HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHLOE!

It's a year of great birthdays. Today, Chloe turns 10!!!

Alles alles Gute zum Geburtstag. Love you! And miss you all!!

(Here is another celebratory dance...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!

My brother turned 30 yesterday!!!

Now he can drink and vote and rent a car.

Congratulations, Bro, and I hope you had a fantastic day. Love you!

(Here is a little celebratory dance...)

Pirate Google!

Arrr, but we be feelin' lucky!

Speaking of blogs...

I think I'm going to clean up the link list on the right, and remove the links to blogs that haven't been updated in a year or more. It's just too sad to keep clicking and hoping -- in vain, in vain!

Home cookin'

Check out our new family recipe blog, Scrambled Eggers! Thanks to Shauna for the lovely surprise (and the cute name, haha!). It's like hanging out with everyone in the kitchen.

Miss you guys!

Happy Wall Fall Day, everyone!

Twenty years ago today, determined masses of citizens took to the streets to declare that they'd had enough of the Berlin Wall.

Aside from the fact that the thing desperately needed tearing down and the GDR badly needed to let its people go -- without this day, I wouldn't have found a Berti. (Or his lovely family. Or many of my lovely friends.)

My heartfelt thanks to all you brave folks!

Nicht in Ordnung

So I bought some flowers today, and waited in line while the folks ahead of me had their plants elaborately wrapped in cellophane, tied closed with floofy bunches of ribbon, and held together with various stickers.

When it was my turn, I gave the lady exact change for the bouquet and tried to leave. "Wait," she said, reaching for my flowers. Thinking there must have been a bar code on the sleeve or something, I handed them over. But she didn't scan them; she started to roll them up in paper. "Oh, it's okay," I said quickly, trying to take the flowers back. "I don't need them all wrapped up."

She stopped dead and stared at me as if I had just addressed her in Spanish. After a moment's perplexed, slightly miffed staring, she demanded, "Why not?"

Huh? What did she mean, why not? "Because I'm just going to take them home and put them in a vase," I replied, attempting to sound reasonable, rather than surprised and annoyed. "I don't need it gift-wrapped, it'd be a waste of paper."

Her firm, brilliantly-reasoned explanation (as she continued to roll and wrap): "But you must."

Me: "I must? The thing is already in a plastic sleeve, does everything have to be double- and triple-wrapped in this world? We're creating garbage by the ton every day, why must we make even more?"

She didn't respond, she simply added tape to close the top of the huge paper cone that had now enveloped my "fair-trade" flowers (irony, anyone?) and shoved it unceremoniously back at me. I shoved my Euros unceremoniously back at her and left the shop, tearing off the paper as I went.

Okay, so to be fair, she probably wasn't prepared for the question and didn't have the presence of mind to explain to me whatever Official Flower Shop Code dictates that all flowers be smothered in a non-permeable wrapping before leaving the premises. Maybe it's to avoid aggravating other people's allergies or something. But if that's the case, then how come the bouquet I bought was selected from a huge display of plants erupting several square meters over the street in front of the shop? I just can't think why I "must" accept my flowers rolled up in paper and taped closed -- over both sides, mind you, including the top -- before I can leave with them. They already had a plastic sleeve and rubber bands to keep them together and from any potential shedding.

All I can think is that this is one of those employees who is obsessed with "the way things are done" for the sheer sake of "the way things are done." I can understand Ordnung and all that, but when people become automatons instead of thinking, rational creatures, it frustrates me a little.

When I told all this to Bert after he got home, he sighed, exasperated. "You mean like the lady at our post office?"

Haha! Yeah, I guess we know a few of these. :)

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a great time. (We did!)

Graaaaah!

The best part of any Halloween gathering. Doesn't Andreas' pirate ship look cool?? The bat was Na; the aquarium, Katrin; the tree, me; the "boo" face, Anja; the spider, Bert; the classic jack, me

Check out Nadja's pumpkin cake!

My nose had sort of rubbed off by this point... I was supposed to be "Bert's Kater"!

