koeln und duesseldorf.

it has been a while since i've updated this. so, where were we? monday, 16 june. we were off to the circus. Circus Barelli (apparently the second largest in Germany). it was max and tom's first trip to the circus, and my first trip in years. there were a lot of horses, camels, some acrobats from Russia, jugglers. you know, circus type things. for the exotic factor, they even had a hippo. he pooped all over the place. this seems to be the one lasting memory of the circus for max and tom. on thursday, i watched germany play soccer against portugal. we won. the town was madness. cars driving around honking their horns, waving flags, and singing "deustchland, deutschland." the energy was so very high. this then set us up to play against turkey the next week. friday, i talked with an aupair potential. her name is rachel, and she has decided to come. she seems great, so it is nice to have that worked out. tom also got sick over the weekend with a fever and lots of coughing. you can see the silly photos max and i were taking while he was at the doctor with sabine.

the response to "smile max." then as soon as i took the photo, he would start laughing.

for the weekend, i was off to koeln (cologne) and duesseldorf to meet with crisler, my old rowing coach. he was in germany for two weeks to do some work in connection with his phd. on saturday, we toured around koeln, and then we headed to duesseldorf on sunday morning. i enjoyed both towns, but i think that if i was to live in one, i would prefer duesseldorf. it has a bit more of a modern edge mixed with the old city. one of the largest and most well known cathedrals of germany is in koeln, so we of course looked at that. it was crisler's first europe trip, so it was also his first massive cathedral turned tourist site. we managed to eat german food, drink local beer, watch a soccer game on an outdoor screen, see the main tourist sites and make it back to our towns by sunday evening. however, there were major storms on sunday evening, and all of the trains were delayed. i got home 3 hours later than expected. oof. 166 minutes late to duesseldorf to pick us up. that is a lot of minutes.

dragon boat regatta. pretty cool.

all the above are duesseldorf. all below are koeln.

monday, tom was sick again, so we didn't do a whole lot. we attempted to go to the construction site with our diggers, but he didn't even enjoy that. tuesday, he was doing much better though, and we went to play with mortiz. we played soccer, then did a little swimming, and ended with both families at dinner at the neuenheimer marktplatz (neuenheim market plaza). wednesday was another day with moritz and his family. we grilled out before the germany vs turkey soccer game. it was a big deal here. there are a large number of turkish people living in germany. somewhere between 2 and 3 million people. this was also the quarterfinal that we needed to win to make it to the final...and we did. that was the good news. (so the final was scheduled for sunday against spain.) the not as good news was that all the honking horns, screaming and partying only made it that much more difficult for max to fall asleep. tom didn't even try to go to sleep. it was a battle. he was still sitting awake waiting for sabine and nils to come home after 11.30 that night. he was not happy with me. the good news is that three year olds are pretty quick to forgive, and he was my friend again on thursday. early friday morning i was off to stockholm. really early. at 5.20am.

max wanted to make a video. he always makes me turn my camera screen so he can see himself. he is watching himself make all of these faces. what a ham.

capri wochenende.

nils and sabine took a big step this weekend. they left me, max, and tom at home, while they were away for a few days. brigitte, sabine's sister, came from mannheim to stay with us in case i needed reinforcements. i would say, on the whole, the weekend went very well. the fact that three year olds have no sense of time probably didn't hurt at all. nils and sabine left early thursday morning, so i got the boys ready and took them to kindergarten. i picked them up, prepared lunch, and put them down for a nap. after that, brigitte arrived to play. in the afternoon, we went to the playground. after about 45 minutes, it begin to rain. so instead, we went to the grocery store and did a little shopping. when i think back on it, i'm not sure how we survived 6 months + of winter where we really couldn't play outside. the big accomplishment on thursday was that tom pooped for the first time ever in the potty.

max.max.tom.

