It is time.

(I say this post title using a magnificent and dramatic Rafiki voice, to anyone who might appreciate the coloration).

Needless to say, I have a lot to catch up on. I´ll try to start where I left off in early June, and will do my best not to leave anything out, nor to get too carried away in the little details. I have a feeling I will fail in at least one of these goals.

I´ll mainly stick with the weekend events, as my weeks have been fairly routine - working with the kids and all. Though first I might mention that this has been a very challenging month for me, as poor Emma Sophie developed a serious bronchial problem in her lungs a few weeks ago. Both parents were very occupied with conferences and such, and I was left completely responsible for working through the medical issues on my own. Emmi missed a lot of Kindergarten, as nearly every day we paid visits to her doctor (who fortunately works just a minute´s walk from our house) and picked up various medicines and inhaling machines from the Apotheke (kind of like a pharmacy). I was a nervous wreck these past weeks. It was a terrifying responsibility for me to struggle through conversations with the doctor and pharmacists in German, using terms I´m not familiar with and desperately making sure I understand the important details about the medicines, dosages, and such. We had to rent a big electric inhaler machine, which I filled 3 times a day with four different medicines using still-unfamiliar metric measuring units. There was also an array of syrups, tablets, and nose and ear drops (she burst her eardrums during the same week). Our counters and refrigerator spaces were an explosion of bottles, syringes, needles, receipts, and several dosage schedules that I scribbled and edited daily as I was given new instructions from the doctor. Every week I prayed fervently that she would say Emmi was completely cured and we could stop all the treatments, but this didn´t happen until just a couple days ago - just in time for Emmi´s 6th birthday. Massive celebration on many levels! I am just so relieved that I didn´t manage to kill the child over these last few weeks. I was extremely paranoid, and a bit confused that I was left with all this responsibility. I won´t get into this too much, but it seemed to me that it should be the parents´ duty to be with their child during serious matters like this. I know the conferences, exams, and science laboratories are important and all, but so is little Emma Sophie. I suppose I should feel good that they trusted me so much, but it felt undue as I honestly trusted myself very little. I´m not a doctor, nor a parent - just an au pair! But now I feel very good, having it all past us now. The only thing we do now is a couple ear drops each morning - a breeze! I also feel a strange new connection to the children now, after experiencing the gravity of how vulnerable they actually can be. I´m so used to administering the "kids are tougher than we give them credit for" philosophy - which I still believe to be true. But now I see the other side, too, which I think is important.

Okay, so back to catching up. One of the first weekends in June- the 6th or so, was a big handball championship game between our Kiel THW team and Flensburg. It happened to also be the Swedish Independence Day, and I celebrated with my Swedish friends Kristin and Hanna by going to watch the game on a massive screen in the Rathausplatz. It was amazing! One of our THW players, Stefan Lövgren (for anyone who might follow handball...) from Sweden was playing his last game - which made it a very important game. Coincidently, Hanna´s brother Oskar plays professionally for the Flensburg team, which her father coaches. I felt so torn as to whether I should be cheering for my Kiel team or supporting her brother with Flensburg. In the end Kiel was victorious, and there was much celebration in the plaza with live music and a parade as the team returned to the city in Superman costumes.

The next weekend I found a Mitfahrgelegenheit (online carpool service) to Dresden so I could visit my dear friend Anna who is working there as an English assistant. There were 5 strangers packed into the little blue VW, but we all got along well and had quality conversations during the entire 6 hour journey. I love Mitfahring! It is basically a more luxurious form of hitch hiking, but I couldn´t let that phase me as the train tickets at the time were €130 in comparison to the €20 I gave my driver. I was so excited to be reunited with Anna. We had the house (a huge glass house on top of a hill - spectacular views of the city, hills, and sky) to ourselves as her host parents were out of town, and spent the first night inside with pizza and ice cream, talking endlessly and sleeping late the next morning. The weather was beautiful and we made ourselves a nice German breakfast outside in the garden. After a couple coffees we decided to hit the city. First we explored the older historical parts of Dresden, the cathedrals and such that were rebuilt after the bombings. Most of this was all familiar to me, as I had already been to Dresden during our interterm Choir Tour in 2006. However it was much more pleasant to visit these places in the warm sunlight of June as opposed to the icy January of my choir tour. The city was very vibrant and full of energy that day, as there happened to be a big Rainbow Pride festival and parade in the Zentrum. Later we moved on to the Neustadt, a more alternative and artsy part of the city. We browsed some fun secondhand shops, and wandered through some funky stores, plazas, and art galleries. I even sunburned when we stopped for some coffee in a little outdoor beach built in the middle of the city - complete with reclining chairs and umbrellas (which I should have taken advantage of in retrospect). That night we met up with Anna´s friends from Australia, New Zealand, and Germany and spent hours Downtown. We had a great time, but it is never a good feeling to walk home after a night out as the sky begins to turn pink on the horizon, and birds begin chirping loudly for the new day... On Sunday we felt surprisingly rested, and hopped on a train through the mountains to visit the Festung Königstein, a fortress built into the top of a hill overlooking Dresden and the surrounding Sächsische Schweiz. It was a pleasant hike up to the fortress, and I was surprised as we walked through the gates of the giant walls to enter into what felt like a small city in itself. I guess I sort of expected to enter a castle or something, but it was a giant grassy area with various buildings, chapels, markets, commander houses, even a small forest! And most importantly, ice cream stands (not sure if they had those in the 13th century, but I was certainly happy to find them)! We didn´t have much time to spend there, but I had a nice walk around the outer walls of the fortress with breathtaking views. I promise to post some more photos to Flickr eventually... sorry I´ve been failing there lately. After getting a bit lost on our return hike, we caught the train back to Dresden just in time for my carpool. I rode with the same driver as earlier, and as we were all too exhausted for conversation this time we took advantage of the DVD player in the car. We watched Bruce Almighty (surprisingly chosen by the girl sitting next to me with pink hair, gothic black clothing and studded with all sorts of metal and piercings - I love how stereotypes are constantly being broken here) followed by Gladiator - random but satisfying selections. I didn´t get back to Bordesholm until well past midnight and it was so painful to get up to work after just a few hours of sleep for work Monday morning. But in every respect the weekend was well worth it. I´m so glad I was finally able to take a weekend trip to get out of Schleswig-Holstein and see some other parts of Germany.

The next weekend would be completely different, as my life has been ALL about Kiel since June 19, the beginning of Kieler Woche. Oh wow... this is going to take a while to describe. I think I´ll start a new post to devote entirely to Kieler Woche, giving your eyes a break and starting fresh again. More to come in the next post!