Real American Breakfast

Well, I have the first week of the new half-year just about behind me, and things are pretty hectic. I still don't have a clear schedule for this semester, because one of the teachers that I have a lot of lessons with is sick, and hasn't been here to put in her request. I still havn't been to half of the classes that are on the schedule, because the teacher is still figuring out how they want to set up the new semester, and havn't found a way of working me in yet. It didn't help that Wednesday morning I had to go back to the doctor to get a final check up on my arm, and since the doctor started his appointments that morning about 2 hours late, I missed the lessons I was supposed to do then. Still, sometime in the next couple of weeks I should get a routine that I can then stick with. This time there seem to be more early morning classes, which means that will have to be getting up even earlier. Fortunately, it is getting lighter again, and it shouldn't mean walking to school in the dark anymore.

This weekend is Chorlager (chorus camp) and the whole chorus is meeting at what I assume to be a kind of retreat center to practice our new music intensively over the weekend. It starts tonight and goes until Sudnay afternoon. The only problem is that it is also the school open house on Saturday morning. So there will be someone who will come and pick me up, drive me to school Saturday morning, wait while I try and play games with next year's 5th, 6th, and 7th graders in English for 3 hours, and then drive me back to camp just in time to miss lunch. It'll be quite the experience. Oh, the lady from the local news paper will be at the open house, too, and it is possible I will be interviewed. My name has already made it into a newspaper article about the school. Marlies clipped it out and has madee me a copy.

The excitement for today though was that my ninth grade class and I got to make a real American breakfast this morning. I brought in recipes for buttermilk biscuits, pancakes, and cinnamon swirl rolls a few weeks ago, and they had to translate the recipes. Then they divided up ingredients, and brought everything in today. There was also bacon (true bavarian bacon, naturally) and eggs. I had them work with a recipe for grits, too, but no one seemed very excited about it, and since I wasn't sure if you could use Polenta for grits, we decided not to try it. There was also maple syrup for the pancakes and peanut butter for the toast. No one believes me that peanut butter an jelly not only go together, but that that is the way you eat it back home. Oh well, one thing at a time. And in what I have decided is true german fasion, they immediately said that biscuits taste just like brötchen. Which of course, they don't, but germans like to think that anything you can eat or get in the states you can, in fact, get here too. Which isn't really the case, but hey. I think they just want me to feel at home, and that I can get those bits of home here, too. A little like how they said that pumpkin pie tasted like lebkuchen. It does have some of the same spices, but the comparison stops there.

Even though it is a little crazy here right now, it still felt really good to come home from England. I was excited to get back to speaking German, and on the train back from the airport I happened to find one of my friends here who works in Berlin, and we rode back together. It was great to be back in my cozy little apartment, and in my muddy icy street. It was worth taking a little trip away just to see how comfortable I am here. I think the next few months are really going to fly by. There is something almost every weekend, and especially once the classes become routine again, that will also go by quickly.

I hope you are all doing well, and aren't having the crazy weather we are. The past few days it was warm and raining, and now it is snowing again. Right before it started to snow though, it was almost spring for a few hours. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, there was a great breeze, and rain puddles everywhere. That really helped to imagine that there will, in fact, be spring before too much longer. Well, in a month or so, anyway. Take care, and I'd love to hear from you all.