On my failure as a blogger.

If any of you are actually still checking this blog, then it's way past time that I announce my official failure in the world of blogging. It seemed like a good idea once upon a time; and there are a handful of blogs that I check here and there, and generally enjoy reading. However, I just don't do the "writing to no one in particular" thing very well - even, apparently, when I am stranded in a foreign country. I also had this notion that I would be able to post all my pictures from Germany on this blog - however, given that it takes about twenty times longer than facebook to upload them, that hasn't really happened.

So, until further notice, you can find me on facebook, which I update regularly, and which includes lots of pictures of Germany. :-)

die Heidelbeere

Heidelbeere can be translated as either "blueberry" or "huckleberry". Interesting story: Mark Twain wrote most of one of his books in Heidelberg... can you guess which one? Huckleberry Finn! I'm told he came to visit for a few weeks and ended up staying a number of months. He lived in a hotel that used to be up next to the castle, and would write all day and then go talk to people in the evenings and read them what he'd written, to see how they'd react, and that's how he'd determine if it was interesting or not.

He also apparently writes about Germany in A Tramp Abroad, and specifically in the essay in the Appendix - "That Awful German Language".

die Blutorangen

The past couple weeks, blood oranges have been on sale at Aldi! The only thing cheaper produce-wise has been bananas. For those of you who haven't eaten blood oranges before, aside from a kind of gross name, they're wonderful. The look like regular oranges on the outside, but they're PURPLE when you open them! And I think they taste better, too... When I've seen then in the U.S., they generally cost more than regular oranges. So I've been quite glad to find them cheap here :-)

die Übung!

My dear friends and family, that is the word for "exercise", which I do once a week at the university exercise class my language partner and I have begun attending. It's called "fitforfun" and consists of a couple hundred German students running around a large room and doing exercises in time with music. There's a teacher who stands on a podium and leads the class, and like the numbers "acht, sieben, sechs, fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins!"

I went last Tuesday night and was sore until Friday, due to my distaste for consistent exercise... hopefully this week I will repair more quickly!

And the photo is from the website, in case you're wondering... I think it would be a little strange to bring my camera to an exercise class. ;-)

Schnee photos :-)

Der Schnee!!!

It snowed last night!! I woke up, and everything is covered in about 4 or 5 inches of snow. It´s absolutely gorgeous - I took some photos of the Altstadt area that I´ll try to post tomorrow, and if the snow sticks overnight I may try to get to the castle tomorrow to take pictures from up there.

Recognize this?

Yes, dear friends and family, that is a translation of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" into German. I was hoping they'd have combined the last seven words into one really awesome long one (since they seem to combine everything else), but sadly,they just used one little short word.

And I thought my day was going to turn out something like that, given how it began... but thankfully, everything's been much better since I left my apartment this morning. However, the first bit was not so good. I overslept thirty minutes, finally dragged myself to the shower, and realized after I finished (when I was still soaking wet) that I'd forgotten my towel. So I air-dried for about five minutes and finally just pulled on my pajamas again, since I didn't want to get my clean clothes wet. After that I tried to dry my hair, and my hairdryer and converter got into a fight and the converter won. And then I tried to make oatmeal, and didn't cook it long enough, so it was all soupy and gross. I put it back in, and it decided to explode all over the microwave. Whereupon I discovered that I hadn't thought to buy a dish towel (we each use our own, and people don't use paper towels here), so I had to use my bath towel to clean up the mess. I finally sat down to eat my oatmeal, but it was still too hot, and due to my oversleeping I had to leave so I wouldn't be late for class - so no breakfast :-(

Thankfully, however, everything's been quite good since then! Class went well, and I'm off to find a sketchbook :-)