Through the wind and weather

Germany isn't particularly rife with the "traditional" natural disasters -- tornado, earthquake, flood, apocalyptic horsemen -- but man, can it whip up a heck of a windstorm. Last Thursday morning, earnest newsbroadcasters ("toupee alarm!" one warned) urged everyone to stay inside come afternoon, as they were expecting winds of up to 120 km/hr. But since I was only teaching two classes early in the morning, I thought I'd brave the mere 40 km/hr winds to valiantly bring English to some German schoolchildren. Not rain nor snow nor hail nor monstrous wind will keep this foreign language assistant from showing her 5th graders a silly Rowan Atkinson movie!

All was well until I decided to walk home, at which point my umbrella was promptly turned inside-out, my hood was blasted off my head, and the wind carefully parted the back of my hair so as to allow a more direct rain-pelting of my scalp (and shortly thereafter, my eyeballs and ear canals). I was bent nearly double by the time I stomped up to the door. This in turn was thrown open by a concerned sister, armed with a cup of hot tea -- and who then promptly burst out laughing at the apparition before her. We spent the rest of the day with the Rollladen pulled down against the increasing battering of the world outside, making pot after pot of exotic tea and snuggled up with books.

A more snuggled Shauna, the world has never seen.

Oh yeah! I should mention, Shauna is here! YAYY! I feel like me again. :) She flew in last Tuesday morning, and we have had a great last week or so. After Thursday night's Sturm und Drang, the world was sparkling and fresh on Friday morning. We got up early; hung out; made more tea; hung out some more; then went for a long walk through the wine fields where we, quite literally, chased a rainbow. We were just walking along and spotted a bright one: then, seeing that its end appeared to be no more than a hundred feet away, we just kind of started walking toward it. Everyone knows that the illusion will never let you get closer than it already looks -- but it was RIGHT THERE! We had to try. We squelched through the muddy fields until we were almost at the foot of the hill that proudly displays the Hambacher Schloss, before turning back down into the town and wending our way through some cobblestones.

That night, Bert came over, and we made an American Dinner: chili con carne, salad, and even a dessert of chocolate chip cookies. These cookies are incredible!! Sarah sent them with Shauna from Wisconsin: a huge tupperware box full of moist, thick, nutty, chocolatey goodness surrounding a gallon-sized bag of walnut-strewn fudge. I just about ran around in circles when she produced them from her bag. Thank you, Sarah!!! What a marvelous surprise! I in no way exaggerate when I inform the Internet Community that the best baked goods ever are to be found in my stepmom's kitchen. Bert was awfully impressed, and we gobbled the rest of them hiking the next day through the Pfaelzer Wald. Sarah, I've told this nice German man that I will try to obtain the recipe from you and make my own lame attempt at these divine things. Might I impose...?

Saturday was lovely. The weather was kinda icky, but we were all in an adventurous mood when we took off through the Pfaelzer Wald in search of its secrets. We drove almost all the way down the Weinstrasse, deep into the forest, and through old wine villages before we reached the top of a misty wooded hill, crowned with a 12th-century fortress carved right out of the rock: Burg Berwartstein.

You can find some pretty comprehensive information about the castle on this site. It's a fascinating place, rife with legends and even ghost stories!

Before storming the castle, however, we first took a stroll through the forest. But as Amy can tell you, hiking is really just an excuse to eat hiking food. We walked through the rainy woods just long enough to finish Sarah's cookies before heading back to sit on a wide stump in the shadow of the castle, and make a picnic of hard boiled eggs, cheese sandwiches, and coffee from Bert's old army thermos.

Thus fueled for our attack, we scaled the steps and ferociously joined a small guided tour. The guide was a university student who has loved the castle since his childhood, and his enthusiasm for it was infectious as he told us stories and described medieval fortress life. We poked our heads into old bedrooms, goggled the armor and obligatory torture devices, peeked up a narrow vertical tunnel that used to be the only entrance into the castle (which apparently made the place completely impenetrable, as hot oil and such could be poured down this stone tube!) and clutched at each other as we were led down a dark secret passageway that the castle inhabitants had used to escape enemies. There was also a 100-meter deep well, into which the guide tipped a bucket of water; and we held our breath for nine long seconds before we heard the distant splash at the bottom. Cool! And yet another interesting feature were the numerous round dents peppering the rock on one side of the structure. Apparently these were made by American aircraft during World War II! I felt an unpatriotic surge of indignance that someone would open fire with modern weaponry on such a stately marvel of medieval history, regardless of what was being hidden inside. (You're not going to get at it by firing at the cliffside, anyway. Might as well try the oil tunnel!)

