Today we went out for a short shopping trip to Marienplatz. The Christmas markets are still going on so I went to look for some gifts. The boys are usually pretty good if I’m outside. I think when I bring them inside, they get pretty irritated, especially Rowan, because they get too hot in their jackets. Well, I stayed out for about 1.5 hours roaming around all the little stalls. It’s just like anyplace I guess, 1/2 of the stalls are crap and the other half is interesting, but only a few places have things good enough to buy. The boys did very well throughout the whole time, I was surprised! I thought they would be super cold like I was at the end. When I checked them at home, they were nice and toasty. It was actually sunny today and Elijah and I played a little game. He was sitting facing the sunny window so the sun was really bright on his face. I was about 7 feet away and I held up my hand to block the sun out of his face. He immediately smiled. Then I took my hand away and put it back in place. He started cracking up! This went on for a few minutes. Elijah has been so good natured ever since the time out day. I think he was just having bad teething days or something before because he’s been very, very sweet ever since. Agnes came over again this evening and we made plans to go see King Kong. I met Michael at the UBahn station and he was running late because he took the wrong trains! We went to the theatre, we had to be there 30 minutes before the show started. Michael remembered this theatre because it was the one we went to 3 years ago with our friend Christos and we couldn’t go in because the movie was sold out! I can’t believe he remembered it! Anyways, it wasn’t sold out tonight and also we made reservations. But it was pretty crowded. We got some nachos (awful) and M&Ms. You would think that there would be hot dogs since there are hot dogs on every corner, but nooooooo, not here. For some reason, they only had popcorn (sugared or salted), nachos and soda. We finally got to our assigned seats and sat through 30 minutes, I repeat, 30 minutes of advertisements. Then there were a couple of previews. That sucked big time. The movie finally started and it was ok. We actually had to leave early because we had to get home. Peter Jackson could’ve cut out the whole Jurassic Park thing and made it 40 minutes shorter and it still would’ve been good. I was kind of mad leaving the theater because he wasted our night out. We couldn’t even get dinner because the movie was so long. Damn you Peter Jackson! The boys were well behaved, once again, little angels.

Today I decided to go to Wal-Mart because the bartender last night told me of all the rows and rows of American products they had. Also, I was under the impression that it was far away and unreachable by car, but it turns out that one of them is right outside the train station. Now, I normally don’t shop at the evil place, I much prefer Target. But visions of american products danced in my head, with the hopes of Prego sitting on the shelf, lured me in. I took the U3 to the end, which I thought was what he said to do and I got out and saw a woman carrying 3 Wal-Mart bags, so I figured I was close. He told me that it was right outside the station so I walked all around. I asked a teenaged girl where it was and she just stared at me like “uh lady I don’t know what you’re talking about”. Then I asked an elderly woman and she said that there was no Wal-Mart in the area. I called Michael and he did some internet looking up and found it. I was supposed to have gotten off 3 stops before at Machtlfingerplatz. So, I got back on the train. I found it and was so excited! My excitement turned into disappointment because I didn’t find any american products! There was a small section, about 2 feet wide that had somethings like Campbells tomato soup and oreos but nothing really. I was sooooo mad that I made this special trip! Oh well, I looked around anyways, nothing really special. They did have bigger boxes of diapers, but get this, it wasn’t any cheaper than my neighborhood store. What’s up with that? So, even though I went in, I ended up not buying anything so I felt better. This evening we watched “Life Aquatic”. I thought it was ok, I especially liked the electronic music.

