Unsere Wohnung

We have had a couple of requests to show off our apartment. We have been here almost a month now and have gotten things pretty much in order. Except for coming all the way over to Weil am Rhein to see it, the next best thing is a few photos. So, here we go. I'll walk you through our home in a few easy steps (believe me, it takes only a few easy steps to walk from one end to the other).

Welcome to our home! This is the view as you enter our front door. Down the hall on your left you will find the bedroom (picture below) and bathroom (no picture - pretty boring). On the right behind the coat rack are two black bookshelves that we rescued from our friend's keller. These are our main organizational units and fit the hallway rather nicely. The hallway is not rectangular but rather widens as you move from the front door to the living room seen in the back. Beyond the bookshelves is a desk (upon which I am creating this entry).

Here is our bedroom - the bed is quite low to the floor, but it works well for us. The room is nice and light when the sun is up as we have east facing windows. We got the bed stands at IKEA about two weeks ago. This room has the nice rolling shutters that can really black out the room if we want to sleep in.

As you continue down the hallway past the bath, you are welcomed into our living room. The couches can be used as extra beds and you can see why we love our little place so much - the wall of windows... but more on that later.

The living room, dining room and kitchen are all very conveniently located in the same room. The Pergo floors are easy to maintain and keep the room nice and light.

The kitchen is essentially a wall of cupboards with the sink, stove top/oven and washing machine all visible in the picture. There is a refrigerator, microwave and other storage to the right of the counter top and you can also see the desk/computer area.

Now, come outside onto our balcony...This is another reason we so love our apartment - it has a wonderful downtown location. From our balcony, we have a view of the city's Rathausplatz - this morning, there is the weekly farmer's market with fresh produce, meats, breads and flowers from local vendors. Luckily, we can see the clock (and hear the chimes) so we always know the time!

To the left is the Hauptstraße (Main Street) - so convenient for shopping, catching a bus or train, restaurants, big over-sized chairs, etc. We still can't believe that God has given us this wonderful chapter in our lives. Maybe we will be less sanguine when winter comes, but I don't think so.

We are off tomorrow to Edinburgh to meet with Mark and Jan Kelley - our good friends and pastor from Vancouver First Friends Church. Our fall break coincides with a trip they had been planning before we took our posts. We are so much looking forward to seeing them again.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us. We need prayers more than you know to live and work and serve the children; not living in our strength but in God's strength. We miss you and love you.

Waiting 'til the cows come home...

Have you ever wondered from where different sayings derive? I have found one possible answer to the phrase posed in the title - and the answer is: about 4 months. But first I need to tell a story. Last weekend, a group of fellow teachers, Delynn and I travelled down into the foothill region of the Swiss Alps. We had a grand time together as we stuffed six adults into one of the school's "buses". The school actually owns two seven-passenger vehicles for transportation needs. Now, we can fit seven children into the cars, but six adults makes for rather close company if you sit anywhere but in the front seat... Luckily (or not) I was picked to drive. The reason we went to such contortions folding everyone into the car was we wanted to see the cows come home. In late spring, the Swiss herdsmen troop their cows up into the Alpine pastures for grazing. They feel that they get a better quality milk from their herds - and with Swiss milk chocolate and such wonderful cheeses, who can really argue with their logic. In the late summer, before the coming snows, the Swiss dutifully (the Swiss do most things dutifully) bring their cows back down from the mountains and through town to the lower pastures. Each cow is given a cow bell - the larger the bell, so the story goes, the more milk the cow produced during the summer season. Some of the better producing cows are also festooned with a crown of flowers to impress the other cows in town. It is a most festive occasion for bringing people together so they can celebrate, eat, dance and buy stuff.

The "Alpenzug" - they really close the road for this...

Our fellow teachers (Aubrey, Allison, Amy-Jo and Anne)

The little village of Plaffeien had such a celebration called an "Alpenzug" and we heard such great things about it that we just had to go. As I said, the day was beautiful blue with just a little fog. Unfortunately, a long Stau (German for traffic jam), a forgotten backpack (I must admit it was mine) and a couple of wrong turns delayed our group of teachers from getting to Plaffeien for the start of the Alpenzug. We were afraid that we might miss the cows but God was looking out for our intrepid band of travellers - as we were about 8 km from Plaffeien travelling down a two lane road, we saw in the distance a huge herd of cows coming down this same main road. There was a team of folks moving everyone off of the road to a pull-off area. We scrambled out of the car and started taking pictures. The cacophony of bells was incredibly loud - we had to practically yell to hear each other over the wonderful clanging of the cow bells. Wow! What an experience. (Try the video below...) The herdsmen were dressed in their "Alpenzug" best, carrying along their beverage of choice for the long trip down to the new pastures.

"Well, we have to eat anyway..."

Swiss Folk dancing - reminds me a bit of round dancing

Wood carver, plying his trade

With the addition of so many extra people visiting the small village, parking was at a premium. We had to pull of the road at one point for an oncoming cow parade and there was nowhere to park but in someones driveway. We got out to take pictures but after the cows got by, we apparently didn't leave soon enough because a gentleman, with an incredibly heavy Swiss accent, starting saying what we can only assume to be unkind things to us. We think part of it was because we are from out of town (actually out of country...) and they probably had had enough of out-of-towners.


