Getting ready for school

Hi everybody,
we are getting ready for school here, which starts the 14th of September.
Linus will be entering first grade, which is the very first year in school for German kids.We have ordered his special backpack (=Schulranzen) and the matching little bag to carry his sneakers for PE. We were too unorganized (=late) to get it in a store on time, those Germans are so organized and fast. We got Linus some sneakers and "Hausschuhe". In elementary school the kids wear inside shoes (=Hausschuhe) in the classroom. We went and bought all the items on the list we got from school. He is very proud!

Leonie will be entering fifth grade which is a big step. She will be in the same school with 12th graders. She gets the list of things she will need on the first day of school. Leonie had some tutoring the past few weeks in German spelling, and she has learned a lot already. She has already written some of her sweet stories in German!

Before school starts we will make a short trip to visit friends in Bonn, one of the families we know from Santa Cruz. They moved back to Germany 1.5 years ago, we have not seen them since. The kids are very excited to see their old friends again.
We will then spend the weekend with my parents, sister and family. The kids love their cousins.

We will be back next week, and I will post more pictures.

Claudia

We have arrived

After 2.5 month it is about time to start the promised blog. So here we go:
Today, we had a fantastic day at the "Englische Garten" with a picnic, lots of sunshine, reading, playing and exploring. We watched people surfing (in the middle of Munich) and swimming in the "Eisbach" = icecreek, the ones not wearing a wetsuit shouting: "Es ist soo kalt". Probably understandable without any knowledge of the German language.

I will try, and fill you in how the first 2 months went later, I just wanted to get started finally.

At this place I would like to thank Shera and Nathan for their very inspiring blog about their experiences in Munich this past year. They will be leaving to fly back home to Santa Cruz tomorrow. We will miss them.

Here are some pictures of today:

Father and daughter (One reading "Economist", the other "Twilight")

Linus is in heaven

We dipped our toes in, it really is icy cold


Enjoying a short ride....

....after waiting in line....

...and getting here by bike.
Feels slightly like Santa Cruz.