Jobbin in Jermany

Okay, so there are times when my work certainly has its disadvantages. "Selbstständig" is the word for "freelance," which literally means "self-standing." However, "ständig" can also mean "constant(ly)" -- so if you are selbstständig, then you work both selbst and ständig! Ho ho! And true!

But what other job can leave you so completely jazzed? I just had one of those classes today: the kind that turn out constructive, fun, and textbook-perfect. Not only were the material and lesson plan all logically organized and relevant -- wrapping up into a neat conclusion at the end of the hour -- but it was also just the right balance of structure vs. organic flow. Even more importantly, all the students were engaged and learning and enjoying themselves; they practically interrupted each other to be able to apply the vocabulary and express themselves in English, making jokes and really getting into the topic. Afterward, everyone expressed how much they enjoy their English group and how empowering it feels to be able to communicate in a foreign language.

Other times, when I have asked students (during a discussion of workplace culture or something) what they like most about their jobs, they've beamed at me and answered: "English class!"

Add to that the fact that it's not only gratifying for me, it's healthy, too: professionally (boy, have I learned a lot!) but also personally, in that I get to know and like and care about all these lovely people. So many different kinds of people -- everyone from a completely different background, different ages, stages in life, different education, gender, personality, even different countries, and yet all of them equally valuable. It's just a priceless lesson to be able to internalize. Of course we all are told in school, "everyone is special," but reconciling that with our innate, animal-survival tendency to view groups of "others" as "others" unless they belong to our clan is not so easily reprogrammed. To therefore be granted the opportunity to reinforce the truth, every day I work with these unique and utterly special individuals, is a blessing.

And I get paid for this? Jeez, I'd do it for free!

Let's see, where was I?

Right, wine and language and all that!

I think I pretty much covered the wine part, at least up through the fest on Saturday night in Bernkastel-Kues. (They even set off eye-boggling fireworks, from both the riverside and the castle above. Fireworks! Did I mention the coolness of this festival?)

It was the next day that I also got to experience the Best Parade Ever, which earns that title because it's entirely made up of free wine. That is, each of the different wine villages along the Mosel sends their own delegation, in which "wine princesses" wave from grape-covered floats while their minions run around distributing free wine. Everyone goes, "Oh look, here comes Piesport!" and some Dionysius-clad gentleman -- or maybe he's one of the folks in tricorne hat and breeches, or dressed as a Roman centurion, I never did figure out what the various costumes are meant to represent -- pours golden Piesporter Riesling into our outstretched glasses. Then he gets impatient filling all the proffered cups and just leaves us with the bottle, while we call, "Hail, Caesar!" or however you thank a centurion who just granted you your third free bottle of Goldtröpfchen.

Anyway, so all this was fabulous, until a lady standing next to me at the parade heard my non-Mosellaner-accented speech and discovered I was not only a foreigner, but -- gasp! -- an American! Thus, in accordance with proper Miss Manners etiquette to finding out that your conversational partner is from another country, she proceeded to ask me, point-blank, why Americans "all talk so f***ing ugly." That's exactly how she said it: one moment, she was asking me in calm German where I was from and I was answering in German, and the next, she was suddenly shrieking in grotesquely-caricatured English that "Americans talk so f***ing ugly!"

Wha---

How do you respond to such improbable behavior?

In fact, I didn't. I stared at her for a moment, then demonstrably turned on my heel and pushed away through the crowd.

First, a note about the f-word. It wasn't (only) the fact that this lady was cussing at a perfect stranger that appalled me, since I'm aware of how many Germans seem to misunderstand the intensity of the f-word: they see it in movies all the time and think, huh, it must be like Scheisse, which literally means "shit" but is really about as strong as "damn." So if a German ever drops the f-bomb on you, be aware that he possibly doesn't mean it quite as invectively as it sounds. (Although it's still pretty shocking to hear your local morning show hosts use it in clueless imitation of English-speaking political figures -- I just about dropped my toothbrush!)