on friday, we went to kindergarten, ate lunch, took nap, then we rode on the bergbahn (mountain train). first we took the bus to town, and then we walked to the bergbahn which we rode of the mountain. max and tom love this thing. on the way back down, we stopped at the castle with our diggers for a little while. within 5 minutes of tom adamently denying he needed to pee pee, his pants were soaked, and we had to change everything down to his socks. after we left the castle, we had to walk back through town, across the bridge and wait at the bus stop. max and tom have days where sometimes only i am allowed to help, sometimes only sabine, sometimes only nils...this weekend was my turn. for a while, i had tom on my shoulders and max in my arms because they refused to walk anymore, and they refused to let brigitte help them. please keep in mind, that i also had two little green diggers tied to my backpack that were bobbing up and down with every step. we were a sight. the bus was the most crowded i have ever seen it in my life. i was about to give up and walk to 20 minutes home with tom on my shoulders, but people saw a girl with a kid and made room for me. i barely squeezed in the front door. people were really so very nice, and when a seat opened up at the stop about 200 meters before ours, about 6 people offered me the seat. all in english. they heard me speaking english with tom. so they were either all dying for a chance to practice their english, or they didn't notice tom was speaking to me in german and i understood. those two diggers tied to my backpack didn't make squeezing in and out of that bus one bit easier.

max checking out the view from the mountain top.

in the new bergbahn.

i think you need all three of the photos to really appreciate this.

see those diggers?

a normal day in the life of max and tom. tom is pushing max. look at max's face. i broke up the brawl a few minutes later. no worries.

max at the castle.

saturday morning, we were off to the market to do a little shopping and play at the playground. we had an orangina and then walked to the river to watch the rowing boats and run around for a little while. this guy that i know from rowing (he coaches the high schoolers) asked if max and tom were my kids...i'm not sure if he was serious or not. we came home and played for a while, and tom swore again that he didn't need to pee pee. five minutes later, it looked like someone had emptied one of the great lakes onto the living room floor. that day, i attempted to put the boys down for nap a bit early. disaster. they also told me everytime they went to bed that i had to sleep on the sofa in their room. i was so tired, i fell asleep everytime. all of you who know me well probably aren't a bit surprised by that. in the afternoon, the weather was fairly decent, and we decided to take a paddle boat on the river (tretboot). max and tom, of course, found it very important that they drive the boat. it is quite difficult to use a paddle boat with a 3 year old sitting on your life. it is slightly (only slightly) easier to paddle with a 3 year old standing between your legs. we even saw my friend thomas out rowing, and max and tom both yelled "hallo thomas" to him. after that, we went to eat ice cream which is always okay with me. we even managed to go by the monastery and look at the animals for a bit. saturday before bed time, i asked tom to please push his train to the bathroom to brush his teeth. then i asked again. his reply, "erst bitte sagen." first, say please. hahaha. i asked him again. after hearing "erst, bitte sagen" about five times, i explained that i told him please, and this is the same thing. so, he finally makes his way to the bathroom, where we now have only one little potty. (the other is downstairs for max to use occasionally.) they normally sit on them when brushing their teeth. max was tired and getting upset because he wanted to sit on the little potty. tom looks right at him and says, "too late." i really had to turn around so they didn't see me laughing. they are catching on to the english thing.

drinking orangina at the market.

trying to wake up from nap time and go for a boat ride.max.tom. max.

tom.

tom and brigitte. it isn't focused, but i love it.an alison, alison, alison moment with tom (and thomas the train).

petting the calves.

driving the tractor.

sunday morning, there was a sort of a street fair/party in heidelberg. lucky for us, there were a lot of things going on at the monastery down the hill. however, it didn't begin until 11, so we first played in the sandbox a bit. max and tom had their faces painted. tom was eine katze (a cat), and max was ein krokodil (crocodile). they also had a bounce castle, but that wasn't so exciting as the haybales that were stacked for climbing . there were a lot of kids there, and we saw several friends from kindergarten. we had a bratwurst for lunch, and then made our way home. tom decided he wasn't taking a nap yesterday, but it worked out alright because nils and sabine arrived home shortly after that and were happy to find someone awake. in the morning, i told max and tom that mommy and daddy are coming home today. tom's response: they are finished eating. (in english.) haha. it is very true that almost every other time i stay with max and tom, sabine and nils are gone to eat dinner. tom was so tired yesterday evening, and i was holding him. however, i really had to use the bathroom...that didn't go over very well. when i put him down, he was screaming and screaming. nils picked him up, but he was already so worked up he was just screaming meine alison meine alison. nils asked me if i've ever had a boy this attached to me? no. haha. thank you nils for reminding me of that. on second thought though, maybe there was one. he was also three years old.

tom the cat.

max the crocodile. look at that ferocious snap of the teeth.

at the top of the haystack.

max rode like a pro.

today we are going to attempt going to the circus, and this upcoming weekend i'm meeting a friend/old rowing coach in cologne. brigitte remembered to bring her camera along all weekend, so those are all of the photos you see, and for a change, i'm in some of them this time. and see, i look the same.

growing up.

i would like to record today in the history books: tom benjamin herzberg pooped for his first time ever in the potty. we are making progress. :) for all of you who have never attempted to potty train, trust me, one day you will also get excited about this sort of thing.

bonjour croissants.

