No Dublin for Me This Year...

I'm fond of the Irish.  I mean, sure, I know some irritating Irish people but in general I like the way they talk, I like how they always bring a book of gloomy poetry as a housewarming gift and I appreciate the seriousness with which they regard breakfast.

I've liked people for far less.

That's why I'm rather bummed to miss the European office party in Dublin this year - I'm too big to fly - so Ralf will be partying, breakfasting, chatting up Rory and Fergus and touring the Guinness factory on his own this year.

It's not that I don't love having kids but next time I call dibs on being the dad...!

I've Been a Mom for 7 Years

Hello! We're back from vacation. I had some work to catch up on and it took a few days to download the pictures but now I have my ducks in a row.

But first, happy birthday to my wonderful 7-year-old daughter K. I felt deeply connected to her the minute she was born and she is exactly the child I expected to have with Ralf - tall, smart, competent, impatient and determined. She's all alpha and we couldn't be more proud.

Happy birthday, baby girl!

In contrast, the constant senseless joy and playfulness radiated by our youngest child raises certain genetic questions. We adore L heart and soul but neither of us is sure how we got her.

And now some vacation pictures from the Italian alps and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

On Vacation

We're off on vacation again.  It's school holiday, after all.  We'll be in Italy this week and the Canary Islands next week.

(It sounds more exotic than it is.  We're driving to Italy to meet old friends and Canary Islands was the very last family package available for last minute wafflers like us.)

I wish you happy summer days.  All it does is rain here, but if it's hot where you are and wasps are a problem try this great trick: put a wet penny or two on the table.  Wasps can't bear the smell of oxydized copper.  Try it, it really works!

Ciao!

Reunion

Sorry I've been MIA. I've been to California and Oregon, for work and my college reunion. Unfortunately my wireless connection was so slow that whenever I tried to comment on blogs my connection hung. So I definitely owe some comments.

I loved college. And I love my college friends. Seeing them again, hanging with them, sharing a dorm with them, eating in the cafeteria again, all made for a very special weekend.

You never make friends like that again. At least, I haven't. There's something about living with people and staying up all night and saving the universe that makes for a special brand of friendship.

Just for the record, I love cafeteria food too. I guess seven years of boarding school followed by six years of higher education instills that into you.

OK, enough about me and my proletarian eating preferences.

Here are a few reunion pictures at my beautiful college with my dear old friends Sean, Zan and Kristin:

Bedouins, Camels and Viagra

As some of you know, Ralf and I just got back from a week in Egypt, specifically in Sharm el Sheikh, which is a small beach community near the Sinai national park that is inhabited largely by Bedouins.

Sadly, no one got my 'Bedouin Breakfast' pun about our hotel. I tell you, my wit feels wasted sometimes.

Our favorite pasttime during the week was to sit in what we referred to as the 'Hooka Shack', a quiet beachfront shisha bar where you can sip Bedouin tea (black tea with lots of sugar in a little pot) and smoke an enormous water bong while reading and watching the waves.

We also went diving, although I had to give it up after the first day due to ear problems. It's sad, really. I am a Padi certified advanced diver. I have done night dives, retrieval dives, navigation dives, wreck dives, shore dives, boat dives and deep dives. I can take all my gear off (mask, oxygen, the works) 20 meters under water, swim away from it, swim back and put it all back on without panicking (much) and dying a horrible oxygen deprived death.

I don't enjoy doing these things, you understand, but I can.

Nonetheless I have an ongoing battle with my ears and usually have to stop diving and go to the doctor before the end of each vacation. You may be wondering how I got certified in the first place, to which I can only respond, 'Sheer bloodymindedness.'

Still, I didn't mind skipping it this time. What with one thing and another, I was happy not to dress up in a rubber suit and lug around a heavy oxygen tank. I carefully divided my vacation time between lounging about, snorkling, sipping tea, staring at the horizon, reading and visiting my friend Barbara, who is lucky enough to call the desert her home.