After exploring the place, we had a cup of Gluehwein in the restaurant down below, and then drove across the French border to a charming little town called Wissembourg. Somehow, doing so imbued me with a funny familiar feeling that I couldn't quite put my finger on... until I started to say something loudly in English, and Shauna whispered jokingly, "Shh! Somebody is going to know we're gringos!" Hahaha! Yeah, last time I drove south to cross a border, we ate enchiladas instead of crepes. :)

That night, Shauna succumbed to jetlag while Bert and I went out to continue our medieval-themed day at a medieval-themed tavern with some of the Ludwigshafen folks. It's this so-cheesy-it's-awesomely-cool underground place called Didarius, with arching stone ceilings and torches on the walls, and you drink your mead out of wooden cups while stridently medieval music plays in the background. Thus sated on dark beer and blueberry wine, we prepared to sleep in until noon on Sunday.

Yesterday (Sunday), we expended more gasoline by driving to Schwetzingen, another pretty town with huge gardens that you can get lost in. However, being quite cold outside, we chose not to pay the six Euros to get lost, spending them instead on Bratwurst and coffee before heading back to freak out the Ludwigshafen crowd with my red-headed Doppelgaengerin. We watched The Simpsons in German, ate some pizza, and then turned in early so that I could arrive as tired and unprepared as possible for school today. :) Ahh! What a weekend!

Michael's Blog!

Check out Michael's online musings to the right... the lovelily-titled, "Wood Between the Worlds"! :)

Sad news

A dear friend just received some very sad family news. Please send him your prayers...

Hang in there, du.

New old pics

Just posted some pictures from last September, when Mom and Shauna and I went to the airport for our Germany send-off. They're pretty funny, mainly due to the sheer amount of baggage we are attempting to transport! See the "And More Pix" link to the right...

There and back again

Well, good middle of the night, Interweblandworld! It's 1.13 in the morning, and my alarm will go off in about four and a half hours, and I've slept all of nine of the last sixty hours... and I am wide awake. Too exhausted to sleep? Could be. Funny how jetlag seems to get reliably and noticeably stronger every time. It took me almost the entire two-week visit home to Tucson to not fall asleep at 7.3o on the couch every evening, only to then be awake for good at 3 am; and now, regardless of total, burning-eyed, achy-bodied exhaustion, my fingers are typing merrily away. Betrayers!

Some of it -- check that, all of it -- has to do with the fact that my luggage took a little vacation in Denver while I continued on to Frankfurt. At first, this was exasperating: "Great, just what I need after 20 hours of travel." But then I remembered that the two bags, densely loaded as they were with Christmas goodies for myself and others, weighed in at a hefty 50 lbs each; and that I was also about to take two trains and a taxi to get home. Which can be quite an adventure, with two anvil-like bags, two bursting-at-the-seams carryons (I could actually hear them groaning), and arms already full of wool coat and purse and pillow. (Yeah yeah, I bring a pillow on international flights. I will do this until I am eighty. After which I'll bring the bedspread, too. ;o) ) Anyway, so after being assured by the highly apologetic Lufthansa clerk that my bags would be delivered right to my front door the very next day after work, I lightly skipped aboard the respective trains and arrived home to my bright apartment, thoroughly tired but relieved, on Monday afternoon. Too bad my bags wouldn't come until the next evening; I was excited to give out the gifts I'd packed. But hey, free delivery service! That was worth a little wait.

Well, without going into further details, suffice to say they did finally arrive... but not before Tuesday night had become Wednesday morning. And because I didn't want to miss the delivery guy and face the prospect of making a trip to the Frankfurt airport, and then having to lug all the stuff home after all, I resisted the strong urge to fall asleep at 6 in the evening, though I was pretty sure I could easily have slept through to the next morning.

So here I am, at now 1.30 in the morning, still in the world of the waking. Dang second wind. Er, seventh wind. Whatever. I'll just fall asleep in front of the ninth-graders tomorrow, and they can spend an amusing class period drawing things on my sleeping face with a ballpoint pen. At least I'll get some rest!

