Christmas Time

As always these days, Christmas was quite busy. Christmas eve brought a Skype call to Australia to see my family. It was nice to catch up with them and I think they enjoyed seeing the girls. A "live" exchange of gifts then took place so everyone could witness the smiles (real or fake) that always accompany gift opening. After this, we went over to see some friends and eat a traditional Christmas eve dinner of Indian curries!

The morning saw the girls open their gifts. A 6:30 wakeup time was quite bearable. They seemed happy with what they got. I think their favourite gifts were for Naomi, a human anatomy doll and for Fiona, a "Groovy Girl" doll. In the subsequent days, the board game "Guess Who" has been getting a real workout, much to the delight of us getting to join in endless playings of this fascinating strategy game.

In the afternoon we went over to see some friends which was quite nice and relaxing also. The girls had fun playing and it was nice to sit down, eat some good food and drink some beer. Of course, in the evening I was glued to the TV for the start of the cricket.

Boxing Day brought more cricket! There is an indoor cricket facility about 30 minutes from my house and 12 blokes from my team met up there for an afternoon of practice, followed by an indoor game. My bowling was terrible but I batted OK...and the team that I was on got home at the end in a close match.

Since this, a little bit of driving around gathering more free firewood. Mindy is a little annoyed about the growing plie of pallets in the back yard ("It looks like a shipyard")...but I plan to cut up most of them in the next couple of days so hopefully this will ease her concerns. Also, of course, many late nights watching us wrap up the test match. The icing on the cake was watching Johnson and Hogg find some form with the ball to ease some minor concerns I had with their play. I would imagine an unchanged team for Sydney but Tait is right there applying pressure.

Unfortunately the 10 days off work is passing way too quickly but good news is that when I go back, it will still be local as I have been extended at Colgate for possible another few months.

Catching Up

I am now off from work until then new year and am quite looking forward to doing nothing but hanging around the house...it should be great! Trying to catch up on sleep since the last Australia v NZ ODI game. I think it might have answered some questions about the test side as well. Hogg showed enough that I think he has to be there for the balance of the side and so I think it has to be a choice between Johnson and Tait for the last spot. I am torn here but would probably go with Johnson to give us some more variety. We will have to see what happens but I will certainly be watching (7:00pm Christmas night!).

I spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning gathering some wooden pallets for use in our fireplace. We were drastically short of kindling and thanks to the "craigslist" website, found someone giving away free pallets and firewood. I managed to get 15 in the van at one time so after 3 trips, our back yard looks like a loading dock. They burn well so it was well worth the effort.

Saturday night saw us go to the New Jersey Humanist Network's "Humanlight" celebration. It was fun but as you would expect at an event like this, a lot of interesting people were on display. Everyone was quite nice and we had a good time. The entertainment for the evening was a juggler. I went down the front with the kids so they would see - Naomi was particularly captivated by her. A few times throughout the show she asked for audience volunteers and again, right before her finale (juggling the bowling pins) she asked for help. To my and Mindy's amazement, Naomi's hand shot straight up. Normally she is very reserved and hesitant to do things like this but up she went, performing the dance moves asked of her with only a little embarrassment. It was great to see her up there having fun.

We are now counting down the hours for Christmas. This afternoon we will be "skyping" the family back home, then spending the evening with friends eating traditional Christmas Indian curries.

Mindy and David Go To White Castle

Saturday morning started brilliantly. When getting into the car to run a couple of errands my bad knee locked up on me. This happens a couple of times every year in the most innane ways and I guess since it has been about 6 months since the last time, I was due. Normally it means that I limp around for somewhere between 2-10 days and frim how it is feeling today (Monday), it should be closer to the lower end of this.

We went to a local tile and flooring place to select a vinyl floor for our kitchen. The tile we installed 5 years ago is having some problems and we both think that this will be both a better look and easier to deal with.

Needing to grab something for lunch, I commented to Mindy that there was a new White Castle "restaurant" (a bit of a stretch to call it this) in a neighbouring town and so to have something different, we thought we would eat there. Both of us had been there before but many years ago. Their reputation is for attracting the late night munchy crowd after a night of drinking and their burgers are quite small so they come in large numbers.


Anyway, we arrived and the place was basically empty. There was only one person sitting at a table (more on him later). When we get to the counter, EVERYONE in the place was staring at us - the two servers and the 10 or so people in the kitchen, simply waiting for us to speak so they could pounce on the order. It was quite strange. Walking to our table, Mindy noticed that the guy sitting at the table was clipping his nails right there and just letting the clippings fall on the floor. What she hadn't noticed that I pointed out to her was that he was an employee, proudly wearing a new White Castle shirt! I guess the positive way to look at this is that at least we can know they have clean nails when preparing your food. Now to the food - it was as disgusting as it looks, this place truly takes bad fast food to another level. I guess in some way we knew this would be the case...but it was well and truly confirmed. There was some writing on the food packaging with a number to call "Did we satisfy your crave" - a resounding NO would be the answer there.

Saturday night was all planned to watch the cricket. The timing was perfect as Mindy was going to a friend's house for a birthday party. Unfortunately the rain washed everything away, even more frustrating as we were in quite a good position in the game. My alternative was to watch a 4 hour documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was well worth my time and an interesting, behind the scenes type look at the man and his band over the past 30 years.

Sunday involved a birthday party for the kids to attend at a local gymnastics place. They had a lot of fun, Naomi throwing herself into the foam pit and loving it...Fiona being a little more cautious and sliding into it as easily as she could. Afterwoods, some friends came over for a holiday gathering where it became that Fiona was getting sick. She had a fever last night but seems a little better this morning. Hopefully it will not last too long.

Twenty20

I had not seen many Twenty20 cricket matches before last night but I must admit to being very entertained and quite enjoy the format. I hope that the administrators find a way to incorporate these games alongside the Tests and ODI matches as well and that this is not seen as being the end of other forms of cricket. The one sided result might have had something to do with the enjoyment factor but what is not to like about aggressive batting, good pace bowling, amazing fielding and miked-up players on the field?

Also, things look good for us having an amazing group of pace bowlers right now. Lee, Clark, Johnson, Tait, Noffke, Bracken and Hilfenhaus give is a lot of depth for all forms of the game. Now if only we can find a spinner...

Getting Medieval

This weekend, like most around this time of the year, was quite busy.

Friday night started with a movie - "Knocked Up". While we both felt that there were a few scenes that seemed rather awkward and unnecessary and that it could easily have been 30 minutes shorter - overall it was quite enjoyable and funny. Certainly recommended for an easy night's viewing.

Saturday involved a trip down to Delaware to visit some friends we had not seen in a long time. It was fun to catch up again and nice to see the kids have a good time playing with other kids' toys. Of most interest was the Care Bears plastic figurine set and the Scooby Doo action figures.

On Sunday afternoon we went to "Medieval Times", a themed dinner theatre show aimed at the kids. The action was a cross between a dramatic story and a medieval tournament complete with horse riding action, stunts and mock combat. The arena was divided into 6 sections for each of the 6 knights that were competing. We were sitting in the section for the Blue Knight, who won several early events and threw one of his victory flowers to Fiona in the crowd, much to the delight of the girls. However, in the final tournament, he was struck down only to have his life spared by the intervention of the princess. The Black-and-White Knight won the tournament only to be stabbed at the presentation ceremony by a traitor...good thing the Blue Knight was still around as he rode in on horseback and vanquished all of his foes! The kids were quite happy that their knight was the hero of the day. Quite a good end to a nice weekend.

Hockey

Last night I went to see the New Jersey Devils play the Boston Bruins at the Devils' new home arena. Even better - the tickets were free thanks to an old work friend whose company has season tickets. The seats were quite good, about 15 rows back from the ice. While we were not in the middle of the ice, we were actually at the good end of the building to see the action. At first I thought it was going to be a rough night - Boston scored 3 goals in the first period - but with 2 in the 2nd period NJ was certainly back in the game. Also, these 5 goals were all right in front of us...another bonus. The tying goal was scored in the 3rd period and that was how the regular time finished. In extra time, NJ scored the match winner for a nice 4-3 victory!

I showed my supreme knowledge of the sport during the game. On of the NJ players (#9) misplayed the puck a couple of times right in front of us. I commented to my friend - "This guy sucks" - he then proceeded to score the next two goals and get an assist on the match winner!

Fire!

We had our wood stove inspected yesterday and all went well...so last night we were able to enjoy our fireplace for the first time. Lighting the fire proved to be a little challenging as I did not really have enough kindling to get it going properly however ultimately things got going and the system seems to work properly. The stove itself gets quite hot to provide a lot of radiant heat as well as having a blower unit that circulates heated air in the room. I think that it managed to keep our downstairs floor at a nice temperature but it was hard to tell about what it did upstairs as it was not on for long enough. Today will likely be a good test of this as we plan to try to keep the fire going all day, which will prevent our gas heating system from kicking on (the thermostat is in the same room as the fire). I hope that enough heat goes up the stairs to keep that warm as well.

Mindy was laughing at how much I enjoyed this whole process. I guess I like playing with fire.

New York Stuff

Friday night began with a "family movie night". We had an animated movie on our TiVo - "Surf's Up", about a group of penguins who enter a surfing contest in Hawaii. I hated it, Fiona fell asleep but Mindy and Naomi thought it was OK I guess.

On Saturday, Mindy went into New York with some friends for the day. Not sure what shops she visited specifically but the last of the Christmas presents for the kids were purchased as well as some bowls I think...there was probably some more stuff but I really cannot remember. So, I had the kids for the day. Lunch was a trip to Subway with the Ryan family. The kids actually ate their whole sandwiches, so perhaps despite their protests about the choice of the venue, they have developed a bit of a taste for the food.

