Lesson #4 Own a bike in Frankfurt.





Everyone or nearly everyone, (because I don’t have a bike) owns a bike. Most are not fancy but all of them have baskets on them. The great thing is bikes are allowed on the street cars (similar to the cable cars in San Fran), busses, subways and there is always a bike rack near by. People with children have kids seats attached to the back or front of the bike and many have bike trailers for their kids. Every street in the entire town as a dedicated bike lane and if it isn’t in the street then part of the side walk is dedicated to bike riders. I should also mention that most bikes also have a little ringer on them, are equipped to ride at night with lights and reflectors, and all children have to wear protective head gear.

What is cute is that on any given day, I see tons of business men wearing suits on their way to work with a briefcase or satchel in the basket on their bikes. Women in dress suits with a flat of flowers in their baskets, couples on a date with the girl in stiletto heals and skirt. Also, age doesn’t matter. Old and young ride bikes here. Boy do I wish I had a bike.

Lesson #3 Go Green


Frankfurt, as well as all of Germany, has taken recycling to a whole new level and everyone participates, not just the hairy-legged tree-hugger around the corner or the PTA mom trying to be a good example for her peers (it's less about what her kids think). The reason is this: you will be fined 80Euro for not participating, and the garbage men will make note of it. Many homes/apartments just have three colored coded square garbage cans in their kitchens. Plus a plastic bottle recycling center at every grocery store where a machine will print out what each returned plastic bottle is worth, where you can then get money back as much as 15 cents per bottle. Plastic grocery bags cost money as much a 99 cents to help encourage people saving their bags to reuse them for the next trip to the store, which everyone does or they bring their own special grocery carrier. The recycling categories are slightly different than ours in the states though. Everything fits into a category.


Paper, cardboard and newspaper
Packaging-any form that isn’t cardboard
Compost-Banana peels, etc. And anything else that doesn’t fit into the other categories.


Now I know you are all wondering about one major category -- glass. About every few blocks one can find a large recycling drop off for glass. They actually categorize the glass by its color. Clear, brown, green -- yes, you guessed it those are the colors of beer bottles.









This is the outside of our apartment. We live on the bottom floor, those bottom three windows are ours.









A lot of the old buildings have this great tudor feel to them, with all the neat woodwork in the plaster. It looks like Hansel and Gretel still live there. Really this place is right out of a fairy tale!

Picture Update
Remember to click on picture to see it larger.

Roman Baths about 75 A.D.
10 minutes from apt.

Old Frankfurt
destoyed during the war, rebuilt to look the same in 1950's

about 10 minutes from apt.

Bruenfels Castle from the 1400's

about two hours from our place via street car, train, and bus.

Note- Wiley was too afraid to put his head in the whole. He insisted on a picture though.

Our Street

Look how green everything is. It is beautiful!

Lesson #2 Think Compact






I’m sure you’ve all seen this oversized roller-skate from movies, but we actually see them all the time here. They’re called Smart Cars. It’s so small that you can actually park it on the sidewalk in Germany. Admittedly, parking on the sidewalk is normal round these parts, but usually you can only put two wheels on the sidewalk. A Smart gets to put all four wheels on – which puts it in the same category as a bicycle (that is, if bicycles had four wheels – so maybe a bicycle with a side car).

Ben told me that once a Smart Car was waiting at an intersection and it got nudged from behind by a semi truck. The semi driver didn’t see the Smart Car, and somehow the Smart Car got lodged in its grill. According to the story, the semi driver drove about twenty kilometers until another driver flagged him down and alerted him to the large, metallic bug stuck to the front of it. I don’t know if it’s true, but I want it to be true because after seeing one, I totally believe it’s possible.

