The boys love the Pottery Barn Kids chair I got for them and they constantly fight over who gets to sit in it.

Today we stayed at home again. I guess there’s really not much going on. I “talked” to my mom and dad this morning, actually, I just pointed the webcam at the boys and we all just sat and watched. They are pretty entertaining. Usually our webcam coversations don’t last very long because my wireless signal goes in and out. But when I moved the laptop towards the window (further away from the router), it worked better. Go figure! The calls lasted at least 20 minutes, which was surprising. I think my mom and dad really liked just watching the boys and all the funny things that they do. They were also surprised at how big they are.

I also received some bad news, my Uncle on the Big Island isn’t doing too well. I was under the impression all this time that he was recovering from chemo. We visited him whenever we were in Hawaii and he seemed healthy and the usual. A little skinnier, but that was to be expected. I had no idea that his cancer came back with a vengence and now they are telling my dad to go visit him tomorrow. Geez, it seems like cancer is all around us! I don’t think I remember a time in my life where I have known, 1st hand, of so many people battling cancer at one time.

In the afternoon, I packed the boys up and we met Michael after work. We met on the train platform and there was a train already waiting. I thought we wouldn’t make it, but the doors were still open so I hopped on. There was a guy who cut right in front of Michael so he ended up not being able to get on. At least it was the S-line and they had the next train coming 2 minutes later. So I just waited on the other train platform for him.

We went to Basic, my favorite food store. I just love all the organic food they have, their produce section is one of the freshest I’ve seen. Yeah, yeah, I know I can go to the Viktualienmarkt, but for some reason, I like this store better. Shopping with Michael is really fun because I will make him take care of the boys while I wander off and find all kinds of stuff. We bought some cheeses, 2 pieces of cheesecake, 1/4 of an “Italian Ring” bread and lots of produce for the boys. Their cilantro has much to be desired though, usually I can smell it right away, but I put a bunch right near my face and could barely make out what it was. Maybe it’s the off season and they don’t know how to produce stuff out of season??? Who knows. We spent a lot of money, way more than normal, the cheeses alone was 12 or 13 euros. I had a hard time finding flour. I figured out that it is “mehl” but they had tons of different kinds. Weizenmehl was the “default” flour. I guess it’s like the US, where we have “all purpose”, “bread”, “unbleached”, etc. I think the Weizenmehl is like the all purpose kind. I asked the woman who works there and she just said that it’s the “normal” flour. We’ll see…

We had a really nice feast for dinner - cheese, our italian bread, our 3 euro bottle of wine (which was really good, by the way), salami and speck (thin slices of ham that looks like uncooked bacon). The camembert cheese that we bought was so good that I ate almost the whole thing by myself. This cheese is really becoming an addiction for me. I gotta stop it, but it’s so good! The Italian bread was also excellent, it tastes really good when it’s fresh from the baker. For dessert, we had our cheesecakes with fruit, but alas, it wasn’t good. The one we had at the bar was better. In fact, the more I ate it, the worse it tasted. You would think with pastries everywhere they would know how cheesecake is supposed to be.

The daily video for today is Rowan and Elijah beef it out to see who gets to sit on the chair. I have to put another one up here because it is so cute. While Elijah was sleeping, Michael pushed Rowan around in the Hippo walker. He loved it!

Now that the boys can walk around, they have been constantly rearranging the dining room chairs.

This morning I had a doctor’s appointment so Meir came over to watch the boys for a couple of hours. I was a little worried because I thought I told him 8am, but then I realized that I must’ve told him 8:30am. Sure enough, he showed up at 8:30. I got to the doctor’s right on time, but it turns out there was some miscommunication and I didn’t have an appointment. So, I left with this weird feeling of not knowing what to do. I have a couple hours of free time, what should I do??? I walked around a bit, but the interesting shops didn’t open until 10am. So, I decided to go to the big Tengelmann’s at Karlsplatz and go shopping for food. Boring, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

It was a really enjoyable shopping experience though. I usually am “under pressure” to get exactly what I need, since I have fussy babies or Michael is waiting or the store is too small to actually browse. I decided to make stir fry chicken, so I bought some veggies and some chicken. I couldn’t find chicken thigh meat though, but I’m sure I would be able to if I went to a butcher. And guess what? I found flour tortillas and taco shells that actually looked decent. I’m sure they won’t be as good as at home, but I didn’t think I could find it at all. I was bummed that I didn’t have my new “Happy Digits” reward card with me, but I got 5 heart stamps! I think I mentioned these before, but it’s basically you get 1 stamp per $5 and whenever you collect so much, you get free cookware. I hate the times when I spend 9.75 or something. They don’t round up AT ALL.