After this, back home for a "daddy-daughter movie afternoon". We actually watched "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" which none of us had seen before. They seemed to really enjoy it, Naomi especially got into it when she thought one of the kids was going to get eaten at the end. Certainly a much better movie than what we saw on Friday. During their bath I received a call from Daniel (a friend from Australia) where we reviewed the upcoming selections for the Aussie cricket team as well as his new water tank he was installing.

On Sunday we went in to New York again to go to the American Museum of Natural History. This is a great museum...we have gone many times (we are members) and still have not seen everything. Aside from the permanent collection, there are currently two special exhibits - "Mythical Creatures" and "Water" and we managed to see both. "Mythical Creatures" was quite an interesting look at the development and history of numerous such creatures over time - dragons; unicorns; yeti/big foot etc. This was OK - I think we would have enjoyed it more if we had more time to spend there but the kids were intent on moving forward. The "Water" exhibit was much better I thought. Again, I want to spend more time there and as we plan to return in a few weeks for another trip. It was an interesting look at how we waste and misuse water, kind of silly when it is apparently quite important for our survival!

In the evening we sat in front of our still-not-yet-burning wood stove (hopefully Tuesday) and watched a couple of episodes of "Most Evil". We have about 6 more to watch in the series which is probably about all Mindy could take I think.

Contractors

I hate dealing with home improvement contractors. With a couple of exceptions, everytime you want to get someone to come and do something at your house, you end up having to chase something up, deal with lateness and missed deadlines etc.

Our installation of our new wood stove has been no different. When we bought the stove, we were told that the permit approval process and ordering of our stove should take two weeks, then it is a one day installation. There were two components - the actual stove and the tile that we picked out for them to build a new hearth around it (both for looks and to ensure it met the building code). We selected our tile and they said they would call us when everything was ready. Two weeks went by so I called back. I was told that they had everything however they were waiting on us to select our tile. When I told him this had been done and he checked the file, he found this information and set up an installation date of this past Tuesday (another 10 days beyond the initial two week estimate). I made it clear that if there was an issue with getting the tile to let me know as I did not want this to hold anything up.

Anyway, Tuesday comes and they cannot find a box of tiles. Apparently New Jersey ran out of tiles over the past month. So they installed the stove but could not build the hearth. Mindy and I went out on Tuesday night, purchased a box of tiles and then rescheduled this for Wednesday. All seemed to be going well, only another one day delay it seemed. Then we were told that we needed to call the township to get a final inspection before we could use the stove...and they only do inspections on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mindy called on Thursday morning but they were already fully scheduled, so we have to wait until Tuesday to begin using it. So all-in-all, while it looks great and we are very happy with it, a two week estimate has turned into almost five weeks of dealing with these people to get this done.

Going to the tile place has also led to us buying some new flooring for our kitchen and sun-room. We were not happy with the tile and had been thinking of changing it, so seeing the options available, we made the decision to get this done as well. We decided to go with a vinyl fake-wood finish. I think this will be a nicer look and also supposedly quite durable as well. So I guess we will have more fun with contractors over the next couple of months. After this, a new back fence and we should be done...at least for a while.

Back To Work

We returned from Virginia on Saturday. The drive was relatively uneventful, avoiding most of the traffic that we would have hit on Sunday. We spent most of Sunday continuing our quest to de-clutter our house. Things were getting overwhelming and it is a nice feeling to get some order back into our lives.

One of the side-benefits was that I found some really old disks containing some computer games I had played many years ago. Several hours were spend re-acquainting myself with "Reach For The Stars" and "War of the Lance" the latter even giving you an option of CGA or EGA graphics! Mindy was amazed by the immediate addiction to these games that I had, it really was a trip down memory lane. I beat both games on an easy difficulty setting so now will probably be able to put it to one side again.

Today I also started an exercise program. There is a cycling class at the YMCA that I will be taking on Monday morning and Thursday evenings so hopefully I can stick with it.

Last night we watched the movie "Aleelah and the Bee", about an inner-city kid who enters the National Spelling Bee. I doubt they could have made it any more cheezy but it was a relatively entertaining film I guess...not that I would ever watch it again.

Thanksgiving

Today was Thanksgiving and I guess I controlled myself relatively well as the heartburn is not too bad right now. All of Mindy's aunts, uncles, cousins were there so it was quite a full house. Two plates of food were devoured - turkey (both baked and fried); gravy; mashed potatoes; stuffing; beans; collard greens and my favourite - sweet potato casserole (which contains butter, sugar, brown sugar, pecans, coconut and a pinch of sweet potato!). Pumpkin pie, cake and ice cream for dessert and I was done. The football was quite average. The first game had Green Bay always in control but it was not as one sided as the 2nd match with Dallas destroying the Jets. After retiring upstairs for a brief nap then returning for a quick game of Taboo the day was done. I think we will be hitting some shops tomorrow for some Christmas shopping. Some good deals are there to be had but the crowds will be tough to deal with...

Virginia

We drove down to Virginia on Tuesday to stay with Mindy's mother for Thanksgiving. Wednesday was a quiet day - a little bit of shopping including my Christmas present from Mindy...which will be the new AC/DC concert DVD set - "Plug Me In"...3 DVDs of concert and interview footage. We spent much of the day watching the latest series of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" - very funny stuff. Tomorrow the family will be getting together here and as always, too much good food to be enjoyed!

Firewood

We had a huge delivery of firewood to prepare for our new stove. Unfortunately the stove will not get installed until November 27 but that is OK as we are gone most of next week down to Virginia to visit Mindy's family for the Thanksgiving holiday. I think Thanksgiving is the best American holiday - what could possibly be wrong about an entire day devoted to nothing else but eating, drinking and watching sport? So I am looking forward to next week. Before we leave, I will be enjoying the cricket and relaxing at the house. So far so good with the cricket - our batting looks amazingly good right now, I just hope our bowlers will be up for the challenge of getting 20 wickets on that pitch. I just want the day to fly by so I can get home and get into holiday mode!

Weekend Update

Enjoyed watching the end of the test match. It was a good win by the team and I think we are looking good for continuing our streak in the next Test. On Saturday I spent most of the day teaching a class to some other SAP consultants - I can certainly think of better ways to spend a Saturday but I guess this had to be done. Saturday night was our monthly poker night. I came 3rd in the first tournament, netting a $20 profit. My key hand was towards the end when I got my chips in with AK vs A8...and my opponent hit an 8 on the river to eliminate me. We then played another tournament where I did not figure in the standings...so I broke even for the night.

Not sure why but we watched a movie: "The Last Mimzy". Quite a pointless movie I thought and a complete waste of two hours. On TV, we are watching a series called "Most Evil". This is a great documentary series on the analysis of different serial killers throughout history. "Enjoyable" is not really the right word but it is certainly a fascinating look at the darker side of humanity. Shocking to me is that there are so many horrific killers that I had never even heard of. Some of them are still in prison and seeing them interviewed today is also quite revealing.

Great Start

Great start to the First Test and also a great start to the fulltime position for Phil Jaques. This was a fantastic innings in tricky conditions under a lot of pressure. The day turned out amazingly well for us after being sent in. I think the fact that there was only the one rain shower helped us a lot as the disruptions were kept to a minimum. Sri Lanka must be regretting their decision now as they lose the chance for Murali to bowl in the 4th/5th day. I was not too impressed by their pace bowlers and I think they left their best one out of the team. As long as we can not let Murali dominate, they will find it tough.

More live action this evening!

Cricket!

The bad part about this time of the year is that my cricket season is over...but the good part about this time of the year is that the Aussie summer of cricket is just beginning. The cricket from Australia is the best for matching up the timezones. The first test will start tonight at 7:00pm, a perfect way (for me) to spend the evening. Mindy is prepared for this, I think she plans to knock out a couple of books while all of this is going on.

I think we have picked the best side we can for the game. I am looking forward to seeing how the new players will do, particularly Phil Jaques who could easily have been in the side for a while by now. The only downer is the weather forecast looks quite bad so it could be a frustrating game to watch.

Fire(places) and Brimstone

This weekend started with a drive to organize the house a bit. With the change in the seasons, there was a need to swap out some clothes for the kids and so in the transition period, we had become overrun. A little cleaning, then we spent the afternoon running a couple of errands.
Highest on the list was looking for a wood stove to fit into our fireplace. Essentially what this will give us is an efficient fireplace to actually use rather than our current setup which would suck so much air out of our house that it would not really achieve much in the warmth department. We decided on a model and so now just have to wait the two weeks for supplies to be ordered, permits to be obtained etc. I think this will be a huge improvment in both form and function when compared to what we have now.

After this, we busied ourselves in cleaning again for just long enough for Mindy's dust allergy to flare up. She took an antihistamine and we settled to watch some TV. The drug hit her hard as she was pretty much in a coma about 30 minutes later. I guess the warnings about drowsiness etc are there for a reason!

On Sunday we watched the movie “Jesus Camp”, a documentary about some Evangelical Christian familes, focussing on a camp the kids attend, designed to build their faith. It was a very interesting movie and is highly recommended for viewing. Overall, the parents shown were abusive and controlling in subtle ways. Watching these kids get whipped into frenzies and reaching such a confused emotional state as to break down in tears was nothing more than psycholigical abuse in my view. Kids being taught that Satan is looking to get them (manifested through sin) and extreme nonsense like Harry Potter being evil (he is a warlock after all) is very distasteful and offensive. One funny thing (at least we thought it was funny)…the lady who runs the camp was quite overweight. At one point, she actually criticised Christians for not practising self-denial and fasting as many other religions do. Seemed a little like noticing the speck in someone else’s eye while not noticing the log in your own. It was quite clear that self-denial and fasting were about the only two things NOT on her menu! A larger theme was the fact that Evangelicals are now about 25% of America’s population, which is a large enough voting block to control the outcome of elections. As this group mobilizes and becomes more extreme and vocal, there is a real risk that the tenant of “separation of Church and State” will become eroded. Another point made was the disregard and denial of science and the scientific method. Again, I felt quite sad for these children growing up with such a narrow view of life. Certainly well worth a look.

