Last week was Pauline's first week of Kindergarten, and boy was it rough . . . on me. The leader of Pauline's group, Frau Pfeiffer, wouldn't allow any of the new Kindergartners to stay more than an hour, which means from 9 am to 10 am. And I thought it sucked having to pick her up 3 hours early from Maria's! Seriously, what is the point in even taking her to the Kindergarten if she's only there long enough to eat breakfast and then go home? That's not convenient for anybody. Monday wasn't actually all that bad because I had to go to Köln to register for my test prep course and the test itself (which I'll get into in a moment) so Pauline spent the day with Güner, Zaynep and Elif. I just had to pick her up in the afternoon and bring her home before I went to class in the evening. But then on Tuesday, which was actually the first day she went to Kindergarten, I had her from the time Esther brought her home at 10:30 until that evening. I had promised Güner that I would help her out with her girls so that she could get some housework done, so Pauline and I spent most of the day there, again. Pauline and Zaynep kept each other entertained and I looked out for Elif while Güner caught up on the laundry they had acquired over their month long vacation and cleaned up their apartment. Wednesday was pretty much the same, except that we were only at Güner's for a little while before I brought the 2 older girls back here and let her have some time alone (more or less, since Elif is relatively easy when Zaynep isn't there) to run errands and do her own thing. Thursday we intended to leave Pauline at Kindergarten until 12, but then we got a call from Frau Pfeiffer saying that there was a misunderstanding; Pauline wasn't allowed to stay an extra 2 hours, she was only allowed to stay 2 hours total. So I had to drop what I was doing and take the bicycle to the Kindergarten to pick her up, then lock the bike up there and walk home with her. Do you have any idea how long it takes to walk from the Kindergarten to the house? Neither do I, but when you do it with Pauline it takes almost an hour! That was a big waste of my day. Once again I was unable to finish the ironing and laundry that I had started at the beginning of the week because of needing to take care of Pauline all day. Not to mention that, after having an hour delay on my train home from class because of something that was on the tracks between the Hauptbahnhof and Hansaring, I had to walk to the Kindergarten at 11 at night to pick up the bike and take it home. Then, on Friday, when Esther talked it over with Frau Pfeiffer and they agreed that Pauline would stay until 12:15, I got another phone call at around 11 saying that Pauline was crying and exhausted and needed to be picked up. Not wanting to have to go through the same BS with the bike again, Esther told me to take the razor scooters so that, in the very least, Pauline would move faster on the way home and it wouldn't take so ridiculously long. That was actually a great idea, until Pauline decided to turn her head to look at something, which she definitely isn't coordinated enough for, and fell on her face. Thank god she had a helmet on, because that could really have sucked. She was ok, mostly just dirty and startled and she had an abrasion on her upper lip, but she was skittish after that and was hesitant to get back on the scooter. So instead of taking about an hour to get home, it took about 45 minutes. Once again, I was not able to finish the laundry until after the kids went to bed that night. Oh, and did I mention that it was raining all week? Usually not a problem for me, but it kinda blows when you have no car and you have to schlep the little monster around all over the place in the wet weather. Yeah, it was a long, exhausting, crappy week.

The ordeal with Pauline wasn't the only thing that sucked, though, unfortunately. I spent a good part of my day on Monday to go to the VHS office in Köln to register for my class and the TestDaF that I need to take in October. This is the test that determines whether or not I have an acceptable level of German comprehension to study at the university. Anyway, that didn't happen. There are no spots left. Yeah, it is as stupid as it sounds. They didn't reserve the test spots for people taking the test prep course, and there were only 10 spots available total, and they were all full. What the F?! That was annoying. So now I have to wait until November before I can even take the exam, which is cool considering that my visa expires in October. I still haven't decided if I'm going to follow through with the prep course now that I'm not taking the test. I might just wait until the next one so that it's all still fresh in my brain when it comes time for the exam.

Yesterday was a good day, at least. The family picked me up in the city at 1 after my class and we drove to visit friends of theirs who live in Wesel, which is at the north end of Nordrhein-Westfallen. They had actually been here to visit us in March or April, and invited us all to go to their house this weekend. We had off and on thunderstorms (which got kind of crazy at times) with sunshine in between, so it was definitely interesting weather. Luckily the sun stayed out just long enough for Thanos to finish grilling before the rain cut loose again. It was a really pleasant visit, though. Thanos and Trixie are totally sweet, and their little boys love me, of course. Yannis is 10, and we played ping pong, Mariokart on Nintendo DS, and he showed me his really cool LegoTechnik trucks. I'm not entirely sure how old Leon is, but I think he's somewhere between Gustav and Pauline. Anyway, those boys could not be any more different from eachother. Yannis is quiet, well behaved, and very intelligent, whereas Leon is a total spaz and more of a troublemaker. But I had a great time playing with all of the kids, and we had tons of delicious food and coffee and cake, so it was definitely a good day.

Tomorrow Pauline goes back to Kindergarten, and I just have to wait and see how it all turns out. If we even have her stay an extra half hour each day then she'll be spending the whole day there by the end of next week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.