New song.

Went to the hospital on Sunday to have the stitches removed and the very kind doctor, after taking out two, said nope they aren't ready because your skin is staring to come apart. I'm thinking please just leave them in forever then! Mental images of skin coming apart is just not pretty. So I'm going back in Thursday morning and they will take out the rest and hopefully my skin will stay together! Or they will put lots of butterfly band-aids on and I will never take them off. lol Other than a bit of tightness around the stitches I'm in no pain and feeling good. I still look a bit ridiculous getting out of bed though I think. Ha!

I went for a bike ride yesterday. I love bike riding everywhere. It's just so. . convenient! And there are so many people on bikes. Bikes locked up to everything. I wonder what it is illegal to lock your bike to because literally they are locked up to everything or just parked outside of bikes on the curb. I left my lock at home on accident so I decided it was a biking ride tour kind of day. Well, I got lost. I got myself good and lost. Thankfully I have a good sense of direction so I wasn't really lost. I just rode in one direction and took lots of turns for about an hour and a half and couldn't find a bridge to cross over the river. I kept thinking if I just go a little bit farther one has to appear! It did, just a lot farther away than expected. My stitches weren't very happy with me the rest of the day though. It was my first day wearing jeans and that fabric is just not soft! I got home and laid out on the chair on the deck outside my window and took a nice nap in the warm sun.



I was sitting in the park near the kids school yesterday reading a book when I looked up and saw a really large person walk by and I though to myself that is the first really fat person I have seen here. At night, while I was having dinner with Andrea and Phillip after the kids were in bed, Phillip informed me that there is actually a 20% obesity rate here. So I guess the Germans are getting fatter too. Oh dear. The kids and I went back to the park after school and while Emily played peacefully, Oscar and his two friends decided to get into trouble by throwing sand up the slide. I thought it was all fine, none of the kids were screaming or crying or complaining but some up-tight parent was apparently just not okay with it and had a talk with them. I guess he asked one of the boys his name, where he lived, where was his parent, what was his phone number and he told him all lies. Silly Boys. Oscar thought that was just SO funny. He was laughing so hard when he was telling me about it. Those boys are trouble makers.  :)

IKEA trip today! WOOO! The kids are getting new mattresses because their Dad just made them a trundle bed I think it's called and their old mattresses are much too small. This weekend we are going to a birthday party at a "castle" in Wetzlar. Should be interesting. I'm not really sure what qualifies a castle, it could just be a mansion or something. So we will be staying the night there and then coming back Sunday. Oscar isn't coming with us because he is going to a horse riding camp! Sounds like fun to me!!

Johanna is coming tomorrow! SO EXCITED!!!! Last time I saw her was when Kyle and I went and visited her in San Fran when she was an aupair there! Now she is going to come visit me while I am an aupair. Tender. Maria also wants to come visit soon but we haven't set a date yet. And hopefully I will be going to Eichstätt soon to visit the rest of my German family! Then I can practice my Bavarian accent. hehe. Servus!

I'm falling in love with this city.

I love Frankfurt. Uh oh. :) Today I went on an hour and half walk around the nearby PalmenGarten and again through the lovely Grüneberg Park. The large palm house was built in 1869..  Crazy! It was a much better walk than the one I tried to do on Wednesday which was a walk pretty much only to the entrance of Grüneberg Park. Normally this would take.. oh 10 minutes tops round trip. Took me 40. I am now walking at an almost normal pace for me. It was a bit embarrassing to have EVERY single person pass me on Wednesday and give me a weird look that clearly asked What the heck is wrong with you? The weather is beautiful once again and I soaked up some rays on my deck. Yesterday I made some mini flourless chocolate cakes that turned out supreme. So YUMM. Megan weren't you asking me to make some cakes like this forever ago? Anway these are the way to go! They are from the cookbook of an Australian woman named Donna Hay. Her cookbooks are superb in that every recipe has a picture to go with it, and these pictures make every single item look amazing.

PS. My bike stayed at the doctors office from Friday till Wednesday and no one stole it. It wasn't even locked to anything but itself! I'm shocked. Here is picture of my "hole" but it doesn't come out very well. Oh well.