But it all evens out. When we finally got into the center of the festivities, we met other friends from school, some students and their parents, watched some Swiss folk-dancing, listened to Alpine horns, ate wurst and melted cheese Raclette (yum!) and just had a blessed time. One of our highlights was meeting the "hat lady" - she had a booth in town selling hats. Our fellow teachers starting looking for hats to purchase and we got to talking with the hat lady. She was running the same business her mother had started 97 years ago. Even though she was born and raised in this same village, she graciously spoke in high German so that I could understand and translate for the rest of the group. When I told her about us - that we were Americans, she got a huge grin on her face and clapped her hands together. She was so excited to meet us. We gestured, stumbed through our German, laughed and throughly enjoyed our little hat lady. It made the trip down to Plaffeien most memorable.

The hat-lady and Anne having a laugh. Something about putting her head in that vice...

I think she wanted to adopt all of them.

We are surely blessed to be here.

A most pleasant Sunday

We wanted to post a couple of pictures from our very enjoyable Sunday with the Neifert family- Patrick, Christy, Ethan and Megan. They are passing through as they make their way to Strasbourg, France to renew their visa's for living in Russia. We had a great time catching up, sharing stories and a meal. They are our first official visitors from out of town (and country). It is amazing to me that even though we have not been together for nearly a year and much has changed in our lives, it is like we were just together last month. We loved sharing our day together: Michael made sausages and Rösti (sort of a shredded potato pancake), Delynn prepared the fresh vegetable tray from the stuff we picked up at the farmer's market yesterday morning. We walked around the city and took them down to our school. They arrived just in time to experience the first Basel "Slow-up". The Slow-up is 40KM of public road in the Dreiländereck closed to allow bicyclists, walkers, runners, roller-bladers to freely travel the three country region. The route closed down most of the Hauptstraße in Weil - luckily Patrick and Christy had a navigation unit in their car so they could handle the many significant detours and still find our home. As I said, today was practically perfect in every way.

Weil am Rhein Hauptstraße - closed for the Basel "Slow-up"

The Neiferts in the "City of Chairs" (Weil am Rhein)

Patrick - wheeeeeeeee!

Did we mention that Weil is called the "City of Chairs"?

Just so everyone knows, Delynn and I finally got our airline tickets booked for next summer. We will be arriving in PDX on 24 June with our return trip back home to Germany on 29 July - 5 weeks! We were really blessed to be able to use Skymiles to upgrade to Business class, so that will make the trip easier.

Well, that's all for now. As we say at RIA - Enjoy Life!

Moving right along

I can't believe that it has been over a week since the last post. Life has been a blur. We have been focused on kitting out the apartment: moving things, putting together IKEA furniture, moving things, keller shopping at our friends, moving more things... you get the idea. Keller shopping needs a little explanation. Most apartments come with a basement storage space in the cellar (or "keller" in German). Many of the apartments the teachers have been rented to RIA for years and get passed on when a teacher leaves to an incoming teacher. So, the various cellars contain lots of communal furniture: dressers, bookshelves, beds, freezers, etc. that have accumulated over time. We walked over to our friends Cam and Jennifer's apartment and picked up a dresser and two bookshelves for our apartment - yeah!!

The big thing at school this week was the Great Grape Harvest of 2007. There is a small hill right in front of our school that grows juice grapes - actually, the hills around Weil am Rhein contain loads of vineyards and it is now harvest time. We took the students out on a field trip (about 20 meters from the front door!) to pick grapes. As a treat, the owner brought a small press and everyone got to sample some freshly squeezed grape juice - it was yummy! I think back to school when I was a child and wonder if our students will ponder the fact that they harvested grapes in Germany on a field trip? That is so cool. Here are a couple of pictures.

Here is William, ready for anything!

Yadah, Tiffinay and our friend Anne posing sweetly

Hmmm. I wonder if I was supposed to eat that many?

Gideon, yours truly, and Chiara with a bucket full of pre-juice.

We find ourselves discussing the oddest things these days. Take for example a recent trip Delynn took to the store. We go about 4-5 times a week, so I can't quite recall which trip it was... We had Remolade on the list, which is a mayonnaise-like spread with herbs and chopped pickles. Great for sandwiches and only 58% fat (no wonder is it sooooooo good). When my dear wife returned home, I asked if she picked up the Remolade - her response was that she didn't get any because she couldn't remember if we get the green or the blue stuff. Don't worry, she meant the jar color, not the contents :-) But it got me to thinking that we do often shop by different clues than we do back in the states. We like a wonderful yogurt/fruit product that is called "Früchte Traum" which roughly translates into "Fruit Dream" - but every time I see it on the shelf, I translate it into "Fruit Trauma" in my head, which is a bit less appetizing. So, we just look at the pictures on the label.

