Lustig ist das Zigeuner Leben

Gosh, I just realized I am way behind in my duties of keeping everyone in dismayingly thorough apprisal of every excruciating bit of minutia that occurs in my daily routine. Internet stalkers and unsolicited blog marketers, apologies. As for those who might have been breathing a sigh of relief, think again! The break is over!

To start with, I've actually had a bit of trouble these last couple weeks finding two hours next to each other in which to sit down and put any thoughts together. They've been pleasant distractions, though. :) Nigel spent the time, money, and energy a couple weeks ago to hop an ICE up from Switzerland and once again come laze around on the Weinstrasse with Anna and me. It was a nice visit: he came up Thursday, and we bar-hopped in Ludwigshafen until somehow stumbling home just in time to fall asleep in our clothes, including belt and hoop earrings. (Okay, one of us barely managed to remove her shoes before passing out in her belt and earrings...) The next day, we hauled ourselves to Heidelberg, and had a relaxed day strolling around the lovely Hauptstrasse, munching on hot, thick, perfectly spiced German french fries -- mm, not even the French fry their fries as perfectly as these here Germans! -- and touring the castle. Anna met up with us back in Neustadt that evening to visit our favorite pizza place (which brags over 300 different combinations, including shrimp and cocktail sauce or sliced eggs and artichoke hearts!), and then the three of us practically had a little slumber party at my place, making popcorn, watching cartoons, laughing and just generally enjoying some much needed catch-up.

Saturday, we had had plans to go for a hike, but the weather had other ideas. So instead, Nigel and I wandered around the farmer's market and then popped by a couple other grocery stores to find the ingredients for the next day's experiment: fajitas with homemade pico de gallo, homemade guacamole -- and even homemade tortillas! It is possible to find tortillas here, but you have to go to a large superstore with an "ethnic foods" section, since, for some reason, tortillas aren't as ubiquitous in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse as they are in Tucson, AZ... ;) We spent a cozy rainy afternoon making batch after batch of experimental flatbreads before finally hitting on a workable combination. Then we put all the prepared materials in the fridge and hopped a train to Landau to visit Anna and see what the town's three Irish pubs have to offer. (Answer: lots of Guinness, but few available tables, apparently!)

We wrapped up the weekend with the crowning glory of fresh homemade fajitas, the likes of which that Hemingway's restaurant has never seen! We must have dirtied every pan and bowl in the kitchen, but it was worth it. Amy, you were right: the best way to do it is just to make your own.

It had been so nice to see Nigel, and to speak my language again, and laugh about old times that I was kinda sad to see him go on Sunday evening... :(

But not three days went by afterward before Bert and I were loading up the car again to go skiing in the Erzgebirge!

Los geht's!

The original plan was to penetrate the snowy mountains of the Czech Republic, but one of us forgot her passport. (A phenomenon which seems to be happening a lot recently. On our Berlin trip, for example, I forgot to pack any underwear. Underwear! Seriously, who does that?? John Cleese would probably tell me to eat more fresh fruit!) Anyway, so instead we settled for the indescribably beautiful Fichtelberg, the highest mountain in eastern Germany. Being March, the towns in the valleys between the hills may get a little dusting of snow in the night, but it usually disappears by late morning. However, in Oberwiesenthal -- right on top of the Fichtelberg -- the snow must have been feet deep! Bert's family fitted me out with his sister Heidi's old cross-country equipment, and we scootched off into the forest.

I wear these on my hands, right?

Cross country skiing is really, really fun. I've never done skiing of any type before, but I imagine that anything where you get to make yourself independently mobile -- sledding, biking, roller blading, ice skating, and now skiing -- is just inherently freeing. You see this vast expanse of soft whiteness, and think to yourself, "I think I'll just fly across this!" and whoosh, away you float over the downy blanket of winter. There was actually a youth competition going on in Oberwiesenthal that day, a biathlon that involves cross-country racing and then dropping down to pick up a rifle and and shoot at targets. The combination seemed startling at first, but apparently this sort of thing is pretty common in snowy areas all over the world! Bert is also a coach at the biathlon summer camp every year, and so it was fun to meet "his kids" and watch their little limbs fly around in determined exertion like so many spandex-and-ski clad eggbeaters.

I, on the other hand, had not quite mastered the technique of either slowing down or stopping, and as a result found myself nearly incapacitated when faced with even the gentlest of declines. Normal rises and falls in landscape which, when on foot, you probably wouldn't even notice, became the Tower of Terror. Consequently, I'm sure the other Erzgebirgler must have gotten quite a chuckle at the sight of a grown female clutching to the back of the training camp coach's jacket as he guided the both of them down a three-foot hill...

As the competition wound down, we left the bustle behind for the silent green forest.

Now, when you think "forest", you might think of tall old trees crowded together to hold up the fallen ones; high branches blocking out the sunlight; a thin deer trail winding through the thick, bristly groundcover. This kind of forest is certainly nice. But the woods that cover the Fichtelberg are so perfect they don't look real!

It was like something out of Narnia. The trees were all the same sort of twelve-foot-tall Christmas tree pine; full and perfectly proportioned and a glossy dark green. They were spaced far enough apart to let in the light and snow, and as a result looked as if they had been deliberately arranged and plumped down onto a big fluffy layer of cotton in some movie set. We wended our way through this landscape of green and white, with no sound but the wind murmuring softly through the boughs and the occasional whisper of a fat snowflake against a sleeve.

A wood between the worlds, indeed.

After that Zen experience, we decided to undo it all by letting me at the wheel of Bert's car. Learning to drive stick was always somewhere on the list next to "read the Complete Works of Shakespeare cover to cover" and "brush up on the plusquamperfekt conjunktiv tense in German grammar"; but in Germany, if you can't drive stick, you just can't drive. (It's true! Even in the way the two types of motors are expressed in language: in the States, it's "to drive automatic or drive stick". Here, it's either "to drive an automatic car", or just, "to drive.") So anyway, I got to mess around with the various ways of killing his engine and spinning wheels futilely in the snowy parking lot. Apparently some other people thought we were just joyriding, because we seemed to inspire followers: after a few minutes, we started to get regularly chased off the parking lot by a dad who thought to delight his kids in the backseat by spinning in crazy loops through the snow (while mom pasted "Help I've Been Kidnapped" notes to the passenger side window).

Having thus frozen our Hintern off, we then decided to thaw in the thermal springs down in the valley. A hot soak followed by a tall Hefeweizen in a tavern made sure that we slept at least twelve hours that night!

Well, so! That's the state of Nikkiland thus far. :) This week has been a whirlwind of teaching and tutoring, and then on Sunday, it's off again to the mid-year Fulbright Seminar in Berlin. I'm really looking forward to "being scholarly" again for a bit... my job is interesting and often rewarding, but it'll be nice to listen to some current event discussion panels and participate in workshops on pedagogical theory without having to prepare them all myself in advance! Plus it'll be a good opportunity to do a little of what Dad terms "gripping and grinning", making some connections with professors from all over Germany. Plus I get to visit Conny during the downtime, plus Casey might be in town for a day or two, as well... oh, the excitements and delightments! As George Costanza might say, my "whole life is a fantasy camp!"