Autumn has arrived.

Johanna came and played starting on Wednesday. SO EXCITING to see her lovely face again! I picked her up at the Hauptbahnhof - my first trip there but surely not my last. We went and wandered the city and had a few fun adventures shopping. I was really good and didn't buy anything even though Hanni said I should buy this sexy purple skirt from H&M. I might go back and get it. It's one of those high-waisted kind. And I really wanted two scarves from there too. Oh H&M is just so dangerous. Andrea was kind enough to lend her bike to Hanni to use while she found some other ways of getting around so we biked to the Hospital - got my stitches out! Skin is still together. Thank goodness. The doc said I can dance in a week. :) We'll see about running. . . We then walked to the store and got some ingredients to make a bombtastic
blueberry cheesecake that was AMAZING if I might say so. Then Amy told me that Kayleen made her pumpkin cupcakes with creamcheese frosting for her birthday and I got a bit jealous. Recipe please Kayleen! Friday night we went to Meike's with another au pair who is here till December. We just had some champagne and chatted. It was very nice. Meike was afraid of opening the champagne but I think I'm a champ. Probably because of you Landers! Hahahaha. It was so funny because she was so afraid that it was going to explode of and break something and then spill all over. Of course it didn't. Psh.  I dropped Hanni off on Saturday morning at the afternoon. My second time driving and I found my way around splendidly which is great. I am really getting a feel for the city. Although I think my bike tours are helping me. It's fun getting lost IN the city. Not outside of it. I ventured to a new area called Bornheim yesterday and then sun was shining and it was beautiful. Very chick. Cute guys. I'll have to go back there. :)

It's quite dreary outside today. I find that quite lame. We, that is Phillip, Andrea, Emily, and I just got back from a night in a small city called Wetzlar where a friend of theirs had their 10th anniversary. We stayed the night at a cute hotel with a great spread for breakfast this morning. YUMM. Then we had brunch at a large mansion that belonged to the family. A few generations back in this family started the Leica lens company. So they have some money. This is the house and then a pic of the big Cathedral in the city. It was very windy so when they were doing the tour of the city Andrea, Emily and I went to a cafe and had some coffee and some things to nibble on instead. hehe.

 Today we are going to the "Newcomers Festival" in the city and hopefully I will find some clubs that I want to join! Maybe a book club or a soccer club - for after I've healed of course. Don't worry Mom :) This week is Oscar's birthday so one of Andrea's college room mates, Jet (or Jed. . .),  is coming into town to stay for a couple of nights and then Phillip's Mom is also coming on Thursday for a little birthday evening. Apparently Jet is in his late thirties but living in New York like a 22 year old. Shall be entertaining! He is one of the kids Godparent. Forgot which. Oscar's party is on Saturday - horse back riding with a group of six of his friends! Should be fun!!

I need to work on planning my trips to visit Libby in Italy and Kim in Copenhagen but it seems I am always so busy! I've already been here a MONTH! Crazy. Time flies!!!!!

William Fitzsimmons beard is too long for me.

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.