Jahrestag in der Mais

"Jarestag in der Mais" means "Anniversary in the Corn" - I did want to call it "Corny Anniversary" but it gets lost in translation in German and comes out something like "Cheesy Anniversary" which makes no sense.

 

This is not corn.  But it's a cool Dr. Seuss flower.  Been seeing a lot of those lately!

 

So this is corn!  WARNING: This blog is very corny!

 

So in case you didn't catch what I meant by anniversary, the day I am posting this is the exact one year anniversary for the day I made my very first post on this blog!

 

The first time I blogged, the corn was just about to be cut!  Soon all this corn will be gone!

 

The harvest has begun!

 

Lots of corn!

 

We have corn fields near our house and we go walking and biking there a lot.

 

This is the farm near our house.

 

The corn even grows right into the shed!

 

I don't know why my dad always calls us the "Children of the Corn..."

 

...but now he has a reason!

 

Cuz we LOOOOOVE corn! 

 

 

It's yummy!

 

Actually, I think this corn is meant for animal feed.  They don't sell this in the stores for people to eat.

 

Beautiful sunset on the farm...

 

 

So in honor of the Gruenhundstrasse anniversary, I am going to have a contest!

 

So, here's the deal:

 

Here is the Gruenhundstrasse Anniversary Challenge:

 

The answers to all the following questions can be found by browsing throughout the past year's posts.

 

  The first three people to answer all the following questions correctly will receive a German candy care package, straight from the local German grocery store.  All participants will receive a German postcard stamped with a German stamp and mailed from the official Deutsche Post.

 

  Please email your response, including your mailing address for the prize or postcard to princesswahooey@hotmail.com. 

 

1. What store am I window shopping on Black Friday?

 

2. On what date do I feature a picture of Chinese Hats?

 

3. What do you have to do if you want to dream about the person who you are going to marry?

 

4. Where did I see the vampire hamster chicken jackelope...in a window? 

 

5. How many Eiffel Towers are there on the Eiffel Tower post?

 

6. How do you say athlete in Greek?

 

7. What is the title of the post which has a picture of a flying forklift?

 

8. On what date did I post a picture of icicles on floating chairs?

 

 9. What is the symbol for Rhodes?

 

 10. What was the temperature on the day of the Reindeer Run?

 

11. Where did I find the Statue of Liberty riding on a lion?

 

12. Where can you see a pole wearing a sweater? 

 

Good luck!  All answers must be received by October 15. 

Winners will be announced on the October 19 post.

 

For extra credit:  Can someone tell us how a tree phone works? 

Radfahren und Recycling

"Radfahren und Recycling" means "Cycling and Recycling" in German!

 

This is my bike.

 

 

In Germany people bike everywhere.  There are bike trails almost anywhere you want to go.

 

I like to go biking with Kieran or my friend, Julia.  I usually go biking for about one hour every day, unless it's raining.

 

In Germany they also do a lot of recycling.  It's different from in the States.  In Texas we had two huge garbage bins.  One for trash, one for all recyclable materials.  The garbage man picked them both up each week.

 

Here you have to sort out everything.  Trash, glass by color, plastics, paper, and cans.  There is even a place to recycle fabrics and old clothing.  We have to take all our cans and glass to these neighborhood recycle bins.  No one will pick them up from our house.

 

It's just a short bike-ride away.

 

You have to sort the glass into three categories - brown, clear, and green/colored.

 

They won't pick glass up from your house.

 

Kieran likes to look inside the bins.

 

Here's what he sees!

 

This is where you can take paper or broken down cardboard boxes.  They will pick up paper from your house once a month from a small can, so if we ever get big boxes, we usually bring them here so it doesn't fill up our paper container.

 

Guess where we sort our recycle at home...

 

In this cabinet thing! 

 

In front is our trash can.  Behind are bins for plastic, paper, and cans/glass.

 

When you take out the plastic, it has to be in a special bag.  It's called the "Gelb Sac" which means, the Yellow Bag. 

 

Everything from plastic baggies to yogurt containers and milk cartons goes in here.

 

 

Then you tie it up and take it out behind our garage.

 

Here is where we store our trash and recycle containers.  The green one on the left is where we keep the Gelb Sacs.  They collect the Gelb Sacs once a month.  The black one is garbage.  They collect those every two weeks.  The blue is paper.  They collect that every month.  The dark green one is yard waste.  You have to take that to a special pile.

 

Tada!  Now we put the Gelb Sac in the can. (Notice that these cans are tiny - about half the size of a regular American trash bin - and it gets collected half as often!)

 

So see you next time! Tschüß! (Bye!)

Ferien

"Ferien" means "holiday" in German!

 

"There's 104 days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it...."

 

Sorry I have not done a blog in a while!  I have been in school doing lots of work!  This year I am taking German, so hopefully that will be helpful here!

 

You know what the weird thing is?  School starts...

 

And then they give you a holiday.  What's up with that?  Who invented Labor Day?

Anyways...we went to a random city in Germany called Karlsruhe.  And guess who this statue guy is?  Yep...that's Karl.

 

Not to be confused with Carl, the intern on Phineas and Ferb. ("Carl- he works a camera! Carl - knows what all those buttons do. Carl - he'll fix a paper jam!  And he'll pick up the dry cleaning.  He knows how to format, spell check, and text edit!")

 

 

Okay, back on track...Any good German city has a schloss.  So here is the Karlsruhe Schloss.

 

Here is a statue at the end of a water feature.

 

Here's a cool tower thing.

 

Behind the schloss there are extensive grounds full of parks and trees and benches.

 

And ponds...

 

And water lilies

 

Lots of them...

 

There are giant climbing contraptions.

 

"Hey, Kieran!  I know what we're going to do today!"

 

This whole park looked like something Phineas and Ferb might build.  (Not to be confused with something they did build...)

 

 

You'd never find this in the States... 

 

Mom didn't even bust us.  She joined us!

 

Super longest slide ever!

 

Not to be confused with the Phineas and Ferb slide...

 

 

Okay, actually, not really longest ever, but pretty long!

 

We paddled across a big pool thing at the park, too.  Something you would never find in the States.  You would probably have to have life vests and people running it and lots of other stuff to be super protected. (Even though the water was only two feet deep!)

 

Kieran tried to work these funky binoculars.  I personally think they were some sort of complicated "Inator."  

 

 

(Not to be confused with Dr. Dufenschmertz's Inator.) 

 

 

We also went to the Karlsruhe Zoo.

 

It was mostly a botanical garden, but they did have some cool animals there, too.

 

No, that is not a platypus....That is an otter.

 

(Not to be confused with Perry the Platypus...)

 

 

 

Kieran was very happy that they had otters.

 

They were pretty cute.

 

SO CUTE AND FLUFFY!!!

 

Cool shot of some tower thing...

 

And just for more weirdness...a random weird Trojan Horse looking sculpture thing at the Karlsruhe Theater.

 

Well, so much for our Labor Day holiday.  It was gone in a flash. 

 

 

So when's the next holiday?  Columbus Day?  Who invented that anyway?