Day 31 (July 9th)

Al and I woke up and went to our corner bakery for breakfast while the kids stayed in bed. We were all tired from the long weekend and we were slow to motivate. I brought sandwiches back for the kids and a couple of ruby red orangina's. The kids love the orangina and Zach is collecting the bottle tops. Not sure why since the tops don't have any special design on it, but who cares since it makes him happy. We hung out in the apartment all morning. The kids spent most of the morning in bed watching DVD's of The Gilmore Girls. One of Al's colleagues from work lent us the DVD's to watch since there are many discs and they are in English. The kids can only watch so much Sponge Bob in Germany. I cut them off later in the morning and we played cards for a while. We were going to meet Al for lunch but the kids weren't hungry and they didn't want to motivate.

In the afternoon we decided to go for a walk. I knew of a large toy store that the kids had not visited yet so we walked in that direction. The toy store was three stories and had many different toys that I have not seen in the States. On the 1st floor they had some large toy cars, swords and other toy buildings so we spent some time playing in that area. The kids were having a good time but I was able to motivate them to leave. We walked towards the train station and starting checking out every bakery along the way. The kids love going into the bakeries and buying pretzels or other baked goods. We made it to the train station and waited on line to price out tickets to go to Paris. We were debating whether to drive or take the train, each has it's pros and cons. Since we already have a car for the remainder of our stay, the train ticket price needs to be attractive in order for us to select that option. When I priced out the ticket it was close to $500 for the four of us. Looks like we are driving. In the train station, the kids and I went to a food court area and Hannah bought a salami sandwich (she loves these sandwiches).

Part of our quest today was to find a converter so we can plug in the kids DS' and Gamecube. I was able to locate a "RadioShack" type place that had every electronic device under the sun. I started asking the guy who worked there but of course he had no clue what I was talking about. Luckily a random man came up and started interpreting for me. We looked around but for some reason they didn't have what I needed. I was amazed (and still am) that we couldn't find a converter that would change the European 220 voltage to the necessary voltage for American electronics. We left and continued on our journey. We then came upon a game store called Gameworks. This is not the typical game store but instead sells "fantasy" games along with figurines to paint. The closest thing I can relate this to is a modern day Dungeons and Dragons. You buy the unpainted figures and paint them, then they have these large play areas where you set up your "soldiers" to battle. I don't understand all the rules but you basically role dice and move your men. The kids loved this place and were so intrigued. They wanted to get some stuff but it was getting late and we needed to head back home. I told them we could come back again.
We got back to the room and the kids had to read. Hannah has three books to read this summer and the first one she needs to finish is The Cay. Al came home and then we went out for dinner. It was a little drizzling but we decided to go for a walk to a different Korean restaurant then usual. Besides the Saffran's, YH and Basim joined us. The restaurant was nice and was setup more like a Japanese restaurant with separate eating areas. Since YH is Korean we let him order and we had very good food. We got Zach a plain cooked chicken and a bowl of rice while we ate noodles, beef, vegetables and other Korean delicacies. Of course, I had a nice cold Heiferwassen with dinner to complement the meal. For dessert, they had a hot fried fruit (banana, apple or pineapple) with honey on it. Both the kids liked the food. After dinner we headed back to the apartment and watched some tv and got the kids in bed. It was after 12:00 AM before we went to bed.