him to sit through an opera, but that he didn't feel like we'd forced him at all yesterday because he'd really enjoyed it. Sounds good to me...

We're hanging out at the campsite today, swimming, reading and hanging out under our handy shade tree. Tomorrow we're headed to Venice.

I think it's time to close this down now. A big snail just fell onto my head from out of our handy-dandy-shade tree! ???!!! Watch out for flying kamikaze gastropods!