That said, it still startled me, more so because of this woman's apparent eagerness to demonstrate the intensity of her dislike than because of the word itself. The whole exchange was a bit like being slapped. I know she was probably drunk or crazy or both; but at that moment, I was already a bit sensitive about my outsidership, anyway, what with having met a whole bunch of new people in a new place with a new dialect. Plus, I had just been watching the colorful parade roll by through a golden, sunshiney wine haze, thinking how much I like it here in Germany and how lucky I am to get to be included in all these wonderful traditions. It was like a little demon had suddenly leapt up in the middle of my contented musings to shriek at me: "That's what you think! Intruder! False! She doesn't actually belong here!" And he was right -- these weren't my people, my traditions; it was especially not my language. The woman had been crass and unjustified, but it still hit a nerve. I went and leaned on the bridge, staring gloomily into the water. I felt suddenly disoriented. Was I just kidding myself, really? Is this whole "oh-I-finally-feel-at-home-in-a-foreign-country" game just wishful thinking because I'm growing sick of being rootless?

Which is a ridiculous reaction, because of course the other 99% of the population is so accepting and kind, and would be shocked themselves by this woman's behavior. But sometimes all it takes is just that one jerk, because I am occasionally insecure about being an immigrant. It frustrates me when I can't find the right word, and people stand there looking at me expectantly and I am sure they're exasperated that I've been living in Germany for three years now, and how long do I expect them to keep patiently smiling and going along with my "I'm just the clueless foreigner" schtick? Which of course is not what they're thinking (I hope) but it certainly is what I'm thinking. So it particularly hurts when someone seems to expose me for the fraud I sometimes feel like. Yet I chose this life -- how am I entitled to pity when I chose to come here?

Or maybe all this angsty overreaction is just me being melodramatic, and everyone feels unanchored at some point in their lives. Or it's just the obvious starting point for when you feel like questioning every choice you've ever made. In any case, I felt better as soon as Martin came looking for me and responded to my complaint with a "Pfft! We'll just have to teach you some more dialect."

I'm not quite kidding about the language part, though. I feel more and more like I'm just floating sometimes, suspended between two languages. The fault lies entirely with my job (or so I like to think) in that I teach English: in other words, I spend my whole workday not really immersed in German, but not speaking natural, nuanced English, either. This means that my German has sort of plateaued out at a perfectly competent but certainly not native-speaker-like proficiency, while my English is going stale with the same International Fundamental Vocabulary for Dry Technology and Boring Business. "Context" is a word I get to use a lot. "Vile" or "ignominious" or "titillating," not so much.

So there you have it. I suppose the elusive Home and the impossible Language parts will just have to settle themselves into a sort of limbo-truce someday. In the meantime, thank heavens there are good friends and tasty Wine to help lubricate the process.

Oh, the Onion...

Cat Congress Mired in Sunbeam

Sorry that last post hasn't been finished yet, September's been rather eventful (and by that read: splendid). Stay tuned!

Wine, Language, Home

Or alternately: the Tasty, the Impossible, and the Elusive: Thoughts Invoked by The Best Parade Ever.

It started when I spent last weekend drinking wine with my friend Martin, who comes from Lösnich on the Mosel.

Funny how I wasn't a wine-drinker at all in the States. But maybe that's just it: everyone knows that wine culture in Europe is "different" from wine culture in the States; however, that difference is not simply a matter of quantity. Leaving aside all discussion of American attitudes toward alcohol, buying wine in Arizona was not only expensive, but impenetrable -- bottles crowding each other on the shelf, competing for attention with their cutesy names and dizzying array of various origins. Australia? California? South America? Europe? Africa? Where do you even begin? There seemed to be something more than slightly elitist about all the prerequisite foreknowledge I imagined you had to have to identify whatever was supposed to be "good" (I personally couldn't even taste the difference) and so I just stuck with beer.

I knew lots of Americans liked wine. But suffice to say that, at least in non-wine-growing Arizona, there seemed to be such thick barriers of entry for the newcomer that I just never got into it.

Here, however, wine isn't nearly so inapproachable. It's life. It's a culture, an economy, a heritage, and a series of festivals that crown the "Wine Queen" every year. And yet it's also, paradoxically, not that big a deal. It's loved, but knowable. In the Pfalz, in fact, wine is almost preferred over beer, because wine is local and much beer is not (although living with someone who grew up within walking distance of the Czech border means our household still maintains a goodly supply of beer). Plus it's very unusual to find the giant wine producers here the way you might in California or Australia, because vintners aren't interested in bottling enormous quantities to mass-market abroad. Not to say there isn't competition, of course there is -- with each other, with France. So it is nevertheless some damn fine stuff, and I've had the inestimable luck to find myself standing in a river of it.