I'm home!!!! Well. . . at my current home :)

They let me out!! Andrea gave the nurses some wise words and they let me go at 2PM yesterday after checking my blood again. I just had to sign a paper saying I left against doctors orders. Such a rebel. I got home took a shower, ate some chocolate (the fam got me four bars of chocolate and their friend I had met also got me four so I have eight bars of chocolate to eat! The kids and I are going to make a bet how long they will last. ), called home and chatted with Mom and Dad and told them I would try to lay low, laid out on the deck in a comfy chair that Andrea put out for me and read a book while Andrea went to go get Oscar and Emily and go to Oscar's soccer practice. The sun felt amazing!! So this is a picture of my battle wounds. :) 18 stitches and then the drainage bandage to keep my insides from falling out. haha. After my shower I put on a new bandage over the spot where my drainage thingy had been and Andrea looked at it and said it looked like I had a nose in my stomach. I mean, I guess it's actually two holes! I'm going to take a picture of it today after my shower and we shall see if it still looks like I have holes in my body. I get all the stitches taken out on Sunday morning at 9AM. Seems a strange time to me. Eek. Gosh I am glad to be out of the hospital. One of the guys who had to take my blood pressure told me they didn't want to let me go because the nurses had fallen in love with me. Ha! When I was leaving yesterday he told me he was going to find me on facebook and that when I felt better he would have to take me out in the city. Ha! He's adorable. And probably 19. I did get one last glimpse of my cute ultrasound guy though. :) I can't believe how many people were "working" on me though. I had about three main doctors, the surgeon, three young guys who were the nurses helpers, and about 5 nurses? Besides all the doctors I saw the first day. Sheesh. I feel pretty normal besides my slow pace and sudden bouts of complete exhaustion. My elbow pits are a bit tender still from the IV and all the times they took blood for me. Thankfully they could always find my vein so I didn't have to suffer like my brother because they had trouble finding his veins all the time or something when he had his appendix issues in February/March. It's a beautiful day today so I am going to take a leisurely walk. haha. No one is going to want to go on a walk with me for awhile I think! Bis Später!

Fruit please?

Going on day five here and they won't let me go. The main doctors came in this morning, as they do every morning, and checked out my 18 stitches, saw that they still looked good, saw that my temperature and blood pressure and everything else was fine and then said "Looks like you will be able to leave tomorrow." To which my reply is : "I want to go today." Since that was the plan and all! Nope they want me to eat more and go to the bathroom more. Well the reason I haven't been eating very much is because what they give you is just not healthy or yummy. Creme soup, white bread, really fatty yogurt (which makes me really phlegmy), margarine (?!?) and those little jelly packets. Not very appetizing and not the kind of thing I would want to eat to get healthier. So I stuffed my mouth with almost everything they gave me this morning just to show that I could eat it all easy, it's just that I don't want to because it tastes like crap. Why is this so typical in hospitals?! So Andrea is going to bring me some fruit and vegetables when she comes and visits me today and we will also work on changing their minds and letting me leave today. I paced the halls this morning, got my own water, danced with the lady who cleans the rooms, and I am officially bored. I've read two books - French women don't get fat and The last lecture. Both interesting. I've read two magazines that Meike brought me. Not interested in watching tv. Much more interested in leaving. Maybe I will eat some of the chocolate that Andrea brought me yesterday. . .  I've switched from the ever exciting still water to the very common bubbly water. From chamomile tea to Mint tea. Can you tell I'm bored? The last few days were fine but with the expectation of leaving today and now not being allowed to I've become bored. The sun is shining and I want to go sit in the park. Go for a walk outside and not back and forth on this hall. Wish me luck on getting out today!

Frankfurt's hospital is very nice.