The holidays were great, though. Really great. After the initial flightmare of finding myself heading, not from Frankfurt to Tucson as planned, but instead from Munich to Los Angeles -- where I then made a Chariots-of-Fire, 1.5-mile dead sprint, comically bulging and bouncing luggage in tow, to catch a chancy new connection via Southwest -- I collapsed gratefully onto one of mom's couches with her, Michael, and Shauna. Yay! Amy arrived the next day, and the five of us spent a lovely holiday together. Steve flew in on the 26th, and we all spent the next week running around trying to visit everyone in the entire city, run stateside errands, do more Christmas shopping for some folks here in Germany, collect some sunlight to take back to our northern latitudes, see as much of Mom as possible in her free time, and eat as much Mexican food as we could cram into our guacamole-starved bodies. Gallucci came down for a whirlwind overnight visit (after much schedule-juggling and other hitches -- thanks, Matt!), and then, for the last day and a half, mom and I actually had some time to spend just one-on-one. There is never enough of that! It was so great to be able to see everyone. But sometimes, in order to see all the people you want to see, you sacrifice spending any real quality time with any of them. Thanks for understanding, guys. I promise there's less going on over here -- come visit me on this side of the pond! :)

Speaking of visits, though, Shauna arrives in less than a week! Huzzah! That really eased the pain of leaving. We have all these grand designs of trying to get to Denmark or maybe France while she's here; but I kinda get the feeling that, once she gets here, all we're really going to want to do is while away the hours at a cafe. Though a weekend trip to the Erzgebirge would be cool. I'm trying to finagle a way to visit Conny and Nate in Berlin while she's here, too; we shall see!

All right, I'm sure there are more riveting details from these last few weeks that are just not surfacing in my dried up, sleep-deprived brain; but it's now almost two, and I really really should try to get some more sleep before another long day at school tomorrow. Happy New Year, everybody. As they say at Rosh Hashanah:

Let the new year and its blessings begin. :)

Homeward bound!

As beautiful as Neustadt is, it's missing a key element or two. So I think I'll hop a plane tomorrow and see what they're all up to in Arizona for Christmas! :)

A new roommate

My cozy apartment just got cozier, thanks to my new roommate from Dresden. He's quiet, doesn't eat much, and he sure smells good!

Lemme explain. The Erzgebirge is a mountain range near the eastern German border, which is famous for its woodcarving: especially around Christmastime, the area's hand-carved wooden figures, finely-cut Christmas tree decorations, Pyramiden (diaramas in which the figures spin around by means of a candles and wooden fans), and especially the characteristic Schwibbogen (arched candle holders with traditional images underneath) are staples even in western Christmas markets.

Pyramide:
Schwibbogen:


The most famous of the hand-carved figures, however, are the Räuchermännchen: "little smoking men". These are hollow, often wearing miners' costumes -- "Erzgebirge" literally translates into "ore mountains"-- and have round holes for mouths. When you place an incense cone inside one, the scented smoke comes drifting out of his mouth. Eeee! If ever smoking could be made adorable..! Anyway, they range anywhere in size from a couple inches to a couple feet. The problem is that, no matter how simple or detailed, their fame and quality make them pretty pricey. I was coveting every Räuchermännchen I saw when Bert and I visited the Annaberg Christmas market a couple weeks ago. Alas, they were too cute for my pocketbook.

Well! Bert went back to the Erzgebirge last weekend for his sister's birthday. And what did he return with? My very own Räuchermännchen! Except this guy isn't a miner -- he's a rockin' wizard. Delicately stained, with a long beard, walking stick, dark red hood, and heavy-lidded eyes, he is cool indeed. We lit him up (with appropriately-scented "wood moss" incense), and the long tube of smoke curling out of his mouth made him look strange and sorcerous. I wonder if he comes alive at night and casts spells? We shall see. I might wake up tomorrow morning in a forest of mushrooms.

staring:


smoking (while contemplating some spells):


Dunno about you, but I hear a men's choir when I look at him. Ahh, AAHHH, aaah!

So! What should I name him? Merdalf? Gandlin?

How to make Feuerzangenbowle

Step One: fill a pot with mulled wine.

Step Two: suspend a cone of sugar above the pot.


Step Three: douse the sugar in something tasty and flammable, like rum.


Step Four: fire!


Step Five: watch the sugar burn, until Step Six....


...when it has almost entiredly melted down and dripped, caramelized, into the wine.


Step Seven: Enjoy!

Step Eight: Enjoy again.

Step Nine: Apply Christmas wreath to head. Dance around a little. Pour more Feuerzangenbowle. Sing off-key and loudly along to Burl Ives' "Holly Jolly Christmas."

Step Ten: Spend entire next day in your pajamas, eating Nutella straight out of the jar because getting up and making real food sounds like too much effort! ;o)

Happy Hanukkah!