Now, I learned to love it in the Pfalz, where they drink it dry, dark, powerful, and by the 1/4-liter glass. (You ever want to stain your teeth blue, sip on a Dornfelder.)

But I knew nothing about the Mosel. I'd driven by the valley a time or two, and been intrigued by that glassy river, winding sleepily like a jigsaw puzzle through the glowing, vineyard-covered hills. It's also the wine-growing area of Germany that happens to be slightly known outside of Germany; so when your Mosellaner friend extends an invitation to show it to you, you take it.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my excellent host for an marvelous and enlightening time, and all his excellent friends for their warm welcome. It was beautiful. And different. The vineyards are different -- so... steep! -- the dialect is different, the wine is different, even the way of drinking it is different. Instead of buying a half-liter Schoppen and passing it around the group, the way they do in the Pfalz, on the Mosel, you buy a whole bottle and then distribute it into everyone's individual, tiny (0.1-liter, or 3.4-ounce) glass. The bottle is finished, the next person buys the new one. In this way, you can annihilate quite a few bottles and still be standing when the last bus goes at 4:00am.

I also made the barbaric mistake of allowing my fingers to touch the bowl of my glass, and was immediately corrected: "Hier," I was assured, with a demonstration, "trinken wir mit Stiel." (A nice little pun on Stiel, the glass-stem, and Stil: class, style.)

In addition, the wine is very sweet. Not syrupy and cloying -- in fact it was delicious -- but certainly not the dry reds that I'm used to at home.

Not to mention that it seems like all of Martin's friends are vintners. Or at least in a family of vintners. One moment, we'd be standing around sharing a bottle, and another, one of our group would appear behind the counter of the stand we'd been patronizing, wrapping an apron around his waist and opening another bottle for other customers.

All of this culminated in the completely normal sight of a bunch of young men standing around, being manly and talking man-things, while holding their tiny glasses of sweet white wine carefully by the stem and interrupting each other once in a while to swirl it, sniff, and ask, "Say, do you think this one's too acidic?"

It was awesome.

But this brings me to another, somewhat less awesome (I'll explain in a minute) feature of the wine festival, which was the quantity of American soldiers who suddenly appeared: quickly recognizable by their military haircuts, baggy American clothes, and loud honking voices.

Again, let me explain. I grew up a military brat in Germany, to parents who loved the country in which they found themselves and took every opportunity to explore and learn and discover. So when Martin told me to expect to see a lot of people from the bases, I rather looked forward to meeting and talking to some countrymen and expected I'd be able to relate. Besides, I've been here long enough to discover that plenty of American servicemen are not like my parents were, and so am proud of anyone who decides to brave what could be a scarily foreign country to get out to mingle with the folks and experience some local culture.

But once I saw -- or rather, first heard -- them, I was startled to discover I didn't want to approach them at all. Why not? There they were, being American and talking American; and instead of walking up to them, I wanted to run and hide. What was wrong with me??

Well, one factor was probably just shock, in that we'd been floating in a sea of soft, rolling German, and suddenly these noisy haircuts come swaggering in, projecting their nasal vowels across the crowd as if they were on a college campus, and it was... okay, it was embarrassing.

Another factor was probably just age: their average couldn't have topped 20 or 21, and they were simply acting like it. Poor guys, they were just being the kids that they were. But they were still a far cry from the Air Force officers I'd been picturing. They were... well, have soldiers always looked so sketchy? And the girlfriends so, well, trashy? What was with the g-strings sticking out the backs of their jeans?

Although I'm always very slightly aware of my outsidership here, most of the time, it's easy to ignore as I get settled into my adopted home. After all, it's the one I've got, now (I hardly even know anyone in Arizona anymore!), and it's been a constant process of effort and development to get used to the Immigrant Experience.

