Life on the farm

Instead of detailing all of yesterday and today, we'll just give you some highlights. In the past 36 hours we have:
- attended the 14-year-old neighbor's birthday party;
- been onion harvesters, potato sorters, and tomato pickers;
- received a gift of dried butterflies from the collection of 8-year-old Jakob;
- learned about the benefits of Montessouri schooling;
- jarred and labeled leberwursts;
- been witnesses to and accomplices in the capture, beheading, plucking, and gutting of ten chickens;
- babysat five children under the age of 12 with whom we could not communicate at all (not easy!);
- discussed genetic engineering, American vs. German politics, Harry Potter, and pros and cons of stay-at-home parenting with Susi;
- watched an entire movie with Tobi and Susi that we could not understand;
- shivered through 8 hours in our unheated wagon;
- learned fun Bavarian phrases like "that cheese is eaten" and "it's all sausage" that can be used at appropriate times throughout the day

And probably more but those are our favorites!
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Schnepfendorf-our first farm

Before we got to our farm we spent the morning in Olympiapark where the '72 Olympics were held. The stadium and surrounding park were beautiful and really cool to see. Unfortunately, we could only get so close to the main stadium because The Police had performed there last night so they were cleaning. It was a lot of fun though and the weather was great.
After we checked out we made our journey to our first farm. It is just outside Rothenburg, which is a beautiful old walled city about 100k southeast of Frankfurt. We are staying with the Breit family: Tobi, Suzi and their three boys Jacob, Michl, and Paul. We already had the chance to work a bit because the potatoes have to get in the barn before it rains. Marisa also had her first crash course in driving a stick shift, an old van in a rutted potato field no less. We also saw a cat kill a mouse in front of us. In addition to potatoes we're looking foward to dealing with their pigs and sheep while we're here.
The family is extremely nice and they really have made us feel welcome in their home. We all had dinner together and that was great. We had some great homemade wheat and rye bread with cheese, fresh tomatoes, and salami. We talked (Tobi and Susi speak English really well) and tried to talk to the kids (8, 6, and 2; who only speak German). We were trying to teach each other how to say body parts in different languages and when we said "eyes" the kids got a huge kick out of it because it is like "eis" in German, which means ice cream. It was all just fun and silly.
We're sleeping in our "waggon," which really is a wooden wagon. We think it might be a renovated horse trailer actually. There are two beds, a dresser, and some shelves set up. It's cozy and Tobi ran some electricity out here for us so we have a light.
This will be quite an experience. It's a little awkward to be living with another family, especially when we can't join in their conversations, but it seems like it will be a good time and hopefully our German will get better!
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Prost!! (cheers!!)

Day #2 of Oktoberfest. We had a great time. Today was much less crowded than yesterday so we werw able to find outdoor seats and get our massen (liters!) in no time. It was a beautiful day out so lots of fun to sit in the biergarten. We also got ourselves some half-meter wursts so that obviously made it better. We also found nice seats outside another brewery and got to talk to some people from here. The woman had lived in London for 10 years so her English was perfect but Ed spoke to them in German and they taught us to say the equivalent of "enjoyed your company" (something like gutte geshunte, not sure of the spelling). We went on a crazy rollercoaster called the WildMaus; that only cost 8 Euros (about 12 dollars) for 75 seconds of fun. Some fun things we got to see were barbecued fish on a stick, fish sandwiches with the slimy silver scales all hanging out, and an ox roasting over coals! Get excited for pictures of all those. Unfortunately we haven't found a place to upload our photos yet but hopefully we will soon.
The hotel we're staying at tonight is at the Olympiapark, where Munich hosted the Summer Games in 1971. It's actually the same hotel where the hostages were held that year! We didn't know until we got here yesterday and recognized it from old news stories. Hopefully tomorrow morning we'll have time to tour the Olympic grounds.
We leave Munich tomorrow for our first farm; hopefully we'll still get internet service there. We've really loved Munich and are a little sad to leave but the farming is what we actually came to do so we have to get going!
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