29.8.2011 Adjusting to a new life

Sorry that it’s been two weeks since our last blog post. These past two weeks have been absolutely crazy. Thank you to everyone who have been praying for us. Here’s a little recap on what has been going on with us. I’ll break it down by week.

Aug 14 to Aug 20

This was the first week of work for me. Monday to Wednesday was all staff. I spent those days trying to figure out what I’m teaching, scope and sequence, material, etc. It’s hard going from a set system on how things work to starting from scratch. I’m adjusting from 83 minute periods 2 or 3 days a week to 40 minutes every day. What made it harder was that the other math teacher was busy with schedule stuff. He put together the new school schedule so he was spending most of his time tweaking things, answering questions, and working on other responsibilities. Needless to say, I was pretty stressed trying to get organized.

Classes started on Thursday and once things started I was reminded on why I do what I do. The students at ThIS are incredible. Yes they are middle schoolers and high schoolers, but they are respectful and fun to work with. It was a shock when I get to my 12th grade class and I only have 4 students! For my other classes the numbers are also low. 7th has 13 students, 9th has 15, but 6 of them will be gone for half the year for various reasons, 11th has 10, and my biggest is 8th grade with 17 students. So altogether I have 59 students. It is challenging to have to transition from middle schoolers to high schoolers from one period to another. It is also different in the format of the classes. Because the school is in the process of expanding we are limited in space. This means that teachers move from class to class instead of students. Plus, there are some periods that the passing time is zero minutes. That means I finish a class, run to my office, drop of the previous classes stuff, grab the next, run to the next class and start immediately. It makes for a crazy day, but I’m happy to be teaching here. So our nights these past few weeks have been filled with lesson planning instead of blogging, hence the lack of communication recently.

That first week for Heather was a hard week. While I’m at an English speaking school she has been home with two kids in a small area and having to function in a German speaking world. That week she felt very alone, overwhelmed, and was just trying to survive. What didn’t help to start the week off was that Stanley and Holly threw major fits at church not wanting to go into Sunday School. Nothing at the hotel seemed to work that week either. Internet was sparse, (there was actually several occasions we were trying to Skype but got kicked off the Internet), we still don’t have a door on the kids room, our phone in our apartment wasn’t working so if people tried to call up to us it didn’t work, we were running out of minutes on our cell phone, our water was brown on several occasions, and one day during naps repairmen for the phone and other men for our door knob had to work which woke up Holly. Plus it rained a lot that week which made things that much more difficult. We also found out more details on our current place, how much were going to have to pay the school back, and how long the contract was for (end of October!). It was a hard week.

Some positives for that week was the help we were receiving from friends looking for a new apartment. We have had several people from the school and friends from the church looking at different potential places for us. We think we found the place we wanted and put an application in for it. But we haven’t stopped looking. We had one friend, Doerte, come over one evening to help us with different things. The main was that she played with Stanley and Holly while we prepared dinner. Later she said she didn’t feel like she helped at all, but we both assured her that just having her entertain the kids was a huge blessing. Another big thing was that I got my Visa! However, when Heather went to get hers on Friday it was a total flop and she was not able to get hers yet.

Another positive was that after church we decided to stop somewhere to eat because it was still an hour until the next bus. We stopped at a Doner Kebap on the way home and found our new favorite restaurant. The food is great, The guys there are very helpful, and we already starting to get to know a few of them. Because of the bus situation it might become our new tradition to stop there for lunch every Sunday after church.

Aug 21 to Aug 27

This week has been a huge turn around from the week before. I think the main reason is that people have been praying for Heather to meet moms here that she can connect with. It actually started the week before on Wednesday August 17th. Heather met a mom named Mareike at the Elefant (in German) Park. She doesn’t live in Weimar but was visiting her mom. Both Heather and Mareika were praying to meet another Christian mom. They were able to hang out a couple of times before Mareika went back home. Then Sunday was when I believe things really began to change. Holly was great going into the nursery at church, but Stanley was still throwing a fit. But for a brief moment, Heather and I were able to take communion together before I had to head back out because Stanley was screaming at the top of his lungs in the foyer. During these past few weeks we’ve seen sides of Stanley that we never knew existed. Anyways, by the time we left church that day Heather had the numbers of two moms who wanted to get together with her that week. One of them was Susanne (Sue-san-a). We met her in the nursery at church. When I (Scott) came in later in the service to let Heather enjoy the worship and have a break from Stanley who was throwing a fit, Susanne and I were talking about our time so far. In the conversation Susanne invited Heather to come over on Monday. When I went to tell Heather she was getting the phone number of another mom named Carole (Care-ole-a).

We were also invited to have lunch at a family from church and school. The Pienaar family is a white family from South Africa whose native language is Afrikan. They have four daughters and were wonderful to get to know. They have chosen to embrace the German culture, learn the language, and are actually going to apply for German citizenship in a couple of years. Herman was great with Stanley and Holly and showed us their rabbits, the trampoline, and their play house/fort.

