Düsseldorf: Adventures with Malachi

A few months before Ziggy was born, Sam got invited to do a workshop in Düsseldorf, Germany. (And you better believe I'm spelling it Düsseldorf rather than the anglicized Duesseldorf. How often does one get a chance to use an umlaut?!) I love Germany, so I wanted Sam to accept the job— although we weren't totally sure if it would work for me to come with him, with a brand new baby! But I didn't want to stay home without Sam with a brand-new baby either…and I remembered how easy it was to travel with Teddy when he was a newborn, so we thought we would try to make it work! As we worked out tickets and child care arrangements (my wonderful mother took the girls and Teddy, and the older boys stayed with our homeschooling neighbor friends) we realized that we could pretty easily take one of the kids with us, and that would be nice because I'd have someone to keep me company and help with Ziggy while Sam was working.

Malachi ended up being the lucky chosen one, and he was SO excited about the trip! I was mostly anxious about getting Ziggy's passport in time (you can't apply for one until the baby is actually born, obviously), and I would lie awake at night before he was born, worrying about it. I don't know what good I thought worrying about it would do, but that didn't stop me! After he was born and we finally decided on his name, we hurried and got his birth certificate, and then took him in to the passport office, and everything worked out just fine—we even got the passport a couple weeks early. Just like Sam said we would. And then I finally felt like I could start thinking about the actual trip itself instead of just the lead-up to it.

I'm almost embarrassed to write about how good Ezekiel was on the plane ride. We had a nine-hour flight first, which could have been so awful with a crying or fretful baby, but he was just good. (He did stay awake most of every night while we were in Germany, just like he does every night at home, if that makes you worry less that he's too good for this world.) Even while we were waiting in the airport (eating at Cafe Rio, yum), he fell asleep in the most awkward position on my arm! Such a tiny little sleepy guy.

Then he woke up to charm everyone on the airplane. People were craning their necks to see his smile.

And then, after a while, he fell asleep in the little bassinet on the plane! We've never used one of these before, and I don't know if we would every time, because they make your legs quite cramped. You have to sit in the front row, middle, behind the galley area, and the bassinet fastens onto the wall in front of you. But it was really nice to be able to set Ziggy down (and pile things on top of him) occasionally. And then he did sleep for quite awhile, so that was really nice. And the rest of the time he nursed and made cute faces.

Malachi was very happy on the plane, and spent hours playing the lame little tic-tac-toe games on his seat's video screen. Don't let this eye mask fool you—I kept trying to get him to rest a little, but I don't think he slept even one single wink!

We got to Amsterdam in the morning (their morning), and then had a short flight to Düsseldorf from there.

We had a little trouble at the airport, trying to find a taxi to the hotel. We couldn't figure out why all the taxi drivers were walking away and avoiding our eyes as we tried to catch one from the queue. Finally one of them pointed to Ziggy and kept saying something about did we have a "Maxi-Cozy," which we eventually realized meant a car seat! And of course we didn't have one. We hadn't even thought of it. So we headed back in to the airport to try and figure out bus or train options, but then an older man standing by his taxi called us over and showed us that he had a carseat in his trunk! We kept smiling and thanking him gratefully, but he mostly seemed annoyed. And after he drove us to the hotel and Sam paid him with a credit card (which we had ascertained was acceptable back at the taxi station!), he seemed even more annoyed, and then when the handheld credit card machine cracked apart and about 50 yards of receipt paper unrolled from it as Sam tried to hand it back…well…we consoled ourselves by saying it was probably just the typical German brusqueness, but I think all of us felt quite relieved when we entered the hotel at last. 

We were greeted by this golden gorilla, and a very nice hotel manager (owner?) who spoke great English and seemed like an angel of friendliness after the taxi driver. Malachi was dying of exhaustion (well, we were too, of course), but if I know one thing about traveling to Europe, it is that you must NOT go to sleep until bedtime! So we dropped off our stuff and dragged Malachi out to walk around the city.

And finally—it felt like we were really in Germany! 

There was a great park right near our hotel, one of those huge parks you always seem to find in big cities, like Hyde Park in London or the Tiergarten in Berlin. This one was called the Hofgarten. 

It was grey and a little rainy, but everything was so pretty. I love these stately tree-lined pathways.

Malachi was just trying to sit or lie down anywhere he could and go to sleep! We had to haul him up and keep him moving, moving, moving (and I'm not sure he didn't fall asleep even while walking once or twice!). Sam and I were tired too, but trying to enjoy our surroundings anyway.

The sun came out and made everything even more beautiful! Like this statue of Felix Mendelssohn in the park.

And the weird modern buildings along the river.

But honestly, all any of us could think about was sleep, and finally around 7 p.m., we decided it was late enough to find a place for dinner and then go to bed! The hotel room was very small. Malachi just had a little cot on the floor with barely enough room to walk by to the other bed, which was two twin beds pushed together. And that was in a "family-sized" room! Sam and I, full of hope, made a nest for Ziggy to sleep in the little wardrobe. But of course he always ended up with me in bed. I did get a couple of hours of sleep before he woke up again that first night, though, and I was so grateful. As I closed my eyes, I thought to myself (as I often do) that there are very few things in life I love as much as sleeping!