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah, which means that Temple Emanu-El back in Tucson is enjoying a flurry of activity. To Rabbi and Marjorie, and all the Temple staff: I hope you had a fun and successful first-night service! Wish I could have been there to sing this year. To everyone else who lit the first candle last night: chag sameach!

Slate magazine posted a lovely series today of photos taken of Hanukkah observances over the last fifty years. Some are quite introspective; others make an impact. Have a looksee!

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20061215/

Neustadt at Christmastime

Ooh, speaking of Weihnachten: went for a lovely long walk today with the camera. Check out this Rheinland Christmas paradise! :)

(The above album can also be found under a new link to the right: "And More Pix". The pictures have finally overflowed onto another picasa page!)

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Well, this week has just been brimming with culture! Some high, some not so high... though I suppose it all depends on your perspective. ;)

First of all, I should mention that Frau Griesemer is a champ at making sure I have access to all the yummy little cultural tidbits around Neustadt: clipping out newspaper articles on exhibitions and concerts, finagling me free tickets for various excellent performances... a couple weeks ago, it was a Klezmer concert by a world-famous Jewish music trio! That was awesome. Last night, we saw an operetta: "Madame Pompadour". If you haven't seen/heard it, I'd recommend it! Although my enjoyment was probably exclusively the doing of the fantastic cast. I've been to operas before where the players could sing... and that was pretty much it. Mom and Shauna, remember when we saw "Romeo et Juliette," and during the death scene, the two expressed their undying love for each other by standing stiffly on opposite sides of the stage and reciting their arias like dutiful human clarinets? Or Ron, remember when we saw "Carmen", and the set consisted entirely of a single chair and an abstract, sloping wall? Not this troupe! They could not only sing, they could act. They were funny, creative, engaging -- and the sets and costumes were so sumptuous that sometimes I had trouble focusing my ears on the music, my eyes were so preoccupied! And to top it all off, Frau Griesemer treated me to a glass of sparkling wine at intermission -- and as you can imagine, sparkling wine in this region is almost as good as an entire opera. All in all, 'twas a lovely evening.

...And quite different from Monday night, when Bert and I went to a metal concert! It was in Mannheim, with a band called "In Extremo" (hahaha, love that name). I'd enjoyed a couple of their songs before, and Bert had gotten me a ticket to accompany him that night with some of the other Ludwigshafen crowd; so, always open to new sounds, I went gamely. And it rocked! Their music is pretty hard, but also surprisingly melodic at times. And get this -- they have bagpipes! Three bagpipers stalk about the stage while the lead singer sings his studded dog collar off, occasionally punctuated by the Standard Bursts of Flame, Without Which No Metal Concert Would Be Complete. Actually, at some point the drummer even lit his sticks on fire, and proceeded to play almost a whole song with these fireballs on the end of his drumsticks. Awesome. Oh, but no worries, family: I think we were not only sweaty enough from dancing to be pretty flame-retardant, but we also stood near the back, anyway, 'cause Bert forgot his earplugs (though weirdly enough, I just happened to have some floating around in my purse; however, he insisted I keep them for my virgin American ears). It was really fun. The music was good, and I don't think there was a single person there who wasn't all decked out in black... though the band's reputation for using bagpipes brought a funny array of SCA-types, too. Haha! So now I can say I went to a German metal concert.

(Here are some of the girlies from Ludwigshafen, at the concert.
L to R: Anne, Nadia, Julia, me):



Ooh, and now I jusht got back from a -- hic! -- Chrishmash party with some of the teachers from shcool. It wash fun... more tomorrow! ;oP

Cookery

As a side note, cooking/baking is always fun in my apartment. My "mixing bowls" consist of various saucepans, and a plastic bucket that must have originally come with a brightly-colored sand shovel. The "cookie sheet" is that pot roast pan -- you know, the one which comes standard in every oven? -- luxuriously covered with a fine layer of brown wax paper. (Only as they do in the finest bakeries, of course.) And Nigel discovered for himself the joys of making an omelette with a wooden spatula in a non-nonstick pan. Oh yeah!

But hey, it all still works. :) And thanks to Mom's piemaking tools, Dad & Sarah's measuring cups, and Brigitte Hamann's electric mixer, my first attempt at self-made piecrusts for Thanksgiving actually came out pretty well! :)

A proud display of two rootin' tootin' all-Amurrican punkin pahs.

Ach, du lieber Dezember!

Yayyy! I love this time of year. Especially when it's in such a beautiful place... went for a long walk yesterday, and kept stopping to look around and pinch myself that I get to live here until at least next summer. It's been three months, and I still do that on a pretty regular basis!

