Smell My Feet

We had trick-or-treaters, and I took a dark and mysterious photograph!

Trick-or-treaters are rare and special in Germany.

We're Gonna Party Hearty

Well, we did party pretty well, and I even remembered to take pictures! Aren't I so good to you? You do not want to know how long I had to fight with Photobucket to bring these pictures to you.

So I woke up and had breakfast and started making my blueberry muffins and then Miri came by and then Petra and then there were just people everywhere and we were cooking and setting up and it was chaotic and awesome. Rather than try to remember details in any decent order, I will simply show you the pictures and tell you about them (which I know is a huge deviation from my usual style, but you'll live through it):

So this is the table before anyone ate at it, and also before we managed to find enough chairs to put around it. If you look closely, you will see how awesome Petra is at putting fake flowers and leaves and candles places in a way that is really pretty to look at.

This is Petra making something or other- maybe it is potato salad? I don't know because we made so many things yesterday, but it looks a bit like potato salad, right?

Those are my blueberry muffins- don't they look great? They tasted very good, too, and were a huge hit with the Germans, who do not actually ever make muffins.

This is Miri showing us the recipe for the pasta salad that we (Miri and I) made- it was a pretty good pasta salad, if I may say so.

This is the pasta salad in progress. Just to prove that we made it ourselves.

This is Miri sitting rather satisfied after having mixed our pasta salad.

This is Jessica (Rosi's granddaughter) mixing the pasta salad. I also promise that it is the last picture about pasta salad.

This is a table full of German cake- don't they look delicious? Rosi's daughter Nicole made them, and I ate them with gusto.

This is Miri putting a cake on a doily, and Rosi maybe showing us how big something is?

I am like a walking H&M advertisement. And that little girl adores me.
Now comes a big huge shift in time to that evening!

Here are Michi and Gustav and Gabi and Rosi sitting all sociably on the couch, probably looking impatient because Norbert isn't back with the bread yet.

It is Petra and Miri and Ulla and a large beer! Somebody must have said something entertaining, because they are all laughing.

Check out this sexy picture of the table. Enjoy my amazing photography. Be so jealous that you did not get to eat at this table.

Look at that buffet- doesn't it look so delicious? And that is hardly everything that we ate.

People immersed in conversation very late at night- here we see Gabi's hair, Hans-Werner, Christina, Martin, and Norbert.

Ulla, Michi, Christoph

Gustav and Rosi checking out the night's pictures

Miri and I are tired but adorable.

Cristoph, Gabi, Hans-Werner, Norbert's shoulder

Of course, we partied into the wee hours of the morning, and then I slept in very very late and hung out around the house and Miri and I went to see Flight Plan, which was a pretty awesome movie (just like Mary said it would be).

Might as Well Jump. Jump!

Song of the day, thanks to Antennae Bayern's "Classic Rock Hit" Weekend, is Van Halen's "Jump," whose lyrics do not translate well to text at all.

"I promise you all the details you're used to sometime later tonight. . ." so that was sort of a lie, because it is now 10 the next morning- sorry about that.

So I stayed home from school to help Rosi with shopping and we bought all sorts of things, many of which I have never seen before (I have officially picked out and bought a leek, and man those things are huge) and then we came home and started making a Tiramisu Torte and I left part way through because I had to catch a train to go to Augsburg with Miri, where we hung out and shopped (yes, I spent more money at H&M) and ate Döner and then I had a Mary Raines experience at the streetcar stop on the way home (ask Mary about waiting for buses if you are clueless) and it was pretty awesome- Miri is a great person to shop with and I got some great shirts for going out and a purse for going out and a watch because I've been needing a watch for quite some time. And I rode the train home without trouble all by myself and the we made a quiche (I think it will be a very good quiche, and I cooked the bacon and vegetables, including leeks, for it- the fancy French cheese that we bought for our quiche was so amazing, too) and then we made dinner- ground pork patties that the Germans call Frikadellen and potatoes and some other vegetable that I've never heard of, but was delicious. After dinner, I spent too long doing my hair to go to a Hallowe'en party with Miri, then I went up to Miri's house to finish getting ready and we were very fashionably late, which I don't think is fashionable in Germany, but it was okay cause the party was actually pretty lame. I did remember that Bavarian beer is way stronger than Kölsch, which will always be my favorite beer. Mostly I sat around somebody's apartment with people I don't know (also many people that Miri didn't know either) and discovered that Germans are terrible at karaoke if they don't know English that well, because most every song is too fast for them to read and sing at the same time. And not terrible in the funny way- terrible in the sitting there sorta silently for a while until the chorus comes, and then singing the bits that you know but still singing really quietly. Apparently, Bavarian beer does not make them better at karaoke. So Miri and I were the first to leave the party because we were bored and kaputt and I came home and thought about blogging, but I was kaputt and so I peeled off my party clothes and fell asleep. And now there is cooking going on and I need a shower (although I feel really weird since I just showered yesterday and normally I only shower every other day here because more often is really just excessive)

Also, if you were planning a European vacation, I should warn you that my school breaks are all different now, so you may need to change some things. The new times are as follows:
-January 1-5
-February 27-March 3
-April 10-22
-June 6-17
Also, if you would rather fly into Munich than Frankfurt, that would make it far easier for me to pick you up, since Munich is right there, and Frankfurt is 3 and a half hours away.

Sultans of Swing

Having realized that my recent song of the day mix is getting a little too "lite," I have today chosen a song that Antennae Bayern tells me is an "echter classic rock hit." (echt means real) Dire Straits is probably one of the most rocking bands I can think of, anyway.

Thursdays are nice because I get to sleep in and then I also get to come home from school after 6th period like a normal person. School itself wasn't too exciting, although I can finally say that I really did understand math and it has me so very excited. . . otherwise just Sozi and English and Latin, where the teacher left the 5 of us that were there to work on some poster- proof that Germans understand how to trust students and have no worries about saying "I'll be in the workroom if you need me" and then leaving.
We are planning what to make for Rosi's birthday party on Saturday, and it is looking complex. . . I may be sick tomorrow and unable to go to school on the final day before fall break, so that we can get the party all taken care of.