And now two tableaus from our vacation involving Bedouins, camels and Viagra - I know you're gonna jump right to the Viagra one:

Tableau 1: The Father In Law
One of the dive instructors was a friendly Bedouin fellow named Nur, who's married to the boss's daughter. After Ralf's first dive on the second day (I was on the boat but not diving) Nur got a radio call from Umbi, the boss and his FIL, to bring our boat out to Umbi's yacht during the lunch break. Apparently, Umbi had dropped something in the water and wanted Nur to dive for it. Nur rolled his eyes and muttered, 'It's probably a coffee spoon,' then slouched off to get suited up again. When we reached the yacht, Umbi waved at us good-naturedly and Ralf asked him if he always makes his poor SIL do extra work for him. Umbi grinned and answered, 'Nur was supposed to pay me 5 camels for my daughter and I haven't seen a single camel yet. He owes me!'

Tableau 2: The Viagra
After I visited the doctor and was told I would be fine in a week but would have to take a break from diving, we stopped by the pharmacy to get some medicine to speed up the re-absorbtion of the blood that had pooled behind my traumatized eardrums. Uh... TMI? Anyway, we got the medicine (everything for about $2, it's SOOO cheap!) and the pharmacist looked at me, looked at Ralf, grinned suggestively and handed him a free packet of Viagra. Ralf, not to be outdone, grinned back even more suggestively and returned the packet. I didn't quite catch what the pharmacist said as we left but it sounded a bit like, 'Strong man!'

Pictures here and here.

More Egypt Pictures - Story to Follow

Amazing Pictures

Does this count? I think it's pretty amazing that I'm making it public.

More (less) amazing pictures to follow soon...

Walk like an....

I'm going on vacation for a week so don't be alarmed if I'm MIA.

Guess where I'm going... A hint: It's not a Bangles concert.

On Snogging and First Cousins

While in Dublin I attended two parties, the office Christmas party that I already mentioned and a private party. The private party was a posh affair with champagne and finger food from Marks and Spencer being carried around on trays while people talked shop.

I myself chatted at length with a couple of Irish investment bankers living in London named Fergus and Rory, unless they were kidding about that.

Fergus has 108 first cousins. In a tiny town like Dublin this means you run into family quite a bit. And of course everyone attends Trinity University, so you have to be a bit careful who you snog at a party.

So sayeth Fergus.

I don't have any first cousins and found this insight into large families quite fascinating.

Incidentally, word about the American girl with no first cousins made the rounds pretty fast. When we took our leave several people I've never seen before in my life expressed sincere (albeit cautious) optimism that there might somehow be cousins in my future.

Merry Christmas, people. May you have many first cousins.

Let's Have a Pint

Hello, everyone. I just got back from Dublin, where our company had its European Christmas party. It was my first trip to Dublin, although I've visited most of Western Europe, and it reminded me of a small, racially homogenous London where people go for a pint before a party.

And after.

Great place, Dublin.

On Sunday we had a traditional Irish breakfast at Beweley's, a popular restaurant that is carbon neutral and makes a mean latte. Which goes to show that being carbon neutral doesn't mean you can't enjoy the finer things in life.

Ironically, while in college I never wanted to visit Germany because I was afraid I'd be arrested and disappear forever, which is of course nonsense, but American elementary school education kind of stops talking about Germany after 1945 and neglects to mention that all that militant heritage is now channeled into glaring at other people's children and recycling.

Naturally, I now live in Germany, because the universe has a sense of humor.

Then I didn't want to visit Ireland because I was afraid the IRA would bomb me and I was unconcerned with factual trivia like the fact that they don't actually bomb things any more.

Happily, I made it out of Dublin un-bombed, except in a purely literal sense.

Here's a picture: Separated at birth?

Tirolean Weekend

Sud Tirol is the 'Germanic' part of Italy. I'm fuzzy on the details here but I gather it used to belong to Austria but was given to Italy after WWI. Mussolini moved in on it pretty oppressively, forbidding everyone to speak German, which is why quite a few people chose to emigrate to Germany during WWII in order to preserve their culture. Most of them ended up coming back and it took a long time to recover and forgive old feuds. There were also some terrorist activities against the Italians after WWII, which resulted in some nice tax breaks and other concessions.

Anyway, despite it's surprisingly not-so-distant bloody past, today Sud Tirol is beautiful, rural, prosperous and especially nice in the fall.

So rather than a big vacation write up I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. You get the idea.

Maybe just the odd comment.

Halloween was a simple affair.

