Some happenings

Phil Doolittle from the UOR campus was here this week to help the transition process along.  Great to have him here, and we think we’re positioned for a productive but probably a little crazy final week of transition work with Jim and Eva.  We have to-do lists, our assistant Kevin has one, and they should have them too.  So this week will be spent checking things off lists in the hopes of giving us what we need to make it through the term with minimal bumps.  Bumps will come, we know, but we’d like smaller ones.

While we’ve been learning, Teo and Mara have gone feral.  We have a new babysitter, Anjieska, who was a German classmate of ours.  She’s very nice, but speaks no English.  So, we and the kids communicate with her in German.  That doesn’t always work.  Dictionaries are located in each room now, and it turns out that Teo is already translating for Mara and occasionally correcting my German.  Impressive, and insulting, but whatever… we’ll get over it.  Soon we’ll have him negotiating with our employees on our behalf.  Anyway, Anjieska doesn’t play by the same disciplinary handbook we do, so the kids aren’t cleaning up after their activities, aren’t always listening, etc.  And they seem to get really dirty, but we’re not sure how.  We are anxious for Montessori in Salzburg to begin in September, and can only hope that evenings and weekends with us can make up for the mornings with her.  We’d like Kasia back, but she selfishly says that her law school future is more important.    

We’re having a wonderful time getting to know the instructors for the program, Kevin, our program assistant, and also the friends we’ve met here in Salzburg.  Today we went with Brooke/Nathan and family on a beautiful walk in a forest/to a waterfall about a half-hour from Salzburg.  Picnic lunches, a beer break before a pit stop (into a toilet that emptied directly into the river), a park with a great zipcord nearby.  What more could we ask for?  It looks like I’ll be doing a bike ride to Linz with Nathan and some of his friends for a couple of days later this month.  Great!  And a good reason to finally go and buy that bike!  

That was today.  Yesterday, just the family went to explore the Festung, the beautiful fortress on the photo of our blog.  It looks over al Salzburg, and we and the kids had wonderful time seeing the whole areas from on high (our second time this week, since Father Schwarzfischer had invited us over to the monastery while Phil was here).  There were also cannons, instruments of torture, ancient toilets, princess furniture, and everything else a child or adult could want.    

Best to All,

Steve

Can't seem to easily/conveniently get photos into this blog, but I (Kim) can get them easily into picasa photos: 

Travelogues

My friend Diana told me last week that my blog entries did not all have to be masterpieces.  So, I'm going to work from that!  She wants to know about our normal life, and maybe some amusing tidbits.  She said that perhaps not everyone would be endeared by stories of the amazing dinner we had in France two weekends ago....  You can go to the restaurant too, its in Zimmersheim, a non-descript town outside of Basel.  But the food was gorgeous!  I won't tell you about it.

We have been traveling a lot on the weekends: 1.  St. Gilgan am Wolfgangesee (Lake Wolfgang), 2.  Hallstatt, 3.  Basel, Switzerland, 4.  Murnau, Germany, 5.  Strobl am Wolfgangesee.  This will come to an end soon, but its been nice to explore the immediate surroundings some (granted that Basel is not close). 

But, the bigger news, as Steve alluded, is that we are finally into our apartment.  This has helped a lot!  The dorm room with bunk beds got old really really fast, and a whole month nearly pushed us over the edge.  Steve told me the other day that I needed to be happier.  This has helped :-)  It has also helped the kids, who still fight a lot with each other (and more than "normal), but they have a great new room.

Making a 2 bedroom apartment

Kevin and Eva's handiwork

I'll take some pictures of the kid's room tomorrow, and throw in some of the kitchen and living room.  We've spent some time rearranging furniture, and its beginning to feel like somewhere we live.

We went scootering this morning around the hill too.  Normal life.  Tomorrow a new babysitter arrives.  Since she doesn't speak English...

What else structures our quotodian lives -- mosquitos, rain, snack.  We're finding the real supermarkets!  That's been great.  We are better fed again, although still not on Sundays.

Wolves and other such things

We don't have any wolves on the Mönchsberg.  Cattle yes, and slugs galore, to the kids' glee and Kim's dismay.  But no wolves.  That said, we've been hearing a lot about them this week.  

Kim and the kids went to the Salzburg public library this week with our new friend Kirstin and her kids Lena and Florian.  Kirstin has been wonderful in introducing us to the town from a local's perpsective, and also has helped us settle into the community of the kids' new school, Das Kreativ Kind (where Kim did some service work yesterday and met some other parents).  Teo, Mara and Kim came home from the library with viele viele books, a couple of videos, and, very exciting, library cards for everyone!  White Fang was among them - the kids' version, but the establishment of the pecking order of the wolf pack is, well, not terribly sanitized.  It also came with an audio version, which Teo is listening to now as I write.  Just a precursor to video games where he shoots to kill.

Other wolves: Mara is having nightmares.  Last week, several times, she awoke in the night scared of the wolf that was in their bedroom.  As you know, you can't just tell a kid it's not there.  So we did our best to figure out how to help her.  Solution: Mara is now a big bear, a good big bear.  Apparently bear trumps wolf.  Good to know.

We're involved in a wolfpack of our own here, but are managing to learn our new job responsibilities and get along with our staff, meet new friends and colleagues, and speak some Deutsch too.  German class ended yesterday – a great month, and we’re both happy with our progress.  We’re also happy that Anieska, our Slovak university-student classmate, was planning to be in Salzburg in August working, but has time to babysit for us every morning in August! 

