Travelin' Trick

It's been a while my friends.  I started writing a blog about everything that happened about my stay at Timo's in Rheinstetten, but I had to delete it. Only 3/4s of the way finished and six Microsoft Word pages long, I decided that it was just too darn long.  Not many have the time.  Heck, I probably wouldn't have even read it.  Therefore, I'm only going to write a quick summary of the things that took place.  Timo's mom took pictures, and I'll add those whenever she sends them to me.

23rd of December:
-met Timo's family.  Their house is huge and oddly reminded me of my Grandma.
-heard the badisch dialect for the first time. Puss uff!
-saw the Rhein and the French border
-jogged along the Rhein dam (the area looks a lot like Louisiana)

-played foosball and pool with Timo and a high school friend of his.  I lost every game.
-ate homemade Maultaschen pan-fried with cheese

24th of December:
-worked out in the cellar.
-bought Roquefort to make bleu cheese dressing.
-ate the meat fondue which was surprisingly delicious. The bleu cheese dressing went great with the meet.
-got a box of chocolates and a small case of homemade German cookies, aka Plätzchen
-played "Up the river, down the river," card game with the family 'til near 3:00 a.m. Timo's dad got tipsy.

25th of December:
-woke up late only to find that other family members were already there ready to eat Christmas lunch
-ate Marksklösschensuppe (vegetable soup with potato dumplings), sirloin steaks, steamed veggies (carrots, cauliflower, brussel sprouts), and Spätzle with different kinds of gravies and sauces to go with, and homemade walnut and red gooseberry ice cream.  Not what you'd expect a typical German family to eat, but everything tasted like HEAVEN.
-went to Karlsruhe of which Timo gave me a tour.  The city was the best urban planned city in Germany I have seen so far.
-met Timo's high school friend Janosch and played Halo 3 and some Western style game.  I didn't win any Halo matches, but I pwned the Western game!

26th of December:
-met Timo's favorite Uncle.  At the time he was very very sick.  Didn't seem to want to be living.  A few days later, Timo tells me he passed on. 
-ate rabbit for the first time. Seriously tastes just like chicken but better.
-got another thing of chocolate from one of Timo's aunts, and a bottle of a knock-off brand name cologne from another.  Who gives someone they don't know a bottle of cologne as a gift? Yeah I was appreciative that they got me something, but Timo and I both decided that you don't gift someone cologne unless you REALLY know them.  Thoughts?
-wrote silly emails in English to Vincenzo, en Français to Kathrin, and in ghetto English to Denise, Timo's girlfriend.
-got a nickname from Timo: Sir Richard Löwenherz (Lionheart).

28th of December:
-went to France for the first time.  Weather was ok, but totally didn't see it coming that everything is closed in France on Mondays.  They all wanted me to try escargot for the first time.  Guess I lucked out there!
-drove through the Rhineland-Palatinate (German state west of Hessen and on the French, Luxembourg, and Belgium borders.)
-had Saumangen for the first time.


The next few days nothing worthy of writing about happened, except we went to see Avatar in the movie theater the day we left to go back to Gießen on the 29th.  Needless to say, I had a wonderful time at the Wachter's.  Sometimes it was a bit draining having to concentrate so much on what everyone was saying with their badisch and all; nonetheless, it was great training. On New Years Eve, I went to Frankfurt, but had the worst time ever.  Don't really want to talk about it.

In the past week or so since Timo got back from spending time with Denise, we've just been hanging out cooking, watching movies, and working out a lot.  To my-- and perhaps your-- surprise, I may come back to the US all buffed up instead of fluffed up.  We eat and drink (notice I said, "drink," and not, "get drunk," there ;)) a lot, but we also work out like there's no tomorrow.  The other day I weighed myself and I was almost 60kg.  What's that mean you ask? That's 132lbs. I was 66kg (145lbs) before I left for Germany. WTF?!

As far as my German progress has been going, I'm starting to surprise even myself.  However, I do think I might have a slight problem that it's even evident when I speak English.  Please vouch if you know what I'm talking about.  Every time I start explaining something, I start to notice that people give me an odd look.  It's that look that could only mean, "huh?" or in German, "häääää?" I get sooooooooooo distracted when I see this look.  I think to myself, "Oh shit! They have no idea what I'm saying." Then I lose completely track of what I was originally wanting to say, and it becomes even more complicated.  There's no other choice but to just drop the subject.  Then when I'm listening to what someone else is saying, I completely lose focus and don't "hear" everything they've said.  There's always a word or two missing.  Sometimes I think I'm just deaf, but really, I feel like I might have some kind of attention deficit disorder, no joke.  This might be really affecting my language learning. But how would I even begin to fix this problem IN GERMANY?  How I would even explain the problem in German to the doctor completely escapes me.  And paying for the medication? Yikes. In the end I suppose I'm still learning German fine, just not fast enough.  Maybe I'll just have to wait 'til I get back to the U.S., but even then I won't have any health insurance to pay for it.  Curses!

School starts back up on the 11th.  Maybe I'll be tutoring, maybe not.  Won't be too upset if it doesn't work out.  I was just hoping that I'd be able to make a little extra money on the side so I could see and do more.  Definitely not traveling as much as I'd like.  There are so many places I want to go, but I never seem to be able to find the time or resources.  Plus the weather hasn't been the nicest here lately.  Sorry I have no other great exciting stories to tell!  Maybe it's just because it's winter break.  Now I know how the exchange students back at home feel when they're on break.  There should be a, "Hug an exchange student" day or something.