Gosh, so much to catch up on, and so little time before I have to pack up and catch a train to Ludwigshafen (where I'm meeting Bert to drive to the Erzgebirge today). So I'll try to just hit the highlights real quick:

Thanksgiving: marvellous! Cooked a dinner on the evening of Friday the 24th with a bunch of other English teachers at the high school. My coworkers are so great. Funny, friendly, open... and brave! Mom (bless her!) had sent me a bunch of ingredients for various holiday goodies that I just can't find here in Germany, some of which being pureed canned pumpkin and pie tins. So most of the teachers were able to try pumpkin pie for the first time... a leap of faith, given that my description of it was "sweetened, spiced squash filling in a dessert crust". And then they proved themselves even more valiant when I ceremoniously removed the lid from the Watergate Salad: pistachio pudding, whipped cream, crushed pineapple, multicolored minimarshmallows, and coconut, all blended up into a radioactive green goo. Yum! Everyone at the table peered into the bowl, glanced surreptitiously at each other, and then dug right in. And happily, both desserts appeared to be quite the hit! :)

The next weekend, Nigel came to visit, and we had a nice, chill (heh heh, get it?) start to December. On Friday evening, he and Anna and I, along with Annette (another new English teacher at my school) checked out the Christmas market in Landau. Then we went to see the new James Bond; and the next day, Nigel and I hopped a train to Heidelberg to see what it has to offer during the Adventszeit. Answer: an even bigger Christmas market! We had a lovely time... strolling around in the low winter sunlight, sampling gingerbread and candied almonds... and about three cups each of various forms of Gluehwein (mulled wine). Mmm! That made for a very merry trip back on the train! :)

That night, I went to a party in Ludwigshafen with some of Bert's friends; and like everything else, it was a blast. We listened to music, made dinner, and exchanged gifts. Bert was the "Weihnachtsmann", and he even showed up in a white beard and Santa cap. At some point, he pulled his beard down to take a drink of something... and one of the other guys pretends to burst into tears, yelling, "There is no Weihnachtsmann!! It's only Bert!" Hahahaha! Oh man, I like the Ludwigshafen folks.

Oops, I gotta wrap this up. Long story short: December has been fantastic so far. :) Will take lots of pictures this weekend! Huggles aus Deutschland...

On second thought...

Well, just make a liar out of me! After that whole introvertist manifesto last night, I go around being totally chatty and sociable all day today. Hm, well, I guess, being the complicated organisms we are, you can never just pidgeon-hole people -- including yourself. (Either that, or that Myers-Briggs test was pretty accurate when it pegged me as an E/INFP, which means equally balanced between extroversion and introversion.)

Okay, how about this: a lot of the time I like to chat and hang out. But if I'm just sitting there listening rather than talking, please do forgive me, and don't take it as a sign that anything's wrong. I'm just letting my inner introvert out for some exercise. :)

INFP

Wow! This post is even longer than the last one. Should ye decide to embarke upon its rambling depths, be ye forewarn'd! ;o)

Here it be...

******

Amy found this article on introverts.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

Huh. And I thought I was just getting antisocial in my old age. (Same thing? ;o) )

I always thought I was an extrovert, because I really like people. I'm generally happy, friendly, and, I think, pretty open -- I mean, hey, I'm bearing my brain practically every day on these here internets! But when I think about it, I derive lots of things from socializing: pleasure, heart, learning. However, I don't derive energy from it. In fact, after a day of lots of interaction with lots of different people, I really need time to recharge my batteries. I'm not at all shy; in fact, I have no trouble at all talking to strangers. I just don't always "need" to. Sometimes after a day full of people, I just need to not talk for a while! Mom says that, during her breaks at work, she'd often just rather read a book or eat lunch with her own thoughts than sit around and chat. I certainly identify. However, unlike what the author of the article suggests, I don't (and I don't think Mom does, either) find extroverts boring or irritating -- quite the contrary! I even admire their ability to turn on a constant stream of effortless communication. But it can be frustrating how, in our society, you're expected to keep this up all the time.

I wonder if there's an assumption that being introverted means being misanthropic or unhappy? Maybe that's why people often mistake my general good nature with gregariousness -- if I'm happy or friendly, I must also be an extrovert. I wonder if this is why I sometimes feel like I disappoint my friends, because I give off the impression of needing more social interaction than I really do? Don't get me wrong, I'm no loner. Everyone needs friends. And I have some pretty cool friends. But I also don't have any problem being by myself either, and even need a pretty good measure of it in order to recharge. I've often scratched my head at the apparent need for most everyone I know to be socializing what seems like all the time. But maybe it's not them at all: I'm the weird one! According to this article, the majority of the population are extroverts: socializing is how they relax and re-energize. So what seems like "all the time" to me is pretty reasonable to everyone else.

