Swimming and School

We let the kids plan the activities this weekend. Yesterday, we headed to the local swimming club, Tiefenbrunne, which was only about a 15 minute walk from the apartment. We paid a small entrance fee (6 SFr per adult, 3 SFr per child over 5) and had use of the lawns, slides, water trampoline, kid pool etc. for the day. It was pretty reasonable and a fun afternoon. They actually built a kids' pool into the lake. It's an interesting concept. They put in a dock with a squared off area of floats at the end. In the middle of these docks, they have a metal plank floor so that you end up with a swimming area that is only a couple feet deep. It makes for a fun kiddie pool. Our kids had no interest in that area, though, and immediately headed for the slide. Their shocked expressions at the bottom of the slide aren't because it was a particularly fast slide -- that water is cold! John ended up renting a suit for the day as he hadn't packed one. He would have just bought one, but I think it was over a $100 for a "cheap" suit. I determined the water would be way too cold for me and didn't wear/bring a suit, but I did put my toes in. John and the kids swam out to the trampoline and had a blast. Then, later in the afternoon, C.J. swam out by himself and hung out with a group of boys. He said they spoke to him in German, noticed the blank look, so they switched to English to explain how to play a game. (Teams of 3 trying to knock each other off the trampoline.) Leave it to C.J. to just join in and make some friends! Oh, the boys also practiced some soccer, because there were a set of soccer goals set up on the lawn area. We seen a lot of soccer goals around the city.

At 5pm, we suddenly realized that while we had bought food for Saturday, we had completely forgotten to get anything for Sunday. Our regular store closed at 5pm, but the neighboring store was open until 6pm so we were able to buy supplies for Sunday. Phew! It's going to take a bit longer for me to get used to the early closing hours and nothing open on Sunday.

Today, the kids begged to go back to the school. We packed a picnic lunch and the dog and headed out on the train. We spent a good 3 hours at the playground. The kids had a blast, but it was hot. It was in the high 80s which wouldn't phase us at all at home, but with the humidity it felt like the high 90s. I now understand a bit more how my out of state friends can talk about wearing shorts at 70 degrees and I'm thinking that I might be wearing a sweater! We let the dog off the leash at the school as there was no one around, and she had fun finally getting to play some long distance fetch. The poor dog is wiped and has been sleeping ever since we got home.

You can see pictures from our day here: click here for swim and school pictures

Tomorrow we have the New Student Orientation. I'm really excited for everyone to meet some other expats! (myself included!) John starts working, though, so I'll have to face the reality of living here and no longer being "on vacation" mode. The kids are talking about what we will do on Tuesday (their first day of school is Wednesday) and I'm realizing that I'll need to navigate the 3 kids to some activity by myself. I'll also have to drag some portion of them to the grocery store with me for my daily trip. Oh, and it might rain. I haven't had rain on the first day of school since I was a kid! It just doesn't rain in California in August/September.

Tonight we played the Game of Life. The kids still seem to be enjoying family game night each night, but I think John is getting antsy for English-speaking TV. I keep see him trying to get access via the internet, but all the major networks block IP addresses from outside the country.

Rumor has it that our tenants moved into our Pleasanton house this weekend. It never felt strange to be packing up the house, but it feels really strange to know that someone else is living there.