the final days.

my last saturday in germany, i went rowing. i left at 7.30 and got home at 3.30. i was the sub in the 8. the other 7 girls won the german university rowing championships and are now training for the european university rowing championships that are in zagreb, croatia at the end of august. i've worked out about once in two weeks. i'll let you guess what kind of good idea that was. anyway, i survived and maybe even got a little suntan. i told the rowing girls goodbye. they were so great to include me when both my german and rowing were slightly below par. i kind of hate all the emotions that come with being a female. in the evening, i was off for one last cookout with ricardo und julie. there were also three others named catja, martina, und marcel. on sunday, i managed to get myself up to go row with the old men one last time. they are so sweet. and relaxed. we would row a little bit and then sit and chat for a while. it may not be so good for my rowing, but i imagine all the chatting is good for my german. after rowing, i met my friend tzu-ning for lunch. her brother was also visiting. they come from taiwan, but i know her from my german class. i speak german with tzu-ning, but i needed to speak english with her brother. or occasionally, she would translate german to chinese. we ate schnitzel onelast time, and then we met ricardo und julie for ice cream. after we walked around a bit, we sat around on the neckarwiese for a while. it is the lawn by the river. then, i had to ride the bike home because we were grilling for dinner with a neighbor. after dinner, i went to meet stefan. he is a new friend. of course, i met him approximately 12 days before i left the country, and he was out of town for at least 3 of them. he is german, but lived for a year of high school in georgia and just returned from an exchange in canada...his engish may be slightly better than my german. it may be better than my english. on monday morning, we went to ikea and a few places, and then went to ladenburg in the afternoon. it is a gorgeous little town about 25 minutes from heidelberg. monday we grilled out again and brigitte, sabine's sister, came over one last time. stefan also came over, but a bit later because he had been rowing. when he rode into the driveway on his bicycle tom asked, what is that? ha. what? both max and tom were tired and refused to talk to him. tuesday morning, we went to mannheim so sabine could have her haircut. max and tom and i played on a giant slide while she was having that done. now...drumroll please.........tuesday afternoon, i went PARAGLIDING! finally. it worked out perfectly on tuesday, my last day. the day was gorgeous, the weather was just right, and there were a lot of people in the air. this time, we didn't tell max and tom where we were going. instead we met moritz and made a little picnik, and they played while i paraglided. we were all strapped in to the seat/harness deal and ready to go. we had to try a few times to get the kite part up and going. this meant we had about 20 meters and then there was a cliff. we were running straight at that cliff. after the first try, my heart was making baboombaboombaboom. eventually two guys helped up pull the kite part up and we were off. once in the air, it was fabulous and relaxed. because i was flying tandem, i could more or less sit back and enjoy the ride. i snapped 2 or 3 in flight photos, and then the guy, martin, asked if i had eaten a good breakfast. he started making it spin all around. it was really a lot of fun. he asked a few times if i was doing alright, but i couldn't stop smiling. when we landed, i had to start running before we touched the ground, but it felt so strange, i couldn't really get myself to do it. needless to say, the upper half of my body was traveling far faster than the lower half of my body, and i fell down. after paragliding, we went to eat dinner at brauhaus. it is one of my favorite places to eat in heidelberg. they have german food and a great old building and atmosphere. the weather was nice, and we were able to eat outside. i was shocked when i opened a present from sabine and nils and it was this blog printed into a book. a few of you who know me very well know that i have been working on the same thing to give them. i have done a fabulous job keeping it a secret, but after i opened the book from them, i had to tell. great minds think alike? 6 august 2008. it was the most difficult day of 2008 thus far. i knew it would be tough, but it was worse than i thought. it was so very hard to say good bye. a year is a very long time and not very long at all. as i walked through the security gate, i could hear tom screaming, "meine alison." it felt like knives in my heart. the pain was intensified because i don't know exactly when i will be back to visit, but i will be back. the boys did a lot of telling me i wasn't allowed to fly, they were going to tell the pilot, my parents, and my sister that i'm not allowed to fly, and max was going to fly all the planes away so i couldn't leave. no boys have ever fought so hard to keep me around. i took plenty of trips over the year, but max and tom knew it was different. little ones can sense such things. throughout the plane ride, random tears would involuntarily roll down my face. i'm sure the people around me thought i had some irrational fear of flying. i landed in DC with no problems and then proceeded on to charlotte. my family picked me up at the airport, we ate mexican (where i told the waiter thank you in german), and made our way home. now that i'm stateside, i've done things like visit the dentist and eye doctor, have my hair cut, and visit the place i worked pre-germany. friday evening we had a cookout, and it was really great to see old friends. yesterday, we visited my sister in asheville so i could see where she is living now. as we were strolling around downtown, i heard some germans talking. they were speaking with their kids, so i could understand it all. i already miss it a lot, and i wanted nothing more than to follow them around and eavesdrop. later in the day at best buy (i was camera shopping), the sales guy asked what kind of an accent i have. i laughed and told him i've been in germany for the year. he started speaking with me in german. his mother was born in frankfurt. i don't think my voice sounds any different, but plenty of people in mocksville say i do. this morning i am off to church, then i have to pack things to move to richmond. this is the very last blog entry. the fastest year of my life has come to a close. in many ways it feels like i have woken up from the most fabulous dream of my life, but then i see all of my luggage. no luggage comes with dreaming. there are two little boys in heidelberg i'm going to miss so very much; however, it is time for the next step in life. that begins tonight. so... bis zum naechstes mal. until the next time. much love, alison