It certainly is more practical to be wired that way. To be successful in school, your job, and relationships requires constant social interaction. It's a sign of leadership. This is what makes a person likeable and what makes them appear proactive. And because I can do this pretty well when I need to (I mean, I'm a teacher, for goodness' sake), I haven't let being introverted inhibit my success. It's just that it seems to take so much more effort for me than for others, and I really need my downtime in order to keep it up.

What gets me thinking about this is that it seems my predecessor at the school where I work was naturally very extroverted. From the sound of it, Elodie made her colleagues her life. And she had a marvellous time, and her German became perfect, and they all loved her and still miss her. I met her myself, and liked her enormously: she's funny, smart, friendly, and sincere.

But I'm slowly realizing that the other teachers expect me to be just like her. I mean, if one more person reminds me one more time about how she spent like 20 hours a day in the teachers' lounge, while giving me one more "meaningful look"...! What actually baffles me is that I do socialize with the other teachers. They're great. I lucked out in how fun and nice and interesting my coworkers are. I hang out and chat while at the school, and have gone out with them several times in the evenings and on weekends. But for one thing, they're not the only people I know here; and even if they were, do I have to spend all of my free time socializing in order to show that I like them and want to be a part of the group? I suppose so; it's part of living in an extroverted society. But compounding this is the fact that I'm also getting to know lots of other (German, I might add) people who have nothing to do with the school, and so it spreads me even thinner.

Because of this, I get the feeling that Frau Griesemer is worried about me. I've mentioned being able to talk to my family on the webcam at home, and now she seems to think that's what I do all the time, to the exclusion of getting to know my coworkers. Don't get me wrong, Frau Griesemer is fantastic. She bends over backward to make sure I'm happy and comfy and have opportunities to make the most of my time here. She even clips out newspaper articles about the region which she thinks I might find interesting, and leaves them in my box at work! But maybe this is just part of what is misunderstood about introverts? Sometimes, when I get home in the evening, I don't need to talk to anybody. I'm not sitting around bored and lonely and homesick, or holing up in my apartment and avoiding integrating into the city and the culture. In fact, a lot of my "alone time" includes exploring the city or going for long walks to check out other towns nearby. I just don't always need to be surrounded by a bunch of other people to do it.

But I can't complain. I mean, people like me and want to hang out and make sure I am enjoying myself here? How terrible! I guess it's just hard when you realize that in order to show your appreciation, you have to constantly be fighting your own nature. Sigh. Did I pick the wrong career path? Maybe I should be an arctic fisherman or something, so that in my free time I'm foaming at the mouth to have someone to talk to.

Okay, I've now spent over an hour posting on my blog. Maybe I am holing up in my apartment! ;o)

Alles nur geklaut

Well, that cinches it. November, I'm sorry, I know you're my birth-month and all, but you haven't been so very kind to me this year. I'm afraid we have to end it. Don't try to talk me out of it; I already have a date with December this Friday.

See, in order to balance the karma a little, the Powers That Be saw fit to whittle down my fabulous wealth last Sunday night. I just happened to be carrying around some extra cash; which never I do, except that Anna had paid me back for something and I just hadn't gotten around to getting to the bank to deposit it. Besides, it's surprising how often places only take cash around here: the doctor's office, most restaurants, the cell phone store where I recharge my minutes; often even train tickets can only be paid for with cash. So I really wasn't in an urgent hurry to get these 135 Euros into the bank, since having them around was turning out just to be so darned practical. Plus I liked logging into online banking, to see that my balance hadn't moved. I thought, maybe this is how I'll budget myself: take a little bit out, and see how long it can last me before I have to dip into my checking account again.

On the other hand, every time I opened my wallet, I winced a bit to see that much liquid cash. Just has never sat right. Back in Tucson, when I'd accumulate more than 50 bucks at a time, it was away to an ATM to get it somewhere safe!

Well... nothing like being proved right. I guess. At the Frankfurt airport last Sunday night, I also had another first, which was to leave my purse on a bench as I leapt for an S-Bahn. Seriously, I've never done that before! Although, to be fair, I've also never lived in a truly cold climate since I've started carrying a purse, and so what with gathering up sweater and leather jacket, you don't immediately detect that that something's missing. Until five minutes later, when you get off the S-Bahn. I ran back to every place I had been in the last half an hour, including that bench and the bathroom, but no dice. Purse gone. I started having daymares about having to replace my passport before flying home in December; about not having my housekey; having no ID, no money, no anything; about identity theives posing as an American on a visa. I mean, German beaurocracy is bad enough -- but trying to sort out an identity theft on top of it all, while trying to re-instate yourself as a legal resident?? AAAAAAA!!!