So it wasn’t just a normal stomach ache. Yesterday morning the pain did not go away. Normally when I would have a stomach ache from eating milk products it would last a couple hours and then be gone after sleeping. Well the pain lasted through the night and was still there in the morning getting worse. After phillip took the kids to school I decided to go for a awalk to see if that would help.Forty five minutes later it was getting worse. Sometimes I had to stop walking because it hurt so bad. When I got back to the house I took a shower and then laid down to distract myself with a movie. Still didn’t help. So ten minutes into the movie I heard Landers’ in my head saying “Cara, quit it out. You need to go to the doctor.” Ok fine Landers. J So I went up and asked Phillip if I could maybe get an appt with a doctor and he called and I had an appt thirty minutes later. I rode my bike to the doctor – just ten minutes away. That’s when I really started to feel the excruciating pain on my right side of my abdomen. I get to the doctor – she doesn’t speak English but the front desk lady does. So she comes in with me and translates a bit. Then my stomach gets poked at and they decide I need to go to the hospital to do blood tests. They think it’s my appendix. Oh geez. So I’m crying because now I feel like such a burden to this poor family that has just taken me in. What a mess. They won’t let me bike to the hospital or walk so they call Phillip who comes and picks me up and we are off. At the hospital we get sent from here to there to here until finally we make it to somewhere. Cute guy asks me all sorts of questions that sound a lot like the ones I got before when I had my mlik issues. When did you last eat and drink? When was your last period? Might you be pregnant? id you go to the bathroom this morning? Then he lays me on a table and does some more poking at my stomach. It’s so funny though because they are all trying to speak English and he’s like please undo your pants – yes sir! He’s not convinced it is my appendix. He thinks i might just be constipated. Umm no sir I’m actually a great pooper I believe. He takes my blood – I don’t faint – success! Then we are sent to the next station – ultrasound!! A very cute ultrasound helper tells me to lift up my shirt and helps me unbutton my pants – so sweet of him – and then we are looking at my stomach for a good twenty minutes. Does this hurt? YES for crying out loud. After they take lots of pictures o my stomach and have me roll on this side and that another lady comes in and says that my appendix is not where it is supposed to be. It is higher and she says something how normally you can’t see it on an ultrasound but you can see mind. So she thinks that no, I’m not constipated but that indeed it is my appendix. Next station – peeing in a cup. It is 1PM and I am hungry having not eating since 7:30AM in the morning and I haven’t drank anything since probably 9:30AM. Peeing on command is a bit difficult. Poor Phillip has been following me around and coming in the rooms and helping translating and trying to focus on his magazine – the economist J - that he has brought with him. Next station – another doctor to poke at me again. Ok it is decided i shall go upstairs have an enima and then the doctor up there will decide if I need to have surgery today. My white blood count is high and something else. I sign away my life after hearing all about complications. Upstairs we go. 22 year old Marius is my nurse. He takes my blood pressure and temperature for the third time that day. It’s still normal. Then he along with this very stressful nurse person help me undress and he gives me an enema then I lay for five minutes until he helps me up to go to the bathroom – nothing really there. Back to the bed to lay in pain for another fifteen minutes till the main doctor comes in and pokes at me. YES THAT HURTS. Ugh. More tears. He leaves. I go and throw up. Nurse helps me back after I push the red button. Then I’m off to surgery after they give me a pill for my nerves. I’m not nervous for the surgery – I just want the pain to be gone. Big white room, gigantic light, very friendly nurses and doctors. They give me the sleeping gas and I’m out. I tell them good night. Hour and a half later I wake up. Wheeled back to my room. Sleep. Nurses in and out. Help me to the bathroom. Not allowed to eat or drink anything. I have these things that look like giant cotton balls on a stick that have a lemon flavor to them to help me salivate? I think they taste good – one of the young guy nurse assistants disagrees. lol. Andrea comes to the hospital – she has been cgone since Thursday in Munich doing work. She brings me quite a few great books. Mom calls me. Talk to her and aunt Teryl. They make me cry naturally. No calls please. lol. Thanks for the love mom. Blood Pressure checked through the night. i sleep fine I think. Thankfully i have a nice button that I get to push and it gives me drugs. Don’t worry – I can’t overdose because it limits me somehow. I feel much better than before the surgery but still am in quite a bit of pain. STILL can’t believe this is happening to me.  Still have had nothing to drink now at 10AM. Very painful to sit and go to the bathroom this morning. I have a bag coming out of my side with red bloodish stuff. Yuck. I feel a bit nauseous. But besides that I am doing all right. I will be here for two more days they say and then two weeks of healing. Now I shall sleep.

Ouch.

The yogurt and cheese finally caught up with me today. As Emily would say : owwwwa.