"du darfst nicht fliegen!"

tuesday afternoon, i almost went paragliding. almost being the key word. you need a little wind for paragliding, and it just didn't happen. max, tom, and i rode our bicycles to the monastery for an ice cream and to play with our diggers. we stopped and watched a few paragliders pack up their parachute deal. (i can only thing of the german word at the moment...maybe i am learning something afterall.) we finished our ice cream and had just selected a good area full of rocks when sabine came walking up with my tennis shoes in her hand. she said i needed to hurry home and grab whatever i needed for paragliding. the guy, martin, had just called and said to be ready in 20 minutes. as i was leaving the driveway to go meet him, max and tom pull back in on their little bicycles. as soon as they realize i am going, they begin yelling, "du darfst nicht fliegen!" you aren't allowed to fly. apparently it only escalated from there. nils came straight from work to watch a show that never happened. nils and sabine finally told the boys that nils would call me and tell me i wasn't allowed to fly. that was the only way they got them to calm down. after that at dinner, max and tom told me i wasn't allowed to fly. i said, okay, i didn't go today. max asked me if we didn't have any batteries. so cute. well, the game plan was to go on wednesday. guess what? no wind. yesterday though, i did close out my bank account and tell the city i am leaving. in germany, everyone has to register with the city as to where they are living. in the afternoon, we met moritz to play. last night, max and i were sitting outside watching a thunderstorm approaching. it was lightening and thundering in the distance. he informed me he was going to get a flashlight so we could see it better. :) i took the boys to kindergarten today, and then i climbed back into the car and started crying. the next few days may all be like this. it is beginning to hit that soon i am really leaving. this afternoon we went to the pool to meet tom's new friend, tim. tom tells me, "alison, ich bin dein freund." alison, you're my friend. it's so cute. tonight we rode bicycles for a bit, but i first managed to make them both mad by stopping a fight over these little orange traffic cones. then they both told me i wasn't allowed to help them put on their shoes. tom yells, "gleich bin ich boese!" this means soon he is going to be mad with me (and not so nice). it was one of those moments where i was trying not to laugh. max was yelling for sabine because he didn't want me to help him put his shoes on. at that point tom had his shoes on, but was coming back inside yelling, "du darfst nicht helfen." you aren't allowed to help. we finally all made it to ride bicycles. no damage lasting longer than 5 minutes was done. when we came back inside, max was pulling a lot of spices out of the drawer in the kitchen and having me smell them. i wish you could see a photo of his face when he is smelling them. his nose wrinkles his nose up and it is so funny. oh yeah, and tom loves to say. das ist nicht funny. or...das ist funny. (this is funny or this is not funny.) last night max had a cookie, and he told me, "du darfst ein bite." you are allowed to have a bite. the mix of english and german has been great lately. tom will tell you: ich speak englisch und german. :) we've come a long way this year.

drachonboot regatta.

