We went for a walk

At our apartment in Germany, you turn right then come to cross street, and normally we would just walk straight past the flower shop, the gas station, and on to the town center, but one day we decided to turn right into what appeared to be a subdivision type area. I am glad we did, it turned out to be one of our favorite places to walk.

When you first turn right you see apartments on either side of the street just past those are nice looking houses with solar panels on the roofs then abruptly it stops and right next door to a two story house with lawn furniture and a fire pit in the backyard there are 'cheep cheeps' on the right and tilled farm land on the left. The combination of city and country the lack of demarcation was a truly German experience. Luke loved the chickens and learned how to make cheep cheep noises and thus the name 'cheep cheeps' replaced the word chicken. As soon as the chickens would see Luke all of them came to his part of the fence and would have a conversation with him, it was too cute. Behind the chickens was a goat pen too, but that was too far away to get a decent picture. If you keep walking straight you some to a wooded area that appeared to arch. We heard noises coming from a distance and after following the wooded path for just a couple minutes we found soccer fields and a soccer game going on. It was a city league came of men probably in their 20s. Not sure if we were allowed in, I just let the boys watch from the fence. However, there was a part of the gate missing so the boys just wandered in and got right next to the field. A man gestured that we could come in but still not feeling confident I hung back ever so slightly. I suppose he wanted to make me feel welcomed, to include me in the game, or let me know it was ok to be there, so he started to approach me while talking. Of course, I had no idea what he was saying so I tried the whole smile and nod approach I usually went with, but he kept talking. Finally, I had to tell him I only spoke English, to which he replied with the word 3. I am not sure if he was telling me the score, telling me that he noticed I had 3 boys, or that it cost 3 Euro to watch so I reverted back to the whole smile and nod approach which caused him to walk away to chat with people who understood him. After this I grabbed the boys and we continued on our walk. We found a field full of yellow flowers and a monument to Mary complete with candles to light if you so choose. We ended up at the front of the soccer fields and the game was over at this point. We wanted to check out the Sports Center so we walked in to see what was what, and as we were looking at signs and peeping into windows the same man from earlier passed us and just watched for a few minutes before he went on his way. It seemed like he felt sorry for us and our inability to communicate, but since he didn't approach us again I will never know. We ended going to the soccer fields almost every day. If there are no games going on you are allowed play on them. Jack fell in love with kicking the ball and Luke loved picking up the flag and carrying it around.

The things we eat.

My 5 year old was the pickiest eater and if given the choice of eating or not, he usually chose not. His lack of interest in food caused him to fall off the weight charts.
When we first arrived here we bought many different types of deli styled meats, so we could find the ones our kids would eat regularly, it normally ended in bolognas, salamis, hams with paprika seasoning, and many more being shoved to the back of the refrigerator. Gouda cheese, which is the most common and cheapest cheese, was eaten by the block daily, but meat was not consumed with the same flourish. Then one day fish was introduced to Jack and there has been no looking back. It turns out that our picky eater wasn't picky, we were just feeding him the wrong things. He has eaten a raw fish sandwich, fish and chips(hold the chips), caviar, herring filet, and the thing that I could hardly look at, a seafood pizza with 5 different types of seafood, including tentacles, from what we aren't sure. Back home he loved goat cheese and blue cheese so perhaps we should have guessed that the stinkier the food the better, but what kid would rather have fish over grilled cheese?

His desire to eat stinky food was again proven when I accidentally bought liverwurst, instead of the mini weenies I had actually planned on buying. The same company makes both, and there is a fox who says," Meine mini- wurstkind," the kids have fallen prey to this advertising, so without reading the label I picked up a product with this fox smiling up at me practically guaranteeing my children will love whatever he is selling. Once out of the store I show Pete my purchases and upon seeing my fox purchase he leans in to whisper what I have actually bought, but we agree not to tell the boys right now since they can be easily be deterred.  It turns out that the wily fox was correct because my children devoured those mini packets of liverwurst.

We have discovered white brats and the correct way to eat them. They are usually eaten for breakfast or what I would call brunch, and you either just toss them on a grill for a few minutes or you can pre-cook water then toss them on for a few minutes. Two very important things to remember: 1. With white brats you must take the skin off before you eat them 2. You must always serve them with a sweet mustard. You are also supposed to eat it with a large pretzel and white beer. PS. Do not boil them.
We learned, on our own, that you do not cook green and white asparagus the same way. Pete makes great green asaparagus, so we figured just make it the same way- please do not do that. It will not cut, it will sort of shred and it will taste like earth. After our failed attempt I looked it up online, and discovered it is quite a different process. First of all, there is a special asparagus utensil that is used to shred it before you do anything else. Then there is a special slotted pot you use just for asparagus that allows the asparagus to stand up and not touch the other pieces,you do not want it to bend while cooking. Also, the white aspragus here isn't a side dish that you think will taste pretty good with your chicken or just because you need to feed the kids a vegetable. No, it is the meal. Hollandaise Sauce is always advertised with it and so is Riesling. You can add meat and there is a cheese, I forget the name, that is often paired with it. During Spargel season many restaurants have one menu that is just a Spargel Karte. We haven't attempted it again, but but we don't have a kitchen. I hope to try it soon, made the correct way.