And I have nothing more to tell you. . . guess I was boring today.

You Fill My Heart With Gladness

Song of the day: Rod Stewart, "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" Of course, I have told you recently and often how much I love German radio, but I'm still dedicating this one to the music that continues to steal my heart.

After a night spent in fascinating conversation around the kitchen table, I slept in this morning and Gabi (Miri and Michi's mom) drove me to school since we still aren't letting Rosi drive (for those of you concerned about her, she is doing pretty well, but I have to stop making her laugh so much because it hurts). So class started at 9:30 with Physics (I've given up understanding this one), then it was History, where I had trouble paying attention but I promise I will be better, because I want to make it my other LK, and then a little Pause and then two periods of Art, where people seem to think that I have incredible talent, but I think it is mostly that I like chalk and we are doing easy things like shading folds in cloth. It's encouraging to hear Zimmy congenially complain about how the exchange students are always really awesome artists, though. I really really do like chalk, too- I will have to get me some for artistic moments. Went to Berni's with Noiby and Zimmy and Jakob for lunch and met Berni's mom and brother and had noodle-cooking related adventures and also adventures of trying to get back to school on time and getting stuck behind a very very very old woman on a bicycle (we were in a car) and we ended up a minute or two late for German but it was no big deal. German was very boring, but it will be better when I finally get myself a copy of this silly play and read it (Schiller's Maria Stuart- even German plays are about British people, proving that England is the only place worthy of drama). Math LK and I feel like I'm totally understanding what is going on, although at a slower pace than everyone else. I am more confident in my mathing abilities now, though. Then it was on to English, where we discussed British social classes and I had no expertise to add to the conversation, so I didn't.
I am going to church tonight with Miri!

I Want to Stand With You on a Mountain

Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply" wins the song of the day, beating out another song that, coincidentally, also used mountains as a metaphor or image or whatever.

So there was a gap in the blogs, and I'm sure you're all terrified that I fell into a German ditch, filled with strong Bavarian beer. This was not, however, the case. Instead, I was simply at another house, sleeping in another man's bed, drinking my morning tea from somebody else's cups.
I should go back to Sunday to explain this all, really. While I was still fast asleep in my own bed (I promise I will get up and go to church one of these weeks, really), Norbert and Rosi said goodbye to each other with an exuberant hug. Somehow, however, this hug triggered a strange cracking sound in Rosi's chest, which turned into an intense pain, so, sometime after I finished blogging on Sunday, after Miriam had come over, we sent Rosi to the doctor, and then we called Mike because we were bored. Talking to Mike is always fun, and we spoke English far too quickly for Miri, and we also tied up the phone line so Rosi couldn't call to say that her rib(s) was/were actually broken. She did manage to call the neighbor, however, who came over to let us know what was up, and we very quickly said goodbye to a mildly confused Mike and gathered things up to go to the hospital, where they decided it would be a good idea to keep Rosi for a few days. The hospital in Aichach is actually very terrible- the doctors and nurses aren't very friendly (even for Germans), but poor Rosi managed to survive there, although she is very happy to be home (I am also glad to have her back here). Of course, I didn't want to stay all by myself for however long the crazy hospital wanted to keep Rosi, so I went up to Miri's house, and her family is great and awesome (Miri's sister Michi is in my grade at school, so that made the whole getting to and from school thing easier, too) and I ate well and was made comfortable and happy and the cat even decided to like me. I'm glad to be back home, though, where things are quieter. And school is still school- no schedule, but that'll fall into place, and everyone is still really awesome- yesterday, I decided to take a free period instead of going to Berni's Religion class, and we (the other people with a free period and I) were bored, so we played musical chairs using someone's cell phone for music. This is pretty much proof that I have found the right school and the right group of people. I am also having a lot of fun in my English class, where the teacher, although teaching about America, knows nothing about America and can only make examples from England or from articles he read in the New York Times. I am being forced to explain a lot of things, and I hope I'm doing the country justice, not creating more of a problem. Otherwise, I am just chilling in most of my classes and trying very hard to understand what is going on- I think I understand the whole vector thing that they're doing in the math LK right now, but I still don't know what a vector is or why were are doing anything with them. If you know and want to tell me, I'd be most appreciative.

I promised you pictures, and I did get a few uploaded before things went crazy. I'll work on adding some more. . . in any case, all the pictures can be found at my Photobucket account (along with a lot of older, unrelated pictures). . . if you want an explanation of something specific, drop me a line in the usual ways and I'll try to clear things up for you. The pictures are basically in chronological order starting waaaay back in Tübingen, unless I go and take some more pictures and add them, which will ruin my chronology.

Why Do You Think We Should Suffer in Silence

Today's song of the day is yet another one of those awesome songs I've been meaning to honor for a long time- Robbie Williams with "Tripping," which, like yesterday's song, no American has ever heard even though it is one of the most popular songs here and I love it. Robbie Williams himself is a giant giant superstar here, from England, but somehow has not managed to get his success across the ocean.

Shortly after I finished posting yesterday, Miriam showed up and we walked her dog together, then I went to her house, then I went with her into Aichach to a cafe called Othello for "coffee" with one of her friends (we did not actually have coffee, but Germans call getting together in the afternoon for some sort of drink and talking and hanging out "drinking coffee.") Then there was some discussion of going to some dance place in some village, but Miriam and I decided we didn't want to go, and Miriam came to my house for dinner instead- this wonderful amazing pork roast and these German dumpling things and it was all so delicious and Miriam is a really awesome person to hang out with- she chilled for a while after dinner with a glass of wine and some tv and it was a really nice, quiet evening, and I won't tell you how late I slept in today- I am very nicely rested, though, and I am not planning on doing much of anything today.

We also discovered that Rosi's camera's USB cord works with mine, so I'll get some pictures loaded for you guys.

Hoy mi amor esta di luto

Today's song of the day, or maybe it's really the song of the year, is Juanes's "La Camisa Negra." My readers still living in America have of course never heard this song, but I promise that it is really awesome and everyone in Germany is grooving to it pretty much all day long. Google tells me that it is about a guy who has a black shirt, but I think there is probably a deeper meaning that requires actual knowledge of Spanish.