Today I got up with the children, as I do every morning, at 7AM, got the table set and the breakfast ready to go so that after Andrea finished dressing them they could run down, eat a yummy breakfast of corn flakes with a stripe of chocolate and a stripe of vanilla yogurt on top for Oscar and all chocolate yogurt on top for Emily. Then they both have a ring of milk around the edge of the bowl. I have joined in in this weird way of eating breakfast. But I do vanilla and blueberry yogurt currently! And no stomach issues yet! WOO WHOOO!! I love yogurt. Then the kids were off to school and I made a vegetable thingymagingy for dinner tonight. It had a dough bottom and then you put sauteed garlic and onions with some corn, and tomatoes and then through in some cooked green beans and carrots. Very interesting. It looks pretty but I wonder how it will taste. . As it cooked I hung the laundry on the laundry table/line thingys which we just don't really use in the state but it is quite effective and I think then clothes last longer. Then I went for a nice run. I ran on a path this way and that and then around THE german bank and then found my way back to the big park that is very close to the house and ran around that. You can see it on google maps if you look up my address - Frauenlobstrasse 23, 60487 Frankfurt am Main Germany. It's the big park to the right of my house. I love it!! Now I just ate some bread with a bit of butter and veggiemite on it and then also a piece of bread with that yummy cheese that granny used to make her artichoke dip and some tomatoes on top. And I think soon I shall bake something. Something chocolatey. And then I'm picking up just Emily at school at 4 because Oscar has Judo practice. Then Em and I are going shopping for some new tennis shoes for her before going to the doctor to get her hearing checked? Busy day! :) Was that a good enough of an explanation of my day?? phew.

My first lessons.

Mom you'll be proud - I taught a piano lesson today. Emily and I began our piano lessons! With her piano "map" we learned how to play the c chord and she can find middle c and she is getting better and figuring out which key is which. WOO! And then we had a concert tonight where she played for the family. So cute. She is very excited about playing - we'll see how long that lasts!

I think I will bake something tomorrow. This not baking thing has gone on long enough! It's been. . . over a week since that last time I baked. Just not okay.

Rain rain go away.

Here is a picture of Oscar and friend Clara rowing away on this lake where the family has friends who have a cabin. Andrea, the kids, and I went up there for afternoon cake. I was a bit surprised that the kids were allowed to go out there all alone. Really no one was watching them but I mean they did have life jackets on but they just rowed themselves around the lake. Quiet impressive I thought for six year-olds!! He later took me around the lake - so romantic. :)


Today I played Candyland and lost. I mean lost bad. Oh well. The kids and I then read a lot of Disney stories. Weird to think that they don't know them all like we do. So we read Sleeping Beauty, The Rescuers, and Alice in Wonderland. I love that they can be so enraptured with a book for so long! The rain is raining on my parade! Yep I said it. There was a huge thunderclap today. Just one though. Today I went on a walking tour of the city. It coast 10 Euros (really cheap I would say!) and this woman originally from Ohio took a group of five of us on a tour around Frankfurt am Main. One girl was from Sydney - just finishing up her 9 week long tour or Europe, two girls from Chicago going to school in Spain, and a Primary school teacher from Spain who spoke very little English but I appreciated his enthusiasm! The tour was supposed to be from 1030-130 but we actually went on till about 3! The rain stuck us inside a bit but no worries - we just had a bit to nibble on and then continued on our way. I learned a lot about the city - most which I will not remember except for that it is a really old city. One really cool thing I got to see was this wall that surrounds a Jewish graveyard and on the wall are all the names of Jewish Frankfurter's who died during WWII.
One of which was Ann Frank! We also saw lots of cool churches but most of the middle of the city was destroyed when us Americans bombed the heck out of it one night. Lovely. The lady who led the tour was a bit odd I thought. lol. She's been in Frankfurt for 23 years now and her newest husband she found on classmates.com. Yeah. And her teeth were gross and I am such a teeth person. It was either from smoking or coffee. Not sure.
Last night the Dad, Phillip, made me an amazing thick smoothie. Just thought you should know. Oh and today at snack time Emily and I ate these rice cakes things we have in the US but with chocolate all over one side. Yumm!!
Talked to Johanna today and she is going to come up and visit me in the next couple of weeks and I might get a ride down with some friends of friends to go to the Oktoberfest and meet up with people there. Woo whoo!! The weekends with the family are pretty booked until halloween-ish so it will be nice to have Johanna and whoever come up and visit me. :) There is an airline company called ryanair and you can get flights for only 5 euros to all over Europe. Of course they are really good at having these sneaky extra costs - like if you don't check in online it costs an extra 20 euros. And of course getting to the airport and back and into the city costs something and then if you have a bag more then 8lbs or something you have to pay 20 euros. So maybe if I want to go somewhere just for a night that is the way to go. I still have to plan my visits to Kim in Copenhagen and Libby in Italy! I have two weeks to travel after Christmas so I'm trying to figure out where I want to go. Johanna mentioned Amsterdam so maybe there?
Hopefully the sun clears up tomorrow! I'm going to go to the store and pick up some ingredients to make a vegetarian dish - which actually the family VERY much appreciates because they don't eat a lot of meat, make something, and then go meet Meika downtown to hang out before picking up the kids at 4.