And yet now it was like, Martin had shown me where he was from, his culture and people and place; and then supposedly representing my side, a group of MTV caricatures bursts in to demonstrate where I'm supposed to be from.

Maybe that's why I relate so much to my friend Linda. She's Canadian, and has lived in Neustadt since 2005. For a long time, she was ambivalent about staying; but now she's marrying Clemens, her adorable Pfälzer, and has really landed firmly on the side of remaining an immigrant. Even Chrissie from Chicago, who knows she'll be leaving at the end of her third year (next summer, boo hoo!) tries as much as she can to engage with the culture and learn the language. So maybe the reason I can't make friends with the Americans I occasionally run into from the military bases are that they aren't of this little dual-natured world. While many (my parents included) seized the opportunity to live abroad and wore it out, for far too many others, there is this very clear separation of Us and Them that I don't -- can't -- identify with.

Wow, I didn't realize how long this post was going to get! It's time to go to bed, I'll try to get to the rest of it tomorrow... nighty night!

Happy Birthday Stiiiiiiiiiiv!

One of my favorite people, my gorgeous motivated adventurous hilarious girlfriend's-honor-defending brother-in-law, turns 30 today! A great date to do so, too, 09/09/09.

Berti is there to celebrate with him in Seattle. I wish I were, too!

Love you, Stevie!

Prost!

Three years in Germany

Wow, can it really have been a year since this post??

Time is spinning away faster and faster, it seems, like a penny in one of those donation-funnels at the store.

To those of you who have watched more years spin around than I have: does it keep doing this?

Do the summers keep stepping on each other's heels?

I can think of a few possible explanations as to why this third year in Germany has sped by so quickly. For one thing, I've been even happier than in the previous two, and you know the relativity formula for happiness. One reason is that I have so enjoyed our large, airy apartment with its inviting balcony, and realized what a profound influence living quarters have on your quality of life. Every time I sit down in my comfy office to work, I am accompanied by the lively activity right outside these glass doors: kids playing, visitors going to see their friends, folks leaving for work and coming home from work, neighbors cooking or watering their plants... I've especially loved watching said plants go through their pageant of seasons, like the trees and parks in the old version of "SimCity."

For another thing, my Mom spent over ten months here in Germany, and having her so close by really helped to soothe that raw spot of being so far away from all you guys. Thanks for this last year, Mom!!!

And maybe for another, I've really found my groove with work. I've been doing this just long enough to not only get really good at it -- so it's much more effortless than ever before -- but I've also been able to pick and choose the jobs that I really want to do, and to carve myself a comfy niche to occupy in each one. I feel useful, skilled, and appreciated -- something not everyone gets to enjoy about their work.

It's still just a point along the whole career path, though. It's slowly becoming time for me to really get cracking on that PhD: not only because I would indeed like to make a contribution to the field of teaching English as a Lingua Franca, but also because it's simply the next logical career move. Language jobs around here are almost exclusively on an independent-contracting basis unless you've got that Dr. title, and I don't want to be a freelancer forever.

Fortunately, I already have a pretty good idea of what I would like to study and who I plan to approach for potential advisors. I'm aiming for next spring to begin harassing professors into taking me on. Stay tuned...

So maybe all this satisfaction is simply a natural consequence of really getting settled in. I'm all set to pay my first German income taxes this year (last year, I didn't make enough to pay anything at all!) and thank goodness, it looks like I saved enough to cover the amount due. (Another hazard of freelancing!) I'll renew my visa this month, and get my German driver's license as soon as I get back from the States in a couple weeks. In October, Bert and I will go on a bike trip for his birthday; we'll buy a couple things for the place; we'll have a bachelorette party for one of my best friends; we'll consider celebrating Thanksgiving; we'll make Christmas plans.

I guess, in short, you could say the last three years have forged me a life: a career, goals, friends, and a wonderful partner. It hasn't happened quickly, or smoothly, or predictably; really getting settled in somewhere takes an awful lot of time.

But I think I can add to this post something that I couldn't quite say last year. And that is: Germany really has become my home.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Hey, in case you haven't looked at her blog recently, my Mom just celebrated her first Highland birthday yesterday! And it sounds like it was a total blast.