At long last, we are moving into our apartment!  It’s not quite photo-ready yet – you’ve all seen apartments with boxes everywhere, piles of luggage, and the like.  Despite all that, we’re thrilled to have our own kitchen, our own refrigerator, and, mostly, to be sleeping and living on a single, lower floor of the Marketenderschossl.  We’ll have to find a way to fit exercise into our schedule now that we’re not trekking up 56 steps every time we need something.

Bikes will help that.  Today we bought new-used bikes for the kids.  A red one for Teo and a little tiger cruiser for Mara.  Photos of bloodied knees also forthcoming…! 

UPDATE: It’s been a day because I didn’t want to post without photos (which Kim has on her computer).  Struggling for a wolf-thing for continuity’s sake….

Today was a long but good day – off to southern Germany to reconnect with Steve’s friend Gretchen Vogel, from Ames, who now lives in Berlin.  A great but quick visit – cold lake, ice cream, park, and buttered pretzels.  Problem was it’s August 1: everyone in Europe is going to Italy and Croatia on holiday, and our road is the road that will take them there.  Traffic was killer.  Made LA look nice.  I’m sure there’s a wolf allusion in there somewhere. 

The Cross Cultural Experience

I've been to Europe many times, but each time, I'm reminded that cross-cultural experiences never end, even when you "know" the place you're going.  Yesterday we drove to Hallstatt, a pretty town, not too far from Salzburg, but not terribly close either.  Its in the lake district and so we knew we'd have to drive on mountain roads and that it would a while to get there.  We got to drive through a lot of small, charming villages and towns on the way.  We got to drive right through these many towns, not around them, not on an ugly bypass or on the gas station/fast food drag, but straight through the middle of the town center, at 2 miles an hour.  This is charming, and a welcome reminder that roads, towns and villages are organized differently here.  And also that the pace of life here is different.  But, wow, we could have gotten there a lot faster on a highway!

We were invited to brunch today at Brooke's house.  Brooke and her family are from Michigan and have lived here two years.  We got put in touch with her via someone who works at Teo and Mara's new school.  I, like any good invited guest, asked what I could bring.  Fruit salad.  Awesome.  But only if you remember that the grocery store is not going to be stocked particularly well, the fruit may not be ripe, and, of course, that you aren't going to get a second chance at another store in the morning because the stores are closed Sundays. 

Teo and I had a long discussion about how nice it was that everyone had the same day to relax as everyone else….  We brought orange juice and champagne. 

Why do I happen to have champagne you might ask.  Leftovers from the 50th anniversary.  We had about 27 bottles left over, and we are slowly, quite slowly, working our way through them!  I think we're down to 24.

Cartwheels

My turn for authorship - first timer, here.

Another day littered with great moments and, well, others. Teo and Mara went to bed last night having decided that today would be Mother’s Day, and that Kim should sleep while the three of us went running. A fine plan. We woke up, they had a bite to eat, I made some unreasonably strong coffee, and we were good to go. Until Teo went for a pre-run pit stop (like a good runner), and then biffed it on the stairs between floors on the way back down. He says he did two cartwheels before skidding on his back. I can’t confirm the cartwheels, but his back is pretty scraped up, he’ll have a shiner tomorrow on the left side of his face, and a bump on his knee. Throughout the course of the day, as the kids continued to not understand why we are careful on stairs, tempers flared repeatedly. Even mine, which is saying something.

Once the physical and emotional recoveries were underway, we went with Kasia to Wolfgangsee – a lake town about 45 minutes from here (if you can find your way out of Salzburg on the first try, which was not our experience this morning….). Still, we go there, we had a nice lunch, we strolled, watched para-gliders from the mountains above, Teo bought an Austria cap (not an Österreich cap, which tells you something about the audience and the price), we went for two swims (one free, one not), had some ice cream, and played in a playground. A grand time, topped off by an Austrian wedding parade down the streets of town. Teo and Mara marched along with them. Silliness and such. 

Since getting home, there have been four more discussions about being careful, preceded by four not-careful incidents. This is getting tiring. I thought they were supposed to learn from their experiences. Is that not true? Kasia made a great quinoa/broccoli/tomato dinner, we had a nice iChat with the Coles clan in California, and now, at last, the kids are asleep. I’m guessing Kim and I will be out within five minutes of posting. Tomorrow: a percussion concert with some of the Montessori parents and kids here. And another early-morning attempt at a run with the kids. Here’s hoping we get out the door this time!

A Montessori Moment

We visited the kids school today, where they'll be attending come September. Mara dove right into the outdoor equipment and Teo -- who had been telling us he was nervous on the walk to the school -- was clingy and eventually warmed up. Once they were inside, they looked around. Mara came back quickly and said that Montessori School (in Redlands) had the same tower (pink). Now, I didn't know she'd ever done it at MIR, but apparently she had. We got out a mat, she set it up horizontally and then vertically, and she asked me, and then the teachers, where the cards were. The cards that go with the tower. She wanted to do ALL of that work!
(picture not her's)

She then proceeded to knock the tower over, but regardless, the teachers were very impressed with them/Mara. All I could think was, if they're impressed with Mara's work habits, they'll be over the moon with Teo.

They also have a work room -- awls, saws, hammers. Teo is very excited. Naturally, by the time the visit was over (an hour), they did not want to go home and we had to pull them away in tears and tantrums.

Pictures, unedited.

First Impressions (on Google's Picasa site)