Last night was pretty sweet- after eating a very fast and very delicious dinner, I hurried down to the train station to catch the train to Augsburg, but then Steffi got off the train and told me that the others were running late, so we needed to wait a bit. Soon, Maria and Vronni and Tie showed up in Maria's car, and we decided to drive into Augsburg instead of waiting half an hour for the next train. Maria had no clue where we were going, so there was lots of back-seat navigating going on. We made it, and managed to park (and I discovered that German parking garages have a whole floor reserved for women) and stopped by Burger King to let the people who were not as lucky as me get a quick and less delicious dinner, then it was on to the bowling alley, which was in the top floor of some mall-ish building. Got shoes and lane and had fewer bowling adventures than Allyson did in Berlin (you will have to ask Allyson for that story, I cannot do it justice) but still had fun- I managed one strike in our three games of the evening, and nevertheless bowled about an 80 each game, as did everyone else (excluding Tie, who is a boy and thus managed to be halfway good at bowling- his first 2 games were a little over 100, then in the last game he kept getting all these strikes and spares and we decided to hate him). We also had mediocre bowling alley pizza. Back into the car for more adventures going home (Maria still didn't know where we were going) and we stopped by Maria's house to pick up Vronni's car and then Steffi, Vronni and I went to check out the Orange Club, which just opened 2 or 3 weeks ago in Aichach. It was a pretty decent club- good music, lots of people (although I knew none of them), also nice looking. . . we hung out there trying to talk over the loud music and mostly failing until about midnight, then Vronni drove Steffi and I home and I peeled off my clothes that reeked of smoke and slept long and comfortably. This morning, Rosi and Norbert and I went into Augsburg to shop and discovered that the center of the city has been turned into a slope for snowboarders today, even though it is warm enough that I only need a jacket when the wind blows. It was pretty awesome to see random snowboarders, though, and we chilled at a cafe and had Wurst and then picked up some cake for this afternoon and some bread for tomorrow (where else but Germany can you get a loaf of fresh-baked, still warm bread for 99 cents?) and now I am home again and sleepy but very happy.

Since the World's Been Turning

It's a Billy Joel kind of day. . . and I'm picking "We Didn't Start the Fire" because I can, and also because we have been starting some fires in our fireplace recently to keep warm- brrr it is cold here when the sun isn't out!

Umm. . . after dinner, we fought with my handy for a while, only to determine that it is dead beyond our ability of revival, so then we fought with Rosi's handy for a while to figure out how to put it on silent so I could take it to school without worry of it ringing during class (since I no longer trust myself to be able to turn phones off and back on successfully). There were multiple phone calls to Norbert, but we eventually figured it out all by ourselves while watching the Horse Whisperer (I had completely forgotten that it was Scarlett Johansson in that movie, back before any of us knew who she was). I didn't bother to stay up to watch the end, and I still did not get enough sleep- I am tired today. Had to wake up at 6:15, and Steffi came at 7:05 to walk with me to the bus stop. Successfully rode school bus to school and chilled in the K12 room with Steffi and others who also had first period free. Then came English, in which I spent the class explaining the concept of neighborhoods and suburban life and the like, hopefully in an accurate way (it is actually really hard to do). Then that wonderful thing the Germans call Pause, then a period of Bio (I totally remember the stuff we're discussing AND I understand it- yay Gregor Mendel!) and then Physics (no hope here) and then Pause (socialization is very good, especially when there are couches to sit on) and then Math (I switched to the basic class instead of Berni's LK, and I understood something like half of what we were doing- I have definitely figured out that I never learned this stuff in America, so they're a bit ahead of me (apparently the opposite of everyone else's math class experience), but it doesn't actually look hard, once I figure out what these formulas are that they're using and why they are using them. Then came German, in which everyone else took a test on something that I haven't read, and I read Dorian Gray, skipping most of chapter 11, which is 20 pages of Oscar Wilde showing off his knowledge of dubious Renaissance trivia. I'm into the last third of the book, though, when the chapters get short and full of excitement, and I've completely stopped using the dictionary- I may not know every word that I read, but I totally understand everything that's going on, and I'm still picking up on a lot of the symbolism and whatnot. Anyway, rode the bus home with Steffi and Rosi's still out- she had Spanish class this morning and some other errands to run, so I am home alone and was going to upload some pictures for you, but I can't find my USB cord, and the computer doesn't have a DVD drive. I am going to keep searching, but I don't know what I can promise you at the moment.

Addendum 4:58: still no USB cord luck, sorry guys. Rosi came home with cake and then Steffi popped by to invite me bowling this evening (yay!) and then Miria showed up shortly thereafter to see if I wanted to do something, and I promised her that we will get together on a night when I am not bowling, and then she hung out and talked with us for a while and Norbert arrived and it's all busy here now. And I'm going bowling! I am very excited- it will be oh-so-much fun.

Your One Desire

In honor of their current German tour, the Backstreet Boys get today's song of the day (having won a tough fight) with "I Want it That Way."