Congratulations on achieving your dream, Mom! (Insert wild pipe skirling)

Musing again

It's night, which means I should be in bed, but I'm too busy up musing. Things like:

- The power went out twice today. It was nice to sit around on the balcony, surrounded by candles, unable to use the computer.

- It was also neat to watch the neighbors doing the same things on their balconies.

- Barbecue sauce is delicious, but it seriously does not belong on non-barbecue things (like pizza). Freaks me out a little.

- But chicken mole is awesome.

- It's so much more fun being a grown-up than a kid. For one thing, even if I don't enjoy it, I can theoretically apply barbecue sauce to whatever I want. For another, the world makes increasingly more sense with every passing year.

- Teaching English at BASF just gets more and more enjoyable. So much so that I feel a little guilty being paid for it. There's nothing like spending your day hopping from group to group of completely unique, motivated individuals to convince you that the world is absolutely stuffed with wonderful people. Of course, I get to see their best sides: the sides that are learning, having fun, teasing each other and being creative and sharing what they did on the weekend and sticking out their tongues adorably as they concentrate on an exercise. After two years of meeting every week, you really get to know these people. And they're all just so... dear! It both fills you with love for humans and, at the same time, makes the evils of the universe almost too much to bear, to imagine that every bad thing that happens certainly involves one-of-a-kind folks like these. Everyone please be nice to each other out there.

- Speaking of lovable humans, I so totally still have a crush on Josh Groban. He's done some cheesy stuff of late, but then he could sing "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and make it sound like an audible 2003 Bordeaux barrique. The man is Orpheus.

- Plus he looks aych-oh-tee in glasses.

- Lots of men look hot in glasses. Men! Go buy yourselves some glasses!

- In fact, Bert actually looks a little like Josh Groban. Check out this picture. The eyes, the eyebrows, the mouth, even his hairline. Hmmm....

- Shauna got sick in Jaipur. I guess that's obligatory -- every non-Indian is supposed to spend at least a little time being sick, adapting to the different sorts of microorganisms -- but I hope this doesn't mean she missed seeing the Palace of Winds or riding a camel. Hope they're having good travels back to Bangalore now.

- I got to talk to Sarah on the phone yesterday, which was awesome. She's so funny and easy to talk to, I really should call more often.

- Berti is flying to North America in a couple weeks! Vancouver, then Seattle, then Green Bay.

- And I'll be in Green Bay, too, visiting my fambleeeee!

- Speaking of travel, we spent last weekend lurking around near Bremen and got nice and sun-toasted on the North Sea (wrinkles be damned, gimme that Vitamin D!). It was very cool: the tide came in, we swam, the tide went out, we collected seashells. I've never been so far north on the Continent before, and it rocked! I stood on the shore and tried to imagine dragon-shaped longships appearing over the horizon. Bremen was also a fun city, with a gorgeous Innenstadt and lots to see. We hung out with Bert's friends and their two so-charming-it-hurts little boys, explored the idyllic countryside, had breakfast at the new Hofbräuhaus Bremen (gawd, we're such alkies) and just generally had a smashing time in the Stadt of the Musikanten. Plus we're nice 'n' tan! I haven't worn makeup for a week.

- I'm worried about my friend Sara, who just got a visit from some army messenger yesterday trying to call her back into active duty. She has two small children and a husband who's likely deploying before the year is out. Huh?? She has until September 4th to appeal; everyone please send good vibes.

- Well, I'm tired, maybe that means I should go to bed.

- Not before writing one more line.

- One more.

- Blog out.

Fahrvergnügen

So hey, maybe I should actually begin thinking about what it takes to be allowed to drive here.

Up to this point, the issue seemed a bit unimportant, even irrelevant, considering:

a) I don't have a car registered in my name
b) the first year I was here, I wasn't sure how long I would stay, and
c) by the time I knew I would stay -- i.e. the second year -- Bert's car was living in the Erzgebirge.

But now that the Opel is once again a resident of Ludwigshafen, and my third year in Germany is heading to its close, it's slowly becoming ridiculous that I don't have a German license. Bert and I have become like those couples in the 1950s, where the husband always drives while the wife sits wifily in the passenger seat.