on saturday, the 3rd annual heidelberger drachonbootcup took place. it is a regatta for dragon boats. interesting. i saw one in june when i was in duesseldorf, so i was excited to give it a try. i think it is more of a social sport than anything. i can't remember if i explained it last time, or if you read it, so....it is a big boat, a bit like paddling in a giant canoe. up to 20 people fit in the boat (they allowed you to have either 16 or 18 on saturday), there is one more up front to keep a beat on a drum, and one standing at the back to steer the boat. people wear strange costumes and the races are only 300 meters long. our boat raced three times, but we had too many people, so i was only in the first race. i thought i was going to be in the third, but some guy asked at the last minute if i would mind trading with him. it was the final, and i decided that i would feel bad if we lost by just a little bit, and i didn't trade with a guy who was certainly stronger than me. nils said this was such a girl approach. possibly, but i'll just tell myself it is a team player approach. the team i was on, was made up of about 18 big german guys and only 4 girls that turned into two by the end of the day. it was fun to be in a different group from normal. there were a few people that i knew from rowing, but i don't really know where the rest of them have been hiding the entire year. one team was called the hot dogs and had masks that looked like a dog, another was dressed like bees and the drummer like a flower, another was wearing plastic armor with a helmet like they were from troy. we had white tshirts that had our sponsor's name on them. after the races finished, everyone gathered at a big tent, people were singing, having a beer, and i think receiving awards. we took a team photo at one point in the day...i'll see if i can get my hands on that. oh yeah, and our team took 2nd. not bad considering there was no practicing involved. after the regatta, i met ricardo and natsuki. ana is gone. ahmet is gone. tzu-ning just came back on sunday from taiwan. it is summer holiday, and everyone is scattered about. we had dinner and then went downtown in heidelberg. i saw a few of the guys from my team that day. considering i was close to mute on saturday (what do i really say when there are multiple people all talking at the same time who all know each other and are talking about things that happened prior to saturday or talking about drachonboot technique?), i wasn't sure if they would know who i was or not. i settled for smiling and waving. i decided it best to avoid any attempt at conversation. i think it was a good plan, and they knew who i was. on sunday evening, i went with sabine and nils to Schloss in Flamen in Schwetzingen. that means castle in flames. it was an outdoor Mozart concert with fireworks at the end. there were quite a lot of people. the newspaper today said 11000. that was my first classical concert, and first opera, and it was really nice. i was totally underdressed compared to the grannies sitting around me, but no one seemed to care. my favorite part was definitely the fireworks accompanied by the music. nils also picked fabulous seats. 5 rows back, and directly in the middle. the rain even waited until the last 5 minutes to begin. perfect timing. yesterday, the boys and i went swimming. they are so funny these days. they are telling so many stories and making these great facial expressions and using their hands. time is quickly winding down. 8 days really. tomorrow i think i am going paragliding. i'm really excited. we are playing with friends this week, and i need to get to some packing things up so i can figure out what must be shipped. i'll let you know how the paragliding goes.

oesterreich.