School: got there early because Rosi had a hair appointment and chilled in the K12 room with the newspaper and the iPod and the few other stragglers with free periods and nowhere better to go. Berni was late, so I went to Geography with Steffi (who also lives in Obergriesbach), only to discover that I missed Sozi, where they discussed American elections and were very upset that I wasn't there. Norby spent a good portion of the Pause begging me to never miss another Sozi lesson. Then it was English, where they're discussing gated commmunities, and it's pretty interesting, although they're working entirely from one New York Times article with a negative and incomplete picture- I get to set the record straight tomorrow. Then math, where we discussed vectors and I maybe understood a lot more, although I still don't know what a vector is or why we want to do math with them, or how exactly we do math with something that's just a letter and a line- I thought that numbers were sort of necessary, but maybe not. Then it was Latin, which is really boring for me and I am not going to it tomorrow. And that was it for school today- the others had Sport later, but I decided to simply go home instead of trying to find lunch and/or worry about being back at school at whatever time Sport is. I discussed the whole schedule thing with Berni and Steffi and Norby and some other people and we bascially have my whole schedule planned, although we aren't sure if I want Art or History as my other LK (I'm leaning toward history)- now if I could just figure out who's in charge of giving me an official schedule, although I'll probably get myself into the necessary classes all by myself before the official thing works out. There's not a ton of choice- two LKs (English and History or Art), German, a choice of Sozi, Geography, or Econ (definitely Sozi), a choice of Biology, Chemistry, or Physics (I need two of them, and I know I can't do Physics, so that's an easy enough decision), a choice of Art or Music (already made- art), Religion, and Sport give me 30 hours. So now I'll work on figuring out who I follow into those classes and when, and I'll be set.
There was a minor crisis after school- my handy refused to turn on for reasons still unknown, so I couldn't call Rosi to tell her I was done. I made my way into the office and the secretary, after calling the other secretary, managed to find Rosi's number (good thing the school had it, since I don't know it and it is saved in my non-working phone) and I got in touch with her, but there were a few moments of panic. All worked out, and we had to go get the winter tires for the car in case we wake up with snow on the ground and then we stopped by the store for dinner fixings and pastries, which made our late lunch. Then I pulled out all my pictures and huge books of signatures and memories and we spent hours going through them looking at everything and I remembered how much I love you guys and how much I miss you (I like the German expression better- Ihr fehlt mich- it literally means that you are missing from me, that I'm incomplete without you). I need to get some of those pictures hanging on the wall. Send me e-mails and leave me comments- you've all gotten pretty bad at that, and I need to know what is going on with you as much as you want to know all of the mundane details of my life.
We're making steaks and potato skins tonight. Maybe not healthy, but I promise that I am drinking my orange juice and Rosi keeps telling me that I need to eat more fruit. . . but homemade potato skins! We even found cheddar cheese, although it is white cheddar and comes from Ireland, so it will probably not be quite the same.

I Don't Have a Song for Today

I mean, I could always just pick "Wake Me Up When September Ends," but I'd get kicked out of the indie club for picking Green Day, and I'm saving that one for a future month, one less close to September. November's song is also already picked out, and will remain a secret until then. So today I slack off and give you no song, mainly because the breakfast music selection provided no song, and I haven't had time for radio otherwise.

I watched way too much tv yesterday, which included the discovery of "Die Gerichts Medizinerin-" it is basically CSI based in Munich with the German Angela Lansbury, except that she is all full of sass and dialect (yay Bayrisch) and it's a pretty awesome show. No Numb3rs, but about as good as German tv can get.
Today: slept in-ish because I didn't have a first period, then went to school in the freezing cold (it was 0 when I got out of bed) and had Religion (Catholic, and a class I'll be dropping out of sheer boredom), Physics (sort of understood it, actually), History (actual German history- score!), then a double block of Art (one period of someone's presentation on Gustav Klimt, then a period of playing with chalk and light and shading). So that gets me through 6 periods, end of the day, right? No. It was, however, time for lunch, and Berni had some sort of meeting, so I went to some little German lunch counter thing with 3 of the guys (terrible taste in music, but boy cars smell good) and had a Schnitzel Sandwich. And then we went back to school to chill in our little K12 room with half the 12th grade (the whole class has 55 people, including me) until it was time for German- I love my German teacher, he is the funniest man with his thick accent and curly pageboy haircut and jovial manner. And Goethe is fascinating, no matter what my classmates say. Of course, then it was time for math, and I can confidently report that I still understand nothing. They start out with some totally normal parabola that I recognize, and then they start doing equations with more letters than numbers that are apparently just to find out perfectly ordinary things about said parabola, but I'm not certain because I have no clue what half the words these people say mean. I don't think I'll be staying in this math class. Then I dropped myself into the English LK (not that I have a schedule anyway, so I'm sort of making things up) and the English teacher is really nice, but they spent the class discussing their Senior Trip to be taken next year, the details of which are causing conflict, instead of doing English work. On to Biology, which is actually a nice class when not taught by Mrs Legard, the demonspawn that I had in America. The first half of class was still devoted to Senior Trip discussion, but then we focused on human gamede reproduction (how people make sperm and eggs), which I halfway remember (this is good) and which, fortunately, pretty much always uses the same Latin words for just about everything, so I can understand it without trouble.
Then it was 5, and school was finally over. I had 8 classes today, and was at school for about 9 hours (minus lunch break), but it didn't feel that long. There's a lot to be said for maintaining the 45 minute class- it is seriously much less draining than doing the same thing for an hour and a half. Not to mention the long, frequent breaks that Germans are accustomed to.
I like my new school a lot.
We are building a car port in the driveway to try to prevent freezing of the car in the morning. Wish us luck.

Love is a Battlefield

You know it is. Unless, of course, your love is German radio, in which case it's pretty much all sunshine and lollipops and Pat Benatar.

