Rock Band and Living on the Edge

I have a confession to make. Making the most of our stay in Europe has kind of taken a back seat lately to our addiction to the game Rock Band. We don't even own it. Nope. We're one of those families that fell for the Wii while our American neighbors were the smart ones getting the PS3. They were also one of the few able to acquire Rock Band and, thusly, we are their new best friends. We bring brownies and Nutella (but not at the same time!) while Caleb and his drumsticks park themselves on the coffee table, Jerry ties his signature scarf to the mic stand and our friends' daughter tunes up the plastic guitar. We're such Rock Band Losers that we have T-shirts for our virtual band, which by the way, is named Stir Fry. Now all we need is a virtual record contract.

Now that I have that off my chest, I can share other stuff with you. For example, over the last year (yes, it's been a year now and have you come to see us? I didn't think so) we've noticed that Europeans harbor little concern for the safety of any human being old enough to walk. When I say "little" what I really mean is any shred concern is completely non-existent. Oh, they love babies and puppies just like everyone else, but it's not uncommon for a protective hand railing at the top of a sheer drop to be hanging by a single thin nail. And rather than complain, you're probably better off just being thankful that the hand rail was even installed sometime between Napoleon's defeat and the moment in 2008 your six-year-old decided to use it as a balance beam. So, when we went to the museum in Speyer it shouldn't have surprised us to be given the opportunity to imagine what kind of horrors could be wreaked with this contraption.

Here are Caleb and his friends trying out the boat ride at the museum. Yes, they're getting air. No, those aren't life jackets they're wearing, but you may be comforted (as were their mothers...NOT) that there was a thin metal lap bar provided. What more do you expect for a Euro?

What you're not seeing here is that every ride in this little park was completely self-operated. Meaning, there was no one (other than the aforementioned mothers) ensuring that they even used the lap bar. It was soooo self-operated in fact, that once they were ensconced in this floating death trap, they simply pulled a cord dangling over their heads to activate it.

Silver lining? We can always be thankful that Lawsuit-Fever never made it all the way to Europe.

Easter in Deutschland

We thought Christmas was big in Deutschland, but we hadn't seen Easter. We weren't counting, but I do believe they took more days off (however, our favorite bakery was open for brunch on Easter Sunday ... very American!) for Easter than Christmas and they really enjoy those little egg trees. You know the ones that are all twiggy with eggs hanging on them? They were everywhere. I thought it might be fun to find out where everyone is getting these cool hand-painted eggs, but alas, I was thwarted in my search. One person I spoke to said she made them herself. Now, that's just not useful at all.

A Tale From the Willage: Jerry took his watch in to a German watch repair shop in a village called Huetschenhausen (yes, it really is pronounced Hoochen Housen) and the man called to let us know it was ready. I answered in my usual American manner and the man said, with an extremely thick accent, "This is the watch repair shop in Huetschenhausen, your watch is ready." Now, we rarely get calls from Germans unless they are polling us, asking for donations or are our neighbors, so my knee-jerk reaction is to say in reply, "Sprechen sie English?" anytime I hear an accent. Well, it turned out that this particular gentleman WAS spreckin' English and I just didn't understand him. Es tut mir leid!

Over the last three or four days, the snow faucet has been turned on and off at least twenty times over our little pocket of Germany and every single time the kids get their hopes up that there won't be school the next day. School has yet to be canceled so the kids are amping up their efforts by resorting to stomach complaints and random ankle twists to persuade the issue in their favor. Thankfully Spring Break is only a week away!