I'm sorry, what?

Sarah, I saw your request for pictures, so Keana and I will have to take a walk tomorrow and see what I can show you.

I went for a run this morning and while my brother was drawing the map of where I should go, there was nary a street name mentioned. Not so well marked out here, so he was describing weird things like, "The parking lot over there is sort of big." I'd say 95% of the buildings here are white with a red tile roof. It's disconcerting for those of us who maybe don't have the best sense of direction.

My 7-year-old niece did get us home today, though, to her credit. I tried a shortcut that Tom recommended without having seen it and pulled up at one point and said, "Does this look right?" And she's like, "No, but our house is over there." I also got to be that awesome American today when we went to a pool, and I didn't know how to tell the lady what she needed to know. I asked Keana, and she told me and I was all, "Do you need a cough drop or something?" So she did all of the talking for me. And we stopped for ice cream on the way home and she handled that, too. Awesome.

It's actually a little bit disconcerting. While I was running, I had on my iPod, and I was in my zone and someone said something to me, and pulling out the earbuds didn't help. I think they were just being friendly, but I'll never really know. I guess learning a little more of the language wouldn't kill me. So far, I've learned a lot of food names. Banana is banane. But it's the "eh" sound at the end not "ay". I keep saying it wrong, and it's driving Keana bananas.

That's all I've got for now. I'll work on the pictures tomorrow.

OH WAIT! I forgot the other weird thing- my computer and iPod have both figured out that we're in Germany, so not even this blog looks right when I sign in. It's very strange.

Sprechen sie Deutsch?

Greetings from Germany!

I got in yesterday morning and my brother Tom and I headed for Salzburg, Austria. I can now say that I've seen Mozart's birth place and where The Sound of Music was filmed. Apparently, people around here assume that "The Sound of Music" must refer to something Mozart did, because most of them have never seen the movie. Perhaps it's something about how Germans are depicted in that flick?

I also saw the birth place of the dude that wrote Silent Night and not one, but TWO brothels. I found that very entertaining. One had a red light out front in the shape of a heart and it was marked like a historical landmark. I wanted to take a picture, but Tom pointed out that doing that is a good way to get ourselves in trouble if anyone saw us. Pimps don't give that shit away for free, yo.

For now, we're lounging around the house because it's gray and rainy outside and we have time to explore later.

Hope all is well stateside.

Not so funny stories

I've been getting crap from some people about the fact that I haven't updated here in awhile. I don't have much to show for the last month or so...just a lot of busy-ness and not funny stories. School ended, that was wonderful and sad at the same time. That said, I thought I was going to miss my kids, but the truth is...I don't really. I've been really enjoying doing absolutely nothing and sort of pulling myself back together. I was tired. My first year of teaching was actually quite difficult. Rewarding, and I love it, but definitely as hard as I'd heard.

I saw a preview for a movie the other day (Julie and Julia if you care) where the girl was pissed that her friend's blog was being turned into a movie, and she was like, "I could blog! I have thoughts!" I was like, hmmm. Do I have any INTERESTING thoughts? Let's take a look at a few of the actual things that have run through my head lately:

"Hmmm, I AM glad that I chose this blue color for my living room..."

"Shut UP, Jillian got rid of Jake? Those Bachelorette producers are cray-zay bitches." (Truth time: Even sadder? I actually said that out loud. To an empty room.)

"It's 5:00? WTF did I do all day today?"

"Holy shit! Wednesday! When did that happen?"

I'm leaving on my international adventure on Friday, and I will be bringing a computer, so maybe I can get some international woman of mystery stuff started. Probably not though, since I'm primarily going to be killing time with my 7-year-old niece. Whatever, I'm about to be internationally known.

Maybe I'll make some stuff up. Or just make fun of Germans. We'll see.

SOTD: Around the World by Daft Punk. "Where's Rachel?" "I don't know, somewhere around the world." Hell yeah. I remember staying up too late at some point in high school and seeing this video and thinking that maybe I'd just had a really detailed dancing dream. Didn't Daft Punk also have a video with a dude in a creepy dog costume just walking around the city like a person? What song was that? That also creeped me out. I never did drugs, but I always felt like I had after I saw their videos.