I then watched the Red Sox clinch the World Series. I was happy with the result but, aside from Game 2, the games were all quite one-sided. With the ineptitude of the Orioles looking like continuing for a while, I guess I enjoy seeing the Red Sox do well. I like many of their players and them winning gets under the skin of Yankee fans, which is another bonus. Upcoming sport on the agenda is the NFL, although it looks like being another long season for the Redskins…and the cricket where I plan to spend many nights watching us spank the Sri Lankans and Indians over the coming months.

End of the Good Weather?

The weekend weather was absolutely perfect. Perhaps we will get lucky and get some more nice days but typically once we get this late in October, most of the good weather is behind us.

Saturday was the last cricket match for the year (at least for me...my club is playing next weekend as well). It was a very enjoyable game but unfortunately we came up short. Batting first I thought we had scored enough runs. My dismissal was my most annoying and frustrating for the season. I was hitting the ball well and feeling comfortable when I completely mishit a pull shot straight to mid-on. We were looking good with the ball until one of their middle order scored an amazing century. I bowled OK and was keeping the runs down but he was finding enough bad balls from the other end to score at the required rate. In the end, they won with 9 balls to spare but getting out there on such a nice day made the loss relatively easy to deal with.

Sunday involved a day with the kids as Mindy was manning another henna booth. We attended our monthy "Young Humanist" meeting with some friends where the kids crafted some Buddhist mandalas and I watched, due to me still having absolutely no artistic ability whatsoever! After this, back home for a movie (for the kids) and a nap (for me), a few errands and then off to get Mindy.

The kids fell asleep quite quickly so we watched a movie - Zodiac, a movie about the serial killer who terrorized San Francisco and the surrounds in the late 60's, early 70's. I thought the movie was superb...good story, well acted and full of suspense. Even though it was quite long (2 hr 40 minutes), I did not feel it drag at all and was engrossed the whole time. Certainly one to recommend.

Weekend With The Kids

This weekend, Mindy was off manning a henna booth at a local belly dancing festival, so I was on kid duty for the entire weekend. The kids were great, playing well together and managing to avoid any major sibling conflicts. Lunch one day at their "favourite restaurant" - Pizza Hut, a visit to the book store and of course a couple of movies to allow me to take some much needed naps and the weekend was pretty much sorted out.

This week is shaping up to be quite busy at work. More meetings and then resulting documentation of the design decisions will be done. Sounds fascinating I am sure! :-)

My Worst Nightmare

My worst fears have come true. England is playing South Africa in the Rugby World Cup final this weekend. I could not imagine a worse matchup. England - a poor team that managed to hit teams playing even worse than them in their knockout matches (Australia and France)...and South Africa - a good team who have managed to get through the tournament without having to really beat anybody through a combination of strange results and a nice draw. I hate to say it, but I have to hope England wins this game but either result comes with problems. I just hope that we get our act into gear over the next few years to ensure this never happens again!

Meetings

This week at work has consisted of all day, 10 hour customer meetings to determine their final requirements for the project we are working on. Yes, this is truly as tedious as it sounds! This weekend I will be on kid duty as Mindy will be at a local Belly Dance Festival performing Henna art tattoos on any willing participants. Originally, she was going to attend the festival as an observer but found out yesterday there was an opening. I believe today she will be running around like mad trying to get ready.

Nothing much else happening I guess. I am reading the various poker magazines I picked up in Vegas, along with finishing James Randi's "Flim Flam", his book on various paranormal phenomina like ESP, remote viewing, dowsing, the Cottingley Fairies, psychic surgery, UFOs and other such nonsense. Essentially, the book clearly shows how there is really no evidence for these types of things and shows how some scientists have been duped by participants in these "arts". Most of it kind of obvious I think but the way that certain people have been given a level of credibility due to shoddy methods and flat out poor scientific methods is amazing. Also, I am enjoying the new season of "House" that has just started, one of the few shows we actually watch.

Old Dogs v Young Pups

Our cricket team played an intra-squad match on the weekend, roughly splitting the squad on age lines. I was right on the bubble between the two sides but was ultimately picked with the youngsters. The game was quite competitive and I think everyone had fun...but unfortunatley, the Old Dogs ended up winning by about 25 runs. I think this game will become a regular match on the Dogs' schedule. Personally, I bowled OK but collected my first duck of the season with the bat. I guess it is better to get it in a game like this rather than in a more competitive match.

Vegas Days 4 and 5

Day 4 was a mix of work and fun. The afternoon was comprised of meetings but there was still plenty of time in the evening for some fun. The conference entertainment was a free concert from the Goo Goo Dolls. They were actually quite good and seemed to enjoy playing in front of 5000 computer nerds! After this, we hit the poker tables again where we played several more hours of limit poker. Lost money after having my 3-of-a-kind beaten by a lucky straight on the river...but for the week I ended up $150 on the positive side of things, so it was a good week.

Friday involved making my way to the airport and flying home. All in all, an enjoyable but tiring week.

Vegas Day 3

Today was better. A few conference sessions and customer meetings scattered throughout the day but plenty of time for gambling in the evening. Decided to play $2/$4 Limit tables as I was with some friends and planning to drink...and playing No Limit can be dangerous when you are not fully concentrating. It really is like people are lining up to give away their money. I played for a few hours, drank and finished $80 in the profit column, so it was another good night. I would have hit about another $80 in one pot - I missed hitting my flush on the final card but if it had hit, there were two sets out there and a lower flush so I certainly would have been paid off. No complaints though. Now need to try to grab a few hours sleep to prepare for Thursday.

Vegas Day 2

Vegas day 2 was as uninteresting as I had suspected. All day client meetings with barely a break for lunch. Sad to say that by the end of it all that was done was a team dinner with my manager and other North East SAP consultants and going to bed. I wish there was something better to report.

Vegas Day 1

I am out in Las Vegas for a week long conference with work. My current client (Colgate) had some meetings scheduled with SAP development during the conference so I was asked to come along and assist.

Monday was a long day due to the time difference. My flight arrived in Las Vegas around lunch time and after performing a few admin tasks, was able to hit the poker tables by about 4:00. After watching the hands that were going to the river, I resolved to simply wait for monster hands and then value bet them, hoping for some out-of-line calls. The table was $1/$3 NL. After about an hour, I got KK on the button, there was one pre-flop raiser to $12. I made it $50 and he called. I had pretty much made up my mind to push the rest of my stack in (about another $100) if there was no A on the flop...but the flop was A-T-4. It was checked twice (I felt he had me beaten). On the river, he then bet about $75. It perhaps looked like a bluff but I folded and he flipped over TT for 3 of a kind! Glad the A hit the flop - saved me some money.

I added another $100 to my stack to bring it close to the maximum buy in of $200 and waited again for more good cards. KJ offsuit to a limped pot led to me raising it to $15, again got 1 caller (the BB). Flop was K-J-4. He checked it to me and I bet $15. He then reraised it to $50. I figured with a set he just calls there so I pushed all my remaining chips into the pot (another $150). He called immediately. Turn was a Q, River a 2...he then said "You have it" and flipped over AK. So I doubled up to $360...which was what I ended up leaving the table with.

Later that night I sat down to $1/$1 NL and found the same thing (but even moreso) with the players here. One guy in partucular was clearly drunk with a huge stack and playing very carelessly. However, his stack was pushing people around and he was also getting lucky. Same tactic as before, wait for a big hand and hope for someone to come along. AK netted my about a $60 profit. The biggest hand for me was JT, $10 in the pot with two other players. Flop was T-2-2. I bet $10 and was called by one player. Turn was a 7. I bet again ($20), was called again. River brought a 6. I figured I was probably still ahead so bet $50 on the river. He thought for a long time, then folded, flipping on card...a 2!!! He said "I think you have me outkicked". Saying nothing I pulled in the chips. Unfortunately I did not get the chance to go against the big stack and settled for a $50 profit on the session.

Today (Tuesday) will be all day meetings :-( . However, hopefully there is time for another trip to the tables later this evening.

Movie Reviews

Over the past week Mindy and I have watched a few movies on pay-per-view at home. Direct TV sent us coupons for two free movies a month for the next year so we have a relatively narrow group to select from each month.

One choice made was "The Number 23". I would probably never have paid to see this film but some aspects of what I imagined the plot to be seemed interesting enough to burn a free coupon on. Well...as it turns out, it was not even worth the free coupon. The story was ridiculous, the acting terrible and only reason we stuck it out to the end was we were curious just how bad it could get. I cannot imagine how anyone would find this movie enjoyable on any level, in fact, we were both stunned that it was even made. If you have not seen it, don't bother and if you have, and actually liked it, please let me know what it was about the movie that you enjoyed. Perhaps we both missed something, but overall, it was one of the worst movies I think I have ever seen, which puts it right up there with "Face Off" and "Ghost Dad".

Last night we watched "Apocalypto". This was very enjoyable I thought. Essentially, it is two hours of action, tension and gore. Mel Gibson might be a crazy, alcoholic bigot but he sure knows how to film an action sequence. The violence is quite graphic and horrific so don't expect to be treated to a nice film about Mayans in the jungle. It was somewhat long (about 2.5 hours) but I did not feel this while watching...I enjoyed every minute. Certainly worth a look.

Weekend Stuff

This weekend was amazingly busy. On Saturday was our cricket final against our rivals from Columbia University. I lost the toss and they batted. We all bowled and fielded well and after a slight rain interruption, managed to bowl them out for 135. Every bowler took a wicket but Bert, our West Indian quickie, destroyed their top order taking 3/21, including a caught behind that exploded off the pitch and almost took the head off our keeper! It was quite an amazing ball.