Now I'm off to read a bit about the undercover economist and then watch a little bit of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire :) SWEET!

And it's the weekend.

I can't believe that I have only been here 5 days. I feel like it's been much longer - in a postive way. I love Frankfurt! I love that I can bike all over the place in so short a time. And I'm really good at finding my way back. Good thing I have a good sense of direction. So we started the process for my visa and I went and took my test to find out what German class level I'll get into. I had to take part of a multiple choice test and then bring it back to have it graded and then I was given a prompt for writing an e-mail to a friend and then after they looked at that I had to go back and take the rest of the multiple choice test and then after that I had to tell the guy what I had done the previous day and then finally he decided to put me into level six German. After you finish this level you get some special certificate and then it is four more classes or so until you get to the point where you have to be in order to get into the universities here so I think I'm doing pretty well. Their previous au pair didn't know any German before she came and she finished up to the class where I am starting so if I can complete six levels too I think I'll be set!!

The kids have been great. Typical siblings and loud so it's a good thing I come from a loud family. :) We've been playing a lot on the trampoline, building forts, reading, playing with friends, etc. Today I rode around town without my map and then got it out to find my way up to Oscar's soccer game. Adorable seven year olds playing and just like in the states there are the crazy mom's screaming so loud to get their kid running faster. Then we went back to the house for some lunch and then I met up with another aupair named maike who is absolutely adorable - sadly she is leaving in a month having already been here for a year. And the crazy thing is that she is from Newberg!! Small world. Anyways she is fabulous and is going to show me around a bit. She's my new friend. :) She also informed me that she has found the police men here to be quite attractive so now I have to keep my eye out right? lol.

I went running in the park yesterday and there was a woman I swear was like 60 years old and she was running faster and longer then me. Oh dear. Maike is running the the marathon here next month and when she first got here she ran at most 3 miles so that is some inspiration. Not that I am going to run a marathon or anything. Yuck. But she says the weather is pretty good so I'm happy. This big park is like a two second bike ride from the house and when I run around the perimeter of it all it takes about 15minutes. It's wonderful to have it right there! So great. Sorry guys - not coming home! Just kidding. I think.

I put some pictures up on facebook and I haven't quite figured out how to do it on here/haven't really tried/to lazy at this point to do it. Soon though!

The weather has been perfect, the family is great - I'm loving it. I've talked with johanna and maria a couple times already, I've gotten mail already (love you steph!), and all is well at home. Right?? No one is getting engaged that I need to know about?!

Also, Ich bin schon sehr mueder. Guten Nacht!

Guten Morgen!

So I am rested and well. :) I woke up at 9:30 this morning - 12 hours of sleep! - in my quaint little room, had some jogurt for breakfast - no stomach ache yet! - and then got on my bike and rode around to get a sense of the area on my own. I rode through the nearby park which is really pretty and then into the near town - Bockenheim - and then back the the house. Then Andrea - the Momma - took me down to the school again so that I will be able to find it on my own this afternoon when I pick up Emily and take her to a Birthday party. I really like that there are bikes everywhere and everything really is accessible by foot, biking, or the train. Now I am eating some of my favorite chocolate - thanks hil!!! Yesterday went really well. The Dad - Phillip - has decided that when with him we will converse in German and then with the kids of course I will speak english. Although I sometimes sneak in a few German sentences and ask them how to say things in German. :) Their english is perfect and they are completely adorable! Yesterday I played some soccer with Oscar - he's really good! - and Emily and I played on the trampoline. We also played with a harry potter sticker book, which naturally I loved.

The only problem so far - the big spider in the corner of my room. Ah! And I need to work on the whole showering without a curtain and spraying water all over the ground. There must be a trick to this. Please let me know if you know the secret!

That's all for now folks!

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." Anais Nin

New Beginnings

I love falling back into step with my aussie family. Crazy how after not seeing each other for so long it is as if we never went a day without seeing each other. I love you girls so much! After an AMAZING trip in Chicago I have made it to my new home town - Frankfurt. The sun is shining. I am a bit sleepy but I am not allowed to fall asleep until after 7PM :) The house is super cute and my room is adorable. The backyard has a trampoline - backflips to happen soon. It is slowly hitting me that I will be here for a year. I cannot actually think straight right now because of my delirium but I am so excited for what is to come. More to come soon. . .