The End Of An Era

So there he goes - Karl's all grown out of his first step of educational institutions, his beloved Kinderkrippe run by Katja and Serap who adore him (and frequented by a bunch of girls who didn't just adore, but mother him to the point that made us uncomfortable - they brought him his shoes and put them on too?! Well young man, better watch the 30 Rock episodes with Jon Hamm so you learn all about "the bubble"). The girl in the picture below is "kleine Marlene" (yes, all blond girls in Germany are still called Marlene and they are taught how to smoke cigarettes and sing sultry chansons by the age of 3).



Tomorrow we'll be off to a nice vacation home in some Danish beach town with a name that sounds like some Scandinavian tongue twister fish dish. Back in three weeks (yup, this is Europe, just to rub it in for all our American readers, and yes, if you followed our blog closely, this our third vacation this year, so hooray for the unions who fought so bravely to turn us into state sanctioned slackers). And of course there will be a ferry trip across the Kattegat to visit Lukas, Sooki and Johan on that Martha's Vineyardish island they seem to spend quite a lot of time on (well it is Europe, see above).

In September Karl is starting Kindergarten. And to dispel another European myth - no, we didn't just file an application with our local socialist caretaker. We actually fought like getting Karl into some Ivy League U (and some of those Kindergartens were as expensive and they still didn't have a slot). So after applying to 15 different ones it came down to a colleague of mine tipping me off to a suddenly available slot, me calling in a matter of minutes and Fred dragging Karl there a few hours later, naming the right names. Sounds 3rd world? Or Upper East Side? Guess Munich's a bit of both.



In the meantime Henri's gearing up to follow in Karl's footsteps at Serap and Katja's place. But first things first. Not sure about the internet situation in our beach home. So if we don't post we will be devouring juicily prepared crustations in the salty breeze of the Scandinavian seas thinking about you. No, not in a gloating way. Never.