We just lazed about this morning and after the boys’s nap, we went to a Tex-Mex place called the Twisted Bavarian that is talked about a lot in ToyTownMunich.com and highly advertised. At first we thought we wouldn’t get food since they said that they didn’t usually serve, but there was a newcomers ToyTown event going on so we could join them. We had breakfast burritos which were very good (ahhhh, tortillas, eggs, potatoes in a ranchero sauce). This was also the first place we went out to eat with the boys. Yes, ok, so it is a bar, but in the daytime, it is more like a restaurant than a bar. Well, no, not really, but we went there anyways. They had a pretty good ventalation system, so we only smelled minimal smoke. It’s certainly way better than Segafredo, the cafe near our house, which has absolutely no moving air and many smokers. You can cut the smoke with a knife. Anyhoo, the owner, Dori, made us feel right at home. She is from the Houston area and a really nice person. She even helped us out with the boys a little. We loved the food and the boys did really well for a couple of hours. We went around and introduced ourselves to some folks, but didn’t really know how to “break in” to the crowd. I wish we knew about this sooner. If I had internet at home, I would’ve known. Anyways, the boys were getting fussy, so Michael took them home and I stayed, uploading pictures and getting in some free internet time. I feel really at home here. It turns out that the bartender is from Kailua!!! What are the odds? He didn’t sound or look like someone from Hawaii. But he said that he grew up there and then spent the last 4 or so years in Australia so that would explain his accent. Anyways, he wants to go back there after Munich and go to UH. It was so weird, we were both surprised! I ended up getting dinner here as well. There is no way that I can come to a place that has steak and not get it for Michael. It has been fun surfing the net while talking to people. This place really is like Cheers in Munich! :) Everybody knows my name!

Today we went out and did a photo tour of our neighborhood. I’m uploading the pictures as I type this. I finally went up on our roof, we have a “green roof”, where they plant plants directly on the roof, it’s pretty cool, and they have cat walks in between the buildings so you can go from roof to roof. It was snowing pretty hard today and I didn’t bother putting on regular shoes, so we only stood out there a few minutes. We decided to go to the OEZ, a regular shopping mall, just for something to do and find christmas gifts. On the way at Hauptbahnhof, we went to Burger King and got cheeseburgers. Those feel really good in the tummy. The first store we hit was Saturn, and we got everything we needed, a TV, DVD player and a dryer. I was going to get one of those washer/dryer combos, but found out that they use double the water and also you have to take out 1/2 the load after washing in order to dry. Sucks! I thought you could just program it to wash and dry. So, since we already have a washer, I decided to get just a condenser dryer (one that doesn’t need a vent) so that we can stack it on our washer. I’m so excited! I hate the “hardness” that air drying clothes creates. Maybe since the water is hard here, it makes it even stiffer, I don’t know. Anyhoo, that took forever, so I didn’t even go to the mall, but Michael went and took the boys since they were getting restless. All this stuff is getting delivered next week. Can’t wait! Although we have been doing pretty good without a TV, we just have been watching DVD’s on our laptop. It works pretty good. Maybe I’ll pick up more German if I watch German TV. They say that it’s a good way to learn. Or more like supplementing learning. After the mall, we went to Michael’s work because he needed to get something and I’m always up for internet time!!! We stayed there a little while and the boys roamed around his office. They were super good today, very quiet and well behaved, no tantrums at all. After we got home, we tried to set up my main computer and we were not successful. There was a big pop and a large puff of smoke, and we didn’t even turn it on! It turns out that we were supposed to flip this switch on the back before plugging it in. Man, it stunk up our apartment really badly! Hopefully the machine isn’t dead, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s just the power supply. We watched “Rushmore” this evening, it was pretty good. We had no idea the similarities between that movie and “Life Aquatic”. So tomorrow we’re going to watch “Life Aquatic” again.

Today we just stayed at home. No fires to put out today. Although Elijah has been very bad about biting. He knows when he’s doing something bad because he always has his guilty face when he does it. He now does it when I’m not looking or when I’m not around. Today Rowan finally got bit on the FACE, on his left cheek, poor baby! I also saw bite marks on his arm. I don’t know how he puts up with all of this! Also, their most recent thing is that they now get stuck standing up. Now that they can pull themselves up, they don’t know how to get back down or are afraid of falling. So, they stand up, are all happy for a few minutes, then start crying because they no longer want to be standing up, they want to do something else. Whenever Michael came home, I went out to buy some supplies, food and what not, just to get out of the house. I also went to Karlsplatz to try and find a food processor and rice cooker. I was successful at finding the food processor, a pretty small one too, but as for rice cookers, I’m afraid I will not be able to find one. I only saw two of them and they were both 10 cups! I only make one or two cups at a time, so I don’t want to buy something so big. I’ll probably have to look at asian stores or something. In the meantime, cooking in a pot isn’t bad, I’m getting used to it. OK, I’m taking a poll here, who is under 35, from Hawaii, and have cooked rice in a pot??? I’m interested to know. Tonight’s movie was Collateral, pretty good, although I’m not a big fan of Tom Cruise. I think George Clooney would’ve been a better choice. Just my .02.