Yesterday afternoon, we ended up heading back into Aichach to pick up Rosi's ring from the jeweler, and of course we couldn't leave without stopping by the shoe store and then the cute little café for hot chocolate and Schwarzwälderkirschtorte (I think Donauwelle is still my favorite German cake, though). And we finally wandered home to hang out and read and watch tv (I've become addicted to Numb3rs here, so you know where you'll find me every Monday at 9:10 pm- do you know that German tv stations start programs whenever they want, not just on the hour or half-hour? Prime-time actually begins at 8:15 here) and I went to bed relatively early so I could get up for school. It was so cold this morning- 1.5 degrees! We had to scrape ice off the windshield! In Rocktober! But I made it to school and found Berni in the K12 hangout room (we get a hangout room? With couches? Yes!) and she introduced me to everyone and it turns out that Bavarians are pretty much the nicest people in the world- everyone was super-friendly and asked me about home and how things are going here and made sure I was comfortable and happy. And the teachers are great, too- every one of them asked me about where I'm from and what I'm doing here and the like- something that only my English teacher did back in Köln. And they kept checking to see if I was understanding, even though I'm not really even in any classes yet because I don't actually have a schedule at the moment. I had a period of German first, and we read a really fascinating Goethe piece that I want to tie into some Shaw stuff I've read, and some Wilde too, and maybe a few other things- there are wheels turning, to say the least, and I won't bore you too much with my half-developed essay ideas. That's for the college admissions people to worry about. And then two periods of math- I can confidently say that I understood approximately 15% of what we did, and I am not going to be picking math as an LK (which Berni has). The teacher was really awesome, though, too, and I would have enjoyed the class if I had a clue what was going on (man do Germans have some weird ways of notating things in math). After that came Berni's Latin class, in which I sort of sat and listened and was bored because I know zero Latin and have no interest in knowing Latin. It's Berni's other LK, and it most certainly won't be in my real schedule. There were some Pauses in there, during which I hung out with the awesome K12 people- seriously every single one of them came up to introduce themselves almost immediately, and all of them are sort of watching out for me and making sure I'm feeling okay and getting integrated and it makes me feel good. After Latin came Sozi, which is Bavaria's name for SoWi, as far as I can tell, except that this class was more Government than Econ. And I love Government, so that is one class that I totally need to keep in my schedule- I must admit that Germany has a strange and confusing governmental system, and I want to learn all of its ins and outs. Did you know that Merckel's cabinet is pretty much decided? All the pictures of the new cabinet are in the paper today, and I cannot give you much more insight than that there are 6 women (including Angie, of course) out of 16 positions, which I guess is good. And then school was over, so I called Rosi and waited for her and felt all happy when a couple of the guys double-checked to make sure that I was going to get home and have lunch and the like- everyone here is so sweet and I know I'm going to make such good friends here and I'm so happy. Lunch was delicious, too (chicken, proving that we are not overly terrified about the bird flu, and potatoes with cheese- yummy) and I don't even have homework, since I don't actually have classes. I hope someone works that out shortly- I've been informed that the English teacher is sort of in charge of me (another nice detail they didn't think about in Köln) and I'll ask a bit tomorrow- since I'm still basically shadowing Berni, though, I don't have a first period tomorrow- maybe it'll be warmer when I wake up.

I just got a phone call from the Methodist church in Augsburg- I'm going to probably go check out their service on Sunday and they're sending me some info and the girl I talked to was totally nice and I'm excited- I've missed church.

They Put a Man on the Moon

REM wins the song of the day, thanks to my new favorite radio station, Antennae Bayern. It probably has a better mix than just about any other station ever, and Lionel Ritchie even told me today, via the radio, that Antennae Bayern is "the loveliest radio station in the whole world." The man knows what he's talking about.

Hmm. . . yesterday was Sunday, right? Norbert left around 11, meaning we are now without men in the house- no worries that we'll get stuck watching Fußball when there are good movies on tv. Went over to Petra's for coffee and cake and a walk that included two adorable kittens randomly deciding to follow us down two streets until Petra finally tossed them over a fence so they wouldn't follow us all the way home. Aren't kittens the best? And after the walk, Petra's son Markus showed up and decided that Rosi and I simply must stay for dinner, so we did. And dinner meant yummy goulash (the Germans make some good goulash, I must say) and so much Bayrisch that I simply don't understand, but I will learn this strange new language, I promise. And we came home much later than planned to watch tv (Erin Brokovich) and eat ice cream and relax because that is what Sunday evenings are for. And this morning, a nice lazy breakfast (German food, also delicious- I am going to miss me some Nutella after this year) and headed up to the school at 9:30 to meet with the principal- he was super-nice and seemed really interested in my whole experience this year and he immediately found another student, Bernadette, to show my around and answer my questions and the like. She seems really awesome and I'm going to meet up with her tomorrow and sort of observe some of her classes until I decide what I'm going to do- the principal thinks we'll mix some 11th and 12th grade classes for me, which is probably a good idea. We finished up at school and went to see about getting me registered with the city, which was totally easy and did not involve some giant 15 page questionnaire like in Niederkassel. And then we went to Aldi and got some pizza and some salad fixings and came home and made lunch and now I'm just chilling and reading the paper and internetting. . . turns out that Germany, or at least Bavaria, decided that it didn't like the concept of e-mail yesterday, hence the spaz on my end. But everything's back to normal now, so your e-mails have been answered or read or whatever, and you may resume your normal sending habits.

I'm Still Alive

I know you've all been terribly worried and curious, and I swear I am perfectly fine and happy.

So let's go back to Friday. . . got on the train and got to Augsburg with no problem and mixed emotions- relief and a little worry and the usual thing. And got off the train and Rosie and Norbert were there waiting for me and we clicked immediately- Rosie is the most awesome person ever and we are going to have so much fun together. Norbert is her boyfriend and comes down on the weekends and is also so much fun to hang out with- I swear I have not laughed so much in a long time. We stopped at Bonny's Diner, an American-style restaurant (complete with Blues Brothers statues, Casey and Mary!) and I had a delicious burrito (yay for Mexican) and then we came to Obergriesbach and my new house, which is so cute and comfy and wonderful. Of course, I had no interest in unpacking after having just packed up, so we watched tv and talked and hung out and then headed over to my Betreuer's house (I have a Betreuer!) because she was having all of her exchange students over for Bavarian food (not as delicious as Mexican, and Rosie agrees) and hanging out and I got to see Chris and Priya and Mike (Rosie thinks Mike is just about the most awesome person ever due to his social tendencies) and an Australian named Karl who is pretty much exactly like Chris (somehow Georgian and Australian accents even sound alike) and 2 Columbians and an Ecaudorian. And it's always fun to hang out with people you haven't seen in a while, and we stayed late and left all tired and happy and drove home through the thickest fog ever (I am now living in Fog Central) and crashed on the couch for a glass of wine and more hanging out until 1 am, when we finally decided to go to bed. And then Saturday was just as great- first we went out to find me some better shoes (I am now equipped for German winter and German walking) and we bought cake and looked at art and wandered around Aichach, where my school is, and it's a sweet little town and rather pretty to look at. And we came home and read the newspaper on the terrace in the sun (who said Germany had bad weather?) and I can totally read and understand German newspaper without trouble, which was a pleasant surprise (man I missed newspapers) and then Petra, Rosie's best friend, came over and we had cake and coffee (tea in my case because I still don't like coffee) and talked forever and Petra is a really awesome person, too. It did eventually get chilly as the sun started heading downward, so we went inside for Prosecco (which I find delicious) and more talking and hanging out until it was time to go to dinner- Italian! A real Italian restaurant run by real Italians where I heard more Italian than while I was in Italy. And the food was amazing and I ate too much and I like the German meal pace- they have no problem sitting around and talking for an hour or more after dinner, and it's really nice. And we stayed up late watching tv but that is okay because my bed is warm and fluffy and I have no trouble sleeping in late. This morning was American breakfast morning, meaning bacon and scrambled eggs and toast and it was so yummy- do you know that Rosie and I are going to make blueberry muffins? I am so excited- I have missed muffins so much. I am so so happy here and so glad that I switched and tomorrow we are going up to the school to figure out my schedule and everything, but I will probably (hopefully) not actually start until Tuesday. And then I've got 2 weeks of school and then a week of Fall Break- again! Yay for switching states. And my school breaks are all different now, so hold off on those travel plans- I'll get an updated calendar to you soon.

