Lisa's New Hair cut - Jan 09

Das Haus

The house we are staying in is very nice and we are so grateful that the Bartels have let us watch it for them. I thought I'd post some pictures of das haus and some things that are different.
Here she is:

I think that the germans have to keep their yards spick and span, so I took a picture of how perfect all the bushes are in the neighboring houses. This is an example:

As you come into the front door, there is a nest of ostrich eggs sitting on the table for decor. Pretty cool, huh?

This is our bedroom in the picture below. There is no carpet anywhere in the house. Yes, we each are on a twin bed. Makes it hard to snuggle and sometimes we squish onto one twin bed at night. The mattresses are egg shell foam and they only use bottom sheets here. We have a down comforter on to cover and that's it. The boards sometimes fall out from under McCord's bed, as you can see in the picture, but we just put them back on the frame and no big deal. =)

The house has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms. This is a picture of the sauna that's in the basement:

This is the living room. We all spend a great deal of time in here preparing lessons and watching Heroes and American Idol.

The electrical plugs are different here. What do you think? I don't think our plugs are going to fit in these:

(Don't worry, parents, we have sufficient converters for our needs)

The light switches are different too. You push them in and out to go on and off, and you twist them to dim or brighten the lights. It took some getting used to for this.

We take care of the cat here. Shadow is much like a dog, she is trained well. I think it is funny that she drinks from the bathroom fauset:

Garbage! It's so complicated. You have to separate the garbage into 4 different categories: paper, plastic, bio stuff, and the rest. This drawer holds the garbage and the garbage cans. You put the different garbage out on the street every two weeks. If you do not separate it, they will fine you and not pick up your trash for 2 weeks.

I had to take a picture of the "leechy berry". You crack the shell and inside the berry is very delicious and sweet. The texture is like and eye ball.

Can anyone tell me how to work the dryer/washer? It's all in german.

I really know how to work it. It's just cool that it's all in German.

New American Idol Judges

Due to recent drops in ratings, the producers of American Idol have decided to replace the exhisting judges with new faces:

Dinner with Uncle Brik

Brik came to visit us in Germany while doing business in Europe. He took all 4 of us out to dinner at a restaurant downtown. It was so fun and so delicious. We all got to practise our german in ordering and our waitress spoke a little english, which was nice. The food was amazing. They do fried potatoes really well here. We all loved the food and hope to have more great experiences of tasting fantastic food. Thanks Uncle Brik, we all had a blast!

Inlingua teachers!

WE GOT JOBS! We will be teaching English at the Inlingua school here in Munster. It is right across the street from the haptbaunhof (the "grand central" of Munster). We start training this Wednesday and will start teaching whenever they think we are ready. Probably will start in February with classes about 8-10 students.

Job interviews in Germany

We both got job interviews last friday at a school right next to the train station. The school is called Inlingua. Our interviews on friday went well and the interviewer, Patrick, seeemed to like us both. He asked to come back today, Monday, for a second interview. We are to prepare a lesson for someone who doesn't speak ANY english at all. Lisa has prepared her lesson on shopping and McCord's lesson will be introductions and some other basics. Wish us both luck. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Out for a REAL italian dinner

We had the chance to go to a REAL italian restaurant but the menus were in German and everything. I got water to drink, but here the water they bring you is sparkling water. It's not as good as Sprite though. =) It was nice that they had numbers by the dishes so we could tell them our order in numbers, because that's the bulk of german that we know. In the picture with us is Henk and Marijke. The food was amazing. They italian food in the states (AKA Olive Garden) will never taste the same to us. It just doesn't compare! The pastas were fantastic!

TV shows

We have many tv shows that we have enjoyed over the past years. There are some great writers and producers that can come up with some great entertainment.

HEROES:
This is our favoirte tv show and we have never missed an episode. McCord loves the superheroes and Lisa loves the suspense and mystery mixed with science. Season 4 will start soon and we cannot wait.

Most of America is following American Idol and most of you know that season 8 has started. We plan to follow this season and are excited about the new judge.