For Heather, this past week has been a theme of hope. She has been learning that our hope is in the Lord, not in the days or the circumstances or things. Her time with Susanne and Carole this past week were wonderful, and there is more joy as Heather has been trusting in the Lord day by day. Susanne and her husband Erik have let us borrow a bike that he no longer uses, helped us as we looked at another apartment, Heather and Susanne have hung out now several times, and they invited us to their garten on Friday afternoon and evening for a BBQ and a chance to hang out. Carole and Heather also had a great time together, and Carole even did some of our laundry so we wouldn’t have to pay the 2,30 Euros (or $3.25) per load.We also had a sweet time on Thursday evening meeting another family from the church. We had two apartments we looked at. The first one was nice but just didn’t have the right feel. The second was a bungalow that was still majorly under construction. However, the neat thing was that as we arrived, a gentleman that we thought was the real estate agent was actually someone from church who recognized us! Marcus as his family lived in the complex in front of the bungalow we were looking at. He called his wife Babett (Baw-bet) as she was on her way home. She helped translate for us as we looked at the bungalow, and then invited us to stay for dinner. Her husband was at church for youth group. Her two daughters were so nice to Stanley and Holly and they even lent us a few items (running bike and helmet, and a Dinosaur costume). Babett helped us email the real estate agent with what we’re looking for so she can let us know if anything comes up before she puts it on the market. When we went to head home around 8 pm a huge storm just started with thunder, lightning, monsoon type rain, and huge gusts of wind. Needless to say we got to the street and turned around to head back inside. We ended up staying there until about 9 pm when Marcus came home. Stanley was falling asleep on the couch, Heather was nursing Holly, and we were trying to figure out what to do. The oldest daughter suggested that we spend the night (she had wanted Stanley and Holly to spend the night earlier in the afternoon). I had to work the next day but it was sweet for them to offer.

Then on Sunday was the church picnic. It was a neat time to see our new friends and connect with others in the church. We had a service, which Stanley and Holly would not sit still for, then food, then games. Heather had to leave early with Doerte (who was her ride). I rode the bike there with the stroller. This was the first time we actually got to use the Chariot as a bike trailer! So Stanley and I came home later. I got to play a little Fussball (soccer) as well. It was really neat to see how the Lord provided for what we needed this past week. Things are still difficult, but we’re also finding joy in the midst of the trials.

14.8.2011 First week of work

Sorry about the lack of posts this last week. Work has started and our internet is only sort of working. It goes off and on and seems to be especially off in the evenings. For example, we were able to get on this afternoon so we were able to Skype with Nana (Cinda) before dinner and Grandpa Steve and Grandma Sue after dinner. But by the end of the conversation with Grandpa Steve and Grandma Sue our internet was struggling. And now as I’m writing this, I’m doing it in Word because I can’t get on the internet.

Getting ready for church.

This last week has been crazy. For work, Monday – Wednesday was new teacher stuff. Thursday and Friday all the teachers were back. It was difficult at first because for us new teachers we had a good amount of time to work on our curriculum, but I didn’t really know what the curriculum was. I was able to talk to Jason Smith, the other upper level math teacher the previous week so he was able to give me some things to work on. But it wasn’t until Thursday and Friday that I really got a good picture of what I need to cover. I’ll be teaching 3 different curriculums. There is the Cambridge 1 for grades 6 – 8, Cambridge IGCSE for 9-10, and the IB (International Baccalaureate) for grades 11-12.

Playing together.

Both of them want to do what the other is doing.

The school has a really neat dynamic to it. It’s smaller, 280 students K-12 and 70% of the students are native Germans. The reason that there isn’t a larger international make up is because there aren’t many international companies in or around Weimar. However, the school is growing and we’re in the middle of a remodel/construction project. We are in a new building, and the old building is being gutted to be remodeled. The old building will be the lower school, and the one we’re in now will be the upper school. Right now the upper school is in one wing and the lower in another. I wish I had a picture to illustrate all this.

Waiting for the bus.

Some of the things that are different is that the teachers move from class to class and the students stay put. This makes getting my classroom ready really easy. I share an office space with 5 or 6 other teachers. I do have a homeroom, which is kind of like an AVID class for those who are familiar with it. We meet once a week for 45 minutes and do attendance with them each morning. With them we’ll also do an overnight field trip during the year. The teacher I’m paired with was with this class last year, and I’ll stay with them next year too.

Caught in the rain after looking at an apartment. Oops, no coat!

