Chili's and Toy Story 3

Yesterday we drove to the Ramstein Air Base for lunch at Chili's and to see Toy Story 3 at the air conditioned "Cineplex".  The movie theater in Wiesbaden was also showing Toy Story 3 yesterday but the theater is not air conditioned so it gets pretty warm in the summer.  The boys were pretty excited before we even left the house.

The boys both had their Toy Story shoes and shirts.  Oscar's shirt was in the dryer when the above picture was taken but we changed his shirt before we left the house.

Oscar had pizza with corn on the cob and Calvin had chicken and french fries.

After lunch we headed over to the movie theater (located inside the world's largest BX/PX)

We got our tickets early.  It was a good thing too -- the line was long and right before the movie they were turning people away (no available tickets).

Since we had some time to kill, we went to play the video games at the Electronics section of the PX and then when we came back to get in line the boys wanted to play with the video games that were in the lobby of the movie theater.  We do not own a video game system so this was a big treat for the boys.  I suppose at some point we will break down and buy a Wii but that seems at least a little ways off for the immediate future.

The movie was a big hit with the whole family.  After the movie we took picture by the big Toy Story 3 logo in the lobby of the movie theater.

Once we were back in Wiesbaden, we stopped to fill up gas (a Saturday ritual in our family) and we let the boys get ice cream cones at Baskin-Robbins (another rare treat).  Oscar got mint chocolate chip and Calvin got the mango sorbet (the only option without milk).

Army Soccer

The boys played soccer this spring.  The sports teams are organized by the Army base in Wiesbaden.  The last game was on June 11th but I am just now getting around to posting this.  Tina volunteered to coach Calvin's team.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of Calvin's games because he mostly just cried and sat on the sideline instead of actually playing in the games.  Oscar's coach was Spencer Shumway and his team was called the Yellow Awesome Lions.  We go to church with the Shumways so we know them well.  Spencer's son Zachary is the same age as Oscar so they see each other at a lot of the same activities.  Spencer also coached Calvin's basketball team this past winter (another one of the Shumway boys [there are four of them] is the same age as Calvin).  Here is a photo of Spencer giving the boys some very important instructions.

Halftime drink.

Waiting for a throw-in...

Snack time after the game.

A visit to the local park

There is a park across the street from the German elementary school in our town.  Tina wanted some time without the kids to get some housework done so I took the boys and baby Sara for a walk.  It only took us seven minutes to walk to the park.  Once we were there we found all sorts of fun things to do.

The zip-line and the water toy were very popular with the boys.

Baby Sara liked the park too.

Last day of Kindergarten

Oscar's last day of Kindergarten was this past Thursday.  His class had an end-of-year party on Wednesday afternoon.  I left work for a few hours to go and watch.  Oscar has learned to read simple words, his hand writing has improved (although it still needs some work), and he made some nice friends.  Here is a scan of his final report card.

Coming soon to places near me: unusually public displays of German nationalism

As a whole, I would characterize the Germans as rather reserved in their enthusiasm for all things German. Since moving here last summer, I cannot recall even one instance of seeing a person wear a shirt that has a picture of the German flag. Actual flags are rare too.

I suppose that this attitude can be partly explained by historical events that led up to World War II. I only recently became aware of the etymology of the word Nazi. It comes from the German pronunciation of the name of Hitler's political party -- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party). Nazi is an abbreviation of the German word National (which has a "tz" sound in the German pronunciation -- Nat-zi-o-nal). Wikipedia has a nice audio clip that lets you listen to it in German.

As its name implies, the Nazi Party was characterized by its strong nationalism.  Unfortunately, a key tenant of this nationalism was a belief in the racial purity of the German people.  Decades have passed since the end of the war but the Germans as a whole remain reluctant to put their nationalism on display.  Today, overly public displays of German nationalism are generally associated with the neo-Nazi tendencies of ultra-conservative young people.

The point of all of this is that the Germans don't usually make a big deal about Germany.  But next week, when the 2010 World Cup (Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 2010) begins in South Africa, all of the normal standards for subdued nationalism will be temporarily discarded.  This photo is from last night's scrimmage between Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The world's most important soccer tournament is played only every four years.  In 2006, Germany hosted the World Cup and finished third (the United States was one of the 32 teams that qualified for the tournament but failed to make it out of group stage of the tournament).  This year, the Germans once again have great expectations (the Germans have won the tournament three times; only Brazil (5) and Italy (4) have won the World Cup more often than Germany).

The games begin on June 11th.  People who expect to be watching on AFN will be disappointed unless something changes in the next week (AFN still does not have broadcast rights to show the games).  The satellite dish we have on our roof gets the German national channels and also some English-language channels from the UK.  So I will be watching the games on Das Erste and ZDF (German) and the BBC channels (English).