Chuck:

This is a comedy that we have just started this month and love it. We are now all caught up on the episodes and would recommend it to family and friends to watch.

Momma's Boys:

Reality TV shows are all over the place. We have enjoyed watching this one because A: it is a Ryan Seacrest show, and B: because it is a short season and entertaining.

Kegaln- German Bowling

We got to rent out a lane in a restaurant. The game is a little different. The balls are lighter, without holes. There is carpet on both sides. If a runner can run down the side and go faster than the ball is going - then the thrower owes everybody a round of beer. If the thrower hits the string in front of the lane - then he pays .50 Euros.

There are so many different ways to keep score. You don't get 2 turns to knock down the 9 pins (not 10). We played many different ways. Kept score on a chalkboard:

The best way is to make up special ways to throw the ball. We imagine it is much more entertaining to watch this when more people playing are drunk Germans, but it was still so much fun. We had to throw the ball with an elephant nose...

backwards...

spinning around 3 times and then throw. Hopping from the back of the room to the string and then throw. Also throwing the ball after 3 pushups:

We had so much fun. It sure was different, but we had such a good time as well as making fools of ourselves.

Palace of Munster

This is going to be our new house (we wish). It's the Munster Palace that was bombed in WWII and was restored into a University. This is like "Old Main" of Munster.

There are gardens all over and we got to visit the greenhouses. It was awesome:

This is a vanilla plant.

...and a cocoa plant:

Berliners and Brautwurst

These are our favorite German foods. They are so good! We are going to come home at least 20 pounds heavier.
Brautwurst/ "german street meat":

"I am a berliner." -JFK (wanting to say "I came from Berlin")

A berliner is a berry filled donut with sugar on top:

Happy New Year's Day 2009!

Evening of New Year's Day in Germany and we're still going strong with the fireworks! We saved the bombs for this day. We had so much fun!

Lt to Rt: Lisa, Marijke, Sarah

The Boys mostly lit the bombs and enjoyed throwing them in every direction. They especially liked throwing them down man holes in the street. Boys- they get a kick out of blowing things up.

Lt to Rt: McCord, Hank, Tristan

Sparkler time came and Marijke wanted to light them all (2 boxes worth) and then give them to us. Little did she know that the flaming ball of combined fireworks would make such a big flare of light and heat toasting all of them, and nearly blinding the whole group.

She freaked out and we all laughed histerically

Luckily, we had a spare box and we all took our own sparklers and lit them.

We all had a lot of fun with them after the drama and laughter has subsided a little...

...until Hank threw his sparkler stick into the pine tree next to their house...=) Don't worry, it ended up not hurting anything, but the laughter continued, of course.

We got to experience a German new years tradition. You melt a little figure made of lead in a spoon above a candle flame, then you poor the melted lead into a cool bowl of water. Whatever picture your lead creation turns out to be will predict how your next year will go.

McCord's lead creation came out looking kind of like a dear, we thought (above lead critter). Which means he will be invited to dinner by someone and go on a cruise this year! Mine came out looking like a distinct swam wing, or a bird wing (bottom lead figure). This means that I will have good luck all year round. Woo Hoo!

More and more jokes were over the melting of lead figures, and Tristan accidentally spilled the lead water into the candle wax (which is like pooring water into a pan of hot grease)....- FIRE! A flame shot up about 5 feet in the air off the kitchen table and everyone freaked out! Nothing terrible happened too bad, just fright, but we were all laughing and rolling on the floor after this horrific night of fire. Ha ha ha

This is Tristan laughing with the PAPER lamp that was above the table. We finally decided to go to bed after almost burning the neighborhood and the house...

New Years in Germany 2009!

Happy New Year 2009! We are in Germany- where dangerous fireworks are NOT illegal! It was so cold that the humidity was crystalizing, looking like snow. P.S. We paid $6 E for all of this:

There were fireworks all around us in the air that people were lighting in their front yards. The video is dark, but you can see a little of what we went through.