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Published: January 20th 2012
Shopping with Iris
This is the farm she goes to to get fruits and veggies!Why Hello All!
Ok, well, first there is a correction to where it says the blog is coming from. Unfortunately, I guess Münster is too small to register on the blog site, so I am not actually in Frankfurt, but Münster is about a half-an-hour or so away.
First I must say that while it is faster, we really must stop calling them “the triplets.” “Triplets” implies three siblings born at the same time, these kids appear to be all different ages! Oliver is the oldest by two minutes and also the biggest. He is nearly as tall as Iris and his voice is even pretty deep already. Suspected actual age: 14.
Sabrina actually looks her age, which is three months short of 13. She is into everything; swimming, horseback riding, dancing, art, violin, school, plus she is very outgoing. The boys are fairly quiet, but Sabrina likes to tell all about her day and she even told me a joke (in English). She reminds me a lot of me when I was 12.
Lars is the youngest and the smallest and while he is pretty quiet, don’t think the gears aren’t turning in there. He loves,
Riding!
Me and Sabrina and her friend outside her riding barn! loves, LOVES the rainforest. When he saw a news report about how the rainforest was being destroyed and animals like gorillas were losing their habitat he was so depressed Iris told him that he should do something about it. Lars saved all his birthday money and bought a few hectares of rainforest to prevent it from being cut down as well as donating money to orangutan protection and to help pay for lawyers to defend people who are losing their land.
As you can tell these are three very different individuals, but they spend a lot of time together and always seem to have some fun. 😊
Iris warned me before I came that I would mostly just be sharing their daily lives. Perfect! Daily lives usually consisted of the kids getting up and going to school, me sleeping in a little longer, waking up for coffee with Iris running a few errands, going for a walk with Iris, making lunch, taking kids to activities, maybe a few more errands, relaxing in the house, dinner, movie, bed. Sounds easy, right? Now that the kids are older I don’t think it’s nearly
as difficult, but Iris took the week
Oliver the Archer!
He's the one in red! off work and Matthias is only home on weekends. Pretty much, Iris should win Super-Mom. I really enjoyed just hanging around the house though. I got to help cook, and I even did the dishes, I love watching movies (Ice Age 2 and 3 are very good by the way) and I got to learn some more German!
Word to the wise for language learners everywhere: If you want to
really learn a language, live with a family that has kids between the ages of about 7 and 14. They don’t usually know enough of English yet to only talk to you in English, so you have to speak with them in their language. They don’t let anything slide, if you are saying it wrong they will correct you or look at you like you are pretty dumb (Iris’ kids didn’t do that but I have experience from my Costa Rican host sisters). Plus, they talk a lot. Lots of opportunities to learn. One of my best Spanish teachers was my 8 year old host sister, Diana, in Costa Rica. She loved helping me with the order of my words, and how to pronounce them and also vocabulary. Iris
would ask the kids if they knew such and such a word in English/German and they would have to translate it, upside, I learned the word as well. I also learned how to ask “Can you please pass the ___” when we were sitting at the table. Kann ich bitte die Butter haben? Yeah. Rocked that. When I said it when I arrived here at Müller’s Brigitte said, “Wait. Repeat that.”
“Kann ich bitte die Butter haben?”
“Hey! There was some good German!”
Yep, learning lots of German here in Germany. Still can’t understand most of what they say, but as I said with French in Paris, you get a long way with a smile and a nod. 😊
Well, even though Oliver, Sabrina, Lars and I couldn’t really hold conversations, I still had lots of fun getting to know them. I got to go with Iris to watch Sabrina ride horses, well, I got to see
where she rides horses, her teacher couldn’t come that day, but I also got to see Oliver do his archery. He is really good! He recently got a special certificate for it! He just coolly walks up and lets
Gift from Lars
Sid the Sloth waiting for me when I went to bed after we watched Ice Age 2. the bow go, and they all usually land within just a few inches of each other. He is quite the teenager already, Iris even says so. Very laid back and fairly quiet, always the cool man.
