Mmmmm, steak tartare.

Until about 2:30 this afternoon, today was pretty much me-time. Olaf took the kids to school this morning, and he also took Amelie with him to walk with her in the woods, which meant that I didn't have to walk Amelie this morning. There was also no laundry for me to take care of, so I vacuumed the main floor and then went about my own business. When Olaf got home he had some fresh rolls from the baker and meat from the butcher, so Olaf, Esther and I had breakfast together. Along with all of the usual assortment of meats, cheeses, spreads and marmalades, we had steak tartare this morning. People back home think I'm crazy for eating raw meat, but I am not alone, and it was delicious!

Since I didn't really have any other obligations, and because I missed my class yesterday, I started going through the coursebook and workbook for my language course. So far there's nothing terribly difficult about it. There were some words that I didn't recognize, but as far as how to do the exercises things were ok. Tomorrow I'm going to make another attempt at attending the course, and then I'll know how much of the coursebook they've already been through so I can catch up. Hopefully I won't be too lost.

This afternoon I took Amelie for a walk, and when I got back there were 4 men standing outside with Esther and Olaf, and one of them was in a hole in the ground in the front yard. I didn't know what was going on, but I could tell no one was really very happy about it. It turns out that it was the architect/contractor who built their house, 2 attorneys and an expert from the courthouse. The past 2 years I guess Olaf and Esther have been fighting with the architect in court. When the house was built, they didn't pay him the full amount that was agreed upon because he didn't do everything he was supposed to do, or didn't do it right. So he took them to court to demand payment and things still aren't settled. They were here for a long time, and Esther had to keep delaying the time for me to pick up the kids. It really wasn't a good idea to have the kids there while all of this was going on, both because they didn't need to be there to hear everything about the situation and because they would've created too much chaos.

I finally went to pick up the kids at 4:15 (the attorneys were still there) and, knowing that they were already going to be exhausted, I had to take them to the woods to keep them occupied until the visitors were gone. I didn't have to fight with them, but Gustav wasn't happy about being there. They both just really wanted to go home. To distract them from the fact that they were unhappy, I had Gustav collect nuts he found on the ground and Pauline and I collected leaves. It worked well enough to keep them there for about 45 minutes before we could go home.

When we got back to the house, Esther and Olaf were both concerned that my whole experience with the kids might have been terrible and that I might have needed to fight with Gustav. But Gustav right away started talking about how many nuts he collected, and how he was looking forward to being able to eat them (they actually are edible, so don't worry about that), and he explained how we collected these leaves and I told them that we could make a picture for Mom and... Esther looked at me and was really happy because Gustav came back from something he didn't want to do and was excited to have done it. All is well.

On a side note, I found out today that the last au pair, Louva, had been with 2 other families before she came to live with Esther and Olaf, and that each of the other families had told her to find someone else. Esther and Olaf didn't know any of this when they accepted her, though, so they were really patient with her. It's no surprise that after 6 months they were ready for her to go. Right now, though, Louva is wanted by the police because she never confirmed with the German government (or her own) that she returned to Madagaskar. So, as far as they know, she is still running around somewhere without a valid visa and has yet to return to her native country. That's pretty intense! Her story is definitely an interesting one.