Incidentally, everything else here is compact, too. Our fridge is the size of a dishwasher. Our dishwasher is the size of a microwave. Our microwave is the size of a toaster. And our toaster is the size of a cigarette lighter. Our freezer is so small that I can’t find it anywhere -- literally. We’ve been in the apartment two weeks and I still haven’t spotted it. It’s probably vacationing somewhere with our oven, because we haven’t seen it either. People try to live simply, rather than filling their lives with stuff. A great lesson.

Lesson #1 "Beer Garden"

We are enjoying our time in Frankfurt, but my blogging has slowed. The key board is arranged differently and I haven't figured out how to post pictures yet from our little local internet cafe.

Just know that all is well. I am already feeling sad that we are not staying longer. We are learning so much though. Wiley and Rosa have made friends with the Israeli kids in our apartment building. We are doing tons with them, the great thing is that even though the kids can't understand each other, Tag is still the same. Thank goodness!

Our Israeli friends took me and the kids to our first Beer Garten yesterday. They asked me out for a drink. I wanted to be cool and go. I told them I don't drink but would be happy to go with them for heck of it. They laughed at me and said they don't just serve beer. It was basically an outdoor restuarant. They same kind you can find anywhere in Europe. The name of them just fouled me up.

Lots of lessons learned already.

It is from my 1999 collection of comics.


Click on the cartoon to see it better!


I'd like to think that I have married the perfect man, one who has amazing insights regarding my own needs and inner desires, and yet sometimes even he falls victim to unrealistic perceptions of what reality is. 1st unrealistic expectation is that I be on time to everything. Ha what a joke. I'm usually putting on makeup last or finishing up my hair, and he is sweet enough to say it was worth the wait. But in quiet moments he wants to know why I always need an extra 20 minutes for everything. I have no answers. Sorry hun. Another inaccurate perception is that dinner could be on table at 6:00 p.m.. Reality is that sometimes Ben has to make his own dinner. And as much as I hate frozen/boxed dinners, Hate, hate, hate, them, I may serve them when desperate and be grateful for them. Thanks for putting up with me honey! XOXO

Hey Pops, Happy Birthday!

I just wanted to remind you that I think you are fabulous. You are such a great reminder of what a "Real" man is.

I don't know anyone who is more patient. You've always been so patient with me. Allowing me to make my own decisions. Never forcing me to "do the right thing". I'm guessing it was the only way you could make me, the head strong teenager that I was to learn and listen to you. I'm also amazed by your patience with the grandkids, getting down at their level, reading books, playing legos, and giving piggy back rides. I also remember that same patience with me on the ski slopes. It seems like I could never get a ski boot on or off without your help, and I remember you always zipping my coat, tucking my gloves into the arms of my coat, and tightening my laces on my shoes and ice skates as well. And all the many times you tucked me into bed.



I also remember the countless hours that you drilled me in spanish (to no avail, I might be able to pronounce things with a nice trill but languages are not a talent of mine), the many hours spent helping me with math homework, teaching me how to use the fancy calculator, going over AP goverment papers -sometimes even finishing them for me at 2:00 in the morning, you could always spot my poorly placed commas and sentences that ended with a preposition.

One of my favorite memories that still makes me laugh is that way that you'd help all of us kids clean up after a meal. You'd grab a clean wash cloth and get it as hot as you could with steaming water and then slowly make the rounds to peoples faces and hands. I absolutely still love that feeling of a hot towel cleaning my face. Only because you did it for us thousands of times. I also remember the sprinkled hot choco mix on ice cream, if we were out of Magic Shell, plus graham crackers. I also remember you sprinkling brown sugar and raisins on that terrible tasting rice/oatmeal breakfast guck that mom used to make. You took pitty on me when I would gag, like you believed I was really gagging from the taste. Mom on the other hand just frowned at me. (I was really gagging mom!) In contrast, I also loved that you and mom would take pancake requests trying to make shapes while pouring the batter onto the grill. You have always been a great breakfast maker.