Lars’ favorite activity is reading. Always reading, always observing. He was pretty quiet during meals, but he was the last kid left eating, then he would sit quietly and Iris finally got a chance to ask him about his day, then he is very talkative with his Mom. At first I thought he wasn’t so sure of me. You can see him constantly thinking, but he doesn’t say a lot. Then after we watched Ice Age 2 when I went to bed that night I found a little Sid the Sloth doll waiting for me on the ladder up to his bed. I think I’m in. Lars’ room is the only one down stairs and he has a loft bed that is made for, well, a twelve year old boy. I was afraid on a few occasions that I a) would break it and b) I might get stuck in that ladder; it’s not very wide. At the end of the week, Lars
even showed me some of his videos about saving the rainforest in Borneo where he bought his hectares of land.
Iris and I went for walks pretty often through Münster and while running errands and such. “I like that you like to walk fast!” Well, when you grow up with my Dad it’s either walk fast or get left behind, haha! I guess I didn’t even realize we were walking fast, I was just walking. Haha! We did get to get out and do a bit of sightseeing in the area like going to Aschaffenburg, and Otsburg and Erbach. Aschaffenburg is pretty neat for seeing the Main River and the Johannesburg Castle and some shopping. Otsburg might just be the cutest little town in Germany. It sits on the top of a hill and walking around gave me the feeling that it was totally isolated. The people there speak dialect, and its seems like the kind of small town that everybody knows everybody and they’ve got everything they need right there and they just like to be on their little hill looking out over Oldenwald. At the top of the hill is the fort complete with tower built for
Aschaffenburg!
Johannesburg Castle very tiny ancient Germans. Iris and I had to duck to get to the top ha!
Saturday Matthias even got to come with Iris and me to Erbach to see the museum there inside of the Castel of Franz I that has displays of ancient Roman statues including an original bust of Alexander the Great. Franz was also very interested in Biology and has room and rooms with displays of antlers of deer and elk. Two rooms are devoted to deformed antlers, which I have to admit, creeped me out just a little bit, and then a large hall filled with giant antlers. The biggest draw though is the collections of armor that Franz I had. There is original armor from the Romans, and collections of armor from throughout the area over a period of years, complete with a Black Knight. 😊
Afterwards we stopped at a café for a warm drink and I asked Iris about Bavaria. You see, I’ve heard a lot about Bavaria since I have been here. Well, not a lot, but it sort of pops up in conversations un-expectedly and since Aschaffenburg was actually in Bavaria I asked Iris what the deal is
with Bavaria. “Well, it is the largest state in Germany and it just has its own way of speaking, especially the closer you get to Austria and the Bavarians just always want to be different than the rest of Germany they think they are better. So, we make fun of them.”
Conclusion: Bavaria is the Texas of Germany.
Then Matthias chimed in, “Would you like to hear a joke about Bavaria? So, there were too many crazy people in Germany, so the government decided that they needed more mental hospitals. They said, ‘Ok, we’ll build one in Berlin and Hamburg, and then we will just put a roof over Bavaria.”
Spending time with the Petry’s really felt like home. I helped Iris around the house a little bit, got to chill out on the couch and watch a movie with the whole family in the evenings, play a heated card game and get to know three pretty great and active kids. Mom even got to see everyone over Skype, which I must say is a great invention. Lars thought that it was too cool that he could see himself on the computer. Pretty soon the screen was
filled with stuffed animal shows for my Mom and Lars testing to see when exactly his hand comes into view on the screen.
Iris, Matthias, Oliver, Sabrina and Lars are a pretty fun family, I’m glad I got to spend so much time with them. I almost got teary-eyed saying goodbye to Iris like I had with Elisabeth and Oma and Opa. You never know when you will get to see everyone again, and I wish they were just a car ride away, but they’re not, they’re a seven hour plane ride away, significantly farther and more expensive. Either way, I am glad I got the opportunity to see the kids all grown up! What a difference ten years makes, right? 😊
Love and miss everyone!
Love always,
Devin 😊
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Uncle Rick
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Bavaria is the Texas of Germany
This is too funny. Eventually won't dislike Texas so much. Probably when Nebraska has been in the Big 10 for about 20 years.