Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

Sarah and I went to visit An yesterday. She is gone for three weeks to Reha, which is basically a therapeutic retreat. It reminded me of Yoga Camp in that it is on top of a hill, and has a lot of massage and Wellness classes. The Reha is much more medically oriented and very specific to particular medical conditions. It was close to Passau, so Sarah and I got to do a bit of a road trip to get there, and I learned that my stick-shift abilities have approved. We had to do a bit of maneuvering on the hill top, and I didn’t stall or roll backwards at all!

Upon arriving in the little town below the Kurzone, we stopped to have lunch. While Sarah was getting the parking ticket from the machine, a local came up to me chatting about Regensburg because he saw our license plate. At the same time, Sarah was accosted by an apparent vagabond and pulled the ‘I can’t speak German’ defense. I wasn’t quick enough, and I pretended to know what the nice man was saying about Regensburg. I know it had something to do with the cathedral - and I think the crypt underneath it. I made the mistake of asking him for recommendations for lunch (just to be friendly and to make him stop talking).

Unfortunately, he was so enthusiastic about the local restaurant that he walked us in, and then we felt a bit obligated to go in and eat there. Let’s just say that it wasn’t the best lunch I have had. I apologized to Sarah a few times for getting us there. One good thing was that it was over quickly. The food came, literally, about 3 minutes after we ordered (not a sign of a classy joint). It was terrible, and we ate as much as we could stomach and headed out.

Once we got to the top of the hill near the Reha center, we found that the hill was named after a good friend! (she must have been holding out on us). Then we stopped at the chapel in case Clair wanted to pray. Note to travelers, if you feel the urge to randomly pray on mountaintops in Germany, you can often find a chapel for just such an emergency.

Eventually, we found An and got a tour of the Reha place. It was nice. Sarah, Clair and I chilled out (with coffee for two of us) while An swam. They have a nice little place for observers, so we could laugh while An worked on a new stroke - I want her to teach it to me when she gets back. Then we picked up her little bundle of pure energy, Benjamen, and chatted a bit while Benjamen brought various things to Clair - game pieces, scrabble letters, a dead fly. An had him remove the thing small enough for her to choke on, and I asked him if he could take the dead fly back out on the balcony where he found it. He obliged me, luckily. I didn’t want to touch it.

An said that she thinks of me a lot there because she is doing a lot of yoga, Taiji and general relaxation classes. I told her that if she wants to start doing Taiji in the park, I would be up for it! I will need a bit of practice to remember the form - it’s been over ten years since I practiced regularly, but I am sure the form is in my mind somewhere. For the pieces I forget, there is always UTube!

It was a nice trip. There was a little surprise on the way home when the instrument panel on the car suddenly said, “Stop! - check coolant level!!!” It was the big red “Stop!” that kind of unnerved me while driving about 100 miles per hour on the autobahn. After pulling over at a parking place the warning signals stopped, and we made it home just fine. I wasn’t sure what to do while sitting on the side of the road, so I took a vote. Sarah, Matthias and I all agreed to just take it easy coming home and if it came on again to go to one of the rest stops and ask for help. Since none of us knows anything about cars, it was kind of the blind leading the blind, but it somehow made me feel better that they though it was a good course of action as well. Matthias took the car to work today and had a coworker (and mechanic) take a peak at it; it seems that were just low on coolant. Couldn’t they just have a nice yellow colored signal saying “Be aware that your coolant is low” so as not to give the driver a heart attack?

On the baby front, Clair managed to go from sitting to her hands and knees for the first time while visiting An. She must have been inspired by all of the people working so hard at therapy! She is one step closer to mobility.

Though I really like a lot of things about living in Germany, I must say that I have had a hard time enjoying most radio stations I have found here. This hasn’t been much of an issue because I usually only listen to the radio in the car, and I don’t drive much. When we take a road trip, we usually listen to CDs or the Ipod.

However, I miss just flipping on the radio when I jump in the car to run an errand. Gong FM is a local station that sells itself as the young-hip station in Regensburg. I have not really enjoyed it much, but it sucked less than a lot of the other stations, so I would usually turn it on. If you don’t appreciate techno or music from the 80’s, the pickings are slim for good radio stations.

Anyway, Matthias and I took a ride to a local zoo over the weekend, and we had the radio on for the drive. I actually liked the music selection! I had it on again today as I was sitting in traffic (a rarity in Regensburg), and I heard a station announcement that mentioned that they have changed their playlists! It’s about freaking time. The music was much more current, and it even reminded me of a Southern California station (SoCal has great radio stations). Even better, I haven’t heard one techno song yet!