last wednesday, i got to spend the day with family friends from mocksville. the fullers were in town. carli, morgan, john, and anike. john is an architect i used to work for, and my sister used to babysit for the two girls. they are so big now. 8 and 11, i think. they are in germany to visit family and decided to make a stop in heidelberg. we did the typical tourist thing and walked through the old town and ate at a german restaurant. it was great to see them, and strangely enough, i fly home before they do. on thursday, we were off to goldegg, austria (oesterreich) to visit friends of sabine and nils. sabine and the boys and i left around 10.45 on thursday morning. we reached our destination at 8pm. it is 5 hour drive, so probably 6 hours with two 3 year olds. in case you're terrible at math, it took us 9 hours. the morning got off to a good start when we left the house and max and tom were screaming because they wanted me to sit in the back seat with them. after that wound down, we were stopping at the bakery, and sabine realized she had forgotten her wallet. so we cam back home. then we were finally off. it rained more or less the entire way, and it was more or less a traffic jam the entire way. tom was having one crisis after the next, and doing plenty of whining with an ehhh ehhh ehhh noise. then we stopped to eat something and sabine accidentally threw the car keys in the garbage. we had to laugh. it perfectly fit how the day was going. around 7.5 hours in, max and tom were both screaming and kicking seats, and i have to say, i can't really blame them. however, i arrived with a headache. within 2 minutes of arrival they were friends with constantine (10) and phillip (8) (sons of the family we visited) and were running around playing. exactly what they needed. we had dinner, hung out a bit, and went to bed. friday morning we were playing outside. they have a really awesome treehouse. i was slightly too big for it, max and tom were slightly too small. nils and the dad from the other family arrived friday afternoon. we all took a walk to the playground, soccer field, and lake. it was july 18th. i had long pants, short sleeves, a zip up hoodie, and a fleece. sometimes i forget it is summer. i'm going to melt when i get back to north carolina. saturday we went fishing. well, more like constantine went fishing. we drove through some gorgeous parts of austria. we wound up at a place with fishing ponds, a few pigs, llamas, and people with such a thick austrian accent that i couldn't understand a word they said. max was very cute and really wanted to help with the fishing. it took a long time to catch a fish, but max was so excited when they did. (tom was busy digging in the sandbox at the playground.) he would touch it and then scream and laugh. then within about 5 minutes, constantine caught another. after we are all finished fishing, tom wants to go fishing. we told him he could help eat the fish. when we got home, constantine was so cute, and he prepared the fish for the grill. then he made a fire, and cooked his fish. they were good. tom was excited to eat fish. he spit in back in my hand within half a second though. not for him. saturday evening we went to eat dinner at a place where they cook steak on an open fire. it was delicious. sunday we drove home. it took the normal 6 hours. thankfully. sunday night, max and tom graduated to big boy beds. nils, sabine, and i put them together when we got home. they are blue and elevated with a spot for playing underneath. tom's has a wheel like a ship, and max's has a little shelf where they can pretend it is a shop. once this weekend, someone asked max if he needed a straw, he replied, "nein, ich bin schon ein big boy." no, i'm already a big boy. they are seeming more and more grown up. max doesn't want to hold your hand anymore when walking. phillip was riding a bike down the hill at the house in austria and wearing a helmet like a little stuntman. max decided to try as well. i was surprised, but he did it several times and was quite good at it. no crashes. on that note though, the life of a three year old was fairly tough yesterday. tom was screaming like it was his job. "no" is not really a word he is interested in hearing lately. when they returned from kindergarten he wanted chocolate candies that we didn't have. sabine told him that after naptime we had to go shopping, and he could pick some out. well, after nap time, we were off to ikea. at ikea, they have a play area for kids. we went in to look around to see if the boys wanted to play there while sabine shopped. they have a train. tom was sold. one problem: you have to have a certain kind of ID which sabine lost a few weeks ago. so, tom couldn't stay. tom was screaming and crying when he found this out. for the duration of the rest of the trip to ikea he was crying, screaming, and randomly throwing his body on the floor throughout the store. we left ikea, and we drove to the grocery store. you would think that the fact he is on his way to get chocolate candies would calm him down. it worked for a few minutes. there was a firetruck outside that you can ride. tom is a negotiator to the maximum. sabine says if there is no crying in the store, they can ride when we leave. okay, deal. then he discovered some little toy at the grocery store. when sabine tells him no, we can't buy everything we see, we got a repeat of the show put on in ikea. i think everyone in the grocery store stared at us at some point. this one lady had a baby with her that was probably 8 or 10 months old. i'm sure she was thinking, man, what have i gotten myself into? we finally make it out of the store, and i'm sure sabine had only about half the things she planned to buy. we pass the firetruck on the way to the car. the screaming definitely didn't stop when he found out he wasn't allowed to ride. we drive across the street to the gas station. tom has unbuckled his seat. sabine told tom if he didn't calm down, he wasn't allowed to ride home with us. after that, taking him out of the car, having a chat, and pulling off the street once after we left the gas station to remind him he could climb out if he didn't stop screaming, he quieted down. he also decided he didn't want the chocolate that he was so intent upon earlier. he has really great endurance. this episode lasted a while. the good news was that max didn't feel the need to cry yesterday. i appreciate it when only one is screaming at a time. around 8pm, all was good again, and he and max were playing under their new beds and telling sabine and i stories and laughing so hard, they couldn't eat their dinner. i think every three year old has these days. the good news: we grow out of them. however, i think that in the process, it leaves some very tired grownups.

