Naturally, I was mortified to find out, since I had no idea that it could be an issue. Half asleep though I was, I went and edited it immediately. I'm just so glad that he told me so it wouldn't have ended up creating the potential for a problem. It was very easy to "fix."
But since you cannot see it, you'll have to just take my word for it that the uniform is just entirely too cool for mortal eyes such as yours.
;)
Embla and I drove to school, making it there just in time. Her class was taking a field trip to pick strawberries today, and so she took a big wicker basket with her. Here is the typical daily drop off scene:
When I got home, almost everyone was out of the house for a little while and as such, I enjoyed a few precious minutes alone with two of my best friends: T-Tapp (aka: exercise) and silence.
It is true that I am what like to call a "selective introvert." I definitely need alone time and quiet time, but at the same time I enjoy and have a need for fellowship and discussion. Being placed as an introvert in an extrovert environment, like I am here, is definitely a good experience for me, as alone time is somewhat of a rarity.
During my time this AM, I thought of calling home, until I realized that it was 3:30 AM back in NC, that is. I'm glad that I didn't forget and ring them at such an early hour.
"So, where do you wanna go today?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe we can walk or drive around town, there is supposed to be a mall in Vaihlingen.....wait, we better not let people hear us intellectual girls talking like that."
*laughs* "oh yeah, malls are soo mainstream."
Since we are Refined Intellectuals, we opted to walk about town and see more of the small, locally owned shops.
I can't believe that it took us this long to discover the village bookstore, but we did so today. It is my favorite shop in Schönaich thus far, with the exception of the fresh market Knittels, but that kinda goes without saying. Grocery/market shopping is a full time hobby here, because the food is extraordinary in freshness, variety and quality.
(ok, ok, I'll admit I'm beginning to seem a leetle bit obsessed about those things.)
I couldn't resist purchasing two tiny little books to bring home:
(Yep, that's Shaun the Sheep! It's very popular here.)
Next stop was the village butcher store, which is also a cafe. The selection and quality was amazing (and see the squares of pastry? That's the Maultasche pasta of which I spoke yesterday.)
So much meat!
Rachel got a cappuccino while I took pictures. They also had to-go salads, drinks, and eat-in options.
We discovered another new favorite store of mine: the Apothoke. Think of it as the German version of a drugstore, only it sells extremely high quality products mostly consisting of herbal remedies. Yes, they have allergy drugs and such, but the majority of the store is natural and/or herbal items. Every village or town in Germany seems to have one or two Apothoke in the vicinity.
They even had my preferred kind of magnesium, the easily-absorbable Citrate form, which can be rather hard to find, even in the U.S.
The citrate I got toda is mixable and comes in individual sticks, similar to Natural Calm Mag powder back in the states. This is another mystery solved, because I kept seeing people with plastic water bottles filled with faint orange colored water. My first thought was that it was those diet drink sticks or the Gatorade they sell back in the states, but here in Germany those do not exist.
From what I have gathered, here in Germany, they sell most minerals and vitamins in a mixable form or dissolvable tablet, and so when you see someone with a bottle of orange-ish water here, most likely they are just drinking their daily vitamins/minerals. It makes sense really, as you don't have to digest a capsule or a tablet. Interesting.
By the way, just as a public service announcement: adding Mag citrate to a slightly shaken bottle of sparkling water is the health conscious persons version of the mentos + coke experiment. Oops. The bedroom carpet did not appreciate the little demonstration.
Anyway, enough of that tangent. I have a certain fondness for tangents, and I suppose it is because I want to record and share what I am learning, absorbing, and making connections about. I'm a "sponge," so to speak, except that I'm a sponge whose brain is similar to a computer with 500 tabs open.
We heard the church bell chiming noon nearby. Since we have yet to visit the village church, we thought "why not go find it?"
It was not hard to locate, and when I walked around the corner and saw the Sunday School building, and what a pleasant surprise to see that it was named for one of my favorite Germans.
Then we walked round to see the church. It was built in 1840, made it through both World Wars and still holds services on Sunday. This is the same church that is visible from our house and whose chimes can be heard hourly throughout town.
The most intriguing part was the graveyard. I never knew that Germans had such lovely grave sites. It may sound morbid, but I probably wouldn't mind dying so much if I knew I would have an enormous rose bush like fhis one growing above me.
Without exception, every grave has a plot on top for flowers or bushes to be grown. It is fascinating, and as shown in this picture, there are complimentary watering cans and a water spigot for people to tend to the flowers of their loved ones when they visit the grave.
There was a WWI and WWII memorial in the little graveyard as well.
It's a unique experience to be on the other side of the fence, so to speak, especially when it comes to an event as monumental as World War II.
There were also twelve graves of the men from this very village who gave their lives in the second World War.
This place reminds us that these people, though they may have been seen as the "enemy" for a time- they are human too.
In fact, they are just as much human as "our" American boys were. It humanized the effect of war as it called to rememberence the men that gave their lives for a cause, lost though it was in the end. The twenty two year old men, the forty year old ones, the eighteen year old ones- no one can say they were not devoted, because they were, and to the death. These gave their all and as such, should be remembered.
I observed an older lady lovingly watering he flowers of a grave nearby. She appeared to be on her way home from town, with a shopping bag in hand, the watering can in the other. The town is small enough to be in walking distance of eventing. I wondered- was it her sisters' grave? Father's grave? Late husbands' grave?
It was a beautiful, touching place, that graveyard.
We went back home after a run to the grocery store. I have a "secret" sitting spot near the side of the house that I use for my "introvert time" and I decided to eat my lunch there today. This is where I sit, and that green fence there separates our yard from the Kindergarten.
I enjoy the fact that we live next to the kindergarten, even if the kids pick off all the cherries on our cherry tree that hangs over the fence, leaving only the harder-to-reach ones.
I have noticed that many of the kindergartens here hire teenagers and young adults, both male and female, to play with the kids. This gives a nice degree of diversity to a field typically dominated by middle aged ladies.
Children are a top priority for Germans, from the schools, to the playgrounds, to the restaurants- everything is designed with kids in mind. Kids here are expected to behave well and you don't see any kids out past their bedtime which is usually 7:30 or 8. As Arnheidur likes to joke: "Germans only have one child because they want to pour all that energy into that one child so they can ensure they are PERFECT."
After a good deal of chaos wherein the car keys for given away to a stranger by Erla while on base mailing packages with her Mom, it was decided that we (Embla, Ellert, Rachel and I) would go see the newly released movie Jurassic World which was playing at the Patch barracks theater tonight at 1800.
(PX cup!)
Because where else do you get to stand for the playing of the national anthem before the movie starts?
We had a grand old time and we really enjoyed getting to see the movie together (and take pictures with our goofy 3D glasses, of course.)
The movie was fun and exciting and scary. Our summary of the film is the following:
"It brings a new and terrifying meaning to the meaning to the phrase: "run for your life."
After the movie we ate take-out Tikka Masala that Arnheidur
had gotten us on the way home. She also gave me some presents she got me from Venice! I was so surprised!
And now I crash. Such a good day was had by all.
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