(brace yourself, this is long.) on thursday, we made 2 visits to the baustelle (construction site). in the morning, i went with tom. the guy that is the on-site boss is wonderful. he let tom drive the crane, look in the office, carry around some of the building plans, and gave him a little candy. i talked with him a bit and realized he thought i was tom's mother. that would be the first time on thursday that someone said that to me. tom and i came home and made some oatmeal cookies to take him in the afternoon. we heard that a second big digger was coming in the afternoon. tom, max and i went again after nap time to the construction site. we took our cookies, apples, and sand-box size diggers so that we could help out. this time, and old lady smiled at us, and i said hallo. her response: oh, what nice children, and what a young mother. we ate some cookies with our friend and then he was driving over one of the diggers for max and tom to climb in when his boss showed up. so, no go. however, we found a little pile of dirt outside the site and sat around and dug with our sandbox sized diggers. the construction guys walked by us, and tom proudly informed them that he was making a construction site too. we got a lot of smiles from people who drove by this big construction site and saw two little boys sitting outside with their toy diggers. then it started thunder and sprinkling. tom wasn't really ready to go. max, with hands on hips, helped me inform him, "tom, das ist thunder. das ist thunder tom. schnell, in die Hoehle." Tom, this is thunder. This is thunder Tom. Quick, in the cave. hahaha. there is no cave, but where the trees are so thick, it stays rather dark. then we met sabine who saw the rain and came to pick us up. max told her a few times, "mommy, you saved us."

(we couldn't climb in, but luckily max settled for his photo with the digger.)

on friday, i was off to another regatta. this was in le perreux, france, which is right outside of paris. a regatta in paris...doesn't sound so bad huh? saying...i can't, i have to go to paris for a regatta sounds slightly cooler than saying, i can't, i have a regatta in tennessee this weekend. it was with our partner club, and they were here a few weeks ago for the heidelberg regatta. i left in the early afternoon with 3 other girls i know, one girl younger than me, and two 14 year old boys. i haven't been around 14 year old boys in a while. they kept me entertained with their antics for a while. we arrived in perreux around 8pm or so and were all kind of hanging around by the boat trailer and finding out which host family we would be staying with for the weekend. well, there was a miscommunication, and it was thought that i was only staying on saturday night. so, friday night, i stayed with the president of the club, antoine. he is super nice, and he speaks german. i think he also speaks english, but i don't know. i was a little nervous because i was by myself, but his family was wonderful. not to mention, the minute i walked through the door, i saw jonas, a friend from heidelberg who dates antoine's daughter, camille. camille and jonas both speak perfect english. jonas is learning french, camille is learning german. it blows my mind. then another lady and her daughter arrived to stay with us as well. the mother only speaks german because she grew up in the eastern part of germany and had russian as a foreign language. it seemed the daughter spoke decent french and english. all these people are confusing to read about, but anyway, it was an interesting dinner. we had one who only spoke german, one who only spoke french and english, and me who only speaks english and a bit of german. the other 5 could handle a little bit of all three languages. needless to say, there was a lot of translating going on over dinner. dinner was ridiculous: started with asparagus soup, then we had chicken and rice, then we had cheese and wine. all courses accompanied by baguette. finished off with ice cream, pineapple, and cherries. i have no idea how the french are so thin. the lady that only speaks german, simone, is so nice, and i have often seen her on her bicycle because we live fairly close to each other. she was apparently the stroke seat (um, first rower in the boat) for the national team, back in the days of east germany. saturday, we went into paris for the day. never in my wildest dreams did i imagine i would be there again. especially walking about the city with german friends...and speaking german. we hit the typical tourist stops of the eiffel tower and whatnot. saturday in the evening, we grilled for the two teams. i thought i was going to be moving host families, but then i never heard anything about it. i spoke with my family from friday, and they said they would love to keep me. that was good news. well, around 11.15 that night, antoine and a guy come up to me. my new host family. victor. he is 16. he is a very nice kid, but he speaks less english than i speak german. his mother speaks no english. i think his brother may have spoken some, but i only saw him for about 7 minutes, and he was asleep for 5 of them. it took about 10 minutes by car to arrive to victor's house. a lot of the families had 3 or 4 people and most of my friends were staying together. i was somehow alone. when we arrived to victor's house, i understood only one word between he and his mother. amerikaner. (or whatever the french word for american is.) her reaction was kind of an ooof noise and she looked at me. there may have also been some laughter in there. not a wow this is fun laugh, but an of course this would happen to us laugh. i survived, but the only good word to describe it would be awkward. multiple times this weekend, people also asked, who is alexander, or is your name alexander? it is not a common last name, but rather a common first name. i think everyone assumed i was a guy. hmm. that could be the reason i was signed up to stay with a guest family with a son. sunday morning, i could not have been anymore glad to see the rowing club again. it was such a relief. anyone that spoke german felt like my best friend in the world. the races were 2 x 400m. i like this distance. it is over before you really have time to realize how it hurts. we raced first in an eight. it was good fun to be in an eight again. and we won! (okay, so maybe competition wasn't so so stiff, but it feels nice to win.) later, i was in a quad (four people with 2 oars each). i was terrified as usual about rowing in a race with 2 oars. i rowed with the juniors. two fifteen year old girls and one eighteen year old girl. they were all really nice, and we got 2nd! i have no idea how. another of our boats took 1st, and i think something happened to our other boat, because they should have surely been stronger than us. when we finished, one of the men from heidelberg asked why we were racing in the age group with the older girls and not the juniors. um, i'm old. he says i look young. haha, apparently i'm now 15 instead of almost 23. i at least used to get 18 or 19. this happened two days after i was called a mom, twice. all in all, it was a great weekend. the more i am around people from the rowing club, the more i like them. it also makes me want to learn more german. however, the most motivated i usually get is taking my book off of my bookshelf. that, and i ask a lot of questions. the girls said i can come along and watch the German University Championships, but i didn't realize that i planned my stockholm trip for the same time. if i could change the dates, i would. however, i'm meeting a friend there, so that will be a fabulous time as well. i'll try to get some photos in the near-ish future for you.