One of the longest standing memories is that of you dancing with me. Dancing at the stake dances, dancing at the cousin's weddings, dancing in the living room, dancing on the back porch, dancing at my wedding. There are hundreds more examples! I also have fond memories of TV time with you. We have seen quite a few Star Trek shows together, not to mention some MASH but that was only if mom wasn't around. I loved that you snuck the TV just like the rest of us kids.

I also appreciate your desire to stand up for the values you wanted our family to have. Not allowing bad movies in the house, and even marching in front of me and my friends and turning off 90210 and telling all the kids in the house that we don't allow that show in the house. I hope I didn't act too mad at you then, forgive me if I did. I appreciate you requiring me to wear clothes that covered me while gardening, modest swim suits while swimming, and modest prom dresses. (Mom, thanks for being slightly more relaxed in that area, and making little black jackets to cover the sleeveless dresses). I hope that when it is my turn to be bold and maybe not the most popular with my kids I will remember these moments and see how they have paid off.



Thanks for making our home fun to be in with all the toys; homemade dune buggy, 4-wheelers, canoing, providing lazer tag gear so that all of us could play in the lot next door in the deep brush, ping pong, providing toilet paper for all those toilet papering years, not to mention all the great trips we have taken together, and so much more.

Thanks for the daddy daughter dates. Particularly the one on my 16th birthday, I do remember where we ate but more importantly I remember what you taught me about dating and what I should expect from boys coming to the door.



Thanks for all that you have done for me and still continue to do. Only a real man could do what you have done over the years. I love you.

Happy Birthday.

Hey Dawg!

I've always considered myself an animal person, or dog person to be specific, at least that is until I had my first child. Wiley has taken the place of any dog desires. I used to have dreams of a large honey colored lab. But that was all before I discovered that dogs still scare me and carry with them the Heebie Geebies. Yes, that is right, I don't want my kids to touch dogs due to what they pass around. Hey who wants to hang out with a dog that licks itself?

I'm not a fan of small yippy dogs. In fact, some neighbors have one and when I'm over there I can't bring my self to even touch the dog, even when it hops on my lap, I have strong desires to kick it, and I truly don't think I'm that violent of a person, but yes, kicking is the right word.

Why might I have these feelings? Are dogs really that dirty, stinky, noisy?

Well, truthfully, I have plenty of examples of the nasty sort of dogs. I don't like the hair or the smell that comes with dogs, and most dogs just reaffirm this feeling. Well, Little Lucy Lou has just joined the family and she is none of those things. She is cute, cuddly, she doesn't stink, she is hypoallergenic, she doesn't yip. She loves my kids. The only urge I have is to hold and love it, rather than putting on my largest boot to kick. I don't even care if my kids hold her. What's great is that she doesn't lick herself either, because Lauren and Shane have special wipes to clean her up after she does her business.

She is perfect. . . she might even be a better version of a child. She follows you around, doesn't complain, she is obedient. . . you can see where I'm going with this.

The only problem with animals is that they don't live long under the watchful eye of the Dyer clan. I can't tell you how many pets we have buried at the various houses we've lived in. But I can tell you it has been quite a few and with five children wanting their own pet, we've also had quite a variety. (2 Tortoises, 2 parrots, many hamsters, lots of fish, tons of cats, two dogs, a hermit crab, various lizards, two snails, (once they ate through my mom's copy of "The Miracle of Forgiveness" I gave them to a neighbor. . . ) and I'm sure there was even more than this but this is all I can remember for now. We basically are running a pet cemetery. You might even call us morticians. My own father being the biggest killer as well as the one to have dug the most graves, and given the bad news of his most recent slaughter. . . but those stories are for another day.

Cousin Lucy Lou

Rosie has the death grip around Lucy Lou's neck. My kids love the newest Dyer member. Congratulations to Shane and Lauren who brought this little one into their home!

Wiley was also a huge fan of Lucy. He wasn't sure weather he loved or hated the dog at first. It took a little warming up to her but after a while he wouldn't let her alone.