Updates! Updates!

So I had my first date with Thomas last night. It was really fun. We went to Fildorado since he works there and I knew where it was. Besides- he had already seen me in my bikini so no new news there. It was fun- and we're going to get together again next week. Oh and joy- he can speak English. Which makes things easier on me. :D

I'm getting ready to leave shortly to go to Dusseldorf with the family. From there I will take a train to Aachen where I will stay with Dorothee's cousin, Ursula. It's really super nice of her to take me in for the weekend. :D I'll update you on my trip when I get back. :D

Let me hear you say 'GRRRRR!!!!'

I love my job, most of the time. I adore Dorothee, Alex and the girls, but I also have impotent power. When the girls won't listen to me, most of the time there is nothing I can really do. Normally, when at home, I will threaten to take away CBeeBies which is basically kid's programming from the BBC. But currently at the grandparents' house I can't get them to mind. Just now Dorothee was trying to take a nap, the Grandmother is coming back home from the hospital for the first time in two weeks, and I've somehow found myself in charge of two little girls even though Friday to Sunday are my days off. Well, since Dorothee's trying to take a nap, I'm trying to get the girls to be quiet. Nope. Paula squeals, Carola screaks, and every time I say, last time, last time, this is the last time I'm telling you. Finally I get up and tell them if they insist on being loud after I have told them countless times to be quiet then they need to go play outside. Carola pouts, is being bullheaded, and I'm just so frustrated.

Normally I don't mind helping out occasionally, normally I'm happy to do it. But this morning I was woken up at 9:30- yeah, late for most people, but most people don't get woken up by their charges and their boss's aunt to get up. Especially not by having my blanket yanked off. I was pissed. I went in search of Dorothee only to find the aunt again sitting with the girls at the breakfast table. She said something to me in German. She doesn't speak much English, and she knows I speak good enough German. But first thing in the morning my language sensors are still blinking on and English is barely on. I look at Dorothee with a 'what did she say?' look and turns out she woke me up because she thought I had had enough sleep and it was time for me to go change Paula's pullups.

First, Paula can do that on her own. She does it everyday.
Second, I'm not working today.
Third, I just really didn't like the tone and I took offense at it. Yeah, I know I'm technically an employee, but I chose this family because they don't treat me like one.

I haven't said anything about it, but I'm all full of impotent power at the moment. I want to help Dorothee as much as I possibly can, because I know that this is not her idea of fun, and she's stressed. She's always so nice to me, that I don't want her to have to try to wrangle the kids on her own, but I'm really frustrated and just want to escape for a while. If it gets to be too much I'm sooo out of here. I know that a block or so away there is a carnival of sorts going on, I think I may make a trip down there.

Two Things I Learned while in Düsseldorf

I went out into the city today. I learned two things:

It doesn't matter if I take a very impressively detailed map with me, I will still get lost my first day in a new city. It's irritating. Although by then finding myself off the beaten path and forcing myself to learn my way around, the second day I am then usually an expert. However, Düsseldorf simply does not hold much appeal to me. Good stores. Mayer's (A book store here in Germany) has an excellent English books sections here, (which I was somehow able to restrain myself from buying anymore) and yet it has no cool old buildings, impressive history, or fun (at least to me) museums. Dorothee suggested the K21, which is a modern art museum with art just from this century (so about 8 years) and that just doesn't hold the appeal to me that impressionism and other older forms of art hold. Ah well. So I visited got lost, and figured out with the map where I was while sitting in a small cafe drinking black tea, and eating apple cake with sliced almonds on top. Lovely.

Okay, the second thing I learned is that I have restraint. I seriously saw a woman who looked to be dressed in Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Armani etc. She was just decked out. She was walking next to a reasonable dressed man too. And I really wanted to take her picture. Unfortuantely she may have asked why. Then I would have been forced to tell her: "Although you seem to have good fashion sense, you are by far the ugliest woman I have ever seen in my life. Your face looks like a jigsaw puzzle, you seem to have tattooed arched eyebrows, you look like you have had daily face lifts for the past 70 years, and you have obviously been dying your hair blonde for the same amount of time. So much so that it looks to be falling out of your head and you resemble the crypt keeper. I mean, I think with one look at this woman Hannibal Leckter (I'm sooo not spelling that name right) would have lost his appeitiate. Which brings me to the man. Who, seeing at he was obviously WITH this woman. Had a large, capital letters, bold, flashing sign plastered to his forehead which read: KEPT.

With all of this taken into consideration, I figure she wouldn't have wanted to hear what I had to say, and it's really just as well I didn't bring my camera with me.

Cologne and Düsseldorf

Hello Uberbloggen readers and Greetings from Düsseldorf.

Last week was fairly uneventful, the only interesting part being that since the girls are currently on summer vacation, I get them full days. Which I suppose is more than fair seeing as I just had three weeks without the kids. Woo Hoo! Some huge pluses that have occured since they returned include:

* Kids missed me so much that they are now no longer trying to test me at every turn. Which I have to say was getting VERY old. VERY fast.

*No longer alone in the house. During the days I like to be alone in the house, however, come nighttime I'm not quite as thrilled. Although I know the neighbors, the neighborhood, and know that the area is very safe-- I have simply seen too many scary movies and the beings that actually scare me run more along the lines of Samara from "The Ring". So I was happy to have my nighttime people there.

* Dorothee was not upset about the burnt lawn, or the temporarialy lost key. Phew. So I was able to stop fretting over that.

I had to be back from Dresden by Friday because on Saturday the girls were flower girls in a wedding. They were really cute.

Interesting Fact Time!!!

When Germans get married they have to have two ceremonies, a civil one and a church one. They also have a separation between church and state that is more pronounced than the one in America. But I found it to be very interesting that in their weddings it is highly unusual to have all the jobs in the weddings that we have in America. For instance, the girls being flower girls was unusual. Normally they don't have the brides maids, maid of honor, best man, ring bearer, or flower girls. What really disappoints me is that there was no real procession of the father walking down the aisle with his daughter and giving her to her future husband. That's my favorite part. In the wedding I saw the bride and groom walked in together behind the priest. BORING!!!

The plan for this past weekend went like this: I rode north with Dorothee and the girls on Friday and they dropped me off in Cologne. Then they headed on to Dusseldorf. I spent the weekend bumming around Cologne and then Monday took the train the 30 minutes to Dusseldorf. Dorothee picked me up outside of the Main train station and we went to pick the girls up at her in laws, then continued to her parents. Where I currently am.

So much happened while in Cologne that to write it all would be exhausting, so I'm going to have to put the video together and do it that way. I figure if a picture is worth a thousand words, than a video is going to be much more valuable to my time.

I do however what to add two things:

Dumbass, If it's evening, or nighttime, and you see a woman walking down the street, seemingly alone. And you ask her if she is in the city alone. Why on Earth do you possibly think that she would say yes? Is it perhaps the ancient German way of discovering stupid vunerable women. (Neither of which am I.)

Can't get away from the Mormons, even in Germany. I get tired of people trying to convert me. When all I really want is for you to leave me alone, while you go worship the god of your choice and I worship mine. I figured I could get rid of the pest by stating that I can't speak German (cough cough). Unfortunately I soon found out that that wouldn't work since the sorry SOB had evidently followed me from America. Damn it.