I felt confident with the chase, we had a good batting side. Keith and I opened and I managed to get away to a quick start, hitting a 4 from the first ball. I ended up with 27 from 24 balls, our #3 had a similar innings and Keith and Oli got us there 2 wickets down with about 10 overs to spare. It was quite satisfying to beat them after a game earlier in the season had left a bad taste in our mouths with their antics. So Mad Dogs are the champions of the "World Series League" for the second year running. The story behind the name is quite simple...when we formed this league 7 years ago, we had to pick a name. Our captain at the time put forward the World Series League and so for the purposes of humour, it stuck!

After a couple of beers I drove home and had to shower and change quickly for poker night at Gary's. This was also a lot of fun. We played a 10 player tournament where I finished second (after two rebuys). Then a 6 player tournament where I finished 3rd or 4th (not really sure). So a $20 profit on the night and a lot of fun makes it all worthwhile. For the record, on one of my bust outs before rebuying I had JJ cracked by 99, but fortunately the cards fell the way they should later in the evening.

I arrived home at about 1:30, just in time for the broadcast of the Parramatta v Melbourne league final. Of course I had to watch and despite the result, it was a very good game of football. So I crawled into bed at 4:00am and managed to grab 3 hours sleep before getting up to help Mindy get ready for Fiona's 3rd birthday party.

It was a relatively small group but Fiona had a lot of fun. The theme was a "ballerina" party and the girls all had fun dressing up and dancing. Mindy then took Naomi to "Peace Day" with their "Roots and Shoots" group while Fiona and I napped on the couch.

So after all of this, I guess it is no surprise that I got sick on Monday. I have bronchitis and am on antibiotics. I am feeling a lot better today and should be back at 100% for my work trip to Vegas next week.

Back To School

Last week was the kids' first week back at school. For Fiona it was obviously a change but she took to it amazingly well and is enjoying all of the activities. Naomi also had to get used to a new class of people as she is now attending morning classes instead of the afternoon classes. I think she will do fine but it will take her a little while to make new friends etc.

They are both also in ballet classes this week, a change from the gymnastics of last year. They both seem to be enjoying it, we will see if it lasts. They certainly like the costumes and music!

Practice Makes Perfect?

...or at least makes you better I guess. On Friday night, a couple of other members from my cricket team met me in Morristown NJ to check out the re-opening of the Indoor Cricket USA facility there. It is really quite impressive - 3 full length indoor cricket pitches with netting allowing indoor practices at a really nice place. We each had a 30 minute bat and a bowl and it was nice to get the have a hit after work.

Saturday brought about our last league match of the year. If we won the game, we would finish top of the table and get to host the final next weekend. We bowled and fielded well, the highlight being a running, over-the-head catch by Ollie to take care of their best batsman. We bowled them out for 210 which was a decent score but I felt confident as our batting is our strong point. Opening the batting with Keith, the ball was coming off the bat quite well and I was able to ride my luck a little as well with a couple of sharp chances being dropped. The end result was that I managed to score my first century, finishing on 101 not out and with the Mad Dogs being quite easy victors, scoring the necessary runs for the loss of 3 wickets in the 23rd over. I guess if I was ever going to do it, I had to do it soon as few players get any better past their 35th birthday (unless you are a Major League Baseballer, of course). Now we have to win next week against Columbia and get revenge on them for an early season, distasteful match against them.

The Rest Of Florida

For various reasons, I was not able to add to the blog as we went along but I am now back from our trip to Florida. Over the last few days we managed a trip to Jacksonville zoo, which is a very nice zoo. I guess we are becoming experts in this field having young kids but it has a nice diversity of animals; it is flat, unlike Taronga; and is not so big as to be overwhelming. A recently added attraction is a kids play area where the girls enjoyed dressing up as vets and pretending to treat a procession of stuffed animals. Also, there is a nice little water park which the girls loved and it also provided some welcome relief from the heat of the day.

Next day involved a trip to the beach. Naomi loved getting dirty and enjoyed the water as well. Fiona was not that interested in swimming but loved digging and making "cakes" out of sand.

Saturday was Dave Schwab's wedding, which we were able to attend "kid free" due to having grandparents handy. The reception was held at Sea Island in Georgia, a very nice, quite exclusive resort. It was outdoors and for the first couple of hours, amazingly hot. Then, after the alcohol kicked in and the sun dropped, it was much more pleasant. After many beers and several "Baily's" to finish the night, the dance floor looked a lot more appealing. I vaguely remember doing my "Peter Garrett" impersonation at one point, but I might be mistaken.

Sunday begain the drive back home. It was sad to say goodbye to "Granddaddy" and "Grandma Terry". Hopefully we will see them again soon. We drove 1/2 way back without incident. Then we had to make an early start on Monday so I could get to the train station. I took a train the rest of the way and Mindy took the kids to Virginia to visit her mother. Life has been quite hectic since being back, catching up on work and other chores...hopefully I can get everything caught up by the weekend.

MOSH

Today we visited the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) in Jacksonville. It proved to be a nice diversion but was certainly not even close to the scale of other similarly themed museums we have visited. We were able to comfortably see the entire thing in about 90 minutes…although the main display had to be avoided due to it completely terrifying the kids. They had a room full of robotic dinosaurs and ice age mammals and Naomi and Fiona are just not into this at all. They actually don’t even like the Rainforest Café, which is quite tame in comparison.

I guess the biggest event of the day, at least from my perspective was at lunch when I chipped a tooth. It does not hurt but will certainly need some dental attention upon my return to NJ.

Tomorrow will likely be a beach day but we will see how things work out.

Birthdays and Florida

Late August is birthday season in our house...Fiona (28th) and me (31st). However, things have been too busy to have appropriate celebrations just yet. On Thursday night we began the two day drive south to see Mindy's father in Florida. 7 hours on the highway, thankfully avoiding any traffic hassles, got us to Wilson, North Carolina where we made our scheduled stop. Leaving the next morning, we spent the next day driving tha final 7 hours to Jacksonville. The highlight of the trip was a brief stop at "South of the Border", an non-politically correct "Mexican" outpost on the border between North and South Carolina. It is a collection of shops, loosely grouped together on the fact that "Pedro" is supposed to have stopped there and started a sandwich shop many years ago. The billboards advertising the place start about 100 miles out and show a caricature of Pedro and some bad pun of a slogan, often typed in such a way as to emphasise the Mexican accent. It is quite tacky but kind of an interesting place to stretch your legs. In the store we bought two Whoopee Cushions which amused the kids for the next couple of hours of the drive.

Since arriving in Jacksonville, we have basically been relaxing and hanging out with Mindy's family. Today we went fishing and the only luck one was Fiona, who caught two! She was quite excited and proud of herself. We plan to go back out later this afternoon when the tide is heading out.

Memory Lane

For any Aussies out there, a classic beer commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDUtsaHlq_c

Grumpy Old Man

Now that I am closing in on 35 (very quickly) I feel like I am moving out of the young, immature adult phase and so I suppose I would now be classified as an old, immature adult. After my performance last night the term "grumpy old man" might be more appropriate.

I was on the couch at about 9:00 watching a little TV, Mindy was upstairs and settling the kids to sleep when the doorbell rang. Strange to get a caller so late but when opening the door, there was no one there...however, I saw two local teenagers running out of my front yard. Knowing that the bell, plus our two Chihuahuas going crazy would have completely disrupted the kids gettting to sleep, I felt my blood boil.

I went out our back door and around the side of the house and waited a couple of minutes before I saw the kids re-appear from down the street. As they approached, I crossed our front yard to confront them - I must have been quite the sight in a black T-shirt and black shorts - and they froze upon seeing me. I threw out a berating tirade, calling them "knuckle heads" and explaining to them why it was not such a good idea to be ringing doorbells and waking kids up. While they said that it was not them (perhaps I really do look that stupid?), a humble apology was offered for them being in my yard (something they did admit to). I certainly I made my point quite clear and I think they will think twice before selecting our house as a target for their nonsense in the future.

After coming inside, I realised that this was the first time that I have had to be a cranky adult like that. Hopefully, at least with these kids, this will be the last.

Concert and Cricket

Friday began with a 4 hour drive up to Boston. Mindy's friend had secured tickets to an Indigo Girls concert for her and Mindy as well as lining up accommodation at her in-laws house in the area, so how could we refuse? Apparently the concert was good, it was the 5th time Mindy managed to catch them on their current tour and from her reports, this was one of the best shows.

Saturday morning involved a relatively early start to drive back down to Connecticut for my cricket match. It was a league match, important as we would like to get to host the final. I was expecting a tough game but it ended up being quite a one-sided match. We batted and scored 231 from our overs and bowled them out for 115. Tony would have taken 5 wickets if I could catch in the gully. Everyone chipped in in one way or another so it was a good team effort.

Now we are trying to get everything straight before our trip to Florida on Thursday. It should be a busy week.

Lucky Day

This morning, driving to work via my normal route, I slowed down at a Stop sign near my house. Seeing that no traffic was coming, I rolled through and continued on my way. Unfortunately, the one car off in the distance was a local police officer who was soon behind me with his lights flashing. Not exactly the best start to the day...but after reviewing my licence, registration etc he decided to let me off with a warning. So other than having to endure 5 minutes parked there with all passers-by staring at you, no damage was done. You really don't have any secrets though - while waiting for my details to get processed, I received a call from a friend to offer his "support" after he had driven by and seen me there. It was nice to be able to report the good news from the stop and not the amount of money I could have lost!

Atlantic City

Thursday night involved a trip to Atlantic City for a night of poker. Considering I was not working on Friday and Mindy's mother and sister were in town to keep her company, there was really not other option when I received the invitation to go.

Three of us drove down, arriving about 8:30 for a quick meal and then to begin a NL Holdem tournament that started at 9:00. None of us did anything much ... I lasted until the first break but simply did not get anything that I could play. I busted out when my all-in with 4-4 was called by Q-J, and a Q hit on the flop.

