Our First Saint!

Last night we celebrated St. Martin's Day with a lantern parade in Dafna's class.  It was a lovely evening-- perfect Fall weather, crisp with a clear sky, and 100 Kindergartners walking through dry leaves with candles in homemade lanterns. 

What could go wrong?  

The singing circle

D and Clara and their (unlit) lanterns

Lit

She was very proud (when not heaving)

The long line of lanterns snaking behind us

Rumor has it that there was only one "incident" and that it wasn't even so big.  We saw one of the teachers on the bus home, so they didn't even go out drinking afterward.

We joined together for a bonfire, singing and an appearance of St. Martin on a hobby horse (the skit only alluded to Jesus) and hot cider before heading home for dinner. 

Martin seems like a pretty good saint for us to begin with-- he's all about modesty, helping others and eating geese.  These days between now and Christmas seem to parallel the Jewish months of Nisan/Iyar (known in my head as the "Season of Yoms") when there is a minor, modern Jewish holiday/commemoration nearly every week (Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron...).  Plans are already starting at school for the arrival of Advent and St. Nikolaus, who apparently ensures that we all polish our shoes.


In other news, I'm home for the 4th straight day with sick children.  Turns out that there's some kind of stomach bug going around Dafna's class that she turned up with on Friday evening.  We though she was better yesterday afternoon and risked taking her to the Lantern Parade last night (outside, open air, no touching, etc).  Turns out we were wrong.  Oh, and she has lice, too.  And, did I tell you?  She perforated her eardrum last week and we made our first German trip to the doctor-- 3 buses and a subway.  Fun times!  Micah complained of a tummy ache last night and this morning.  Several things played into the calculus to keep him home:

1. I'm home with Dafna anyway
2. He still complained of a stomachache when reminded that today is basketball club after school
3. He had a field trip to an "Altersheim" (old age home), which is really a bad place to introduce the stomach flu
4. Vomiting at school would hurt his already shaky social status

So, we're home in our jammies, picking nits and watching Pippi Longstocking and basketball game repeats.  On the bright side, I didn't have to make lunch...

An equation for you:
lice+stomach flu= run out of detergent+no dryer= my house looks like the shuk

Hier Bin Ich

Woo-hee!  It's been a long time since I've been here.  Some things that have happened in the month (er... 5 weeks?) since I last blogged:

K-Pen and Bubbie Sue came.  For a month!  It was awesome.

K-Pen and Micah on the Fernsehturm, Berlin's highest point

We celebrated 23 years of German Unity with a Ferris wheel ride and overpriced (and really quite bad) pizza.  Ad meah v'esrim Bundesrepublik Deutschland!

Right about the time I said "This may have been a bad idea"

German unity from up high

I still refuse to move/turn/take my hands off Dafna

Everyone took a vacation.  K-Pen and Bubbie Sue had an Amsterdam adventure and the Copelovitches went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to visit the Desais (after Mark went to London to deliver a paper).  They had a snow day from school while we were there.  Yes, in the Alps.

Emily, knowing Micah very well, took him to stand on the Austrian border.  Another notch in his passport!

20 feet into Austria

We took a train, a bus, another train and a cable car to summit the Zugspitz (the Top of Germany) where we sledded on a glacier, made blu-ish snow angels and suffered some light altitude sickness.

Germany's highest point

It was pretty amazing up there

From the cable car going down

Sledding on the glacier

We celebrated our 15th anniversary in Prague while K-Pen and Bubbie Sue held down the Berlin fort with Micah and Dafna.  I think a good time was had by all.  Certainly by me and Mark...  Prague is a great city and has about 2.5 days worth of sightseeing (maybe 3 if you're really interested in which Bohemian monarchs became Saints and all that kind of stuff).  We were there for 4 days which made for a very relaxing vacation-- sightseeing, wandering, massages, dinner with friends who happened to be visiting at the same time, naps, etc.  It was a pace we could definitely get used to.

Trdelnik-- a new favorite snack

Lots of Art Deco in Prague

Beers by the Vltava

Prague Astronomical Clock.  We haven't quite figured it out.  As our friend Steve said "It always looks like it is 4am".

We arrived home to find K-Pen and Bubbie Sue a) still alive b) still loving our children c) constructing a 3-D scale-model of the Taj Mahal in our dining room and d) experts on the pizza scene in Berlin.  Also, Audrey, our dear friend came to visit by way of New York and Zurich.  It was wonderful to see Audrey (many of you know we've gotten used to seeing her several times a year because of her position at Shopbop, a Madison-based company) and not only because she afforded us the opportunity to communicate with our (Turkish-, Bulgarian- and apparently Russian-speaking) cleaning lady (notice no German, English or Hebrew in that list...).  Our charades-based communication was getting comical when Audrey asked if she spoke Russian.  Aha!  Former Communist-bloc education FTW!  After several more days of touring, shopping and good eating, Audrey, K-Pen and Bubbie Sue went home to the States, leaving us alone in Germany until Aunt 'Chelle comes for "Thanksgiving".

Audrey gearing up to communicate with our cleaning lady

Things at school seem to have evened out for Micah (and his teacher, more importantly).  We had a parent-teacher (counselor, principal...) conference last week and we were really prepared for the worst.  His teacher said that he's doing very well, that he's completing work, a bit more organized, etc.  His German teacher said that he's quite good at German, and though he refuses to speak, his written work is perfect.  The science and music teachers (both young American women) really seem to get Micah and how he works and gave us several examples of small, quiet accommodations they make in class for him that make him more successful.  And they did that in front of his classroom teacher, so maybe she'll get some good ideas...

Let's see.  Other things:

Oh, yeah, the RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!! 

#FearTheBeard, Konrad.

We celebrated with a nap.  Mark stayed up to watch the whole game.  I woke up at 3:30 am to watch the last inning and a half and the subsequent celebrations.  We all celebrated the next night with a baseball-themed dinner.

Mark's food photography isn't up to Smitten Kitchen's standards, but you'll notice hot dogs, Boston baked beans, beer and a baseball diamond salad composed of a cabbage field, cucumber base lines, mushroom bases and a red pepper "B" for Boston.  Micah was quite excited (about the win, not the salad) and it almost made him forget that there's no trick-or-treating in Germany.  At least that's what we told them.

So, that's our update.  Stay tuned as we start learning about lots of Saints in the next month.  Apparently we will celebrate St. Martin and St. Nikolas at the very least.  We'll be headed to Dublin, too, so maybe we'll throw St. Patrick in there for good measure.

Eating German food for the Last Supper