Also, gmail is apparently having issues, so I swear I'm not ignoring your e-mails- I just can't get to them. If anyone knows what's up and wants to clue me in, I'd appreciate it.

Go West, Young Man

After waking up to an empty house and puttering around for a while, I got a phone call from Mary, which always makes me happy, and she said that she needed to buy a winter coat and that we should go to Bonn. Of course I was more than happy to oblige her, and, to mix things up a bit, we figured out how she could get to Niederkassel and I could meet her there and we could then take a bus to Bonn. This meant that I figured out that I can indeed walk the 2 km to Niederkassel in half an hour and it is really not all that bad. And the bus was relatively prompt and things worked out nicely and we found Mary a coat in Bonn (we also found a lot of really silly fake-fur based coats that Mary refused to buy) and wandered around and ate pastries and somewhere in the middle of all that I got a phone call from Experiment. The news you've all been waiting for has come through, and tomorrow I am getting on a train and going to Augsburg, which is in the heart of Bavaria. Yes, Bavaria. I am terrified but relieved. . . I'll be living now with a 52-year-old woman named Roswitha Hübl who has grown children but lives alone, and I've talked to her briefly on the phone and she seems very nice and I have good feelings about her. I can't believe I'm leaving my beloved Köln, though- how long is it going to be until I see the Dom again? Am I going to miss Karneval? I'm determined to come back up for it, but who knows if that will work? Having heard the news, Mary was of course equally sad that I am going so far from her- who can she call now to go to Bonn with her? What will we do without being able to laugh about the silly things we find at Mr Music (today, we discovered bluegrass versions of The Who songs)? My poor emotions are all mixed up- I'm really glad that I'm getting a new start in a new place and I think this "family" will be really good for me, and as sure as I am that Augsburg is a lovely town, it is not Köln and it never will be Köln.

Everything I own has been packed, and it turns out that I have a lot more stuff now than I brought with me, so wish me the best getting it all on the train- at least I don't have to change trains at all, just get on and then off three and a half hours later. And all I've got is the Liz Phair song that's been pulling itself forward for me recently, although the directions are umgekehrt (backwards, but with more of a sense of being turned-around that I like and that isn't found in the English word):
And I'm not looking forward to missing you
But I must have something better to do
I've got to tear my life apart
And go west, young man
And it feels like I've got something to prove
But in some ways it's just something to do
My friends turn me around and say,
"You go west, young man."
That would be "Go West," of course, and I'm going east, and have already gone oh-so-far east, but the idea's still there.

Have I gone and torn my life apart?

I Can Fall Asleep

Yes, I didn't post yesterday. No, nothing exciting happened, that is why there was nothing. Please relax. I am still alive and well.

Today, I woke up far far too early and Anna and I went to Niederkassel to get on a bus to go to Bonn from whence we took a bus to Morenhofen (40 minutes), where Anna's aunt lives, and it is her birthday today. Why did we ride the bus? Because buses are fun. Elke and Verena followed and were much later than us, but of course also left much later. And there were lots of Germans at the aunt's house and we were sociable and ate soup and I found the absolute sweetest cat- I bent down to pet it, and it immediately climbed right into my lap and insisted that I hold it and I really miss cats. Around 1:45, Elke and Anna and Verena went to the other grandma's house to do some sort of moving of kitchen things, from which they have still not returned. I had no interest in cleaning grandma's cabinents, so I tried to call Mary (who would not answer her cell phone, for which I am still offended) and got on a bus and went to Bonn. In Bonn, I picked a direction from the giant bus stop and started walking, completely unaware that I was going in the opposite direction of absolutely everything. I wandered into a college brochure being played out before my eyes, and it was beautiful and it turns out that college campuses are identical in America and Germany, except maybe in the language spoken. I almost joined up with a random tour group for nostalgia's sake, but then I didn't. And I kept wandering, looking for stores, still unaware that they were right back where I came from, and then I saw the Rhine and hurried down to walk beside it for a while because it is pretty. Then I wandered through residential streets of Bonn forever, and every single house is really pretty, but I got rather frustrated until I found a map and discovered that I was waaaaay far away from the center of the city where everything is. Of course, cities aren't easy to navigate, and it still took me a long time and a couple more maps (those things need to be more frequent) to finally find the shopping center, by which point I no longer wished to shop. I did find some dinner (pizza and a crepe, not exactly healthy but yummy) and then I found out that I had about 30 minutes until the bus back to Niederkassel, so I slid into some bookstore for a while (I really miss books- I simply cannot read real books in German, and there aren't any good books in English here- anyone who wants to make me the happiest person ever can send me some Bernard Shaw) and then stopped into Mr Music and wandered back to the bus stop, where the bus was early. Only a 10 minute layover in Niederkassel and I am home and sleepy and Köln is so so so much easier to navigate than Bonn, although Bonn has much prettier side streets.

I have been reminded that the name the dino contest needs to end, so the winner is, by default, my mom, with the name Rosasaurus.

Any creative people have ideas for my newest baby, the iShuffle (which makes riding the bus so much more fun)?

It's a Game of Give and Take

Song of the day for yesterday was "Love Don't Come Easy" or "You Can't Hurry Love," depending on who's singing it. Thanks to flipping through multiple radio stations yesterday, I think I heard three different versions.

