69 days vs. 2 days (and sometimes not even that many)

This morning, once again, the windows are open and the streets are empty. There are barely any cars on the road, no stores open, and no one outside is working.It is quiet. Many street lights are even turned off due to lack of traffic for the holiday. By the afternoon, the streets will be bustling, not with cars, but with families; walking, biking, and enjoying together time.  It is a German Holiday. An odd part to this is that I still have 2 people in the family who are at work and school today :-(. I got to thinking about how often in the US everything shuts down. The only days that I could come up with were Easter and Christmas - and even those days are a little questionable, as I think a few stores stay open on these 2 days too now. Then I thought of how many days there are in Bamberg, when everything is closed - and came up with about 69 days a year. To me the difference is SHOCKING! There are 69 days geared towards family and spending time together here, where America has barely 2. Not to mention the vacation time on top of the 69 days that the Germans get. They average between 5 and 7 weeks a year (where we average 2-4- if you are lucky enough to even get paid leave). I may have quoted this before, but one saying here is: "Americans live to work" and "Europeans work to live" I am sad that I can't bring this normal occurrence of life back with me when we leave :-(

The weekend in photos...

Endlich!!!!

What we have been up to.... (a bit of rambling....)

Finally, we finished our apartment, found a temporary renter, and handed over the keys no less. It has been a fun/interesting experience, but also it is nice to be finished.. We had a great weekend with friends who came to visit from Vienna. We really had a nice time with them, and all of the kids were happy with a little "pal" - which is such a bonus! It is always fun for me to hear about other peoples' adventures living overseas. We have one more month of school for Bailey and Camden (Mia won't get out until the end of July, although she has a 2 week vacation coming up next week - crazy schedules!). Soccer is in full swing and Bailey is on a new Cheerleading team that she really enjoys. School is going well for everyone - it will be interesting to see how everything goes next year (Camden will be back at "normal" school, with about 1/5th of the population from this year - since the base is closing, tons of people are moving away, but nobody new is moving in). He will be at the Middle High School with Bailey. Since our visitors came, Mia has a new found love of reading books in English which is cute (up until now, she has preferred to read in German). We have more visitors coming tonight, and a busy weekend ahead. The weather is gorgeous (Maine Days, as I call them) and except for Bryan's 11 furlough days coming up - no complaints here :-)

Before

After

Happy Father's Day and Christi Himmelfahrt!

Once again, the German's have off today and everything is closed. The official holiday is call "Christi Himmelfahrt" (the day Jesus ascended into heaven). It is also Father's Day here (rightfully so, based on the religious holiday). It is so funny though, what Father's Day entails.... it is the day the Men go out with their friends to drink beer. No families, just friends and wagons of beer being pulled around to various breweries. Mother's Day is on Sunday, and that is more of a family day. Poor Bryan doesn't get to take part in the celebrations, but lucky him - he will get LOTS of family time on our Father's Day in June - so funny!!!!

Half Marathon

Yesterday, Bryan ran the "Weltkulturelauf" half marathon here in Bamberg. He did great, even though the race started late in the afternoon and it was in the 70's and sunny (ugh - not ideal for such a long run!). We had fun riding our bikes and meeting him along various points throughout the race. It is a very hard run - running first, to the top of a huge hill up to the castle, and then perfectly flat for 5 or 6 miles, and then a sharp, steep climb at the end. It was a great day though, with lots of energy and inspiration :-). It was super cute too, because as we were wishing Bryan good

Bryan - around mile 8 (Bailey ran with him for a few minutes and provided a gatorade refresher :-))

Last turn before the finish line!!!!

At the end with his biggest fans :-)

This was taken from our bikes on a bridge - I thought it was such a pretty picture

luck before the race, Mia says, "Daddy - I hope you win"   - Not quite a win yesterday, but just proud to have finished and beat the last time by about 10 minutes :-). We are super proud of you Bryan!!!!

*Bryan's friend helped him sign up to be sponsored for the race (it was the first time he had ever worn a tank top :-)). The company that sponsored him is called Neprosport. They didn't care about race times, just wanted to support some runners - it was a very nice treat for Bryan to have his race entry paid for - kind of neat! 

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Mia!!!!!!

Mia is officially 8 years old! It is crazy to think how fast she has grown. I absolutely adore this little girl - she truly brings so much happiness to our lives. She is also a very unique little thing - she is Chinese, growing up in an American home, yet living her entire life as a German - kind of crazy! She is smart, thoughtful, caring, precise, funny, adorable, and most of all just a really nice kid. She is type - A, (just like her Mommy) and the German in her makes her all about the rules. She is hilarious (just like her Daddy), pretty (like her sister) and playful (like her brother). She celebrated her birthday with 13 of her closest friends - yikes! (O.K. it was all of the girls in her class - and I had promised her this when we weren't sure if this might be her last year here). They were great girls though, and for 3 hours we played old fashioned games at our house - a little chaotic, but really a fun time !

Mia - my birthday wish for you is a lifetime of happiness and fun, and for you to always know how much you are loved! Alles Gute Zum Geburtstag!!

*as a funny side note of differences in culture... of the 13 girls who came to Mia's party, only 3 RSVP's came to me. The rest of the kids just told Mia that they were coming. Luckily, we know that the German's would trust their kids to relay this message - so I knew to expect all 13 - such a funny difference though!

**another cultural thing...on birthdays, for both young and old, the tradition here is to go up to the birthday person, shake their hand, look them in the eye, and say "Alles gute zum Geburtstag". It is always so cute to see the little kids doing this :-)

Kein Pub jetzt!

Not a Pub anymore...

I have been horrible about blog writing these last few weeks. It seems like life has taken over and there is not quite as much time to write! We have been busy trying to get our apartment ready to rent. We decided to go ahead and furnish it and try to rent to international students or guest professors that need a furnished apartment for a few months at a time. We thought that way, we can make a little money, but also be able to use it when we want to. I feel a bit like a college student/hotel worker/time share manager.

 It was kind of interesting... I recently found out that the bottom of our building used to be a pub back in the 50's  and 60's.  It is one of the funny things around here - when buildings are so old, they often have served many, many purposes over the years.

It is quite time consuming, trying to think of all of the details that one would need if they were coming to stay for any length of time in the apartment - almost like starting from scratch (dishes, silverware, coffee maker, sofa, rugs, bed linens, and the list goes on etc.). Luckily, we do have many "extras" in our own house, so we don't have to start totally from scratch. Trying to furnish it economically, yet somewhat cute, adds to the time for sure.  It is fun though, and hopefully it will be fished soon!