Now off to the cash tables to complete the night. I was playing a $1/$2 NL table and did OK. Again, did not really get many big hands...no sets; flushes or straights so no really big pots, but I ended up making a $40 profit here This covered half of my tournament buy in, so not too much damage done on the evening. I think next time I will stick to the cash tables - it was more enjoyable I think and you don't run the risk of playing well for a couple of hours and still have nothing to show for it.

An interesting hand happened at Gary's table. The board was showing 3-3-3-7-3; 3 players still in the hand with about a $12 pot. The first player pushed all-in for about $150 and was called by the other two players. Player 1 had something like 6-4; Player 2 had an Ace; Player 3 also had two rubbish cards. The dealer pushed the pot towards the player with the Ace (kicker breaks the tie), when the other two players jumped up and insisted that the kicker does not play in 4 of a kind. The poker room manager was summoned and he was able to confirm that the best 5 cards play, the kicker DOES matter and so the player with the Ace won the pot. Not bad to get gifted $300 like that when you were looking at $12 a few minutes earlier.

Free Dinner!

I guess the only thing that beats a good dinner is a good, free dinner. Last night, due to the visit to the area of some product managers from SAP, we were treated to dinner at a local steakhouse. The food was excellent and while I was not up for the challenge of the 28oz porterhouse (about 800g), I did enjoy a quite large filet mignon, several beers and some red wine. You know it is a fancy place when all of the side dishes have to be ordered individually, costing from $5-$8 each. Hopefully we get another chance to go here over the course of my project.

Working Weekend

Not work in the paid sense, just getting stuff done around the house. Kind of boring really but it needed to happen. (Un)fortunatley, our cricket opponents for this weekend forfeited to us, so it gave us a chance to get this done.

I guess it started on Friday afternoon when my car would not start after work. This had also happened earlier in the week but that time it started on the 2nd attempt. 10 minutes of trying, and re-trying did nothing. AAA was summoned and I expected to have to be towed home. The driver took my key, tried it once and it worked. So, other than feeling like an idiot, I at least was able to drive home.

Saturday began with buying some deck cleaner and a power washer to try to clean up our new deck. There is an overhanging branch from our walnut tree that is home to several squirrels. Unfortunately, they sit above the deck and the scraps from eating the nuts fall down and unless you clean it off right away, it will stain the surface. While we were in Germany, it got badly marked so this was step one in dealing with the problem. It helped a little and the rest of the marks will (hopefully) fade over time. We also set up a temporary canopy to help protect it and plan to get the offending limbs trimmed to solve the issue.

We also had to buy another air conditioning unit for our spare room - Mindy's mother and sister are coming to visit for this week and with the recent heat, had to do the right thing to keep them comfortable.

Much of the afternoon was spent with friends at a kids birthday party. Great food, especially the fruit salad. We unfortunately had to leave a little early, right when we were getting into a serious discussion on worm composting, to pick up my car after getting a new battery.

Sunday was largely consumed with cleaning up my office. Huge stacks of paper where tossed and shredded and now it is getting close to being usable again. I also found time to watch several hours of poker, much to the annoyance of Mindy. Normally she does not mind it being on, but the sheer volume got to her this weekend. I am catching up on old recordings of a show "Poker After Dark" - 6 professional players, $120K winner-takes-all format, where you get to see every hand that is played. While this does reduce the excitement factor, it is interesting watching them play every hand from a poker perspective. As a result though, each tournament lasts about 4 hours. Due to catching up on this show, I am now behind with watching the WPT events. Add to this the fact that the 2007 WSOP events are also being shown now and there is not going to be much respite for Mindy in the near future!

Not to imply that it dominates my life, but I am 1/2 way through reading the book "Big Deal" by Anthony Holden, detailing his year as a professional poker player (a gift from Adam...who actually might be the only person still reading this!). In any case, it is a very enjoyable book and a nice way to fill in the hours between watching and playing.

Anniversary

Yesterday was our 8th wedding anniversary. A nice lunch with the kids was had and in the evening went down to the local park where there was a display to promote the local police, fire and rescue departments. The girls wanted to go inside the ambulance but then got a little shy so stood on the step and looked in. Free pizza and coke made the effort worthwhile.

Poker, Beer, Cricket, Picnic, Beer

This last weekend had all the necessary ingredients for a good and busy time.

Friday night was poker night. 6 friends gathered together for a night of beer drinking and holdem tournaments. We played 4 tournaments and I managed one first and one second place finish. It was a lot of fun. Next on the agenda is trying to plan a trip to Atlantic City for more of the same.

Arriving home at 3:30 gave me about 4 hours sleep before the kids woke up. I also received a call from Daniel, a longtime friend who recently was married. It was good to hear everything went well for them. Cricket was the next item on the agenda, a good game which we lost by 1 run, in the baking sun. Always difficult to get so close and lose but it was exciting watching at the end.

Sunday was off to a picnic with a few friends. This was another enjoyable afternoon in the park with the kids, some beer and some good food. The weather could not have been better for this. The kids had a great time running around and it was a nice way to end the weekend.

A New Phone

My mobile phone broke on Thursday. This was a phone I had owned since 1999, apparently there have been a couple of advances in this technology over the past 8 years! :-) It had become the subject of many jokes from friends over the years and even an x-ray security screener at Chicago airport stopped the belt and held up screening passengers while waving my phone around in the air to show her friends, laughing while saying "I haven't seen one of these in a while!".

However, in the interests of time and also because I would have found it amusing, I had hoped to simply transfer my number from this phone to another identical old phone that I had. This proved to be a much tougher task than I had first thought. The conversation with the Sprint representative went around in circles along the following lines for about 20 minutes:

Rep: "Enter the following code into your phone and press the 'OK' button".
Me: "My phone does not have an 'OK' button".
Rep: "All phones have an 'OK' button".
Me: "Apparently not".
Rep: "Do you see the navigation keys?".
Me: "Yes".
Rep: "The 'OK' button is the button in the middle of the navigation keys".
Me: "There is no button in the middle of the navigation keys".
Rep: "Please hold" (5 minutes later) "Enter the following code into your phone and press the 'OK' button".
etc...

Eventually, she gave up and told me I would have to go to a Sprint store to get this switched. I figured that if I had to make the effort to go to the store, that I probably should upgrade at the same time, so armed with a $150 discount for extending my service contract, I went to the store.

The sales rep saw my phone, smiled and then asked me "Well, what would you want your new phone to do". I replied that "Clearly, I am not particularly fussy". Due to being able to get another $50 rebate I settled on the Motorola Razr model, a considerable improvement on my previous model. The post script to the story is that when the salesman offered to download my contacts into the new phone, he had to admit that they did not even have a cable that could fit it! So basically, my phone was so old that even the Sprint store could not maintain or support it. Perhaps it was time for something new!

Spammed

I guess it was only a matter of time but due to some automated spam comments on the blog, I turned on the word verification setting...hopefully that helps the problem. Sorry to all of the regular contributors about the hassle :-) .

Hannibal

We watched Hannibal Rising last night, a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. It was quite enjoyable but was different from what I had expected, covering his childhood and early years before commiting the crimes for which he was eventally arrested. I guess the door is open for yet another book and movie covering this period in his life, hopefully Thomas Harris agrees.

Mad Dogs Win

Saturday marked my return to the cricket field after our trip to Germany. It was insanely humid but fortunately the other captain saw fit to field first in the heat of the day. Prasanna, our gun Indian bat scored a century and the rest of us chipped in...my contribution was a painful-to-watch 11...and also was involved in two runouts! The total was probably never going to be chased down and a steady flow of wickets saw us to a comfortable victory. I got a couple with the ball as well so overall, quite a nice day. The kids loved running around at the field and Mindy I am sure was happy to experience the joy of her 3 kids playing games in the sun.

A notable event was the appearance of an old mate Phil for the game. We were looking to be one short and so he came up from NJ to help us make up the numbers. It was good to catch up again...perhaps another Mad Dog recruit for the future?

Blueberries

With time running out, Friday was seen as one of our last chances to go blueberry picking. There is a farm in southern Jersey where you can pick your own organic blueberries and it is well worth the drive. First stop is the farm store where home made blueberry muffins were devoured for breakfast. Actually, I made out as I got 1/2 of Mindy's and also 1/2 of the kids' muffins as well!

Then just as we plan to start picking the cloud cover lifts and we are exposed to baking sun for the hour or so in the field. The kids were a really big help - Naomi picked about 60 berries and Fiona about 20 (although she then dumped hers out for no apparent reason). However this, added to Mindy and my contribution led to us having about 10 lbs worth to take home. Most of them have been frozen and the rest are being quickly eaten before going bad.

Summer Hours!

My local project is working out quite well at this stage. The work is interesting, the people are nice and the client has summer hours, until the end of August. What this means is that I will only be working 4 days per week through August 31. This, combined with a 30 minute commute each way most days makes for a lot less stress. It certainly beats getting stuck in Chicago airport every week.

We are taking advantage of our first free Friday by planning to take the kids blueberry picking tomorrow. Then, on Saturday, playing cricket again after a long break...so it is shaping up to be a good weekend.

Back Home

We are now back home in New Jersey. The flight was relatively uneventful but it was tough for Mindy as she was sitting in a group of 3 seats with the kids while I was across the aisle. Due to it being a daytime flight the kids were quite energetic and it was very draining for Mindy having to deal with that. It was also tough for me - on several occasions I had to pause the "Space Invaders" console game I was playing on the plane's entertainment system to assist.

The dogs were very glad to see us and the kids were also excited to get back home. I was quite suprised by how much growth weeds can have if left unattended for a month. Sunday was devoted to washing clothes, cleaning up the dog room and starting to get the yard straight.

I am now back at work. Fortunately I have a local project for the forseeable future so I am looking forward to getting home every night. It will be tough to get used to working a regular job again after the holiday and a few weeks of relaxed work in the head office. Also, the calorie restrictions will have to begin to shake off the effects of 4 weeks of schnitzels, beer and junk food.