So I bummed around the house and made it through 3 chapters of Dorian Gray in German, which, considering that I'd only read 3 chapters total since I bought the book, must mean my German is getting better. I still feel like I'm looking up too many words, but at least now I can read more than two or three pages at a sitting. And I found a really awesome radio station, after the flipping that led to hearing a few songs more than once, which is always funny.
And at 7 we all got on our bikes and rode to Niederkassel to somebody's house for homemade pizza (Germans find it totally normal to make their own pizza, on which they put strange but delicious things, and they eat it with a fork and a knife, which is difficult) and playing the longest game of Phase 10 EVER. Of course we had to play until it was over, which took until 11:30 (and I lost miserably) and then we had to wait until midnight because it would be Anna's birthday and we could sing to her. (What? All of sudden the Germans feel the need to sing the birthday song? Where did this come from?) So we did, and then I got on my bike (whose headlight doesn't work) and rode home very, very carefully in the dark dark dark through the farm fields. And went to bed.
Oh! I completely forgot to tell you about the other adventure in Köln late at night: Subway. After closing down one bar, as we were looking for another, we passed a Subway and the Germans decided they were hungry and wanted to check it out. None of them had ever been in a Subway before, so I had to explain the whole process to them, and it was very very funny. And, last night, as Elke was relating the Subway story to the other family, I found out that she was apparently surprised at the way the Subway employees construct the sandwiches so quickly "without love." I giggled and tried to explain that it is just a sandwich, and most people don't care if the meat is lovingly placed on the sandwich or not. Oh, these Germans.
And this morning I've got the house to myself because the Germans went to Phantasia Land, which is basically Kings Dominion, and, since I don't do roller coasters, I have no interest in being there so I stayed home. I am probably going to take my little self off to Köln to finally finish buying my birthday presents (yes, Dad, I will spend money) and go to the post office because I have postcards that I need to send that I wrote while in Italy.
But first I need a shower.

And the that-evening update:
I got myself very successfully to Köln (via Troisdorf, which is sort of like going through Dinwiddie to get to Richmond from Chesterfield) and indulged in Columbus Day shopping extravaganzas, which means that I got myself a t-shirt from H&M (it is very pretty) and the iPod shuffle that I have been coveting pretty much forever. I am already in love with it, and I will be sitting here for hours loading music now. But no more dragging the giant CD player on the bus! Yaaay! I did think about those German mp3 players, I swear, but they weren't any cheaper and they don't have iTunes or Apple stickers or anything. So I have a cute little white stick for my music now, and I am very pleased.
I also enjoyed some ice cream and a lot of walking around in the shadow of my beloved Dom, which is the most beautiful building I've ever seen- I really wanted to just lay out in the sunshine beside the Dom and sleep for a while. I didn't, though. Getting home worked out nicely- got on a train at 5 and was home within half an hour. When the train-bus connections work, that's faster than with a car. At those times, I like public transportation a whole lot.

I'll like it more with my new soundtrack.

And happy Columbus Day, by the way! (Also Thanksgiving to any Canadian readers I may have)

Life (the game) is pretty cool in German, and I've discovered that I nearly have that board memorized, which is sad.

You Sing a Sad Song Just to Turn It Around

So I went to Italy, and it was exactly like Germany but with big big big mountains.

Just to warn you, this post is very long (it's a week's worth, after all), so, if you aren't already on your lunch break, you might want to go get a snack or a drink or something and turn off the phone and jot down a little list of the other things you wanted to do today, 'cause you'll probably forget them after this. You can also take it in smaller pieces (it took me two days to write this), but I don't write capsule style, so that may not work out well. Don't be afraid to read it a few times- there's not much going on this weekend, so I doubt I'll have much more of interest to tell you anytime soon. I have also been slowly adding onto this post throughout the day, so if you read it earlier, you may want to go back and discover that I've added more as I've thought of new things. (Last edit 9 Oct 6:31 pm)

There is a new song of the month, because it is a new month. It is called "You Had a Bad Day" and it is by Daniel Powter and I love it because it is so pretty and German radio is playing it just frequently enough that it is coming up to replace "You're Beautiful." There were of course many songs of the day that you missed while I was on vacation, and today's, declared at some point after midnight last night in a bar, is Nena's "99 Luftballoons."