The rest of the day we just hung out at home. For dinner, I made fajitas instead of the stir fry I was planning. Those tortillas were just staring at me and I had to use them. I used the seasoning packet that my cousin Lynn sent and it turned out pretty good. The tortillas were ok, but more rubbery than I’m used to. I looked on the internet and I can make them fresh! I can’t wait to try! Michael loved the fajitas and ate like 5 of them. I only ate 2.

I went on my run late today and much to my surprise, I did really well. I think last week I was running slightly faster than 15 minutes/mile. Well, today I ran about a 12 minute mile! It’s hard to be precise, so it’s probably not that good, but close to it. While I was running, I was surprised that I could keep going. I am still stopping to walk, but those periods are getting shorter. It’s weird because I’ve been running the same for the last 4 weeks, and this week all of a sudden I show improvement. Isn’t that weird? It could also be that last week I had crummy weather and couldn’t go as fast. Or maybe taking a break and going skiing makes a difference? Dunno… The weather tonight was just perfect, a little cold, but clear and non-icy, which is more important!

Today’s daily video is of the boys rearranging the furniture, the chairs hardly stay in their place anymore. Sigh.

Rowan learns how to walk with the little walker thing we got for him.

It was a fun morning seeing the boys again! I sure did miss them. Elijah gave me lots of his special hugs. He did that a lot today! Maybe he *did* miss me a little.

We didn’t do much today. I didn’t want to leave the house because I was still a little sore and lazy. I think after being out for a couple of days, I just wanted to stay home. So I gave Michael the list of stuff that we need and bless his heart, he braved the very cold and got stuff for the babies. I was also lazy and didn’t want to cook so we got Indian food at Jeeta’s (the restaurant right down the street). I got the Butter Chicken Marsala and it was pretty darn good. Michael got the Lamb Curry and it wasn’t as good as mine. We talked to the waiter there and found out his name is Sandu. He was kind of surprised that I asked what his name was, and so maybe he’ll remember us and we’ll get extra special service whenever we come in! :)

I also am starting a “daily video”, since I got a little webcam. It won’t be every day, of course, but something short and unedited to see what the boys are up to. They seem to be doing something new every day, so I thought it would be good to have. Sorry the frame rate is really slow so it’s blurry, I think I fixed the problem so from tomorrow’s video it should be good.

Hanging with the Astrophysicists

This morning again, we got up at around 7:30, but both Elsa and I didn’t want to get out of bed. We made it down to breakfast, I came down later and since the table next to Elsa was full, I sat on a new table. All the other tables around me filled up before people started sitting next to me. Do I have American cooties or something? Hmmm…

We got back out, this time we had Steve and Joe as our teachers, Joe stayed back and helped the slower group and Steve was our instructor for the day. In the morning we did our exercises on the babylift. Thank goodness there weren’t obnoxious kids hogging the tow. The rope was more icy than yesterday, so you had to wait for the rubber grip thing. Also, you couldn’t have more than 3 adults on the line, otherwise the motor couldn’t take the weight and you would be stuck and have to trudge up by yourself. The exercises today were harder, due to the longer skis, we all felt a little more awkward. I felt that it was more controlled yesterday, probably because the group naturally split between the faster and slower learners and they managed to wrangle the two kids and force them to do the exercises. Don’t get me wrong, I like the kids, but like all the kids in skis, they just want to go higher and faster and not mess with all this turning stuff. I’m glad the instructors were more forceful with that. I think I had pretty good form, but of course I fell lots of times, especially when we did the exercise “traffic cop”, where you’re going downhill straight into the instructor and then at the last minute they tell you which direction to go. Of course I’m petrified of slamming into them, so I just go with whatever my psychic mind tells me they are going to point to. And I’m wrong most of the time.

