Other adventures

We just barely figured out that I can load pictures onto this computer, so here are a few shots kind of at random. First, Jini is really loving hanging out in Germany with us, and the feeling is mutual. Julia's loving the Nutella. It's like their peanut butter here. At least that's what we tell ourselves.

We do lots and lots of sitting around waiting for Ubahns.

This particular shot was taken last Saturday as we sat waiting for our train to Hanau. Hanau was made famous with its stories of witches brooms

and flower-loving maidensby the Brothers Grimm, who were born there. They have a Marchenfestspiele (or something...Fairy Tale festival) every summer in honor of the famous pair; Julia, Eli, and I watched a musical production of Sleeping Beauty in an outdoor ampitheater at Phillipsruhe Schloss while Jini watched Katharine. It was all in German, but living in a fairy tale ourselves, we pretty much figured it out.This is a fountain at the castle. This is not the real Dornroeschen palace. That is found here. Isn't it gorgeous? It's too remote for us to get to it, but maybe someday. Speaking of fountains, Germans apparently love them as much as my girls, and they have no qualms about stripping their children up to ten years old down naked and letting them run wild.

These are from a fountain on the Hanau trip.

Jini found some wild blackberry bushes at a park at the end of one of the buslines. We made an attempt to pick some, but Eli managed to land herself in a pile of poison ivy or nettle or some other plant that makes humans break out in hives and itch horribly, so we left before we got too many. Beaten but not broken, Jini went back with a friend and picked enough to make some delicious blackberry jam! It was delicious!

Here are some of the cute little buildings around. Of course they're reconstructions because everything was destroyed in the war, but they're still fun to live among. Here stands the Rathaus in the tourist section of Frankfurt:

Some classic German buildings with a hunky Iranian man in front of it. The electricity difference here killed Justin's razor so he hasn't shaved all week and he hasn't had a hair cut in about three months. He's thinking of entering a Mahmoud Ahmadinejab look alike contest.

I only had to purchase 72 bottles of Reis und Gemuse baby food to get this souvenier German T-shirt for Katharine. She really likes it.

It basically says "I'm organic". German uses circumlocutions.

I read once that a mother's summer goal is to have her children the same color at the end as at the beginning. Judging from this picture, I think I'm losing. But sunkissed sure is pretty!