And onto the stuff you actually want to read about, now that my overly wordy introduction is through:
I'm going to start with Friday, because I got home late and was too sleepy to finish blogging (for which I apologize to those of you who forgot I was going to Italy and thought that I maybe fell off the face of the Earth). Mary and I had the most awesome (and perhaps shortest) trip to Bonn to buy her a train ticket to get back from Brussels, where she is at the moment, and I'm jealous, because Belgium has the best chocolate and french fries ever, and because she isn't here to hang out with me right now. But we did buy some really amazing chocolate at the big Kaufhaus thing, and ate it on the bus and it was so so yummy. Also I saw Mary's house (and finally picked up that card from my mom that I forgot in Tübingen)! And then there were public transportation adventures which involved getting on a bus to get back to Niederkassel and getting there only to find out that the bus to Uckendorf literally left 3 minutes before my bus from Bergheim arrived and that was pretty annoying but I got home and ate and Katrin came and whisked me off to mandolin orchestra, which is really truly an orchestra that plays classical music and has lots of mandolins and they were all excited and found me a really old mandolin to play but the music was hard and I barely managed to get a few notes in. Next week they say they will have a better mando that I can keep for the year. Did you know that European mandolins are smaller than American ones (everything is smaller in Europe) and have this giant bulge on the back that makes them so so hard to hold? It's going to take a while to get used to the thing.
So I got up super super super early on Saturday and got in a car and spent 10 hours with 3 children (children are almost as bad as cows, but at least they don't stink)and drove through Baden-Württemburg (state containing Tübingen) and I got too excited when I saw the little 4-part trash cans that B-W has and NRW doesn't that make recycling so easy in public places- I still miss those trash cans. I cannot explain how terrible I feel not recycling things when I throw them away at the bus stop, which only has one trash can. And we drove over the Neckar and I got all sentimental, but we didn't actually pass Tübingen proper. BW is still a magical state, though. It had to end, though, and then there were mountains everywhere and, somehow, Italy looks exactly like Austria, which looks exactly like Bavaria (where I'd rather not spend too much time), and everyone speaks German, although they have thick accents that are difficult to understand. And Italy is full of old people who hike these super-super-super huge mountains, no matter what the weather. And I tried to hike, but the air is so so so thin that I barely made it the 100 or so yards to the next farm thing and I was ready to collapse because I absolutely could not breathe. I think I know what it feels like to have an asthma attack now, and it is not at all fun. I took myself back down to our little bed and breakfast and put myself into bed and watched a lot of CNN, including a really awesome episode of Larry King (randomly playing at like 10 in the morning) featuring Judge Judy, who is now my hero. This was maybe the highlight of my vacation, which is sad. We did go down the valley one day, which is infinitely more fun than the mountain, and we walked along some path that follows some sort of German-Italian irrigation system, and then it rained so we hurried back to the car (Italy has the worst weather ever- fog and rain and clouds and freezing cold) and then we went to a real city and it made me very happy- there was even actual Italian on the signs in this city! (I determined that I know more Italian than many of the people I talked to while in Italy.) And we ate pizza that was slightly above mediocre and we went in every single outdoor sports store to try to find Anna a pair of hiking boots and ended up going back to the very first store and buying the first pair that she liked. But I got to see a real Italian city! Italy apparently loves chestnuts, and it is apparently chestnut season and that means random street vendors roasting them and it smelled like Christmas at Maymont, which made me all happy.
A Few Awesome Things About Italy:
Italy has shutters (you know, like on windows), and Germans are fascinated by them
Italy has soda in CANS- I wanted one so badly
Italian towels are actually large enough to cover one's body- the German word for towel is "Handtuch" and they truly do give you a little bitty hand towel for showering, which is really not enough and still annoys me
Italian weather is terrible, Germany wins this competition (it is all warm and sunny here)
Italian radio is also awful, no matter what language it's in. It did, however, provide the entertaining discovery of a "clean" version of "You're Beautiful:" "she could see from my face that I was flying high" (those of you not familiar with the song will have to be incredibly creative to figure out what usually goes in place of flying)
Unfortunately, we did not spend very long in the city, and I was otherwise really bored. Came back on Thursday and I still don't like spending 10 hours in a car and there was some really crazy bad wreck on the other side of the Autobahn at one point- a white van literally on top of some Porsche, as if it had decided to park there, and then like 4 or 5 big trucks that were somehow involved and as we passed there were ambulances and police cars and a helicopter and everything- it was insane.
AND, at some random rest stop in Bavaria, I found DR PEPPER. Germany does not, excluding some Kiosk that Mary found in Bonn (and of course this rest stop), actually have Dr Pepper, and I'd forgotten how amazing this soda is. Not only that, but the label claimed (in English) that Dr Pepper "solves all your problems." For a little while at least, I swear it did (the batteries in my CD player found new life, the radio started playing awesome songs, the weather turned prettier, and we got out of Bavaria, which is always a good thing). We got home and I slept all happy in my own bed, able to finally sleep in now that I am not sharing a room with an 11-year-old who likes to wake up at 7 and watch tv.
So then came Friday, which was strange and difficult and I ended up visiting Experiment's office and we have come to the decision that I will be switching host families. No, there wasn't any big huge crisis, nor are there really even bitter feelings or anger or any of that. . . mostly we just somehow don't fit. We like each other well enough, but there's not really the close relationship or friendship or whatever necessary to happily live together for a year. We're just too different, and it's mostly a relief, now that I've realized that I've just been kind of living beside these people, not with them, to know that I'm going to start over and maybe have that really awesome host family experience that everyone else seems to enjoy.
Also Maja, who was one of our Betreuers in Tübingen, is totally working at Experiment now and she was there and I got to see her and that was really nice and she had good advice and made me feel better about a lot of things. Also she made me a cup of tea, and tea makes lots of things better.
But I'm not leaving yet (hold onto any mail you planned to send, though), and last night we headed into Köln and it was wonderful because I love Köln. We went on some ghost tour thing, and it turns out that all of Köln's ghost stories are pitiful and mostly involve some vaguely interesting haunting that got magically cured something like 100 years ago or someone dying in a medievally violent fashion, so there's not much spooky left to see. I do, however, now know all sorts of Kölsch folklore that I can share with everyone who comes to midyear when I take you to all the coolest hangouts in Köln! (Also the lame hangouts that happen to have cool statues- every single story had a corresponding awesome statue) And then we went closing down the bars (2 of them, as a matter of fact) and I am not going to tell you how much Kölsch I enjoyed, but it was delicious. Did you know that there are all sorts of songs about Köln that Germans know and love to sing and that they play in their bars and every single person in the room sings along? It's weird but cool and I really want to learn these Köln songs.
I slept in too late today, but I was also out too late last night.
And I bummed around the house and sort of worked on my English homework but not really (considering I'm not 100% certain I'll be going back to this school, I wonder if I should bother) and played some German game called Niagara, which won game of the year for 2005, but is actually not all that great. And ate sauerkraut, because I am, after all, in Germany. Then there was watching of Bridget Jones and eating potato chips and drinking something that is related to wine but not as aged and doesn't have as much alcohol and is sweeter and actually tastes good (ignoring Mary R's opinions). . . I forget what it was called precisely, and a German name probably wouldn't help you. It tasted exactly like sparkling cider, however, and I enjoyed it.
Now I'm picking through Dorian Gray (I just finished the third chapter and I'm starting to give up on looking up all these words because Oscar Wilde thinks it necessary to tell me exactly what kind of carpet Lord Henry has in his library, and what flowers every single thing reminds him of, and overly long metaphors that have nothing to do with the good parts of the book) and, obviously, internetting, and I don't want to sleep because I slept in too late this morning. Oh, the terrible spiraling relationship with my bed and my pillow and that comfy comfy blanket. . . I don't have to get up tomorrow morning, but I should maybe try to be out of bed before quarter to three.

Moving On

BEGIN LIFE PHASE OBERGRIESBACH

Transistion

END LIFE PHASE UCKENDORF