And where is Heather during this time? She’s with the kids. They have done a great job with the limited space we have. Heather tries to make it out once or twice a day. If she stays in our little place to long, she gets claustrophobic. The hard part, however, is that it has rained a lot here. I’m not sure if we’ve had two days in a row without rain. Not more than that for sure. Today for example, it was raining when my alarm went off at 5:30 to go for a run (I didn’t make it out), when we woke up for church at 7:30 it was beautiful. After church we got Doner Kebab for lunch and went home for naps. Both Stanley and Holly slept today which is unheard of, Praise the LORD! (We listened to a Ron Frost sermon and then took naps ourselves.) After naps I was planning on taking the kids for a run but by then the clouds had rolled in and it was really dark

and ominous. It soon began to rain, no, pour. A little later it stopped and I took the kids to the

train station to get more milk. (The train station market is one of the only stores open on Sunday.) After we got back, it began to rain again. So in the course of today, it rained 3 times, and was absolutely beautiful too. My theory is that it is because there are no mountain ranges to stop weather patterns that travel east or west, so they come and go quickly. Anyways, that was a long way to say that sometimes it is hard for Heather to get out unless she goes out in the rain (which we do a lot).

One of our new favorite parks. We call it the elephant park. :-)

As far as the apartment hunt goes we looked at 5 apartments last week, bringing the total we’ve looked at to 7. We found one that we really like, and we put in an application for it. However, now we wait to see whether or not our application is chosen. One place we looked at, the realtor was showing to another 8 families at the same time! We showed up for a 5:50 appointment. We got there early and then another lady showed up and Heather whispered to me, “I think she’s here to see the apartment too.” I was thinking before or after our appointment. Then someone else showed up, then another and another. Eventually there were 5 of us and the realtor said, “There should be one more person, but they’re late so let’s go up.” (Actually she said it in German. Remember, very few people in Eastern Germany speak English.) I think another 3 or 4 families

showed up after that. It was crazy!

This is what I came home to after a run one morning.

We’re going to keep looking even though we put in an application. People at the church and school have been very helpful and we might have another 2 or 3 good possibilities. The main thing is that we want a place that Heather feels comfortable being at all day. We’ll see what God has for us.

Speaking of my colleagues at the school, we’ve been able to meet and get to know a lot of them and they are a great group. We had a staff BBQ on Friday, and BBQ is an art in Thuringia. The guys who where in charge of it had a very heated debate on Thursday on where to get the best meat. It was delicious! It was a family friendly event and there are others who have small children. On Saturday night we were invited over to Jason Smith’s house (remember he’s the other half of the math department) for dinner. He is from England and his wife is from Germany. They have two daughters, grades 9 and 11 (I’ll have both of them in class). They were very warm and welcoming, and the girls were great with Stanley and Holly. They played with them all evening and were not upset about it at all! We had a great time and Jason and Kirsten gave us lots of good information about living in Germany, shopping inexpensively, and more. We enjoyed tea with them, and another BBQ. He says he’s not good at the BBQ but it was really really good! (Heather says it’s the best she’s ever had.) I’m excited to work with him, and we now have two very great babysitters. They actually already babysit a lot for other staff members and have no problem adding us to their clientele.

Classes start on Thursday this week, so I have a lot to do before then. Hopefully our internet will be more consistent so I can get more posts out. Oh, one last big thing happened this week. The apartment complex now has a washing machine! We did laundry finally, and well… I’ll let you see what happened. Click here to see our latest youtube video. Bis Später!

9.8.2011 A short post

Just a little update today. I’m back at work and trying to figure out what I’m teaching next week. I have three different curriculums and 5 classes to prepare for. That's the cost of having small classes (hopefully about 50-60 students total). Heather is doing a great job with the kids although it has been raining here which makes it harder especially with a small apartment. I was looking at a map and we are about as far north as Calgary Alberta (Canada). We are still looking for an apartment, we looked at two yesterday and will look at three more tomorrow. Something interesting that Heather found today at a grocery store is they like to give little treats to the kids that come by. We sort of found it on Saturday, but Heather saw it again today. Here’s what happened. On Saturday we were grocery shopping at it was about 6 pm, Holly had taken a late nap and we were late to get out the door. The kids were starting to lose it but we still had more shopping to do. We were at the meat department trying to figure out what meat to buy for dinner when the lady asked if Stanley wanted a hot dog (in German of course). We were a little confused and asked if it was free and she said yes so we gladly accepted it. Holly saw what Stanley had just gotten so she started to reach out for it and the lady offered one to Holly too! What a blessing because the kids desperately needed food and those hot dogs got us through the trip. Although Heather had to let go at the idea of our kids eating raw hot dogs. Today when Heather was shopping with the kids (we now have money!) at a completely different store another lady offered the kids a meaty treat! Heather is going to try this out more often. Linger around the meat or bakery counter and see if the worker will offer the kids food. :-) Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement. We really appreciate all the comments and emails our friends have sent us. Take care.

7.8.2011 Anniversary Day

Today was our 7 year anniversary, and it was a good day. We’ve never been ones to go outlandish on an anniversary, we’ve never had the money to go on an expensive vacation, or buy expensive things. Instead, we treat it as a day to remind each other that we love each other and kiss a lot. We try to go on a date to get away from the kids (we love them, but it’s nice to have a break).

