Moving pictures and Last Fruhstuck mit Ernst & Helga

The piano being crated!

Everything waited on the curb for the truck to arrive.

Inventory.

With everything inside and the wall built.

The mini was sparkling for customs. Note the USA license plate.

Ernst.

Camping in my house.

Ernst & Helga.

Goodbye Fruhstuck.

Next stop:

That's all she brought! The green bag strikes again!

Can I really be un-sick?

After two days straight of sleeping and four days of fever, at 2pm today I became myself again! It was rather sudden. I could hardly believe it. For a couple days I was certain I had one foot in the grave. Alas, no!

I studied German, played with charcoals, washed all my sheets after I sneezed about 700 times on them, picked up the 6 million kleenexes on my floor, and decided I was a new person. I repainted my nails blue, and marveled in the wonderment of health. I'm unsure if the sudden recovery was related to the amoxicillin, soledum, sinus rinses, or 50 hours of sleep. One of those things...

I'm so excited to be alive, I've uploaded a few pictures.


First, Helga's garden. Helga, who is so sweet she came up yesterday evening at 7pm, to make sure I was okay, because they had not heard me all day (I was sleeping!) and they knew I was sick. (She was also sick.) Terribly nice landlords! I would adopt them if I could.

Ernst and Helga were trying to teach me the German names for the little garden accoutrements, as well as the plants. You can probably guess that I forget them all. Schieß!

A photo attempting to show you the endless rain from today and most days lately. I'm thinking about starting a petition to rename our town Regenwald (rainforest).

Returning to the charcoals, I'm quite in heaven. I think I'll create another wall of pictures. Just need to find some of that sticky tack stuff. Also here you'll see my little shrine. I thought I might light the candles and contemplate life periodically, but I think that's going to wait til the winter months when it's darker more often. Not so much of a thrill to light candles in the light...

Finally the blue nailpolish with un-sick me! I am so happy to be able to think and walk and clean and read and draw and wash clothes. Yay for life! By the way, this nail polish is a hit with everyone especially 6-16 year old girls. Yeah, I am immature. I was trying to show you how it almost matches my eyes. Not quite. Ok, it's closer to my car.

Also, I gave myself more layers about a week ago when I was sick of my hair. Mostly I am just damn happy not to be sick.


xxxx from Germany.

Sprechen mit meine Vermietern

Last night, I had a friend over for dinner. We sat on the back porch, chatting and eating, listening to the birds. Nothing special, just pasta slightly doctored and some cheap supermarket wine, which is usually quite tasty over here.

On the way out to the car (I had to go into the garage to collect my coffee mug off my bicycle for the dishwasher), we (ok, I) got to chatting with Ernst and Helga, who were sitting on their porch, drinking Beer (Bier hier), which Ernst gladly raised to me in cheerful German happiness, as we chatted. A young neighbor was over talking to them from the sidewalk.

Ernst and Helga are intrepid conversationalists with me. I would have given up ages ago and just smiled and said, "Hallo" but they continue on trying to chat every time I see them. Always seeming happy to see me, even if I sound dumber than a box of rocks.

Through my fumbling German, I communicated that yes, I was riding to work, and they asked, "Every day?" I said, "Hoffentlich!" (Hopefully!) Learned that washing dishes was "spülen" not "waschen" and shoveling was "schaufeln" and muscles "Muskel" auf Deutsch as Helga showed me hers from her frequent "schaufeln" activity in the yard.

Much later into the stumbling conversation, Helga announced that their young neighbor spoke English. I thought, a teacher! But Ernst stood up and said, "Englisch ist verboten hier!" I haven't heard that before, but it explains why they lure me over with English-speaking children, but only speak German. I said I didn't want to lose my house for speaking English. So I'll continue in my Deutsch.

I better be studying now.

(By the way, the title to the post is, "Speaking with my landlords")