Maybe now I can start listening to a radio station at home to help with my German. Until now, I just live stream NPR from DC - not so good for improving my German.

In my next step toward integration into Bavaria, I have made a new effort to blend in with the locals. Observe:

Me in 2003 - a cool California girl (Or so I liked to think)

Today - a cool Bavarian girl (or so I like to think). Big difference, no? A Dirndl is a traditional Bavarian outfit for women, as opposed to the Lederhosen for men. Notice that the shoes have changed very little, and if I had my dithers, I wouldn’t be wearing any shoes. Flip-flops are the one piece of California that I still hold onto for dear life.

Clair’s transformation is less dramatic, being a Bavarian girl from birth. She downed that Mass pretty quickly (look at Lucca watching with envy).

Here’s a better look at her Dirndl: (there are a few more posted in Clair’s Flickr album).

Here are a couple of other nice photos from the Dult today. First, Penny and me being the good examples of motherhood that we are….

All in all, it was a great day. I headed out on my own this morning to have brunch with some of the moms I know in the area, and then I had coffee with the ‘Kaminski crew’ (AKA Sarah and Natasha). The three of us have gone there so many times that on the rare occasion when we are all there together, we usually get a free drink of some sort from Diana, a really nice waitress there. Today it was a refreshing cocktail (I forget the name - something about Venice). A nice way to start the afternoon. A few years ago, I would have thought it was a bit early for a cocktail at 2 in the afternoon, but it seems almost normal now - spring time in Germany is cool!

After a nice morning/early afternoon baby-free, I came home in time to head out with the family to the Dult with Penny, Chris and their boys. Matthias had spent the morning entertaining Clair, watching a movie, and doing laundry because he is awesome that way sometimes.

It was a warm, beautiful day with just enough beer to help cool us off, so now I am sleepy……… what a nice day

I, apparently, do not have a European’s taste in music.

It is not over yet, but I can honestly say that I would not have voted how many people in Europe did. I’ve never seen the show before, but our friend Matt is throwing a Eurovision party. We didn’t make it to the party because Matthias inherited my cold, but his invitation did remind me to watch it.

Europeans have really bad taste in music, if you ask me.(for the record, at least one European agrees with me, but I always say that Matthias makes a very bad German).

At least Germany moved out of last place for the moment

Wow! It is great to have a president who can inspire me to work harder. Even after a ‘big’ controversy over ASU’s decision not to offer Obama an honorary degree because ‘his accomplishments are yet to come’, he gave them an amazing and humble speech about what success really means. Awesome. This is the kind of success I was reminded of in the Honors program at Temple University many year ago thanks to a couple of amazing professors who ran the program.

Matthias is out of town, and lately, that seems to mean that things get more difficult around here. When he was doing test drives in Sweden, I had a really bad cold during one of his trips and cut off the tip of my finger during another.

I got a nasty cold this weekend, and Clair picked it up starting yesterday. We had a rough night. she is all puffy and full of goo today. Generally, I try not to give Clair any drugs, but given the amazing amount of congestion that came with the cold, I had to do something for her. Luckily, Sarah and Penny helped me out a lot by doing some drug runs for me! Her fever seems to be down now, and she can breathe through her nose again.

I hope all of this leads to a more peaceful night tonight. Wish us luck.

I hope to get over to the beer festival at some point soon and post some photos! it is only here for another week, and is a five minute walk from our apartment. It would be a shame not to go!

I had no idea what a Bobby Car was until I got pregnant, and then many people told me we should get one for Clair because kids love them. Fortunately, Matthias’ coworkers thought of that for us and presented us with one after she was born. While we were visiting Matthias’ family, Clair tried one out at our friends’ house. Since she seemed to like it, I unpacked her’s and put it together today.

She wasn’t sure exactly what to do. The photo is a little decieving because she can’t actually touch the ground very well on it unless she is leaning to one side. She mostly just put her feet up and lat me push her. She seems to have liked it because when I stopped pushing, she would try to bounce herself forward as if she was trying to make it go again. Penny assures me that kids get obsessed over these things, so it’s good to feed the obsession early being the good parent I am.

I managed to finish an art project I started about nine months ago today! Matthias helped me make a cast of my very pregnant belly in the last month of pregnancy, and I had a vision of how I would like to paint it. I still need to figure out how to mount it on the wall, but aside from that, it’s almost done! What do you think? (Hint - It’s supposed to be Dory from Finding Nemo)