One final thing about Germany...the toilet paper was horrible. It was like using a paper towel. It was nice to get back to something with a little more consideration given to comfort.

Last Day

Today was our last day in Germany. It began very well with a nice, long sleep in...well, at least for Naomi and me - Mindy and Fiona got the usual 5 hours of thrashing around they normally get! After breakfast we spent a couple of hours in Karlsruhe near the hotel. There was a castle which was essentially a museum with some nice gardens around it but it became clear that the kids have had enough of museums for a while.

Next was the drive up to Frankfurt to be ready to depart tomorrow. We decided to walk to a local beer garden for dinner and we were glad we did. Basically, surrounding the main building were several small cottages with gardens. We kind of figured it was kind of like a mobile home village. We found out later that the plots and cottages are rented by city dwellers who grow their gardens out here. The food in the beer garden was the best we have had on our trip. One more schnitzel for each of us, while the kids continued their enjoyment of German sausages. Some nice wheat beer to wash it all down and then back to the hotel to relax before the flight.

The Black Forest

On Thursday we explored the Black Forest. We drove the "Black Forest High Street" (Schwarzwaldhochstrasse), a scenic road that takes you through the forest and past various small villages and lookout points. At first we thought the rain was going to have an impact on things but it cleared up by mid-morning and it turned out to be a nice day.

Our first noteworthy stop was at the Mummelsee, a mountain pond at one of the highest points on the road. The views from here were amazing, looking down into the forest below. At the Mummelsee itself is a small group of shops and a paddle boat rental place. We decided to rent a boat, even though no one else was out there and went out onto the lake. It was a lot of fun on the lake and quite interesting when the fog came in and we could only see about 20m in any direction. We ate lunch here and for dessert tried a slice of the "Black Forrest Cherry Cake" (Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte). It was OK, the liqueur and also the cherry flavors were quite strong so the kids did not like much more than the cream itself.

From here, we completed the drive on the scenic road which ends at Freudenstadt. At this point, we headed for Triberg, the site of the largest waterfall in Germany. There were several nice souvenir shops in the main street, most of them selling cuckoo clocks and other wood products from the forest. After browsing these we headed for the waterfall. It was certainly worth the trip. There was a path up to the falls with various stopping points along the way for taking in the scenery. We walked up to the top of the falls, stopping to feed the squirrels along the way. Naomi almost had one take a peanut from her hand.

Leaving Munich

We had planned to drive to our next stopping point first thing in the morning but made a quick diversion in order to see the Neue Pinakothek museum. Featured artists in this gallery were van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Monet and Manet. It was quite small and due to time pressures we only saw about 1/2 of the paintings in display. Fiona made the quite understandable comment - "I don't want to see any more paintings mommy". I felt the same way too.

After this we began the drive back north and broke up the trip by spending the rest of the day at Legoland Germany. This was a lot of fun and the girls had a blast. There were many rides to enjoy but the highlight of the day was probably at the end when we looked at the Lego replicas they built of various towns around the world. It really was quite impressive. Mindy took more pictures of this than of the rest of Germany combined so you will all be able to share her passion for the models we saw.

From here, we went to Karlsruhe which will be our last stop on our tour. For dinner was the second worst Chinese food we have ever had but at 9:30pm we did not have many choices.

More Museums

On Tuesday we planned to visit both the Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek art museums. Unfortunately, the Neue museum was closed on Tuesdays. The Alte Pinakothek contained older works of art from about 1400-1800. Rembrandt and Rubens were among some of the better known artists whose work was on display.

Following this, we walked back towards the Marienplatz area of the city for one last look at the shops and to take in the older buildings when there were less people around. On the way, we saw a sign for an Egyptian Artifact display so decided to take a look. It was actually quite impressive with well preserved statues, relics and other artifacts on display. Naomi especially enjoyed seeing this.

After walking through the shops we caught a taxi to Nymphenburg Castle. The most impressive feature was the size of the grounds which essentially was a large public park with walking/biking trails, lakes and gardens. The castle itself was not as nice as we had hoped. The first room was spectacular but other than that, there really was not that much to see, especially compared to the castles we saw the day before. The day ended with us wandering in the grounds and the girls playing in a small stream, trying to catch fish with their bare hands.

Ludwig's Palaces

Monday began with an early start to make the drive south to see King Ludwig's palaces. We had to travel about 90 minutes from Munich through beautiful countryside and towards the Bavarian Alps.

We arrived in the town of Hohenschwangau in time for breakfast and then took the 10 minute walk up to the first castle - Hohenschwangau Palace. This was the childhood home of King Ludwig II and was a very nice castle to visit. It is in very good condition and all of the furniture and artifacts inside are originals. The tour took about 40 minutes to complete at which time we had to make our way up to our second stop of the day - Neuschwanstein.

Neuschwanstein was the castle built by Ludwig II, his so called "Fairy Tale Castle". It is the building that was the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty castle in the Disney story and was also listed as one of the 20 choices in the recent 7 Wonders of the World popularity contest. You have 3 options for getting up there - a 40 minute walk uphill; a 20 minute horse carriage ride or a 10 minute bus trip. We had received advice that the bus was the best option - it drops you close to Marienbrucke which has the best views of the castle and the valley, then you can walk downhill to the castle and after your tour, take a carriage ride down the hill. Well, this was the plan but the lines at the bus were relatively long so by the time we got to the top of the hill, we did not have the time to go to the bridge...so we walked downhill to the castle and planned to do the bridge later.

The tour of the castle was amazing. The rooms were immaculately decorated and of a standard equivalent to similarly themed rooms in places like the Vatican. Gold, marble, ivory everywhere, magnificant paintings and murals and even a room that resembled a cave. Unfortunately, Ludwig died at the age of 40 before he could finish all of the rooms, so there are a couple of unfinished rooms to walk through to end the tour. Even so, the 30 minute tour is a must if you are in this part of Germany.

Following the tour, we did in fact walk back up hill for 15 minutes to get to Marienbrucke. Again, this is a must see attraction. The view from here down to the castle is incredible. It is a little disconcerting though - you are up high above a waterfall and the floor of the bridge is made out of wooden beams that you can feel move beneath your feet as you are standing there. Add to this the fact that the tourists are all crammed on here and pushing past each other to get the best camera shot made it difficult with the kids. Next was the walk back down to the castle where we rode the carriage down to the village.

Considering that it was only about 2:00pm and that the kids were doing quite well (Fiona took a nap in Mindy's sling during tour #1), we decided to take the 45 minute drive to see another of Ludwig's palaces - Linderhof.

Contrasted with Neuschwanstein, where Ludwig only lived for 6 months before his death, Ludwig lived at Linderhof for a number of years. Much like the other two castles of the day, you had to be taken on a guided tour of Linderhof. The interior was probably even more spectaular than the earlier two castles. Similar themes were seen - I think Ludwig might have liked gold. After the tour we had a little bit of time to see the gardens and we wandered up to the "Venus Grotto". When we arrived we found out that we required another ticket...so I had to limp (my knee went out a few days ago) back down the hill to the ticket office. I made it back in time for the tour and it was also quite interesting. Essentially it is a man-made cave where Ludwig used to go to listen to musical performances, sometimes getting paddled around by his servants on a boat.

After the grotto, we wandered in the grounds for a little while where the kids, inspired by the Venus Grotto, decided to run around and pretend to be Greek godesses (Aphrodite and Nike). The grounds were also great - many fountains and gardens to see. Of particular note was the fountain in the main courtyard which erupts every hour. Quite a nice sight.

After all of this we were all exhausted so we limped our way back to the car and returned to Munich.

Munich's Museums

Today we decided to try to see a few of the local art museums. First stop was to walk to the Glyptothek museum. There were two main buildings in the courtyard. Mindy took the kids to see the first building which had an exhibition of artifacts from Ancient Greece. While she was doing this, Jon and I returned to the hotel to get his car and bring it to near the museum. His Lotus sports car was too small to fit us all, in fact, it was barely big enough for the two of us. A few quick demonstrations of its acceleration were had and it was something that I can see Jon having a lot of fun with over the years.

Meeting back with Mindy and the kids, we then went to the second building, which holds the permanent sculpture collection of the museum. The highlight for Mindy was seeing "Barberini's Faun", along with many other ancient sculptures.

Next was a walk to the Pinakothek museums, a collection of 3 museums - the Alte Pinakothek; the Neue Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne. It was decided to tackle the Pinakothek der Moderne first. After getting through some sections with bizarre furniture displays, pretty much resembling an Ikea showroom, we found the section with actual artwork on the next floor up. Paintings from Dali, Picasso, Matisse and other famous modern artists were on display.

Leaving here we decided to get lunch before Jon drove back home. Unfortunately there were no restaurants open that we could easily find and in the heat, it was becoming a struggle to get around with the kids. We found a place that looked expensive but we were sick of walking at that point so we took a chance. The food was OK but it was horribly over priced and not really a good place for the kids. We left, rounded the next corner and were confronted by about 10 restaurants, all open and all much better choices, so we learned a lesson here.

We said our farewells to Jon and then we went to the hotel to relax out of the heat. The kids were exhausted and had little trouble in getting to sleep, which is good as tomorrow we are driving to see the Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Bavaria...so it will be an early start and another full day.

Munich

On Saturday we said goodbye to the staff in the lounge who had looked after us during our stay. They had been very good to us, helping Mindy a lot with the kids, getting them cups of milk for the evenings and generally putting up with us being perhaps a little louder than the average guests in the executive lounge!

We then left for Munich. According to the car navigation system it was supposed to be a 3 hour drive. However, this did not account for the strange German practice of doing road works in 150km sections! Seriously, there literally was about 150km of their highway that was getting repaired, so lanes were removed and it ended up being 4 hours of traffic to get there.