Today was a fine anniversary in a new land. The day started with the kids waking up early. Heather thought I said 6:50 when Holly woke up when it was 6:15. Stanley woke up soon after. Now you’d think that being married in August means you get a gorgeous day. Well, we live in Germany which is kind of like the Northwest only further North. Today it rained really hard! And here at our new home we don’t have a car to drive to church and drop Heather and the kids off at the front. On our bus/walking route to church we have to make one connection (where we run up to the next bus) and then walk just over a quarter mile up hill. Good thing our stroller has a rain cover 'cause the kids were dry but we were soaked! It was quite memorable and we had smiles the whole way.

This picture is not from today!

At church we were reminded once again how awesome Christ’s body is when it works. We were so welcomed by new and newer friends. Rachel (the lady who fed us last week) was so helpful and really wants to help us find a new place to live. She even made an announcement during the second service! Doerta (Dirta) is a 26 year old German gal who was very welcoming and wants to help us feel welcome as well. Her English is incredible 'cause she's spent over a year in the US, and Heather had an instant connection with her. And then we saw our friends from my school, Alison, Susan, and Jessee who were familiar and friendly faces too. Heather got to meet some of the ladies in the Kinder Sunday School (nursery) since Stanley and Holly were not going to go there without a big fuss or Mom or Dad. It’s hard to drop off your child screaming when you can’t tell the workers that they’ll be fine in about 30 seconds. Anyways, we’re thankful for where we’re at and we know we’ll make many new friends at this church. We came home for naps and then this afternoon/evening our good friends Freya and Hiroki graciously offered to play with Stanley and Holly so we could go out on a date. We dropped the kids off at Freya and Hiroki’s house around 5, and we had over an hour kid-free. I truly don’t remember the last time we that much time without the kids. I think the last time was July 18th at church but we were in church so it wasn't "us time". That is not a good thing. For all you married couples, make sure you go on a date this week with your spouse! Freya and Hiroki are actually talking about doing a babysitting co-op among teachers at the international school. Not a bad idea. We could use more dates and we'd love to bless other couples as well. :-) For our date we were on a tight budget (12 Euros was all we had). So we went to a Greek restaurant that Freya and Hiroki recommended. We shared a Gyro plate that also came with a side salad. It was quite good. It was a wonderful time to enjoy each other's company and catch up a little. We looked at a map of Weimar together and located all of our important places to know so Heather can feel good about being on her own while Scott is at school tomorrow and all the days following. After dinner we headed across the street to a beautiful Catholic church where they were having their evening mass. Wouldn’t it be amazing to do church in a huge cathedral built hundreds of years ago? While we might not agree with all the Catholic doctrines, we were reminded that the cathedrals were built huge and beautiful to remind us how Awesome God is. And there are some things that the Catholic church does that we miss is our modern churches. One of the things Heather pointed out was that these cathedrals (and maybe all catholic churches, I’m not sure) are open all the time to come, get away, and be in God’s presence. While we don’t have to be at a church or cathedral to meet God, there is something special in being in a chapel or cathedral or church and spending time with our Savior. We are also thankful for the reminder of what Jesus did for us when we see the stations of the cross. Anyway it was a great day. Tomorrow is my first day of work. New teacher orientation and meetings. As the school year begins, I’m not sure how regularly we’ll be able to post. Heather will try to get pictures up on Facebook, and I’ll try to blog when I can. They probably won’t be as long as they have been. Thank you for reading, and we appreciate and miss all of you back home. We are excited about where God has us and this upcoming school year. Good night! P.S. from Heather: Maybe some time we'll start going to sleep before midnight! Eight hours of sleep would be lovely!

7 year anniversary

Today (August 7th, 2011) is our 7 year anniversary. Thank you Heather for being on this adventure with me. I love you so much, and look forward to what the years ahead bring us.

6.8.2011 Finding the Perfect Park

One of the things that Heather really wanted to do when we arrived here is to find a great park that we can call our own. Weimar has lots of green space, so we thought it would be fairly easy. However, we wanted a spielplatz (playground) not just a green space. So on our hunt we’re looking for fun playgrounds that are little kid friendly. So far we’ve found some really good ones. But Heather wants to find THE one. So here are some of the parks that we’ve explored. Here is a link to a map of Weimar and all of the parks I will list plus a few others that we haven’t explored yet.

The one near the police station. This one is about a half mile from our place. It has a large climbing net like at Good Shepherd. It also has a fun climbing wall/play structure. It is a series of things to climb. Metal ladder, rope, poles, etc that are just lined up in a row. There is also a fun amplithere type hill that would be really fun to roll balls down. The best part of this park is that there is a back secluded area with a slide that starts from the top of a hill and goes down through some bushes. We had a picnic there one evening and it was really fun to watch the kids play on the slide.

Picnic in the back of the park.

The hidden slide.

The one with the sand bridge.