Right before lunch, we had a timed slolum race and I did it 4 times with Grajena. It was really fun, the 1st time we tied, then she won, then I won, then she won again because I went to fast and missed the last pole. Dang it! While waiting at the bottom, I noticed one of the kids (Sakilti - don’t know if that’s the correct spelling) was crying. He is 6 and had a really hard time losing to someone. He raced with Swati (8 y.o. girl) and lost and was just bawling. Since I was the only mother there (his mom was with the instructor somewhere else), I felt so awful for him and tried to comfort him. He hates not being first in everything. I tried to tell him that it didn’t matter and that the important thing is that he goes and tries again and gets her the next time and trying to make it a positive competitive environment. I heard things like “it means that I am not good” and “I have to be a winner” and I was really concerned that something like this can make him fall apart. I had no idea what to tell him that would make him feel better. To his credit, he did go back up again and raced against Rodrigo, and lost again. Oh my god, he started REALLY feeling bad. I told him the same things, and he went up again. This time, though, he said “Kris, will you cheer for me when I race with Joe?” And I told him “of course”! Of course, Joe lost and it gave him back a little bit of pride. Poor boy! I did talk to his mom at lunch and she said that he gets like that and has to be #1 all the time, and she’ll talk to him about it.

For lunch this time, I got the gulache mit pommes and it was actually really good. I was kicking myself that I didn’t get this yesterday. My shins were hurting a lot from those dang boots. I don’t know if I’ll make it through the day. It doesn’t hurt going down, it just hurts when walking or standing and leaning on them. Joe told the funniest joke today! Ken (the ski school founder) has really loud, squeaky boots and you can hear him walking from far away. He’s an older guy, in his 50’s (I think). So, whenever he came walking toward us, someone said “wow, he’s got squeaky boots”, and then Joe said “That’s not his boots, that’s his legs!” Ah, that still cracks me up.

After lunch, we went on the t-bar lift, and that really stressed me out. I was partnered with Grajena, and after a couple of meters out, Grajena fell over and took me with her. I fell on top of her and I immediately felt so awful. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think our skis got caught up in each other. She hurt her leg, but it was ok. She then went up with someone else and I went up with Steve (instructor). I hate those things! Where are the chair lifts??? I think to make skiing affordable, they mostly have t-bars, and only chair lifts/gondolas to the more steep areas. I made it up ok and we skiied down longer terrain. Everyone was staring at us as we did our exercises, but at least we looked like we were having fun while learning. Everyone else had a panic look in their eyes as they went down. I surprised myself that I could comfortably go down terrain that was fairly steep. I usually tense up and get nervous and snowplow. Something that Joe told me stuck with me that the longer the skis are, the faster and bigger your turns have to be. Also, think of bending at the ankles rather than bending at the knees. I think that helped me a lot.

It’s interesting to see that the cocky people (won’t mention names) yesterday weren’t so cocky today. They were fumbling all over themselves with the longer skis. Why is it sweet justice when something like that happens. Like why are we always wishing the person who is riding a bike w/o holding the handlebars falls over? Maybe it’s my twisted and demented mind. I tried to stick with the exercises and not get ahead of myself, because I know they are teaching an important skill. Maybe it’s a natural instinct to try and go higher and faster, but I guess for me it’s more like “do it right and set a good foundation”.

Towards the end of the day, we went of this LOOOOOOOOONG t-bar lift and I went with Rodrigo, and it was so hard! Since he was tall, the bar was hitting him at an awkward place so he was kind of crouched over and at the end he was really hurting. My left leg was also really hurting because of leaning into him a lot. You need to lean into each other to keep your skis apart. At the end of the lift, I didn’t push off correctly and sent him falling over. No one will ride a t-bar with me now!!! Sniff.. I got a good scolding from Steve who told me what I did wrong and I felt awful! I apologized to Rodrigo, who took it in stride. He is a really nice guy and reminds me of our friend Christos, who coincidentally also lives in London.

Anyhoo, we went down the longer run, and one part we had to do a “schuss”, which means you just go down as fast as you can without turning because there is a looooong area that is flat and slightly uphill and if you don’t go fast enough, you have to walk it. I was not about to walk it with my shins hurting, so I did just that and surprised myself. I went faster than I’ve ever gone, just outside of what I feel comfortable with. I still ended up having to walk a little.

We went back up the long lift again, this time I partnered up with Swati, the 8 y.o. girl and it turns out that we were perfect t-bar partners. We’re about the same height and we exited gracefully. I was so happy about that because I would’ve felt awful if I hurt a little girl. She was nice to talk to as well, it’s funny how little kids will just say whatever is on their mind.

We didn’t ski down right away, we had apres-ski at a pub there. I had another hot chocolate and I drank a schnapps with Anna the instructor from yesterday. The coolest thing, by far, out of the whole weekend, was this little slide they had going down the stairs. Since it is the worst thing to go downhill in ski boots, these people made a wooden slide that you can sit on to bypass the stairs. It was so much fun! I’ll have to take a picture of it next time.