Well, Munich is very different from Heidelberg! Heidelberg is a small town while there is certainly no mistaking Munich for being a big city. More crowds, more dirt and lots of stuff happening - kind of had a New York type feel to it in some ways. There are also more people here wearing burkas and head scarfs than I have seen before, even in New York. There must be a large immigrant community from the Middle East in this area as you cannot walk down any street without seeing many examples of this. In contrast to the burkas and scarves are the strp joints and porn shops. One shop we passed had an array of colorful "play things" and Naomi said, "Look at that pretty shop!". Mindy just kept pushing the stroller past the window.

After grabbing lunch we met up with my school friend Jon who had driven down from The Netherlands to see us. We set off to the main part of the city, Marienplatz, where there is a large pedestrian walkway and outdoor mall, as well as a few nice old buildings, churches etc. We plan to come back on a weekday when it is a little quieter as there was really no room to move and it was tough to appreciate it. We continued through here and set out to find the Hofbrauhaus, to sit, relax and drink some beer. The Hofbrauhaus is famous for its 1 liter beers and so Jon and I decided to appreciate this aspect of German culture. We also ate a huge Bavarian pretzle as well. Inside there was a traditional German band playing and the atmosphere was quite relaxing.

Heading back towards the hotel we stopped for dinner and a few wheat beers before getting Mindy and the kids settled in for the night. Jon and I then went back out to a local bar specializing in hookah pipes. We tried the Apple tobacco with a couple more drinks and an enjoyable evening was had. Unfortunately, most of the bars closed at 11:30 (even the Hofbrauhaus) so it was a relatively tame evening, finished with another round at the hotel bar.

Leaving Heidelberg

Today was our last day here in Heidelberg. My work is over and so we are leaving tomorrow morning to travel to Munich.

The last couple of days have been fun. We went to dinner the other night with that couple we met this week. We ate outside in a courtyard in the Altstadt where the kids could run around a little and play. Typically there would have been no cars in such a place but over here it seems like anywhere that is not blocked off by 3 foot high cement walls, is fair game to a car, so we had to keep an eye on them. While they were playing a group of Indian tourists went walking by and apparently thought our kids were locals or maybe gods of some sort. They stopped and started to take pictures of them, much to the distress of Naomi, who was a little freaked out by the situation. Mindy grabbed Naomi away and has since taught her to enhance their picture by "giving them the bird" if the same situation happens again. Now I know how the Amish feel whenever I go down there and basically chase them down in their buggies and try to get a "head-shot" for the photo album.

Today was my last day at work so it was busy trying to wrap everything up and say goodbye to everyone. I have enjoyed the 3 weeks here, in fact the door is open for possible future trips if my schedule allows.

Mindy took the kids to a playground today. There was a fountain with rocks and other water play type things. The kids stripped down to their underwear and had a great time playing with the other buck naked German kids.

Tonight we went on a cruise on the Nekar river. The boat was solar powered and it was strange not to hear the sound of a motor as we were sailing along. It was a good way to end our time here. The boat was announced as the "biggest solar boat in the state", which was quite a dubious achievement I think. Dinner was at McDonalds where the kids got their 3rd German speaking Shrek figure. Apparently German teenagers hang out around McDonalds as well, the main difference was that they all had 6 packs of beer and were drinking.

After a full day, the kids crashed in bed and hopefully will be ready to hit to road to Munich tomorrow morning.

A better trip to the zoo

Well yesterday I decided to take the girls to the old town section to look at the shops. We have to see it in sections because the girls will go crazy if we stay too long. We were looking for the gummi bear store and I heard someone speaking English to their child. I stopped her and asked if she knew where the shop was and we started talking. It suddenly started raining so we had to take our conversation under some shelter. We decided to meet the next day to go to the zoo.

We met today and took the kids to the zoo. She has a little boy(2yrs.). The zoo experience was a lot better today than last time. We saw more of the animals this time and I had company. We talked about all kinds of stuff and found we had much in common. We plan to do something tomorrow as well. It's a shame we didn't meet early but better late than never.

It is funny how much it means to you to meet someone from your home when you are travelling. You just feel a level of common understanding.

We went to dinner by the Alt bruke and took some pictures. Nothing too exciting. We are now realizing our trip is coming to an end. It has passed so quickly. Oh, well.

From my perspective, it is really winding down quickly. Only two more days of work, then a week of travelling around and then back to our normal life. We have started to make some plans for our week off. We will be meeting up with a school friend of mine (Jon) who lives in Holland and will be visiting us in Munich. We have also booked a couple of castle tours for Monday. I am looking forward to fulltime travelling and also some warmer weather that is forecast.

Good Food

Tonight involved a quick trip into Heidelberg for dinner. A combination of sausages, pork schnitzel, bratkartoffeln (sliced, pan-fried potatoes with spices) and kasespaetzle (German noodles with cheese sauce) was shared by all. It was actually one of the better meals we have had since being here, although the beer was not one of my favourites.

After dinner we had a walk out on the old bridge of the city with a nice view of the castle on the hill and the city itself. Strangely, for a weekday, it was not freezing cold and raining making this possible. The walk back to the car involved Fiona screaming the words to the song "Lovely Ladies" from Les Miserables at the top of her lungs. I think people knew were were foreigners.

Tripsdrill

On Sunday, we had originally planned to visit the old Roman town of Trier. However, the thought of driving for two hours and convincing the kids to look at ruins and walk through museums did not seem that appealing. So instead, we headed an hour south to the kids amusement park called Tripsdrill.

This park was a perfect place to spend a day for kids about this age. The themes and rides were geared towards younger kids and families. However, there were a few differences from such parks in the USA...

Firstly, as soon as we got in, there was a huge, mechanical figure sitting on the toilet reading the paper and taking care of his business. We thought this was quite strange so it deserved a closer look. A few other people were gathered looking at what was going on as well. Well, I guess it would help to speak the local language as he then shouted a few words in German and "spat" a jet of water out at the crowd. Mindy was standing in exactly the right place to catch it perfectly in her face...I only wish I had the camera rolling!

There were a few rides that were comparable to kids' rides in the USA but then we started to notice that the ride attendants did not really seem to be paying too much attention to the ages and heights of the children who were riding. Also, many of the rides were more "intense" than would be allowed for young kids in the USA. As a result, the girls were able to ride their first ever roller coaster which was actually reasonably fast as well as many other "spinning" rides.

After a few too many spinning rides combined with a couple of bratwursts that I had for lunch, I needed a little break from getting dizzy so we went on a water-barrel "rapids" ride. I thought we did well saying the right German numbers for how old Fiona was as well as how many people were in our group but the guy still yelled at us in German about something we had done wrong I guess. In any case, we jumped on the ride and Mindy especially got soaked.

Later in the day, Naomi had a lolly-pop and was happily enjoying it when all of a sudden she dropped it and started screaming. Apparently, a bumble bee had landed on it and ended up in her mouth stinging her a couple of times. With some ice cream to soothe her mouth and some sympathy she was OK, but it was obviously not a fun time for her.

One of the highlights of the day for the kids was the driving ride where you got to control your own car. Fiona especially really had a blast on this. Naomi enjoyed it but said that the roller coaster was her favourite ride of the day.

One more interesting display...there was a scene showing the Garden of Eden, complete with naked Adam and Eve, each with 1 strategically placed fig leaf for cover. Not that there was anything wrong with this but it seeemed a little strange for a kids theme park.

After this, back to the hotel for Indian food and some rest after what was a good day with the family.

A Day On The Rhine

On Saturday we went on a cruise on the Rhine river. The trick was trying to find a cruise of the right length, factoring in kids' attention spans as well as wanting to see enough of the river and surrounds. We decided on a 3.5 hour round trip...probably ended up being about 30 minutes too long for the kids but it was a good choice I think.

We started at the town of Bingen and headed down the river as far as St. Goar. The countryside is essentially cliffs with vineyards; small towns and castles in various states of ruin. Some castles are not much more than abandoned rubble but others are still in use today as residences, restaurants or hotels. Some of the more noteworthy castles were Rheinstein, Reichenstein and the Katz castle. I would highly recommend a day on the Rhine to any prospective Germany visitors out there.

After the cruise we faced the choice of going to see another nearby castle and taking a tour; visiting an art museum or taking two kids who were fading fast back to the hotel. So we went back to the hotel, went to the pool and ate some free pasta in the Executive Lounge. All in all, a good day!

The last few days

I really haven't done that much the last few days. We went to Toys R Us again. The girls played and I studied my phrase book. It really doesn't matter how much I study the phrases I go blank when I'm trying to say something.

We hung out in the hotel this morning. I could have been expanding my mind by reading a book I brought with me but instead I watched some judge show in German. I had no idea what they were saying but I watched it anyway. It's weird how afternoon t.v. is the same around the world. Apparently you can only watch judge shows, talk shows, and "how to" shows between the hours of 10-1:00.

We did make it outside when the rain cleared. The girls found a muddy puddle and splashed away. Tonight we went to dinner and looked at some shops. There was a shop called "Madonna" so I had to go in and check it out.

Tomorrow we will go on a cruise of the Rhine, at least that is the plan.

A relaxing day at the zoo

Today I decided to take the girls to the zoo. It is within a 2 mile walking distance but it feels like 4 miles with the girls. I mistakingly assumed that the road to the zoo would be paved. Silly me. To get there we had to walk across a bridge that was over a part of the river where water was gushing under us. The girls did not want to walk across it because the bottom was made up of wood (like a deck) and they could see through the cracks. They piled in the umbrella stroller to get across the bridge. The next part was gravel, puddles and horse poo! It was messy. We finally got to the zoo just in time for the rain to start. We saw some monkeys that looked like they were starving and a playground before running to see the seal feeding. Naomi got pushed out of the way by some kids. I looked to see who was in charge of them but did not see anyone until I told Naomi to go ahead and push them back. I guess their teacher(?) heard me and came over speaking English and told me, "They are not trying to be mean, they can't help it...blah...blah". It seems common for German school teachers to take a group of kids out with a ratio of 1 teacher to 25 kids. I have seen it a couple of times. There will be a hoard of children and one adult seemingly, kind of keeping a slight eye on them. It started to rain soon after Naomi could see again.