So while I was hyperventilating, the police found the purse and called me in. Amazingly, everything was still there: passport, keys, phone, chapstick, credit cards, cappuccino receipts, even the check Dad and Sarah had sent me for my birthday. Everything except the 135 Euro. The shock of having lost my purse, and then having found it again almost intact less than an hour later, only to then re-discover that I had been relieved of the small fortune I knew I shouldn't have been carrying around, was too much. I should have been thanking my lucky stars that everything else was still there, unstolen and (most likely) unphotocopied. At least, now I appreciate that. But there was this saddening feeling of realizing that some people are capable of rifling through your very personal belongings, seeing what kind of gum you chew and which scent you wear, even your name and where you're from and what you look like -- essentially be able to look you right in the printed eye, and still have no qualms about stealing your money from you. Maybe they thought I was a rich American tourist, instead of a poor foreign teaching assistant whose mom and sister paid her credit card bills last month. They probably weren't thinking that far at all. They just saw cash, took it, and didn't want to get caught with the rest. It was actually found by a maintenance guy on the same bench I left it. I suspected him, but the police pointed out that it would be pretty stupid to be the one to both steal it and turn it in, where it is then immediately noticed that money is missing. There was nothing they could do except file a police report for my "insurance company." (I guess most Germans have insurance for everything, even personal theft.) Well, I have emergency medical insurance, and that's pretty much it.

But you know what? I woke up yesterday morning and was overcome with gratitude that everything else was still there. I am out one-fifth of a month's pay, but other than that, this will have no truly lasting effects. As Mom once said: it's not that I'm lucky because nothing bad ever happens to me. Part of it is simply, on those few occasions when something bad does happen, it's never so bad as it could -- maybe even should! -- have been. So I'll just restock the rice and beans in the cupboard, cut out the morning cappuccino, and enjoy this beautiful almost-December air. It's foggy outside, and looks whiter and winterier than it has in weeks. School is going fabulously (I love my job!), and there are lots of fun things coming up in the next few days: Nigel coming to visit this weekend, a Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) with some teacher friends on Friday, a party on Saturday, and maybe frying up some fajitas with the Hamanns on Sunday.

If you're family or friends reading this, I'm not writing this so that anyone will worry! There's nothing to worry about! I'm not carrying around any cash any more, my purse is all but stapled to my side, and I can still pay my rent next week. And that's really the only kind of crime around here anyway, this petty "opportunity theft". Furthermore, even that was in Frankfurt, not quaint little Neustadt. So, again, no worries! I'm fine! I'll just have to teach my purse some Taekwondo.

However, let this be a lesson to anyone who could use it! DO NOT CARRY MUCH CASH! Especially those of you in the States, for whom it's not even very necessary to do so. Heh, the cop even scratched his head when I told him how much had been in there. "Really?" he said, "Odd. Americans don't usually carry cash around." I told him he would be right... usually. Sigh. Oh well.

Oh, but speaking of German conceptions of American habits, I just realized I haven't written yet about Anna's and my funny little experience at the doctor's office! Gotta go for now, but more on that later. Coming to a blog near you!

Happy almost-December, everybody. :o) Hugs from almost-Christmas-Season Land!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!!!

She and Shauna are heading down Tucson way to celebrate theirs and Michael's birthdays -- and also some obscure American holiday where they eat a weird-looking bird and a pie made out of a Halloween decoration. Crazy Amis!

Wish I could be there to celebrate with you, Aimster. You'll just have to eat my portion of the turkey and 'taters and birthday cake. :) Alles Gute und alles Liebe zum Geburtstag!

Runner's high

Wanna hear something? Lean in close. Ready? Here it is:

I HAVE FOUND THE SECRET.

Shh. Don't let it out or everyone will get in my way on the sidewalk. But after much drinking and eating and companionship and other such experiments, I have found the key to happiness. The best way to combat the cold and grey is with this:

Endorphins.