This is really close to our house, just two blocks away. It doesn’t have a play ground, but it has a sand pit that looks like a river and a stone bridge that goes over the “river,” and a “throne” at one end of the sand river. It looks like it has a goat head at the top of the bridge. (billy goat gruff?) We played here one evening while Heather did some grocery shopping. The kids loved the sand and I met a teacher from Germany who is moving unfortunately in less than a week. He got a job near Berlin.

Playing on the "throne"

Goethepark This is the largest park and is about a mile from our place. However, there are no play structures. It’s more of a walking park but today we went to check out a spring in the park. It was like a wading pool about 16 feet in diameter and the water was about 6 inches deep. There was a natural spring in the middle of the pond that then flowed out to a nearby stream. We went here with our friends Freya, Hiroki and their two boys who are the same ages as our kids. (Freya teaches at Scott’s school) The kids had a blast except the water was very cold. But on a really nice day like today you don’t mind too much. Definately not your jump in to swim type pond. Goethepark also has lots of walking/jogging trails that I have already explored much of. More of that in another post.

Picnic in Goethepark on a beautiful Saturday.

Playing in the pond with spring.

The water was cold, which is why Holly doesn't want to put her feet in!

The circle park by Jakob Kirche and the Rotes Kreuz This one Heather has not been at yet, but it had a really neat setup. It’s in the old town area, just over a half mile from our place. The play structure almost looked like something you’d find in a Dr. Suess book. Everything was a little off balanced, but looked like a lot of fun to climb and explore. Although not suitable for Holly. However, there were lots of other little things to explore. Holly immediately found a swing (she loves swings) that was a different shape, but held her very well. There was a little tunnel for kids to crawl under. A spinner that you stand on, and other fun things to explore. We played there for over an hour. There is no grass at this park, so that makes it feel a little less friendly to be at.

Stanley on the spinning thing.

Play structure behind him.

Holly on the swing being pushed by her big brother.

The large park by the city offices. This one we walked through on one of our first days in Weimar. It is across the street from a public outdoor and indoor pool. The pool has a neat looking playground, but you have to pay to get in. This park doesn’t look very kid friendly. They do a lot of outdoor concerts here, and there is a large pond in the center of the park. There is also a fun looking sand/water play area. However sand + water = big mess = tons of fun for kids = huge clean up for mom and dad. We’ve yet to come back here, but we probably will sometime soon. We are also too cheap right now to go to the pool, but we’ll also make time to visit that one of these days.

Walking through the park.

Atrium Andilli play place

We went here last week Saturday when it was raining. Again Freya and Hiroki invited us. It’s kind of like a giant McDonalds play place only much nicer. It's bigger, has more to do, and it costs money but it's worth it. The giant play structure is almost like a giant maze. There is a ball pit that you have to find your way to, some mini trampolines, trikes to ride around on, a carnival style ball shooter, slides, and a littler kids play area too. There is also a mini race track with bumper car style cars, and a mini indoor Fussball pitch (soccer field). The kids had a blast here, and apparently, you can even use it as a mini day care as you do your shopping. The Atrium is the mall in Weimar with lots of different stores including Aldi (Grocery Outlet), Saturn (Best Buy), and a 3D movie theater (sorry movies are in German). They are playing Harry Potter, Green Lantern, and some other very recent movies.

Heather and Stanley about to go down a slide.

Holly having a blast in the ball pit!

Belvedere Castle

This estate was built in the 1700s and is about 42 acres. We only had about 50 minutes, so we only saw a small fraction of the grounds. It is free to visit, but the museums cost money. Heather wants to come here for little retreats in the future. No playground that we found, but the garden we were in was a lot of fun to explore.

The main fountain at the Estate.

That is just one of the side buildings in the background.

The main one is to the right out of the picture.

In the fairy tunnel.

There are more parks yet to be explored, and you'll hear about them as they come up. We've yet to decide on whether any of these are the "perfect park," but there sure are a lot of neat places to explore in Weimar. Again, here is a link to a map of Weimar and all of the parks I listed plus a few others that we haven’t explored yet.

5.8.2011 Shopping

One of the interesting things about moving to a new country is to figure out how to shop. The things you’re used to back in America are not necessarily available plus you have to try to understand new labels and new prices. It’s been an interesting experience for us these past 10 days. At first, we ate out or on the go a lot. We went to an Italian restaurant the first night. We had sandwiches and mini pizza type items from local bakeries. Subway and Kebob have been the only chain restaurants we’ve been to. But when you eat out it gets expensive. So we’ve also been trying find the best place to shop.

Subway Sandwiches in the Park.

For those of you who know Heather, she is a very good shopper. She looks for and finds the best deals. She has saved our family hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the years. So it was frustrating for her to not know where to shop or where to find the best deals. The first few places we went were at the train station, in the middle of the city, or at a corner market. We were told that those places have the same prices as elsewhere. Well, for most items maybe, but we were able to find a few others that had much better selection, or maybe we just didn’t know what to look for at first. We found a grocery store in Northern Weimar in what seems to be where more of your average Germans live. The store had more of a Winco/Fred Meyer type feel to it. Huge selection, and we found some very good prices. Our whole trip which was two Ikea bags for 10 Euros. We had earlier trips for less items for more money. Currently, our favorite inexpensive brand is “ja” (German for yes).