Oh yeah, we read this week that the Euro € hit a new high against the US$ - oh bother. Right now, it cost nearly $1.38 to purchase 1 €. Back in 2003, it cost only 85¢ for each 1 €, so things are expensive. Don't worry, we are doing well and are so very blessed by our great supporters but it is deceiving because in our heads we tend to translate prices directly into dollars. In fact, when talking amongst our colleagues, sometimes we will say: "That only costs 5 bucks" when we mean 5 € which really means $7.00. It is just an adjustment. Another reason why things are more expensive is that very little of the merchandise in stores comes from China. Most things are made in Germany (Duh!) and the rest of the EU countries. However, since things are made here, where the cost of production is higher, they cost more. We bought a cooling rack so that Delynn can make cookies. In the states, a wire rack can be manufactured in China, shipped to the US, trucked to the store and put on the shelf for what - $3.00 to $5.00. In Germany, a rack cost us 11 € ($15.00). Granted, the rack is well made and will last, but because Chinese goods have not made big inroads into Germany, most goods end up costing more. Additionally, the German government puts on a sales tax (called a "Value Added Tax" or VAT) that is part of the purchase price of all items - it is figured right into the price on the shelf, not added at check-out like in Washington. The VAT was recently raised from 16% to 19% - ouch! That means that nearly 1/5 of the cost of everything is for tax. And I thought the eight-ish % WA sales tax was bad. Hmmmm.

Our other highlight this week was receiving our German driver's licenses. We are now official! We had up to three months to drive on our US license. The license gives us the right to drive a car, small scooter and a tractor! I was just waiting for that tractor endoresment! Watch out little farm animals...

May you all have grace, mercy and enough love in your lives to be forever thankful. We do.

New Realities III

First to reassure everyone, the terrorist plots in Germany that you may have recently read about have not affected us in any way. We are still very welcomed here and sense that we are very safe.

We are now in our new apartment and so grateful to finally be home. We continue to discover those little things in everyday life that let us know that we aren't in Washington anymore. Living here has also affected some of our behavioral patterns in interesting ways. Take for example our latest trip to the store. Marktkauf is a large department store just on our side of the French/German border. Being the German town closest to both Switzerland and France, we get a lot of cross-boarder traffic because many things are less expensive here than there. We took the bus (2.20€ one-way per person = ~$5.00) because Marktkauf is about a about 1.5 miles from home, we had put in a full day at school and we wanted to get to the store before closing. We wandered around the store for about 90 minutes - we still go into sensory overload in the really big department stores - everything is in a different language... Since we have just moved in, we are trying to fill in some necessary items: clothes drying rack (a.k.a. our dryer), trash can, wall clock (don't want to be late for school!), organizing racks for our cupboards, etc. Anyway, we picked up a few items and walked over to catch the bus only to discover that we had missed it by just 2 or 3 minutes and the next one doesn't come for 20-25 minutes - oh bother. So, rather than go back inside or just sit and wait, we decided that it would be quickest to walk home the mile and a half. Here I was, carrying a 2 ft. x 4 ft. drying rack, wrapped in plastic, under my arm (luckily there wasn't much wind because that rack made a great sail...). We mused that back in the states, we would never have walked 1.5 miles just because it was quicker than waiting for something - we would just go into the nearest Starbucks, drink a latte and hang out. My, how things have changed...
Here is a picture of our apartment and the building in which we live (Take note Neiferts for when you come to visit!). We live just above the Optik shop on the 1st floor (2nd floor US). You can see that our apartment gets great light from the wall of windows on our west side. We have a set of french doors leading out to our balcony which is just in the shadow of the building picture. Our apartment is small, just 52 sq. m. or about 550 sq. ft. (about 1/4 of the size of our last home) so we are working hard to optimize our storage space. It is quite the challange. The good news is that our couches can also be used for extra beds if we have company (there is also a convenient hotel nearby...)

Another new reality is that one must be careful of the cheese one buys. Delynn and I have a bit of an inside joke - our favorite travel show, Rick Steves, had an episode in Paris where he went to a cheese shop (fromagerie) with a female Parisian friend. At one point, the woman takes some cheese in her hands, takes a deep whif and exclaims: "It smells like the feet of angels!" - this never fails to give us a chuckle. Anyway, we bought some cheese the other day that promised to be "kräftig" which roughly translates to "full-bodied" or "bold". Well, full-bodied doesn't begin to describe our experience. I started making lunch for school (we make it the evening before to save our precious morning time) and opened up the cheese package. It filled our small apartment with its "full-bodied boldness" which I considered strong but Delynn considered toxic. When I quipped that it just smelled "like the feet of angels", Delynn soberly countered that it smelled more like "the dirty diapers of angels..." She even threatened to not each lunch with me the next day. I finished making my sandwich, wrapped it securely in cling-wrap and stuck it in the fridge. I also double wrapped the remaining cheese and stuck it in a zip-lock bag for safe-keeping. The next morning, the fridge reeked! Oy! Even I was getting offended. We ended up throwing out the cheese (luckily it was garbage day), vowing never again to fall for "bold" flavored cheese.

Finally, I have some other pictures of the staff (taking their German placement test), a wonderful family from our school, the Hinshaw's, and Rachael with Shauna on her birthday. The RIA family is really wonderful.