Exploring the neighborhood

We spent yesterday out and about, checking out the area around the university. Our home for the next two months is in an old farmhouse, now split up into apartments for visiting researchers. It is called the IBZ. The long portion of the building contains the original threshing floor - it is now a wonderful great room, with apartments along the sides. We are staying in an apartment on the second floor (called the first floor in Germany). You can see our place in this photo - the four skylights are in the master bedroom and the boys' room, and the three tall windows are to the living room and the girls' room. There is no lack of light in the apartment. It is glorious! Here's me with Sam and Katie (wearing her sweater like a "married dress" - one of her current fascinations) in the garden next to the IBZ.

We already have a routine built around a trip to the local playground, followed by a stop at the market. The kids are learning (slowly) that they can't daydream while they are strolling along the path on the way to the spielplatz, or they will be mowed down by a college student whizzing by on a bicycle. At the park, Sam and Katie figured out how to balance each other on the see-saw. It's so refreshing to see one of those in a playground again - in the U.S., they are all gone for fear of injuries.

Check out this swing! Every time I look at it it makes me think of something the castaways would have built on Gilligan's Island. These Germans know how to build a fun playground - and it's in the middle of a beautiful forest to boot!

Here are a few more images of the apartment. We have a tv - this morning Sam learned that Bob the Builder is now Bob der Baumeister. Ah, the power of the talking box. Grace loves scooting around on the floor - the surface is slippery enough that she can sit on her bottom and scoot to anywhere she likes. Sam needs to be vigilant about keeping his Legos up high.

The view from our windows is a forested hill, as lush and green as can be. The windows all open, even the skylights, and we are awakened around 4:30 each morning by the sounds of singing birds.

Here are the bathroom and kitchen. You can see the clothes I washed by hand last night. I have new respect for washwomen - they must have forearms of steel from doing the wringing. I'll be using the washing machine downstairs next time. I washed the clothes with dish soap because the laundry soap I though I had purchased turned out to be fabric softener. At least our clothes now have no static cling. The bathroom has a shower as well as a bathtub big enough for all the kids to swim in at the same time. The last time I was in Germany, I don't remember the water pressure being something to write home about, but I find myself doing that just now.

The kitchen is slick as a whistle, with all the niftiness one would expect from German engineering. Tonight I cooked my first schnitzel!