Heather working in our small kitchen on some amazing meal.

One of the differences here is that you buy less at a time, and no that’s not because we have such a small place. Germans will buy what they need for that day and some for the day after. You don’t go and do a week’s worth of shopping. You won’t find the big shopping carts you’d find at an American grocery store. Then on Saturday you do your shopping for two days. Kind of like the Israelites in the wilderness would collect enough mana for one day, and then on Friday they would collect enough for Friday and Saturday (the Sabbath). The reason they do the same here, is because on Sundays, most everything is closed. So on Saturday you get what you need for Saturday, Sunday and breakfast Monday. It’s neat how there is more respect for a day of rest here. Some find Sundays really boring around here, but it’s nice to have that change of pace day. We accidentally found that the thing to do on a Sunday afternoon is to go for a walk with the family. We went for a walk and saw a ton of other families doing the same. This was

confirmed when by another teacher from the school when we saw her and her family on the walk. Another difference in Germany is that at stores it is BYOB (Bring your own bag), good thing we brought a few favorites with us. Bread is a must. Our favorite is Brotchen (a Kaiser roll/French roll). It was odd though on the first couple of days the director kept insisting we have fresh bread for breakfast. We’re from America, bread is not a staple item for breakfast. However, by the time we come home it might be. :-)

Heather preparing one of or great dinners.

Pasta, chicken and salad.

It has also been interesting transition because during the past 3 years we’ve been part of Birch Community Services where we were able to shop at their warehouse that contained items that were donated from different companies around the Portland area. For those of you who were familiar with this, or our pantry, you would know that we had lots of miscellaneous items. The mind set was what did I get at Birch and how can I use this? Now, Heather has to switch gears to what do I want to make, so what do I need to get? I say Heather because I do not cook. If it was left to me, we’d be eating cereal for breakfast, Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches for lunch and who knows what for dinner (I can’t even think of something simple to write down let alone make). As you can see in some of the pictures already, Heather has been doing great. She is making some wonderful meals, and keeping us well fed. It is hard with Stanley

right now because he is going through a picky phase. We want him to try new things, but we also want him to eat. So Heather tries to pick things that he’ll eat, but not cater to him. She won’t fix him a separate meal from the family. For example, one night she made peanut butter pasta with chicken (she used a slight variation of a Thai Peanut Sauce recipe she knows). She then had some extra peppers, basil and spicy sweet chili Thai sauce for the adults that we could add on our own plates. Stanley and Holly loved it!

Holly loving her Ritz Crackers and Peanut Butter.

She heard Peanut Butter is good for the skin.

So right now we are doing much better being frugal in how we spend our money in regards to groceries. This is necessary because we are down to 29 Euros. We’d rather not use our debit or credit card and get hit with hefty overseas fees, and we’re still in the process of getting our German Bank Account set up. I thought we’d have our moving stipend and reimbursement for my plane ticket already (I put in for them on Monday), but when I checked in at our bank today we had a balance of -5 Euros. Since I don’t have my Visa yet, my account is not fully active either. I don’t have a debit card (that comes once I have my Visa), and I don’t know how to transfer money from our American account to our German account. I doubt the bank is open Saturday and I know it won’t be open on Sunday. In the meantime, we are practicing our frugality, and learning more on how to shop, eat, and live in Germany.

Cleaning up after dinner.

4.8.2011 The Bus System and Church

Now that we’re all caught up on our travels to get here, our posts will not be as chronological, but more of our observations on different topics or specific day's events. Today I want to say a little bit about the bus system and our experience at church last Sunday.

The Bahnhof (Train station).

During our first few days, we bought single tickets for the bus because it was fairly easy to get across town. It is only 15 minutes to walk to Goetheplatz (the center of town), but when we went to visit Freya or to church, it was too far to walk. But when we did so it was 1,80 Euro per person (kids under 6 are free).Then if our trip was longer than an hour, we’d have to pay it again on the way home. So 7,20 Euro (about $10) for a round way trip was not worth it. Instead, we decided to get month passes. It was 35,30 Euro per person so we figure if we do 10 day trips like that we’d get our money worth. With this Heather thought it would be better for her to just use the bus system rather than buying a bike. She doesn’t feel comfortable pulling a bike trailer on these narrow streets, and a lot of the drivers (especially the buses) seem to go flying through the streets.

The crazy thing about figuring out the bus system is the different routes. There are only 7 or 8 routes in the city. However, each route has 2 - 4 variations. You have the “normal” route. Then there is variation 1, 2 and 3. And then route 3 has route 3, 3A and 3B. Then don’t forget there is the Saturday schedule, and then the Sunday and Holidays schedule. I’m starting to figure it out, but it still gives us headaches.