We skied back to the car in the dark, and that actually was kind of cool because it was empty and you could barely see the snow and the holes or whatever so you just had to go. The schuss part was great, I went for it! By the end, I was glad to get my boots off, my shins were just killing me! We packed up and went back to Munich, although since we were the lucky ones who were in Ken’s car, we had to go to his place first and unload. Ken told us that the easiest way to do it is to set up a chain and I was all ready to do that, but somehow every one else disagreed with me. I don’t know why. The stairway we went down is very narrow and steep so only one person could be on it at a time and it was a bottle neck. I secretly think the other folks thought my chain idea was better at the end.

We got dropped off at the train station, and I was a little uncomfortable because I had Ben take a picture of me and Elsa, then I took a picture of her and Ben. Then Ben took out his camera for me to get a picture of him and Elsa, and then … he put his camera away. I mean, I know she is way prettier than I am, but geez! Ben and I got on the same train and Elsa took the S-Bahn.

It was good to be home again, I didn’t have my key out (it was buried in my bag in my other jacket), so I had to ring the buzzer. Michael was on the phone and opened the door and told me to come up to the 1st floor. And oops, he locked himself out. And he was only wearing a t-shirt and underwear. So I had to unpack my bag and get my key, luckily I had one!!! If we didn’t, our neighbors would get a good look at Michael’s legs.

We spent hours talking about the weekend and what happened. He told me a funny story about the boys. He left them downstairs by themselves for a little while and when he came back down, the boys were in a middle of a large heap of toilet paper. I wish he took a picture. Maybe I’ll sacrafice a roll and video it. It’s good to be in a place where I’m loved and needed again!!! Am I pathetic or what???

Doing the centipede. Can you tell which one is me?

We started the day at 7:30am, got up, got dressed, went down for breakfast. I had some eggs and bread. The way I ate my eggs probably weirded people out. I usually crack and peel them on my plate, take out the yolk and just eat the whites. Everyone else had a little egg holder, took off the top and spooned it out. Hmmm…

After breakfast, we headed out to the ski area, which was about 15 minutes away. The great thing about this course is that they bring the skis, boots and all that stuff so you don’t have to worry about it when you get there. The first day you start on really short skis, then every day you increase the length.

Our group was 10 people + 2 instructors. Me, Rodrigo, 2 kids from India, their 2 mothers, Merideth (she took the 1st weekend last week, and decided to re-do it), Gregina (sp?), Viktor and Sabine (sp?) a couple from Poland. Our instructors for the day were Anna and Steve. Steve reminded me a lot of my former boss, Tim, at Microsoft.

We did some walking type exercises to get used to the snow, then we did some walking relays on the flat ground, then we went up the rope tow a little, did more exercises, then we went to the 3/4 exit on the rope tow. All the while, we’re doing little exercises. One thing that was really irritating was that the tow always had a ton of kids and they would cut in line all the time. So while all the adults are waiting patienly, these kids just come skiing up and squeezing themselves in between and getting ahead. I started sticking my skis way out (too bad they were so short!) and putting my arms out to block them. Michael said he read that kids here will do that, so you have to be crafty.

We went to lunch and I unfortunately got a würstl mit pommes, which was basically 2 hot dogs (no bun). The casings are too hard on the dogs, so it grossed me out. One thing that I found interesting is that people will pick food off my plate w/o asking. It’s ok, since it’s just stuff like fries, but it kind of took me by surprise. Or maybe it was just the people I was sitting with! :)

After lunch, we went back out and I think it got a little out of hand. The 2 teachers we had were concentrating on the people who weren’t catching on fast. So it left the rest of us to just go up and down the rope tow. It wasn’t all bad, it gave us a chance to play around a bit. My shins were hurting from the boots so I sat down a few times to give it a rest. Also, the rope tow is no fun! By the end of the day, we could go down from the top of the rope tow with no problems.

After that, we went to the ski lodge again for “apres-ski”, which means “after ski”, and usually you have a beer or a hot chocolate with whipped cream. I got the latter and it was really good. I was exhausted and had shin pains and was ready to go back. Then we went back to the place where we’re staying and there was a mad rush for the shower. There are only a few showers and limited hot water. I was one of the unlucky ones who didn’t get a shower so I just waited until after dinner when the water was hot again and I could be more leisurely.

For dinner, I ordered the chicken, which turned out to be really good. It was nice and tender and seasoned well. There was one point in the conversation where people went around the table talking about their background (degrees that they had) and where they worked. When my turn came up, I said that I didn’t have a degree and it went silent. DOH! Here I am sitting on a table with 4 Astrophysicists all with Ph.D’s and I am, well, a hausfrau. Oh well, I yam what I yam. One of the owners (I think the place is owned by two brothers, or at least it’s run by them) picked up his accordion and played and sang, it was very cool.