sorry, i accidentally video-ed this the wrong way. you have to turn your computer, or your head. max had on new shoes, and we wanted to see how fast they were. what max is telling me (du musst das umdrehen) is that i have to turn my camera screen around. he wants to be able to watch himself on the screen while i am taking the video.

tanzen.

a few weeks ago, during the party here, all the kids were dancing in my room. now max and tom occasionally want to dance in my room. it started with max telling me, "ich will ein kleid haben." i want a dress. then tom wanted one as well. no, i'm not encouraging this, but they really don't care when i mention that dresses are for girls. so here they are, in my skirts. on friday afternoon, i went shopping with max, and two different times someone called me his mother. i would most definitely claim him - he is adorable, but it sounds strange when i hear people say to him, "oh, are you shopping with your mommy today?" i'm not quite ready to be a mom just yet. on saturday night, i kept the boys, and we made a cake. it was an adapted american recipe. let's just say, it wasn't adapted to perfection. edible, but it looked awful. well, i bit of the batter dropped from the pan and was of course therefore cooked very well. max picks this up and says, "alison, ein stein" and "alison, noch ein stein." a stone. and another stone. haha. exactly what you want to hear about a cake. on sunday, i did some rowing with the old guys. the girls i normally row with were out of town for a regatta, but it was a nice day, and i wanted to row. i didn't think about how nice it was, and i managed to get a little sunburned. i rowed with 4 older men who i would were all at least 50. one of them must have been around 70. they are always so nice and pretty much have social hour while we are on the water. later, i grilled with some friends on the neckarwiese. this is a huge lawn by the river. there were tons and tons of people laying out in swim suits there. no one really swims in the river though, so it is kind of like laying out minus the beach. oh please, kill me, that sounds terribly boring. monday and today, we are playing with eugenie and thaddeus. they are so so cute. monday, they were all running around in the garden with no clothes on. playing in the water, then in the sandbox, then eating chocolate cake, then back in the water. needless to say, they were a mess, and they had a really good time. yesterday, we did a little potty training. it was a relative disaster. around nap time, tom refused to put a diaper back on. he was screaming hysterically because he didn't want this. sabine decided, okay then, you can have big boy underwear, and you have to tell us when you have to go to the bathroom. it worked fairly well with tom, but max is not ready yet. max went through at least one pair of underpants per hour, maybe more. we did go play with the neighbors puppies yesterday though, they are so cute. and somehow, it is suddenly june. i'm almost 23. i'm almost in school again. life is flying by. i will see you all soon.