Kleine Kinder Kacke, So Zu Sagen

That's a direct quote from a German soccer player, basically "little kid's crap, so to say," describing his and the opposing team's goalie's behavior during the game. They were arguing, and one of them jerked his head a little bit for unknown reasons, but then they both fell to the ground holding their faces, pretending they had been head-butted. It was awesome, especially since one got a yellow card and the other got a red card. The one with the red card had to leave the game of course, and this was just before a shoot-out, which meant a normal field player had to step in as goalie...and he still managed to help his team win. Fußball rules.

In other kleine Kinder news, little 3 and a half year old godchild Lenjo was telling his father and I the other day about me being at their house, and I shall paraphrase: one day I was suddenly gone (that was in August), and he didn't see me for a little while, and then one day I was just there again (about a week ago), and he just didn't notice me because he was looking down and must not have thought to look up high enough. End paraphrase. It's funnier to hear it from the small German child's mouth, considering how earnest he was about not noticing me because he didn't think to look up, but how often do you get that opportunity anyway? He also regaled us with the story of how he used to say my name as "Äbäm" but can now say it the German way of "Ädäm." Of course, if you don't speak or read any German, you won't know how to say either Äbäm or Ädäm, but imagine saying the American name "Evan" but with a "b" or "d" in place of the "v," and an "m" in place of the "n," and you'll basically have it. Lesson complete.

Merry belated Christmas and frohe Weihnachten and so forth, and here's looking forward to a happy Sylvester as well, which you'll of course recognize as the Looney Tunes cat whose comical lisp (what cruel person invented the word lisp?) allows us to enjoy the fact that he always gets the stuffing knocked out of him when he attempts to eat adorable Tweety Bird. You also might recognize it as the time in life when a giant ball slowly drops from the sky, people all over whatever time zone chant numbers together, and the hopeful and the misguided make resolutions that are supposed to last 356 days but instead last for 356 minutes: New Year's. Being in Germany, I'll of course receive my new year 8 hours before most of the people I know, and even 9 or 10 hours ahead of those unfortunates toward the middle or west of America. I'm not sure if the telephones will work--I've never been able to phone back in time before, so I doubt you'd be able to hear me from the year 2006. But if I can somehow send a message all the way back to 2005, I'll see what I can do--you'll no doubt want to hear if 2006 is worth it, because everyone hates surprises, which is why we all tell each other what we want for Christmas and have a phrase about "upsetting the balance of things." That'th all for now, folkth.

Winter in Deutschland

So you're saying it's been about a month since I last posted. Well here I am again, in case anybody else is still here too. Finally finished my semester in Freiburg on Thursday, and left on Friday...although "finished" is a tricky word, since I actually still have one short paper to write in the next few days, haaaa ha crap. All in all it was amazing, I can't really believe it's over, which is helped by the fact that I'm staying in Germany until Jan. 11 now. I'm at Thorlef and Brigitte's house, arrived on Friday, and I'll be here for a couple more days probably, before I go to Britta and Wolfgang's for Christmas and perhaps New Year's.

I'm really lucky I get to stay longer--I don't think I would have been able to go straight home, it would be such a shock to the system. Now I get to just absolutely relax (well, except for the babysitting hundreds of little kids part, but I enjoy that too), drink lots of wine and Schnappes, and speak more German. It's nice to actually be able to do that now, whereas at the beginning all of my relatives were pretty much forced to speak English with me. It's good to see relatives again, too, and I'm seeing more than before--Michael and LaNon and their 4 and a half kids were here from Saturday to Sunday, I hadn't seen them for 6 years. And then I have plenty more time, so I'll hopefully see others at some point.

And this is my first time seeing such familiar places in the Winter--Thorlef and Brigitte's is beautiful in this season too, with a dusting of snow, especially when viewed through the glass-wall from the comfort of the hot tub. We've gotten a lot of snow recently, but the ground's still too warm, so it hasn't stuck. They took me to a classical music concert last night in Frankfurt, which was really cool.

I'm gonna go for now, but enjoy the last few hectic, ridiculous days leading up to Christmas.