We spent the next couple days sightseeing with Sam (we had the most amazing trip down the Rhine river, about which more later), but the day of reckoning finally came when Ky and Ziggy and I were on our own! Because Düsseldorf isn't a huge or touristy city, I was worried that not many people would speak English, or that it wouldn't be very easy to navigate around. And there definitely were fewer English-speakers and fewer English-language signs than there were in Berlin! But Google translate works pretty well, and I found German kind of decipherable…in a very, very basic way…because there are so many compound words with English or French or Danish influence! And I find many German words and phrases amusing, for some reason, so I quite enjoyed trying to figure them out. Still! For buying train tickets, I was VERY glad to find English-language options on the ticket machine!

We had ridden the train a couple times by now, so we felt more confident getting around (though we got onto the wrong platform, or missed our connections, a few times…but it was never debilitating. I was constantly praying for help!) Ky was super-duper excited to ride the ICE train! We had learned about it a long time ago in our Train Unit. The ICE is another version of the high-speed French TGV, I think, which I remembered fondly from way back in my French-class days as the "tay-zhae-vay." There was a time in our house when the TGV and the ICE were practically members of the family. So we had ALWAYS wanted to ride them and now we were going to get to! You can imagine Malachi's feelings. Actually, you don't have to, as you can see his face above.

Once we sat down anywhere, Ky would quickly pull out his book and start reading. I tried to get him to look out at the scenery, and soak in the Germanic ambiance but…then I realized that that was really just what I wanted to do. So I did. And Ky read his book, and we were both happy. :)

It didn't actually feel so terribly fast, on the ICE (kind of like on an airplane—once you're moving at a constant speed, you don't feel much of anything!), but it was still great fun. We like riding trains. And sometimes we got warm pretzels at the station and they were wonderful.

One day we saw this dog carrying its toy pig, which was also wonderful. Every few yards he would drop his pig and then turn anxiously back to pick it up, making his owner have to stop awkwardly and dodge around people to accomodate him. But you could tell he really loved that pig! We took a picture, for Junie's sake.

Another good thing about the train station was these stairs, each decorated with a different flavor of RitterSport chocolate. Yum!

This was on Sunday morning, on our way to church. The U-bahn station was totally deserted, so Malachi rode up and down the escalators about 400 times (and ran up the down escalator, and down the up escalator, etc.) while we waited for the train. All the things he has always wanted to do, but has never been allowed to! This may have been his favorite part of the trip…

Ky eyeing the Fanta

I've never been one of eight children, but I can only imagine how fun it must have been for Malachi to be (practically) the only child on this trip. There were so many things he got to do that are usually just impossible because there are so many of us. One of them was drinking Fanta all the time! We never get drinks with our meals…if we eat out at all, that is…at home. But in Europe the Fanta is as cheap or cheaper than water (since you always have to buy bottled). And—here is the key—it is so GOOD! It's so different than Fanta in the U.S. It's much more sour, and paler in color; nothing like the aggressive sweet orangeness of the stuff we have here. We loved it in Italy and we loved it here in Germany. Malachi became mildly obsessed with it, darting into grocery stores in search of more, even though he was drinking it at practically every meal anyway. When it was time to fly home, Sam gave Ky all his spare change in Euros, and Ky's last act on German soil was to buy Fanta with it from a vending machine. I can't blame him. It really is delicious, and I'm not even much of a soda pop fan.

I have, however, long been a fan of fries with mayonnaise rather than ketchup (is this a Belgian thing, or French, or just Europe in general?) and Ky and I both loved the currywurst and fries we got a couple times from street vendors. Something about eating spicy-sweet curry sauce and sausage with tiny plastic forks, standing in the chilly wind by the Rhine and burning our fingers on the piping hot fries, just seemed so right. It also gave me the chance to tell one of the few jokes in my repertoire, to wit: "German sausages are the wurst!"

Another totally-out-of-character thing was getting to ride this Ferris Wheel…twice! That is the sort of expensive tourist-y activity that becomes pretty much impossible when traveling with the whole family, and the kids are so used to that idea they probably wouldn't even ASK. But looking at the price for one adult and one child, it seemed downright reasonable, so Ky and I rode this Ferris Wheel on two separate occasions. It was fun because it was one of those Ferris Wheels with little enclosed compartments, and it felt like a very cozy and secluded way to see the city from above. It was also a good place to get Ziggy out and nurse him in comfort. We were always on the lookout for those opportunities! :)

Ziggy really did sleep most of the time, although he woke up to eat regularly too. Usually he would nurse, smile for awhile, and then go back to sleep once I bundled him up next to me again. There were a few harrowing episodes where he was screaming in enclosed areas, like on the train, but none of them were too bad…or else they've just faded in my memory by now.