Today we went shopping. First we went to this G and A market that is supposed to have American goods. NOT! I went in there and it was mostly German stuff, nothing special. They had maybe oreos and ritz crackers. I was expecting a whole lot more, so I was severely disappointed. On the way back, we listened to an street accordion player, who was actually quite good. We stopped for awhile and he played Santa Claus is coming to town. Then, since the boys were still cooperative, I went to Rosenheimer Platz to go to the HiT market. It’s basically a big market, more like the kind I’m used to. When we got to the train station, I noticed the same accordion player was there!!! Weird. He even noticed me and smiled. It reminded me of the spanish guy in Mr. Deeds, where he would always show up in places really quickly and quietly. Anyways, we make it into the market and I feel like I have a ticking time bomb (the boys), so I rush through. There was also an asian market that I stopped off in to get some rice. I saw what has to be one of the grossest things - hot dogs in a jar, surrounded by clear liquid, unrefridgerated. Lots of jars stacked on top of each other. There was a whole section. Ugh. The store seemed to have no rhyme or reason to the layout, everything seems to be put in where it fits. There was some underwear across from the frozen cakes. The ice cream was in a separate section on it’s own, etc. I did manage to find some Top Ramen (yay), but sadly no Prego or Prego-like spaghetti sauce. I guess they don’t really like chunky style sauce, mostly just red stuff to coat the pasta. Too bad, they are missing out. I think what I should do is start a page of stuff that I need from the US, so that anyone who visits, needs to bring one or more of the items on the list. Haha!!! My poor parents, they will have to bring two extra suitcases for me. As for the boys, they were really good today. Elijah started biting Rowan again, although I didn’t see it, I only heard Rowan scream really loud and he wasn’t laying on the floor. Elijah had a guilty look on his face. Sigh…

On the way home from the Hauptbahnhof, there was an emergency team surrounding this guy that apparently collapsed on the platform. I wasn’t there when it happened, I just saw them taking him away. He was a pretty young guy, maybe he was just drunk? He was coughing whenever he passed by me on the stretcher, and they didn’t seem too alarmed, so I guess he’ll be ok. The weird things that I see late at night at Hauptbahnhof!

Today the boys got up really late, I don’t know why. It could be that they get up early but then play very quietly. They have gotten good at that. Michael left early in the morning because he went to go climbing at the climbing gym. I needed to immediately go out in search of diapers and formula since there are none at the local Schlecker. We seem to always be running out of diapers, formula, water and eggs. Since I always forget my shopping bag, I can only carry so much. You should see me, most times with a big load of stuff in my arms walking down the street. I’m sure the Germans think I’m mad! Mad-crazy, not mad-angry. Anyways, I decide to go to Karlsplatz, since Michael is there and I needed money as well. I couldn’t be added to his account yet because there is a ton of documents needed in order for me to get my visa, and then after I get that, I can be added to the account. Anyways, I get to Michael’s work and the one thing that I cannot stand here is all the smoking. I got too used to the great anti-smoking laws in the US. There are 3 guys smoking outside, right by the entrance of the building. So I have to stand there awhile with the babies until Michael comes down. Ugh, I always feel like I’m going to pass out when I inhale too much smoke. Anyways, it turns out that those guys work with Michael and so he introduced us. Then we went upstairs to meet everyone else, and they are all nice. I met his boss, Dan, and coincidentally, he is from Issaquah (WA) and used to work for Amazon. Small world. Anyways, Michael took off from work to go shopping for stuff with me. We first went into a store called “dm”. They had really nice wide aisles, which are a luxury here. But they didn’t have the diapers I wanted, so I had to go to Schlecker (a big one). They did have diapers, but only one package. Also, they don’t have “mega packs” either! At least the stores that we shop at don’t have em. The only size is the 34(?) pack, and that’s why we always are running out of diapers. I can’t wait until we get our wasch-trockner, that way I can do our own diapers. Anyhoo, I headed back home and put them down for a nap. I unpacked our bathroom (what boxes were there) and more books. I think I now unpacked all our books. We still have a bunch of stuff for my office, so I think I’ll tackle that next. I felt a little lazy today so I watched a bunch of Friends episodes and it almost felt like I was watching TV. The boys didn’t take a long nap, so they got up and we played. Elijah was really good today, I think that the “time outs” from yesterday helped. We had lots of fun playing with the wood blocks. I would stack them and he would destroy the tower I built. He also likes reading time, so every day we go through many books. He really likes the “touchy feely” ones, and lately he’s liked “The Mouse About the House”. Rowan was his usual chipper self, always wanting to get in on whatever we’re doing. Elijah has been in control of his temper - when Rowan took a toy from him, he didn’t scream, he either took it back or got another toy. I was so surprised and happy. I’m trying to teach him to resolve his problems on his own and not rely on me to do things that he can do himself. I had to put them down early since they only had one nap and were pretty sleepy by 6:30 so Michael didn’t see them at all today. We had Chinese take out for dinner, it was yummy! They put some kind of addictive chemical in the won-tons!