We carved pumpkins, dressed up, and trick or treated

at exactly one door for one piece of candy.

This is a place we stopped for lunch in the mountains.

The Fall foliage was amazing. My pictures don't do it justice.

Nice place for a picnic, isn't it?

Mountains above Clausen.

Pimp My Crab

I finally joined my gym instead of paying for each visit. It's time - they've been gently hinting for about it for eight years. It had become a matter of pride to resist but I'm over all that now because I've discovered an aerobics class I like. I knew if I waited patiently it would happen for me.

I’ve lived in Germany off and on since 1998 and have noticed that although the nature of life is change, some things have more permanence here. For example, the same people still work in my gym year after year. This could never happen in the US, at least not West of, say, Utah. And although I haven't quite learned to think of these people as friends, I have at least come to regard them as people I recognize.

And now I can take aerobics classes.

K's birthday is next week, which is a bit of a bummer for her because most of her friends are on vacation. Yes, it's the great annual multi-week German summer family vacation, which takes place regardless of economic circumstances.

The German economy is in better shape than the American economy, even after propping up the rest of the EU as well as East Germany financially and paying off various debts of shame to other countries. This is mainly due to higher taxes and lower levels of extravagent and unnecessary consumerism but interestingly, personal debt tends to be a bit high.

I attribute this to the annual 6 week vacations in Ibiza taken even by the unemployed Germans in our acquaintance but hey, who am I to judge?

Anyway, K wants a hermit crab for her birthday. Yes, really. Now, if I were one of those organic cotton wearing moms who try to wean their kids off Disney princesses and interest them in boring unpainted wooden toys instead I would totally get this. As it happens, however, I have no idea where it comes from. Still, if my baby wants a hermit crab, a hermit crab she shall have.

We researched the matter a bit and discovered that hermit crabs are surprisingly popular pets and people actually decorate their shells. So this is what she's getting for Christmas:
Yeah, baby!

Going back to...?

So, when we flew from Munich to California I was going back to Cali. . . I suppose now I'm going back to Germy. Or, as the Spanish call it, Ale Mania, which if you think about it is quite a good name.

Yesterday I enjoyed one last perfect American day: worked til 5, picked up the girls, fed them, played with them, put them to bed, fed Ralf, then channel flipped between Friends and Seinfeld episodes until bed time with a glass of wine and a bowl of cherries.

Ah. It'll be a bit different once we're back in the GMT time zone.

It's been a good summer, all in all. Even the Episcopal preschool the kids attended was great, although some of the hymns the girls dragged home have been a bit disconcerting. I have to believe they just sang it wrong and the Lord doesn't actually steal cars or babies. And since I haven't attended church since childhood I prefer the more agnostic hymns, such as: 'Zippety doo da, zippety A, thank you for our food today.'

I can totally get behind that because it's grateful without committing to any one supreme being.

So, one last Saturday to shop, pack and visit friends and then we fly tomorrow.

I'll check back in with you next week. Have a great weekend!

Waikiki for $10 a Day

We're back! And we actually made it to Hawaii. Not that there were no bad moments flying standby (for example, my ticket was in my maiden name and the only ID I still have with my maiden name is my totally fake looking German driver's license) but everything worked out in the end. Pictures will follow when we get back to Munich and have a chance to download them.

The vacation kicked off in Los Angeles, where we visited my 90 year old grandma as well as my aunt and uncle. We also hit Disneyland and after paying nearly $300 to get in forced the kids to stay until closing. At the end L was crouched on my back like a sack of wet flour crying about all the noise while we watched the final fireworks over the magic castle. You can't buy memories like that.

Then we flew (standby) to Honolulu and spent 2 nights with my mom before moving to our own place in Waikiki. Please note that overdeveloped Waikiki would not have been our destination of choice without the kids but with the kids it was a good bet because we had a kitchen, a pool and were right on the beach. We also had my mom's car and a great view of the nightly Hilton Luau.

During the day we traipsed about looking for cheap entertainment for a family of four (with a three and five year old) and here is what we came up with:

Swimming in the pool - K just learned to put her head underwater and L is unstoppable with her water wings so this was a great - and free - fallback plan. Ralf stared at me in shocked amazement as I executed a perfect dive into the pool, swam two brisk laps, did a fancy handstand and flipped onto my back for a liesurely float.