How the kids get around. Their Chariot!

One of the places we were able to use the bus to get to was church on Sunday. We were talking to one of the teachers at the school and found that there is a Baptist church in town. However, she couldn’t tell us any more because another teacher just took her there the week before. So on Saturday night, I spent a long time trying to find the church and how to get there. Finally I found what looked like a Bapist/Presbeterian church. When I did an English Camp in Germany back in 2002, I learned that you don’t want an Evangelical church, you want an Evangelical Free church. This one “Evangelisch Freikirchliche Gemeinde Weimar” fit that bill. However, I couldn’t find an address on their website. Thanks to Google, I was able to locate it on a map, then I had to figure out which bus would get us the closest. Due to the confusion that I listed before with the bus system, it was quite the ordeal.

So Sunday morning we were off to see if what I found was accurate. Fortunately, the bus system worked perfectly. We had to take two buses, one to Goetheplatz, the second towards the church. Once we got off, we had a 300 meter walk to the church. When we arrived, we were warmly greeted, and we asked if there is someone who spoke English. The lady at the door looked around and introduced us to a young gal in the foyer. She was able to give us some information regarding the church. The kids had slept in that morning (yay) but that meant we missed the first service which has childcare (bummer). Unfortunately, that meant that Heather spent most of the service in the kids room playing with Stanley and Holly.

Stanley and Holly playing the in Firetruck from Aunt Beth in their room

Normally, that wouldn’t have been much of a problem since the services are in German. However, on that day there was a team report which was partially in English. The team/project is called Yad B’Yad which means Hand in Hand. It is a reconciliation program between German and Israeli youth. For the project German students and Israeli students come together, and visit concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and they work through forgiveness through Jesus and how through Him there can be forgiveness and reconciliation. The Israeli students were from all over, the USA, Russia, Pakistan, and more. Or they were from all those countries originally, but now live in Israel. It was really neat to hear some of the stories from the group. One of the stories was of a Jewish girl who’s family was all killed (except for one sole survivor) in a concentration camp. Then there was a German girl who’s family was involved with a concentration camp. If I think of it, that would be my grandparents and great grandparents who would have been killed. What was nice for us (me since Heather was watching the kids) was that the Israeli group spoke English. So I got to listen in English while there was a German translator for everyone else. Here is a link to what the program is about if you want to learn more. http://www.beitimmanuel.org/yby.pdf

The Movie Star pushing the sleeping beauty in her Chariot.

Afterwards, during the worship time, the songs were all in English with the German translations underneath. They did some songs a the beginning in German. Later we learned that it is normal to have songs in English, because they were written in English. During one of the German songs I realized in my limited German that the chorus was, “Better is one day in your courts than thousand elsewhere.” Although the tune was completely changed to fit the German language.

After church we were looking around and saw a sign for a Cafe next to the church. By now it was 1 pm and our kids were not going to make it home. So we thought we’d check it out to see what type of food they had. Unfortunately it wasn’t that type of cafe, but more a place to get coffee or tea between services. However, they were serving lunch to the Yad B’Yad team. One of the lady’s serving the team, was able to answer our questions about the cafe, but she also said that she would be happy to serve us lunch since they had extra. So she took us to the room next door which seemed to be a Bible Class type room. She brought us Vegetarian Lasagna, salad, water, tea, and even some European cookies. What a blessing. She told us that she understands having kids and the need to feed them. It made us realize that this is the church we need to get plugged into. This lady followed what Jesus said about feeding the stranger. She then gave us her contact information and got our information, and later that week she dropped off the bus schedule and a Weimar activities guide at our apartment. She also said that if we need anything we can contact her, and she will keep an eye out for a possible apartment for us. Wow! We’re excited to see how we can get plugged into the church. Two of the things they do are English classes and home churches. Two ideas we have is to help with an English class or have an English speaking home church. But, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, we’ve only been in country for 9 days. We’ll be patient and see what God has for us. We will be going back this next Sunday. But this time we’ll go to the 9:30 service where there is child care.

Our family after dinner in old town Weimar

I think I’ll end things there for tonight. We still want to share about our shopping experiences, more about the school I’ll be teaching at (Thuringia International School), the parks, my running, and other fun outings we’ve had. So there are some things for you to look forward to. Thank you for reading, and have a great day.

26.7.2011 Our new life in Weimar

As we got closer to Weimar I knew we needed a plan on how we were going to get all of our stuff off the train. Our two large hiking backpacks and stroller were in one section and the rest were all over the place. As we got closer I moved all of our bags to the section the conductor told us we couldn’t have them and Heather got the kids ready. I left the stroller where it was and was going to get that off first, and then run to the other door and start pulling off the other bags. When the train pulled into the station we jumped into action and fortunately Barbara and Susan (the school’s director and one of the school’s principals) were there to help us. We got all the bags off and then were able to breathe and give proper greetings. Barbara later told us that she had purposely positioned herself in front of the lady on the platform who gives the green light for the train to leave the station because Barbara had witnessed a train in Switzerland pull out with two children on the train and the parents standing dumbfounded on the platform. They also told us that we won the prize for the bringing the most bags. Although in our defense we were the only family of 4 and we didn’t ship anything.