mein geburtstag.

so, i'm officially 23 years old. it sounds strangely old. i remember when i used to think...in 2000, i will be 15 years old. last saturday was my birthday. i woke up to presents from nils, sabine, and the boys and some singing of happy birthday. in the middle of the day, i took it easy and enjoyed the beautiful weather. in the evening, i played with max and tom and we made my birthday cake. it was delicious. i was impressed with us. it was chocolate with a peanut butter layer between and with chocolate frosting. i decided the germans needed a real american cake. none of this cake covered with fruit. a few of my friends from the states called to wish a happy birthday...one of them called while i was sleeping. apparently i answered, had a conversation, and went back to sleep. i don't remember it at all. oops. i feel bad about that one. on sunday morning, i went with the boys to the zoo, so that sabine would have some peace while she was getting things ready for sunday evening. on sunday evening, i had a german birthday party. nils and sabine let me invite over my friends for grilling. some friends from rowing and from german class were here, and sabine surprised me by inviting other people as well. isabel, peter, and moritz came. the peters, (the neighbors from down the street with 6 year old twins also came - all 6 of them), and sabine's sister brigitte. my friends finally saw where i live and met the family that i've been with the whole year...and the family finally saw the friends i've made. max turned on the charm, but tom was having a rough night. there were too many new people around for him. later in the night when some people started leaving, he was a bit more comfortable. one time max when racing down the driveway, and i chased him and picked him up to carry him in because he had on socks and his underpants/undershirt. he was laughing and then he suddenly uses his favorite choice word learned in kindergarten. he starts laughing and puts on the million dollar smile that is going to get him both into and out of a lot of trouble in the future. i stopped, we had a little chat, and several of my friends turned around to watch and laugh (they kept commenting on what a little mother i was). whenever max, tom, or mortiz needed anything they would say alison, alison, alison. it was cute. i got some birthday presents, ate bratwurst, and hung out with my friends - it was a good night. sabine gave a little speech about how it had been a great 11 months, then nils said i needed to give one in german. i politely declined...in german. i think that evening was really the first time he heard me use german. sabine occasionally hears it when i am speaking with the friends of max and tom, but nils tends not to be around at those times. at home, i speak only english. he said he was glad to see a return on his investment of putting me in class for three months. haha. the week was a fairly normal one, and i can't even remember now exactly what we did. friday afternoon, we tried our first tennis lesson. we aren't andre agassi (or maybe i should say boris becker) just yet, and they preferred the slide in the corner to the lesson, but hopefully that will improve with time. max started running a fever friday afternoon which didn't particularly help things. friday evening was the strassenfest (street party). all the neighbors gathered to grill out and hang out. it was really nice even though the weather wasn't perfect. it was clear that max didn't feel well when he asked to go to bed at 9pm. tom, on the other hand, was in top shape. he was having a really great night and kept everyone laughing until he went to bed around 11 pm. he kept telling me, "ich bin grumpy" (i am grumpy), and then he would start laughing. we did a lot of playing, he ate a lot of potato chips, and we took some silly photos. saturday, i did a bit of tourist shopping and bought a few tshirts, paintings, and a cookbook. later in the afternoon, i went for a run. then saturday evening was the schlossbeleuchtung. the castle lightening. the actual lighting of the castle is fairly lame. they shoot of one firework, and then there are red lights on the castle for about 5 minutes. when that is finally complete, they have a good fireworks show. since i didn't get my july 4th fireworks fix, i definitely wanted to go. my friend, ahmet, went along with me, and then we met our other friends in town. yesterday, i ate lunch with my german teacher, ana. she leaves for the states for two months on saturday. this means, yesterday was the last time that i will see her until who knows when. time is quickly winding down. i can't quite believe it. i'm beginning to get sad as i realize i am doing certain things and seeing certain people for the last time. a year is so long and so short all at the same time. these are all birthday party photos. i'll let you guess who is a rower and who comes from german class:

marieke und andy.

jess (the other american) und katha.

julie, ahmet, natsuki, me.

ricardo, ahmet, natsuki.

me and tom.

max.

anna-lena und steffi.

hannah (1/2 of the other set of twins on the street.)