I waited a little while to see if the rain let up a little but it didn't. We headed home through the gravel, puddles and horse poo in the rain. I was pretty grumpy by the time I reached the hotel after carrying 30lbs and pushing another 40lbs in a crapy stroller. We headed down to the lounge, normally our place of refuge. We get free pepsi (cost 2,50Euro) there so you can understand why I love it. The girls were spinning and making themselves dizzy and Fiona fell. She screamed and started bleeding. The "helpful" hotel staff gave her a chocolate and then left the room?????? I took her back to the room and tried to make a decision on what to do next. I freaked out a little. The cut wasn't that big of a concern but just not having a car, not knowing where a doctor's office would be, and not being able to contact David just got to me a bit. When I asked the reception about a doctor's clinic she said she thinks there is one two blocks away. It surprised me that she was not that concerned. In the U.S. if a child hurt themselves on hotel property they would be going out of their way to make sure the kid was okay. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just not used to the difference. I took the girls, bleeding and all, to look for the doctor's office. I could not find it so I went into the tourist information office for help. The woman said, "Why isn't she crying then?" I started explaining that it had been a while since it happen, and how she can't see it because it's on her chin. I stopped and finally said, "Why am I explaining this to you??" It seemed ridiculous to me. I mean, I'm not saying it was an emergency, I just wanted to know if she needed a stitch. It just seemed like I could not get anyone to just be nice and help me. I left pissed off and headed back to the pharmacy (who had given me directions a few minutes ago) to get some stuff for her booboo. Somewhere in between all of this I managed to buy an overpriced fleece jacket for Fiona because I had left the hotel without her jacket and she was freezing.

I came back to the hotel and vented my frustration with a big cry. Anyone who has dragged two children anywhere can understand. Imagine dragging them through a frogger game like traffic pattern in which you don't understand where to go. That is kinda how I felt today. I think it was a combination of not being able to communicate mixed with having no one to commiserate with me.

I know I am a big whiner. Her cut is fine. I feel better and tomorrow is another adventure.

Groundhog day

So today we stayed in and did some laundry. Yes, I have been washing our clothes in the tub and hanging them to dry on the upside down ironing board. You all didn't think David would spring for dry cleaning did you? He suggested I put the dirty clothes in the backpack and take the girls to the laundry and wash the clothes there. I can't blame him it costs 5Euro to clean a pair of underwear! My mother-in-law would be proud I had the wash done by 10am, it just takes two days to dry.

We did go to the pool and guess who showed up, the towel changer. He said hello and took off his clothes and put on his towel. He did the changing of the towel at least 3 times. Naomi did see him this time. I noticed she had seen him and started laughing. She started swimming towards me saying, "Mommy I have something to tell you!" She then told me she saw his butt. Lucky for us he did face the other direction (which was a window). She thought it was funny.

We also bumped into some familar people on the elevator tonight - the tourists that were pushing us off the tower yesterday. David had yelled at them saying, "What do you want me to do? I can't go anywhere. She'll just have to wait, she shouldn't have come up the tower then....etc." We were waiting for the elevator and when the doors opened there they were. They pushed right on past us. I think they remembered but it is hard to tell.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Today we ventured east to the town of Rothenburg. I had visited here before and from my memories as well as some recommendations from work friends, it seemed like a good place to go for a day trip.

Upon arriving in the town, we were hoping to find an obvious good parking garage near to the downtown area but driving into the city proved to be very confusing. We ended up driving in places where we were sure no cars should have been allowed (through cobblestone courtyards and narrow streets) but eventually we found a spot to park right near the main square. Throughout the day, tour buses and other cars also were driving on these streets so I guess we were OK.

After looking at a few shops, we went into the main square when on the hour at certain times throughout the day, the main clock will have a display where there is a "re-enactment" of an ancient event when the town mayor drank a huge mug of wine to save Rothenburg which was under seige at the time. Well, it was not worth the 5 minutes we stood around waiting for it. In fact, the cuckoo clocks for sale in the town stores were more impressive. A window opened, a dark figure drank from a glass...and that was it.

However, the day got better after this. A brief stop for lunch then a couple of hours spent walking around the town looking in shops. while making our way away from the main square towards the town walls. Rothenburg is famous for being completely enclosed by stone walls as a defence from medieval times. Mindy was not as keen to climb up there and walk around...apparently she does not share my desire to get on top of high things and look at the view...as would become clear later. The kids had a good time sticking their heads through the holes in the wall and waving to Mindy down below.

Next was a horse drawn carriage ride through the town. The highlight of the ride for Naomi was watching the driver catch the horse poop in a bucket. The carriage dropped us back in the main square and so we (I) decided that it would be a good idea for us to climb up to the tower of the town hall, the highest point in the town. I did not expect to find a lift to the top but must admit to expecting to find a better staircase. As we neared the top, the steps became steeper, narrower and more dangerous. Eventually we got to climb what amounted to a 12 foot ladder to get out on the tower. The view was great and worth the effort but Mindy was too worried about the kids to really enjoy it. She was (understandably) concerned with how we were going to get back down with two small kids, a stroller and video camera bag. The descent was made more difficult by a group of tourists who seemed to want to push past us.

After this, souvenirs for the kids - a princess bag for Naomi and a wooden toy on a spring (that is now stretched out) for Fiona then back to Heidelburg. All in all, a good day and the town was certainly worth spending a day to see.

A little something David left out that I thought was interesting - the toilets. In the women's bathrooms there were no seats, there were only black squares on the rim of the toilet???? I assumed the black squares were where your feet should go, as if you were going to squat on the toilet. I saw a woman doing this in Penn Station once. I don't know? The girls gave it a try and got pee all over the floor. David said the men's room had a seat! What a sexist town - giving the men seats and expecting the women to squat!!

Heidelberg

Today we decided to see the city of Heidelberg. Mindy has done some touring during the day but has been limited by having two kids and no car. In the evenings after work, we have also done a little but really not much more than look at a few shops and grab something for dinner.

The weather today was pretty much what we have had for the whole week - cool and cloudy. Before going up to the castle, we decided to spend some time in the city, hoping that the fog lifted a little and the weather improved. We went into the Altstadt region of the city and spent some time walking along the typical German looking cobblestone streets, looking in shops etc. Naomi and Fiona picked out a couple of German dolls and so they thought it was time well spent.

We then rode the "funicular railway" up to the castle. Heidelberg Castle contains structures built as early as the 13th century and as "recently" as the 17th century. It is certainly the tourist highlight of the city. The views from the castle are great and despite some of the castle being in ruin, the majority of it is in good enough condition to make for an interesting couple of hours.

After this, it was back onto the rail to continue our ride up the mountain. This involved two trains - the modern train to take us some of the way, then a ride on the renovated original railway dating from 1907. This took us up to Konigstuhl, Heidelberg's highest point (550m above sea level). The views from here were spectacular, not only of Heidelberg but the farmland and other towns in the distance. After a few moments of silence, enjoying the scenery, I was shaken back to reality with Mindy forcefully stating that "They said they are cold and hungry...and I agree with them!", so we grabbed something to eat.

The lunch we had was superb. Mindy and I both ordered the Pork Rahmschnitzel...what is not to like about breaded, deep fried pork, smothered in a creamy gravy. This will certainly be consumed again before we leave!

After lunch we visited the Heidelberg Fairy Tale Park (Heidelberger Marchenparadies). Basically a small theme park with various displays telling the stories from old fairy tales. Unfortunately the narration was in German but the visuals were still interesting. In addition, there were jumping castles and other rides that the kids really enjoyed. I would certainly recommend this for anyone travelling here with small kids.

Then, down the mountain and back to the hotel where we saw a few indications that we had achieved another goal of running the kids ragged! Fiona fell off the last ride at the park. Naomi then slipped and was bashed in the head by the mechanical gate leading to the train. Then, back at the hotel, she went to lean against the door of the elevator...just as it opened and so tumbled into the lobby of the hotel. They both crashed asleep relatively quickly allowing me to download and watch the Wallabies beat the All Blacks in the rugby...go you good things!

I'm Rick James, bitch!

I finally got out today. I had planned to venture out two days ago but ended up just waiting for our hotel room to be ready. Yesterday the girls and I went on a small trip to the very German store Toys-R-Us! It was nice for the girls to play a little.

Today we took a big trip into the Altstadt. It is the center of town and where all of the shops are located. I was taking the girls to get some lunch and Naomi said "Let's get on the bus mommy". I thought, why not. I jumped on without buying a ticket - I thought I could buy one once I was on the tram. The driver spoke no English and just let me get off without charging. I guess it was not worth 2 Euro to try to communicate with me.

It was exciting that we actually made it. They have all kinds of cool shops down narrow cobblestone streets. What else would you expect in Europe, I guess. The girls talked me into an outfit and shoes for both of them. I was just looking for a jacket for myself. We also ended up with umbrellas because it started pouring down while we were shopping. We began to find our way back to the hotel and that's when the day got a little frustrating.

I had to buy a ticket this time instead of acting like a hobo (David's words). I swear I was looking for my stop but when I realized that "wagon haute" was not a stop but was displayed at EVERY stop, I was past where I needed to get off. For some stupid reason I thought I would just ride it out until the tram turned around. I decided to ask the teenage boys behind me if they spoke English, thinking they could help me figure out how far I was out of my way. They said they did not speak English but then proceeded to quote The Chappelle Show. I heard them saying "I'm Rick James, bitch!" among other quotes, all in perfect English. They were obviously making fun of me and I was just trying not to cry. Eventually the tram stopped and after purchasing another ticket, I made it back to the hotel.

Tonight we ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant, amusingly named "Ho's Garden". Excellent food but the highlight of the night for David was listening to the Chinese waiter speaking fluent German.