This is where we live. Notice all the scaffolding. It is a remodel in process.

There is our entrance. No, not the big door to the left. The little door to the right of center.

To get us to our new home we had to take two trips to the cars. It was a strange feeling leaving Heather and the kids standing on the platform as I took some of the bags. We finally got all the bags into the cars and had to travel about 50 meters to our new home. Our place was an old hotel that is currently being converted into an apartment complex. However, we don’t need to go into detail about this because you can read about it in one of our earlier posts. http://scott-heather-overby.blogspot.com/2011/07/we-made-itand-now-have-internet.html But let me tell you a little bit more about it. Our first reaction was “Wow it’s perfect.” And it is, for a temporary place. It is too small to stay long term, but it is a place to land. It is a little hard when one of the painters needs to paint the door in the middle of the day or change the doorknob. A few times when coming or going, they are doing remodeling work, and the guys will help carry the stroller up the stairs. One of the things we don’t like is having to move the chariot stroller up or down three flights of stairs. We’d like our next place to be a little closer the the ground floor. One of the things you’ll notice in the picures is that there is no door to Stanley and Holly’s room. It is just an opening. They have a door on order, but they don’t know when the carpenter will get it in. Something that has been great here, is how helpful they’ve been. They actually hired a specialist to come out to try to figure out our internet issue. Embarrassingly enough, the problem was that password code has a period at the end and we didn’t even notice it. Fortunately, neither did the manager when he tried to help Heather with it. But they’ve been gracious in removing an extra bed and bringing in a wardrobe to the children’s room on the day after we arrived. We also had them remove the TV, and the owner thought it was funny that the Americans didn’t want a TV. She thought all Americans watch TV. The apartment managers have answered questions, and have repeatedly told us to let them know if we need anything. What we will give you now is a little tour through pictures and video. Enjoy. Keep reading to hear more about our first couple days...

The entryway into the kids room. Notice, no door.

This is the kids room. Heather took this picture standing in the back corner.

There is now a dresser where Heather is standing here and the bed closest to her is gone.

This is our room. These are two separate beds next to each other.

Apparently you can buy something that connects the two mattresses

so there isn't a chasm between them.

There's the bathroom, you can see how small our room is here.

Here's inside the bathroom. Notice the sprayer but no shower curtain. That's common in Europe. You have bathtubs or showers. Not 2 in 1.

Here is our kitchen. Pretty basic.

That evening, after we got all of our stuff up to the room, Barbara and Susan took us out to get something to eat and shop for groceries. We also got to meet one of the other new teachers, Tim. At the restaurant, the food was delicious and our kids were wired! They just wanted to run and run and run and yell and yell and yell. You can’t blame them after spending the last 18 hours traveling! Fortunately, Barbara and Susan were very understanding and would hold Holly and listen to the many things Stanley wanted to share. It was really nice to have that time and definitely essential to get some food for breakfast the next day, although for the kid’s sleep schedules we should have gotten the kids to bed earlier.

We walk a lot here. Lots of green space which is nice.

We also use our stroller a lot. Sometimes the kids fall asleep in it.

The nice thing about keeping the kids up, is that they slept in until almost 10 the next day. However, I received a phone call soon after we woke up that I needed to be at the school to start getting paperwork done. The first thing on the list was insurance. In Germany you are required to have insurance. There is the national healthcare system, but you need something else above that. The person I met with was from the insurance company that the school goes through, although if you absolutely insist you can go through whomever you want. The actual health care is great. For the national system you pay 10 Euros once every 3 calendar months and that covers all appointments during that time (doctor, dentist, optometrist, etc). The extra insurance plan that we got will also pay you for doing checkups. You collect stamps, and those stamps can be cashed in at the end of certain time period. The goal is to get people into checkups so there are less major issues later on.

A sweet moment as the kids play together in their room.

Anyways, the process for getting a visa is very specific. First insurance, then register your address with the city, then get a bank account, then you can get the visa. The school has hired a gal, Ana, whose job is to help all of us new teachers and to be our interpreter. So she is scheduling appointments, running from one place to another and getting all of this figured out. Pretty much everyone in the city office doesn’t speak English. So Wednesday was insurance, Thursday was registering our address, and Friday I was on my own for the bank account. Fortunately the gentleman I worked with there spoke English. During those first few days we were also trying to figure things out like bus schedules, the layout of the town, where to buy groceries, what else do we need for our apartment, and how to do life with no appliances (we have two hot plates and a mini fridge.. It has been a crazy week, but God has been gracious and getting us through each day. There are more stories to share, but I’ll save those for another post.

Click here for a Video Tour of our Apartment