Even when he was just sleeping, I could feel people staring at us a lot, and murmuring things, and it made me feel self-conscious like I must be committing some terrible cultural faux pas without knowing it. But then I realized they were just looking at Ziggy and how cute he was. :)

Ky loved taking pictures with his sad little camera. We gave this old video camera to him a couple of years ago when the video function stopped working. It still takes still pictures, but the quality is TERRIBLE. But Malachi LOVES his little camera and was just as pleased as could be, setting up shots and taking picture after blurry picture. It was so cute to watch him.

The views were pretty, even in cloudy weather (which was basically all of the weather, so it was a good thing!)

The little courtyards around the Ferris Wheel were nice. There weren't many people around anyway, and once we got away from the main square, it felt like we had the city all to ourselves.

Back in the shopping district, we got hot chocolate at this darling little chocolate shop/cafe—another good place for a nursing break. The wind was picking up and blowing leaves around the square, with a few raindrops falling, and it was SO warm and snug inside. Just lovely.

Another place Malachi and I went one day was this Adventure Playground. I had looked up playgrounds online and found this one, which I knew Ky would love, but it was just in a neighborhood—not a downtown sightseeing area or anything—and I was a little nervous about finding it. We had to take two trains and two buses (thank goodness for Google maps) and then walk a bit, but we found it and it was great! I had read about this sort of playground (my sister-in-law's sister even studied them for her thesis, I think) but never seen one. They are a lot more unstructured and child-directed than the playgrounds we're used to in the U.S., and they focus on letting the children do hard and "dangerous" things in a semi-controlled environment. There were some adults around (a few mothers, and two or three people that seemed to be employed there), and a place where the children had to sign in to check out the tools like hammers and saws, but other than that it seemed like the children were allowed to do pretty much whatever they liked. 

Speaking of children, I was surprised at how FEW children we saw in Germany, in general. Of course we ran into them at playgrounds! And occasionally there would be someone with a stroller on the train. But still, we saw hardly any kids throughout the whole trip. And we felt very conspicuous even with our two! It was strange.

I thought the coolest part of the Adventure Playground was this area where the kids were building structures. There was a huge pile of scrap wood, and they were sawing it into pieces and then hammering and nailing it on to the treehouses. It looked so fun! Seb would have loved it. Ky played there for awhile, but he was more interested in the tire swing and the ropes course.

A friendly cat.

Malachi isn't my VERY hungriest child, but he appreciates good food, and we had fun choosing places to eat while we were out and about. There were lots of bakeries and pastry shops where we would select a couple things to try, and then eat them while we walked. I was able to buy stuff quite effectively by pointing and motioning and saying "danke" a lot. Some people spoke English; most didn't but were friendly and helpful anyway. I think the taxi driver from the airport on our first day was the grumpiest person we met—and he had helped us out with the carseat, anyway!

Ky and I were pleased to find a chocolate shop with cute little Christmas elves in the window.

I would tell you the name of this store, but I'm afraid it's impossible to decipher. I don't believe even a German-speaker could read this. Heiuewowwuuu? Heimememmemnnu? Anyway, the chocolate was very good. I approve of this: a whole store devoted to chocolate.

The store had these cakes for sale, too! We didn't try them. Now I regret it.

We liked this gummy bear store we found (mostly for the name: Bärenland [and the tagline(?) is an example of a one of those typically German phrases I like so much: Ihr Fruchtgummi-Paradies! Your fruit-gummy paradise!]). They had gummy pizzas, gummy hamburgers, and all sorts of gummy animals. We liked the vaguely caramel/ginger-flavored "männchen" (they looked like gingerbread men) because they were so different! 

Mercedes trucks. Ky likes them.

One evening Malachi and I wandered through an open-air market. I always love the flowers.

Malachi had said earlier that something looked like a potato, to which I responded that he was seeing potatoes in everything, and he must LOVE potatoes to see them everywhere like that. Then we happened upon this potato stand with a billion types of potato, and I asked him to avert his eyes so I could buy him his Christmas presents.

He wasn't amused.

The flower market had food, too, so we bought raspberries and bread and four types of cheese, and had them (along with Fanta, of course) for our dinner that night. This is the best kind of meal! One of the cheeses was really strong, and it tasted SO good, but…man it was pungent. It took great fortitude to remain unmoved by it, but we made a valiant effort. It reminded me of this story, which I looked up on my phone and read aloud to Sam and Ky while we ate. I hope it was a lesson to them.

One morning Malachi and I ventured by bus to another big park in the city. This one was called Nordpark. We thought about going to the aquarium (aquazoo!) there, but ultimately decided just to walk through the Japanese Garden and play on the playground. 

I tried to get pictures of Malachi in mid-air

The sun was in and out of clouds. Mostly in. But whenever it peeked through, everything looked so pretty!

And I think that is all of our adventures in Germany without Sam. I was sure happy to have these two good little traveling companions with me!