So I finally sat down just now to peruse the web and see what it would take to get a Führerschein. And would you look at that! Arizona has an agreement with the German government that allows its citizens to simply come in and exchange their AZ driver's license for a German one. Let's see, how much time do I have to do that? About... it says here... oh... "up to 3 years."

ACK!!!!!!!

My three-year mark is next Wednesday!

If I miss it, I have to leap through something like 6 months of brutal bureaucratic landmines and examinations and document-issuing before I get to then sweat out around 2,000 Euros worth of behind-the-wheel hours and processing fees.

I gotta get on the ball! Or the wheel, as it were! I'll let you know how it goes...

(Besides, if they make me take a test, they'll realize I still don't know how to drive stick. Yipe!)

Sommerliche Tage

What a wonderful summer so far! If a bit busy -- also expensive (!) -- it's been worth it.

Since June should really be its own entry, I'll start in the middle of July, when Mom & I headed out toward Regensburg to visit my friend Sara. She just moved to that area in July with her husband, Jared, a hippie-turned-soldier who's had some pretty unbelievable adventures in the Army before they finally got stationed in cool, green, relatively non-bomb-throwing Europe. It was so great to catch up with Sara again. We hadn't seen each other since she -- herself a hippie-turned-soldier -- left Tucson for said Army in 2003, and yet it was like almost no time had passed. Except for her having a husband and two adorable children! We had a lovely time: explored the town, ate famously delicious Bratwurst, drank beer, chased kiddies, escaped from the Gasthaus.

Oh yeah, the Gasthaus. For the most part, she seems to be settling into Germany pretty well; except for the first couple of weeks, when the whole family was stuck in two rooms in this bizarrely large, yet otherwise weirdly empty, Gasthaus on the lonely end of a sparse collection of houses that somehow, somewhen was generously granted its own name and "village" status. There wasn't even a bus going out there from the equally spooky train station twelve kilometers away... although after half an hour of trying, we did finally get a hold of the only taxi cab within a 30-kilometer radius. I mean it, the only one! Be sure to make your booking in advance! Might be charming, if it weren't completely maddening. Sara and Jared were ready to start throwing themselves against the walls by the end of Week Two, and I considered buying them a large mirror to make them think they had more space -- and maybe even roommates who looked just like themselves -- until they were finally able to buy a car and move into a real house in a real town nearby. I'm really looking forward to visiting again at the end of August.

But first, it was off to Scotland for Mom's momentous move! Check out her blog for details on our fabulous weekend hanging out in pubs and stomping our feet to live Celtic folk music -- IIIII mean, of course, registering her for classes and looking for apartments. (Come on, we did a little of that, too!)

Inverness is seriously great. Not only is everyone friendly and the town cute, but for such a middle-sized community (70,000, I think?), it's also hopping! There's always some event going on. And in the pubs, people actually dance: that kicking, jumping, Scottish-looking dancing that everyone must learn in school or something because they all look really good doing it. And of course you, as a Not Scot, don't even contemplate getting up and joining them because they're all so, you know, authentic, and you're, like, this dorky tourist and stuff. So you just sit at your table bouncing in your seat and having some more whisky. Until the Scots catch you at this -- then you are pulled quite bodily into the ruckus and your whisky-lubricated feet miraculously find their own rhythm. We had way too much fun, and Mom made way too many new friends!, for us to dwell too much on the sadness of Monday's inevitable parting.

But even the journey back to Edinburgh, while a bit melancholy, was very beautiful. The Highlands really look just like they do in the films. The train pulled out of Inverness into a low-hanging dawn, and I spent three hours watching the mist swirl between mountains and over rocky brooks that wound their way through dark purple heather. Kind of matched my mood. Add some atmospheric music to the mp3 player (in fact the "Gladiator" soundtrack is superb for watching landscapes) and you have yourself one transcendental train ride.

I didn't have too much time to brood, however, because the following weekend ging es gleich wieder los. Bert and I drove down to his mom's place on the Bodensee and, along with his dad and uncle, celebrated Gert's birthday. And I discovered where the sun goes to when it's on vacation from Scotland! On Friday night, we set up a tent under the apple trees in a garden overlooking the water, roasted potatoes in a campfire, and drank beer under the Milky Way until we simply couldn't stay awake any later.