Today we didn’t go out at all because I had to wait for the Ikea guy to deliver our stuff and by the time he came, the boys were about ready to go down for a nap and it just didn’t work out. Anyways, we got all of our stuff today! YAY! Well, technically, we still need to order some things that they didn’t have in stock, but at least we got our shelves. The family who lived here before us left us some things, but I found the shelves inadequate to hold all of our crap. I spent the boys’ nap time (they took a long one) putting the closet shelf together. It is a really nice wood one that goes really high to make use of all the space in the tall closet. Unfortunately, the “corner” parts of the shelf were 2 inches too big, so we decided to keep the coat rack where it is and move the other shelving to the upstairs shelf. This afternoon while I played with the boys, Elijah was throwing tantrum after tantrum. Every little thing would set him off. I got so tired of dealing with it that I put him in his bedroom for timeout. The first time I did it, he almost immediately calmed down and became quiet. After about 30 seconds or so, I checked up on him and he gave me this look like “I am guilty and I am sorry”. It was so cute, I gave him a big smile and he gave me one back. All was better in the world for 2 seconds. When he came back out, he would throw another tantrum if Rowan would take his toy or if he didn’t like something or if Rowan was in my lap for reading time and not him. I put him back into time out each time and each time he would calm himself down and come out when he was ready. It was really frustrating and tiring. By the time Michael gets home I am so tired that figuring out what we want for dinner is a chore. The one bad thing about having a chef all these years is that now I can’t cook at all. All we eat are eggs and take out and maybe a pb&j. I’ll have to relearn how to cook. Ugh. We ended up having frozen pizzas for dinner. The tomato-mozzarella one was pretty good.

Only the eccentric will understand this title. I think Michael will crack up when he sees it. Anyhoo, this morning we had an appointment with the pediatrician. I lost the directions of how to get there so I searched around and couldn’t find it. I called the office to get new directions, and it’s a good thing I did because it turns out that my appointment was at 10:15 and not at 10:30, which is what I thought. I got the recommendation from someone from Toytown Munich (a website). They said it was a trek to Briennerstrasse, but it was only two buildings away from the UBahn station so I don’t know what they were talking about. It turns out that only one woman speaks English in this office (in addition to the doctor), and not very well at that. So I was very confused about the directions, but finally managed to find it. The door to the office looked like a side door, so I went all the way around to what looked like a regular entrance, but it turned out that the side door was their front door. The woman who spoke English was really nice and helpful. We went to the doctor’s office and got measured and weighed, Rowan is almost 30 inches and Elijah is 28 inches and they are both about 21 pounds! Elijah really liked playing on this wooden horse, the kind that rocks back and forth. He would get upset if I stopped rocking it. Rowan was happy playing with just about anything. When the doctor came in, he didn’t introduce himself, so I was kind of wondering if he was the doctor or not. He was very clinical and straight forward. Elijah started throwing a tantrum because I wasn’t rocking him and so I went to console him and try to quiet him down and the doctor said “Are you going to listen to me or should I see another patient?” I was kind of surprised at this statement because for one thing, I WAS listening to him, I just wasn’t looking at him. For another, I thought it would be better to have a quiet baby so that I could actually hear him. It was really upsetting for me to have such a jerk for a doctor. All I could think about was I need another doctor! Then he asked me all these questions in a really accusatory way like “Are you giving them Vitamin D for rickets?” And I was like huh? I didn’t know about that! And he was like “Every country knows about Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets! So you are not giving them this?” Geez! All the while, Elijah is screaming and I’m trying to calm him, going out of my mind. By the end, I was almost in tears myself, having been used to a gentle doctors in the US. We’ll try to find another one. He grudgingly admitted that developmentally they are doing fine and are very healthy, so take that Dr.-who-says-they-are-going-to-get-rickets! On the way home I thought that it is very unfair that Michael doesn’t get to share in joyous occasions such as these, so I told him that he needs to help me with them at all future appointments, or at least until they can control themselves. We were all very tired and irritable all day. At least we get our IKEA stuff tomorrow.