I was very homesick at this point though and all I could think about was Michael and the boys. I miss them! Rodrigo graciously loaned me his phone and I called at around 8pm to see how he was doing. He went skiing today too! He got the babysitter for 6 hours, went to the ski area, which was only about an hour away by train, skiied for a few hours, then came back. It was only 33 euros for the train ride AND the lift ticket! Can you believe that? It was lonely for him as well, and he can’t wait for me to ski with him so that we can be t-bar partners.

Just eating tofu, nothing really exciting here.

This morning we went to Baby yoga at Sticky Fingers (the same place we went yesterday). I went into it thinking I won’t sign up because it will probably be almost the same as the other class. But it turned out to be really different, and we actually did some yoga poses (ourselves) and then little things with the babies. The boys did well, better than yesterday, but by the end you could tell that they were tired and cranky. I liked it quite a bit and decided to change classes and do the ones on Friday’s rather than the toddler Thursday class.

After that, we came home and they took a nice long nap. I was busily getting all my stuff together for the weekend ski trip. I also had to cook dinner before I left. Luckily the boys are pretty self sufficient these days so I could just keep them in the living room and I could be upstairs packing away or in the kitchen cooking.

I was going to go over to De’s house in the afternoon but because of the time constraints, I had to put it off until next week. I did talk to her and she gave me some good ideas on where Michael could take the boys for the weekend.

Michael came home, I was packed, we ate dinner and I was off! I left at around 6:10, and only have to take the U5 train to get to Quiddestrasse. The ski school that I am attending is really cool, you will be able to ski intermediate runs comfortably in only 3 weekends! And it’s all in English! So many people have had such great experiences, it must be too good to be true!

I met the folks at the train station, there were a lot of people! It was kind of strange, everyone knew each other because most of them had their first weekend last week, so I felt a little like a sneech with no star. On the way there, I rode with Ken (the head of the school), Ben (from London), Elsa (from Spain), and Rodrigo (from Brazil but living in London and flying to Munich for the weekends). It was a nice drive to the lodge, but a crowded car! Ben is 6′8″ or something like that so he had to sit in the front. And the 3 of us squeezed in the back.

We got to the Gasthof Griesenau, and the smell of the farm greeted us. It was a very dull musky smell. Kind of like cigarette smoke in your clothes. We went to the pub, and I met lots of people. Surprisingly, I was the only American. I had dinner with the people that we rode with in the car. Ben and Elsa were “2nd weekenders” and really raved about how great the 1st weekend was. Rodrigo and I were “1st weekenders” and asking them all kinds of questions. The other people that I talked to also had a great time last weekend and couldn’t wait to come back this weekend for more. WOW! Ben and Elsa were dying to get more venison, they had a taste of it last weekend when someone gave them a small piece for dinner and had to wait all week to get more. I just got a plate of pommes fritas (fries) since I had chili at home.

I really found out how socially inept I was! While I met a lot of people, it was hard for me to talk to everyone since there seemed like we had nothing in common. Many of them were either single or married w/o kids, employed, and most of them very highly educated. It just seems like the topics of conversation were very different and I couldn’t really join in. I think also, because everyone knew each other already, they didn’t really need to mingle with the new folks since they knew mostly everyone else. There was a real mix of people, lots from the UK and eastern Europe, there was a couple from Australia. So being around all these British and Irish like accents, you start talking like them! My favorite is the Irish accent, it has so much personality. One of the guys I talked to sounded just like the Irish guy in Braveheart, it was so cool!

Oh yeah, and I have to especially mention that this is the first time that I’ve seen a “platform” toilet. These things are so gross. Here is a description I found on the web: Platform toilets are like a sit-down toilet gone horribly, horribly wrong. The “bowl” of a platform toilet is exactly that: a long flat (dry) surface six inches below your butt. Urine and excrement fall down on the platform and pile up. There is no splash, just an ugly, dull thud. The platform slab juts forward, dropping down into a drainage hole at the front - that’s why platform toilets need a powerful flush to force the contents forward and down. An unfortunate side-effect is that sometimes the s**t will smear. That about sums it up. Luckily, the bathroom upstairs had a normal toilet.

I shared a room with Elsa, it was pretty comfortable. It’s always hard to sleep though when it’s not your own bed. Can’t wait to see what it will be like tomorrow!