That's right, natural drugs. You put in your earbuds, turn the volume up on your catalyst of choice (currently it's noisy, clamorous, get-the-blood-rushing German metal, though just the other day it was happy bouncy techno) and you take off down the street at a dead run. By the time I round the corner and head down hill forty-five minutes later, pouring sweat and pigtails bouncing against the back of my neck to the same rhythm as my feet, "Erdbeermund" is pounding in my ears and I can see over the entire valley below Hambach. I can see for miles. As far even as the slender cooling towers of Mannheim in the distance, edged right up against the Rhein river. And I take off down the hill like I'm about to fly over the valley, and grab a handful of bright red autumn leaves as I run by and let them scatter out behind me, like some kind of crazy sprinting Hansel who needs to be sure to mark her path so that, when she comes back to occupy her body, she can find her way home.

To everything, there is a season

Dad had a point once, when he said that the "official" start of every season is actually late by twenty-two days. You know how summer does not officially kick off until June 22, autumn on September 22, etc? Why not just bump it all back to the beginning of these respective months? I mean, do we really think that December 18th, for instance, is still autumn? Or that Saint Patrick's Day is in the winter? We proposed the following:

Winter: December 1.
Spring: March 1.
Summer: June 1.
Fall: September 1.

There. Isn't that how we already think of it, anyway?

What puts me thinking about this is that it seems to have suddenly switched seasons. Here in the Pfalz, they call last month "goldener Oktober." And for good reason! It was sunny and pleasantly warm, but the leaves were still bronze and copper and beautiful. There were grapevines and winefests, and the sun rose at, like, six-thirty am.

All of a sudden, it's like a curtain has dropped! Just in the last week, too. One morning, it was eight o'clock and I was walking to school in the sunshine without a jacket. The next morning, it was dark, cold, and foggy, and the sun decided to go down at what seemed like four-thirty in the afternoon. Seriously! It was dark at a quarter after five today! If I get out of school at 3:30 (typical for Mondays and Tuesdays), then I have less than two hours of daylight in which to go jogging or run errands, before it's too dark to do anything by yourself. It's been raining for a week, and the grapevines are a bunch of scraggly sticks. Hmph. Most disagreeable. I think the standard way people add some sparkle to the darkness is with Gluehwein and gingerbread, both seemingly excellent options; but frankly, I've gotten fat enough since I've been here, and so I've *just* decided to cut out the sweets and alcohol for a while. Nice going, Nikki!

On the bright (get it? :) ) side, the Christmas decorations are going up already. Now in Arizona, I would scoff at the idea of ribbons on streetlights before December 1st. There, it feels like forced "Xmas" cheer, rammed down your throat as early as possible in a thinly-veiled attempt to cash in on the pre-season buyfest; holiday-themed car commercials and garish Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoons in shop windows, advertising 99 cent cheeseburgers... all made as shallow and meaningless as possible, because God forbid we actually admit there's some sort of *religious* connection to this holiday, and someone gets offended and decides not to spend their money at our chain store. Which is even more ridiculous, because no one is fooled, for example, into thinking a Christmas concert is not exactly that, just because one vague, generic, non-religious Hanukkah song about a feast of lights and a couple of "ya-ba-bim-bam"s are mixed in among the fifty other songs hailing the Blessede Birthe of Our Lorde and Savioure Jesus Christ, Hallelujah, to His Mother, the Blessed Virgin, Ave.

Here, on the other hand, there's something decidedly un-commercial about the garland-hung streets. It's like everyone just realized that it's time to drive some of this sudden darkness away with tiny points of white light, and maybe offer a bit of Lebkuchen in the bakeries, too. The decorations feel like something that is done for you, rather than to you. And maybe it's just the sixteenth-century architecture, or the fog on the ancient hills, but the way the Advent season is celebrated around here seems to recall the Yule traditions, born of ties to the land and seasons, that gave us holly decorations and lights in the first place. It's comfortable, calming, cozy; something about it speaks to the ancient part of you that remembers your ancestors huddling close together around a fire and telling stories, deriving comfort from the closeness of community against the vast dark forests around them. And yet at the same time, it is also unabashedly religious, which seems a much more honest way to celebrate the season than our American need to cover all our consumer bases. If you celebrate Christmas, then you celebrate Christmas; if you don't, no amount of calling it a "holiday" sale is going to trick you into thinking the rest of the religious majority isn't trying to foist their Xmas buyfest upon you.

All righty, well, this post is long enough. Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn: it's getting dark around here, but there are tiny white lights aplenty. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRO!!!

Today is my brother's birthday! Michael, Shauna, and I have all spent the last week sharing the age of 26. Today, however, he moves on and leaves us behind to join the 27-year-olds at the grown-ups' table. Hope your birthday weekend is terrific, bro... and wish I could be there next week when Shauna and Amy come down to celebrate with you!

Love ya. :)