Today is Sunday - the “shutdown” day. This morning I called my mom since I haven’t talked to them since last week. As I was talking to her, I wanted to cook some rice (more food gold found from a box). When I plugged in the rice cooker, it no longer worked!!! I was so upset! But then I realied that the transformer I used only goes up to 50W and I need something that gets more watts. Ah, the joys of different plugs. So, I was in a panic because my stomach was set to eat over easy eggs on rice. My mom came to the rescue and told me how to cook rice in a pot. I have never done that in my life. Actually, I may have, but it was Uncle Ben’s or Rice A Roni, not the Japanese kind. It actually came out decent, nothing was burnt or anything. I was so proud of myself. My mom told me that my grandma used to cook rice over a fire! Geez. In the afternoon, we went over to Pramilla’s house again to drop off some of the stuff we borrowed from her as well as pick up Michael’s bike. She is so nice and helpful, I am glad that Michael stayed with her since she has been a great help to us in these first days. It seems like Sundays are good days to visit since nothing is open. The boys had fun playing her piano but got really fussy afterward so we left after I was done checking my mail. Ah, I am so hooked on the internet, it is like a drug. We went back home to take a nap. Then we decided to go to the swimming pool to take the boys. They really like playing in the tub, so we went. We had to take 2 trains, and walk a little bit because we went out the wrong exit. We finally got there and it was a complicated procedure with these cards that let us in then had to put it in a box that gave us a key that let us in a cabana so that we could change. We finally got in the pool. Elijah liked it so much, he loved every minute of it. Rowan was a little more reserved, but he got really into splashing water all over everyone’s face. We stayed in about 45 minutes or so then came out. It was really stressful coming out because the boys were unhappy and cold and we changed them as fast as possible, but they were hungry as well and the bottles were in the stroller, which was far away. We finally got all dried and changed, then we realized that the guy who helped us took the other card away so I couldn’t get out the normal way. You have to put your card into this machine that lets you out. But that was easily gotten around by jumping over the barrier. Then the boys were pretty unhappy by this point, so I mixed up some milk for them and they were happy. We had to go back in the cold to get back to the train station, but they were ok. Pretty stressful and a lot of trouble, but I’m glad we went to see what it was like. I think we’ll stick to the tub until the summer. Michael went on home and I came to the internet place. In the hauptbahnhof (main train station), this lady was walking with her backpack on wheels when this guy came running up after her and grabbed her bag and started opening it. The lady was yelling at him and he was yelling back. I wish I understood German! It was really weird, at first I thought maybe she grabbed his bag by accident and he was trying to get it back, but he was looking in this one particular pocket for something so maybe she took something of his and put it in her bag or something? The police came quickly over and they didn’t seem to be too disturbed about them and they stood there for awhile arguing about it. It attracted quite a bit of a crowd since things like that don’t happen very often. It is a very safe city, a lot of people don’t lock their bikes! Shocking!

By the way, today I found a place called “TrainSpot” which is a DVD rental place located in 20 train stations around here and you pay 9 euros a month for “unlimited” rentals. When they say unlimited, they mean you can have 2 out at a time for 2 days, so you can still accrue late fees. The only unfortunate thing is that it is not in a train station that is convenient for every day. We’ll see. It would be a great deal if they have a decent selection, but I have a feeling they don’t have many movies. We’ll see. It sure sounds like a better deal than the corner store.