Hey folks! To my regular followers here, sorry for the long pause. For those of you who check here less often, why? Why aren't you checking at least once a day? You should be hanging on my every word! ha ha, just kidding, phew... (hoping for a laugh...)
Ok. So, just (well yesterday) went with my family to the airport to send them back after they came to visit for a little over a week. They all said they had a good time, and I'm willing to believe them. It wasn't the mostly structured trip in the world, but it was good that way, because it made time for the invitations we received. Frau Kuehne and her family and already invited us over to a cook out after I went with them to Eisenach. In fact they bought the bratwurst on that trip, since that is the best place to get bratwurst, Thuringen. Familie Florschuetz was also eager to meet my "real" or "other" family, and so we went over for coffee and cake on the first day. As Marlies described it "I was going to just buy some cake from the store, but it got too complicated and I just decided to go ahead and bake everything myself." Not the order that I would have done it in, but hey. She made three wonderful cakes for us, themselves, and Lars's new girlfriend, who everyone is excited about. I mentioned that Alex being the thoughtful guy he is, brought his juggling balls with him to Germany to juggle for Marvin, and so we planned to meet again for the Easter egg hunt on Monday. (Easter is a 2 day holiday here. And all the stores close on Good Friday, too, so the stores on the Thursday and Saturday before Easter, and the Tuesday after, are nightmarish.) When we got to the house Monday morning, Alex and I found out that we had easter baskets to hunt, too. The parents were supposed to hunt for the regular eggs (parents: My parents and Herr and Frau Florschutz) and the kids all had easter baskets that were hidden as well (kids: Marvin (6), Peter (16), Alex (20), me (22), Rayk (36 and Marvin and Peter's dad), Heike (Marvin and Peter's mom), Lars (also above 30), and Lars's girlfriend (who had been introduced to Lars's parents... 4 days earlier. But, I suppose, so had Alex). Marvin was enchanted by the juggling, and Alex ended up playing catch with him the rest of the visit. Marvin is like the energizer bunny. Marlies wanted us all to come over at least one more time, and it worked out that the only time could be the very next evening, when Rayk was there to help translate. So we went over again on Tuesday for a very nice dinner, where there wasn't enough room for the guests and the food to all be at the table at once.
In our spare time, we did get to do a little sightseeing. We went to Beeskow to a medieval festival, saw the castle Sans Sousci in Potsdam, saw the main sights in Berlin, took in a few museums there, and saw Blue Man Group. Everything went well, although I have to say it is nice not to have to translate quite as often now. But I am really glad that they all could take the time to come out and see me and little Storkow.
School starts tomorrow, although I don't have to be back until Tuesday, and like almost any vacation, this one feels too short. The 13th graders will be gone, which is going to be odd, so I will be getting a few new classes. I am also trying to remember any really interesting points of American culture that I want to pass on before I leave in 10 weeks. I think July will be here far too quickly, and once the concert schedule with the choir picks up, the time will really fly by. But everything is greening up, and the forsythia are blooming like crazy. (It is traditional here to hang easter eggs inside the house from Forsythia branches before they bloom, so they bloom inside. The flowers were falling off of mine, so they had to depart).
Hope everything is going well for you all, and that you had a nice Easter!
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Sunday in April
Well, let's take stock of the day. Overall, I feel pretty good about it.
The sun was shining again this morning, so I went out to drink my coffee on the little stoop I have. In my pajamas, naturally. And who walks by? One of the boys from my 7th grade class. Just walking down the street like a 13 year old does, singing to himself and whacking a twip into everything in arm's reach. He noticed me just as he walked behind my neighbor's hedge, stopped, walked backwards, looked to make sure it was me, I waved, he waved embarrassed back, went back behind the hedge, and took one last peek before he walked away. Oh, small towns.
Marlies invited me over for lunch, and we got to eat out on the porch again, where I first had coffee with them 7 months ago, and where we havn't been able to sit since october. That was fine, Marvin her grandson has a "real" bike now, only he hasn't figured out brakes. So he didn't want to sit at the table during lunch, because he wanted to carreen across the yard into the bushes or the carport, yelling, of course. We wanted to take him for a short bike ride, but he had to go. Marlies and I decided to go on a short one hour bike ride together. We turned back after Philadelphia to ride across the salt meadow fields, and my bike stopped working. the back wheel was completely turned, and the chain was off the gears. So we had to push it back. That is when we realized that neither of us brought our cell phone with us, or any money to put in the pay phone (not to mention no bike tools. But a tire pump and an umbrella we did have). So we couldn't call someone to pick us up when we got back to the road (because we were on a muddy path in a field), we had to walk all the way home. We left my bike in the bike stand at the grocery store.
When we got back, we had coffee and cake, and it took Klaus like, 5 minutes to fix my bike. Naturally. After coffee we went to Lars's lot to dig up crocuses and plant them in my part of the yard. Only it started to rain when we were there, and we went inside the little garden house, and Marlies and I had a completely new plan of how to set it up, with exposed beams and a sleeping loft. Once the rain was over we walked back and planted the crocuses, and now I am here on the computer writing to you all about it. I am sort of tired after pushing a bike a few kilometers with a back wheel that didn't turn, but overall, I think it was a good day. Hope to hear from you soon.
The sun was shining again this morning, so I went out to drink my coffee on the little stoop I have. In my pajamas, naturally. And who walks by? One of the boys from my 7th grade class. Just walking down the street like a 13 year old does, singing to himself and whacking a twip into everything in arm's reach. He noticed me just as he walked behind my neighbor's hedge, stopped, walked backwards, looked to make sure it was me, I waved, he waved embarrassed back, went back behind the hedge, and took one last peek before he walked away. Oh, small towns.
Marlies invited me over for lunch, and we got to eat out on the porch again, where I first had coffee with them 7 months ago, and where we havn't been able to sit since october. That was fine, Marvin her grandson has a "real" bike now, only he hasn't figured out brakes. So he didn't want to sit at the table during lunch, because he wanted to carreen across the yard into the bushes or the carport, yelling, of course. We wanted to take him for a short bike ride, but he had to go. Marlies and I decided to go on a short one hour bike ride together. We turned back after Philadelphia to ride across the salt meadow fields, and my bike stopped working. the back wheel was completely turned, and the chain was off the gears. So we had to push it back. That is when we realized that neither of us brought our cell phone with us, or any money to put in the pay phone (not to mention no bike tools. But a tire pump and an umbrella we did have). So we couldn't call someone to pick us up when we got back to the road (because we were on a muddy path in a field), we had to walk all the way home. We left my bike in the bike stand at the grocery store.
When we got back, we had coffee and cake, and it took Klaus like, 5 minutes to fix my bike. Naturally. After coffee we went to Lars's lot to dig up crocuses and plant them in my part of the yard. Only it started to rain when we were there, and we went inside the little garden house, and Marlies and I had a completely new plan of how to set it up, with exposed beams and a sleeping loft. Once the rain was over we walked back and planted the crocuses, and now I am here on the computer writing to you all about it. I am sort of tired after pushing a bike a few kilometers with a back wheel that didn't turn, but overall, I think it was a good day. Hope to hear from you soon.
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