Burgerfest

After crossing the river, we walked to a street festival called Burgerfest. (a town, not the food) The kids were in heaven with face paint and balloons. Glitter face paint!!!

Then it started raining. We tried to take cover a few times, but when it let up, we headed for the tram.

The Rhine River

The river is HUGE! We decided to walk across the bridge the first time (we took the tram back).

There is a tradition we discovered on our walk. Couples walk onto the bridge, kiss, fasten a lock with their names on it to the bridge & throw the key into the river. So sweet! Some names were hand written on the locks, some were engraved, some had dates.

I love this!

AIB welcome BBQ

The BBQ was at the "old" AIB building. It reminds us of Northwestern with small doorways and creaky wood. The yard is beautiful & the party was great!

The head of AIB & the (woman) mayor of Bonn stared us off.

There is a group from Italy, one from Texas A&M, LMU's New Europe program, LMU's School of Film and Television & Matt's Mechanical Engineering students.

Each group did a skit to introduce themselves. The Italian's sang, the film kids acted out movie scenes & the Aggies showed us how they shout at football games.

The M.E.'s did calculations & built a pyramid. :)

The kids & I played hide & seek & soccer with the kids of a few host families.

These are the shoes of a German host/prof.

There was a great band, which included a host-dad, that played hilarious American covers & traditional German songs. We all got up and did a crazy conga line to one of the songs. It was such a fun night & a great way to start off the semester.

Saturday, 9/3/11

On our way into Bonn, Ben stopped to send a post card to Gracie dog. He mentions that he misses her on a daily basis.

On our way to the AIB welcome BBQ, Lily spotted some hippies hula hooping and asked if she could join them. They thought their hoops would be too heavy for Lil. Haha! Silly hippies, Lily is a hoop champ!

A group of older people were walking by and were especially impressed with Lily skills. A man came running over and gave her 2 Euro. Then his wife came and gave her 1E for her brother. She is ready to join the circus!

Friday, Week 1

Matt brought these home for us. The stems were as big as my wrists.

Lily, mailing a postcard to her class

Park 2

This park was bigger that the other one and actually had kids! Lily met a friend right away, Anna, who is 6 and does not have pets. That was the extent of our parental translation skills. Good thing play has no language barrier.

Behind the park is a path that leads all the way up the mountain behind our house. Apparently, you can go up and see an animal preserve and have brunch. We're going to take the bus.

I ran to this park and through part of the trail the next morning. There were a group of men in the woods drinking beer. They were nicely dressed and not loud, but my instinct was to get my keys ready to stab somebody. They didn't even notice me. It was 8am.

I love this picture

More of the first week

The kids find ways to entertain themselves. (though they love German tv. The kids channel is called Kika, but Lily calls it Ikea).

Fierce Ninjas

Our first real family dinner

Another park