By eight-thirty the next morning, we were waking up to the smell of fallen apples; taking a dip in the Bodensee; drying off on the grass in the sunshine; then having lunch in a Biergarten before driving out to yet another lake for frisbee and more basking in the sun. I tell you, it was vacation. Even the climate reminded me a bit of California: that golden light and soft air... riding along the coast with the windows down, summer-clad, cool wind on your sunwarmed skin, watching the light flash off the water and glow through ranks of graceful white sails.

On Sunday it was pretty hot, so on the drive home, we made a stop to walk through a lovely Altstadt and have ice cream coffee.

Just like Baden-Württemberg has a prettier "Ludwigshafen" -- on the Bodensee -- it also has its own Haßloch, this one friendlier and spelled "Haslach"

We stopped again near sunset because we spotted another lake from the road and simply had to get out of the car and jump in it.

Swim in meeeeee!

View from the lake. Isses net schee?

Monday, I actually -- gasp! -- got some work done. And then on Tuesday, Steve came!! He stopped through Frankfurt on his way to visit Shauna in India, so we got a whole day and night to play together. Which he and Bert took full advantage of, too -- I had no idea how late they were up hanging out until I tried to wake them up to trundle them off to their respective airports and jobs. Last word was that Steve made his flight on time... it makes me happy to think of him and Shauna reunited now!

So here it's Wednesday night, and Bert and I are already checking the weather to see how it will be in Bremen this weekend. He's got friends up there who've been bugging him to come up and visit for years, so it looks like we're escaping this wine country heat to check out some more ships, this time zurück in the cool north.

Anybody been to Bremen before, or Bremerhaven? Anything we should be sure to see? :)

Perhaps this will please the gentleman...

Ah ha ha! This clip always makes me laugh.

Horrors and Delights

Mom and I were looking at some gowns on display in the window of a formalwear shop the other day. For each one, I heard myself loudly issuing some supercilious evaluation: a dress was "hideous" or "gorgeous," "appalling" or "breathtaking," or "would be nice if there were fewer sequins and more of that turquoise color." Everything was either horrible or delightful.

So in that vein, I give you: This Past Weekend, as Judged by the Opinionated Nikki!

- Horrible: Bert left for Munich last Thursday evening. A weekend without him, aiee! Speaking of Bavaria, I've been meaning to gripe: what's all the fuss about, anyway? That area is so overexposed. How come it gets all the recognition when the Pfalz is just as pretty but less self-aggrandizing?

- Delightful: His trip was just in time to give Mom & me a little catch-up playtime before we fly to Inverness next weekend. Hooray! Hanging out together in Germany, then in Scotland!

- Horror: We watched the movie "Troy" last night, which is fun, but just as often ridiculous. I mean, how does Briseis suddenly allow herself to be seduced by Achilles just when she was in the middle of despising him? Silly girl!

- But Delight: Thumbs up to her spirited verbal volleying!

- Horror: And how many times does the movie need to keep hammering the "I will be immortal through my memorable deeds" theme? Answer: at least eight. (Several of which are accompanied by Achilles' squinting thoughtfully off into the distance, just in case we missed the point.)

- Delight: Eric Bana is a babe. More scenes with Hector!

- Horror: By the way, I discovered that Hefeweizen aggravates my fructose malabsorption issues. Nooooooooooooooooooo......

- Delight: At least Weißburgunder turns out to be an acceptable alternative to fructose-fraught Rieslings, the main ingredient in a Weinschorle! Ahh, the Schorle: refreshing summer beverage, I salute you.

- Horror: Planning lessons on a Sunday sucks.

- Delight: Mom and I went for a long walk in Luisenpark on Saturday.

- Horror: The Strassenbahn tracks are being worked on, and there was no tram to take us home from the park.

- Delight: So we went for a beautiful 3-mile walk back to Berliner Platz on our own two (four) feet.

- Horror: The Frogurt is also cursed.

- Delight: But you get your choice of topping!