As I floated up to him I could see him searching for words, which he finally found:

Ralf: 'You can swim??'
Me (slightly offended): 'Of course I can swim. I'm from LA. I was on a swim team for 3 years.'

Ralf: 'We've been married for eight years and all of a sudden you can swim???"

Me: 'Well, sure, in warm water.'

Yeah, I still got moves you ain't seen yet, baby.

The shopping bus - A tour can be quite expensive but the Waikiki shopping trolley takes you from Ala Moana shopping center to all the main hotels for only $2 a person.

The Hilton Luau - Free from our balcony and not much worse seating than cheap opera tickets.

The boat that takes you to the submarine - The sub ride costs $300 for a family of 4 BUT the boat out to the sub only costs $7 per person. Rount-trip.

Feeding the birds at the Buddhist temple - $1 per bag, a bit more than tuppance but hours of fun.

The Honolulu zoo and aquarium - Free because my mom paid, thanks mom!

Coloring wet wipes with pens and dressing up Sheep - Free if you already have the wet wipes, pens and sheep.

Pineapple fro yo at the Dole plantation - Not sure because Ralf paid but pretty cheap.

Making hand prints on papa's sunburn - Priceless.

Riding the escalator up and down - We really got our money's worth out of the hotel escalator, always a kid pleaser.

It wasn't exactly relaxing but it was definitely quality family time and I didn't touch a computer or think about work for two weeks. I even forgot all my passwords! We arrived back in SFO last night and after a spot of difficulty getting into our borrowed house are comfortably settled for the final two weeks of our stay in California.

I only have two more weeks to get everything done here so I may be a bit spotty until we get back to Munich but I'll check in as much as I can. . .

More about the hotel

I noticed that the Robert Redford-esque hotel we stayed at in Greer, Arizona caught your attention. So here's the skinny.

It's called Hidden Meadow Ranch and you can get a virtual tour of the cabins on their Website. Well, cabins is relative, more like small rustic-yet-extremely-luxurious family homes. This is a 5-star facility that offers all sorts out outdoor activites in every season and amazing food, three fantastic meals a day plus snacks, all included. Great for family vacations.

The Dining Room

Our cabin, upstairs family room

$$$$ It's not cheap but when we did the math, staying at a modest hotel in Sedona and buying our own meals worked out to about the same. And they're soooo good to you, baking fresh chocolate chip cookies, turning down your beds while you eat dinner and leaving you little handwritten poems when they clean the room.

By fortuitous coincidence we had the entire place to ourselves for a weekend, right before they were closing for construction, so the whole staff was focused on us. It was the ultimate rock star getaway.

OK, now I'm depressed.

Small Town Snapshot Sunday Part II

I found a couple more pictures from our 2007 Arizona vacation so I can participate once more in Wendy's Small Town Snapshot Sunday. Nothing captures that small town spirit like a buffalo at home on the range. Or maybe it's a cow. Whatever.

And here are some pictures from the hotel we stayed in, which was like staying with Robert Redford. Does that count?

Small Town Sunday

I'm finally participating in Wendy's Small Town Sunday. To my knowledge I have never actually lived in a US small town BUT we did once vacation in Greer, Arizona, where I took I these pictures:

7 Year Itch

In the movies, they always show the beautiful woman in the convertable with her hair blowing artistically back as she drives along the coast.

They never show the hours spent later trying to get the tangles out, which I find it a little dishonest:

Ralf neatly sidesteps this problem with his GI haircut but I didn't feel that solution would work for me.Italy was wonderful. We stayed here in Asolo with old friends: Then after a stopover with more friends in Milan in their chic city apartment we visited the castle where we got married 7 years ago - there it is in the background:

Italians love food but they love talking about food even more. In Asolo we dined at a slow food restaurant where the owner sat with us for a few minutes with each course and regaled us with stories about how the cheese we were eating had been harvested from a very special yak in Normandy that ate only certain kinds of sea grass.

Our Milanese friends also did not disappoint, dazzling us with the latest results of their lifelong quest to procure the finest cheeses and salamis.

Needless to say, most of our time was spent killing time between meals with scenic wandering, conversation and sitting in cafes wondering if it was too soon to eat again.

I would do it all again in a heartbeat. . .