This bird has been the subject of much discussion between my mom, my dad, and even Travis’ mom as they all poured through books to learn his identity. I even asked a German co-worker who told me that it was a red throat.

Today, another co-worker was at my desk and saw the picture on my computer and said, “Oh, how nice. A robin.” He then took me to Wikipedia and showed me the page for our friend. Yes, our bird is a little fluffier than the ones here. Perhaps he was eating too much bread and cheese, like I have been doing here in Germany. (In fact, the picture on the German page clearly shows that these two guys are cousins. The bottom picture on the page shows the stripes on the wings which I think is the definitive proof that he is one and the same.

So, now we have one more mystery of the universe solved!

There’s a coffeeshop chain we have here called Tchibo (pronounced Chee-bo) and Travis and I have become somewhat addicted to it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we still do not drink coffee, but Tchibo has so much more than coffee!

For some reason, when they built their coffeeshop strategy they decided that the shops should have more than just coffee. As you can see from the link above, coffee is kind of an afterthought. There’s also dishes and workout clothes and pillows and vegetable gloves!

I’m sure you are asking yourself, “What the heck are vegetable gloves?” I too was an unknowing disbeliever until yesterday when I tried out my Tchibo pair on some unsuspecting potatoes. You see, vegetable gloves are kind of like steel wool for your hands. They’re horribly uncomfortable, but great for cleaning vegetables. And also supremely fashionable.

(Notice Milli wanted to be in the picture, too.)

(Also notice that the gloves say “vegetables” on them, to clear up any confusion about their purpose. But, since they’re German, they should actually say “Gemüse.” Which leads me to wonder if the Germans aren’t buying these because they don’t know what “vegetables” are.)

We are now down to just three “free” weekends before we come back to the U.S. And probably the last really lazy weekend we’ll have in Germany!

I got through only 24 pages of the 86 page masterpiece I had agreed to review. It was quite the long, lengthy document. I am sure I spent at least 8 hours and only got through 24 pages, if that tells you anything about the contents Although the work was quite good for someone who isn’t a native speaker; I can’t even begin to imagine penning an entire thesis in a second language.

We* also repaired my bike tire, but thanks to a Friday night/Saturday morning blizzard, there was no training time.  Our weather has taken a turn back to winter, from 50-degree days to now not even breaking freezing again. I hope that changes. Last summer we did a few Sunday Rides of about 50 km, and the season starts again on Sunday. This would be the only Sunday Ride we could do before leaving, but if the weather is below 40 degrees, I think I will cop out.

Since it is a slow week, I probably won’t have much to post this week. But if anything exciting** (like an unexplained bill in German) shows up, I will be sure to share

* We = Travis. My only contribution was “Please change my bike tire.”

** Definition of something that is NOT exciting: Our kitchen sink now spits out water that is scalding hot when you have it turned in the middle or higher range. Travis burned himself probably 12 times this weekend, forgetting about the new temperature, and I told him there was probably a camera on us to see how long it took us to learn - kind of like training monkeys. Travis said, “The water in the kitchen will make a great blog on Monday.” I said, “Define great? It sounds kind of boring to me.” But here I am writing about it anyway. )

The other day, I got this e-mail from a friend-of-a-friend who we’ve met a few times:

I’ve just finished my magisterarbeit in american studies and need someone to correct the mistakes until next monday. you are the only native speaker i know so would you mind to take a look at my work? it will take about 45 minutes to look it through…

Of course I agreed, not because I’m fascinated in American Studies or because I even know what a magisterabriet is, but because I am a bit of a nerd about this stuff and am more than happy to correct a few commas and capitalization issues.

She sent over the document today. All EIGHTY-SIX PAGES OF IT. 45 minutes? And this is due Monday?

I guess I know how I’ll be spending my weekend after all!

This week seems to be going so slow, and I’m pretty sure it should be Friday but it’s only Thursday. Life is so unfair like that sometimes.

We don’t have much planned this weekend, just a going-away get together for a friend, so it will probably be the beginning of the packing, cleaning, scrubbing, boxing, shipping, selling stage for us. We think we may have an interested party in the car (woohoo!) but we thought we had an interested party in the furniture, and that fell through. So I don’t want to get my hopes up too high.

My parents will be coming in just two weeks from today (woohoo again!) and we need furniture around for their visit, so we can’t start selling things too quickly. But I would like to at least take some nice photos of everything, build a website maybe, and see if we can get things going there.

I also have a bike sitting in the cellar that I should either a) repair the flat tire on and get training for RAGBRAI or b) just sell already. Because I’m feeling quite lazy, I’m leaning towards the “just sell already” side.

We’ve also toyed around with the idea of seeing how much it would be to ship our furniture back, but I don’t know if that is realistic or not. So many decisions!

Yesterday I went to the Aldi grocery store near work to pick up a few items that we had on the grocery list. I made one major mistake in my shopping experience.

I forgot that I was out of cash.

Not completely out of cash.  I had 17 euros and 72 eurocents. That SHOULD have been able to buy a lot of stuff. And there was a lot of stuff on my list.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I was low on cash until I was in line, with my goods splayed out all over. And of course, stores don’t accept credit cards. And of course-of course, my German bank card doesn’t work (because I haven’t set it up because I can’t read the instructions, but that’s a whole different story). There was a lot of pointing and gesturing and “nicht”-ing until I was able to get out, leaving behind a big bag of potatoes, three red bell peppers, two heads of lettuce and a can of kidney beans. The cashier was NOT happy with me (nor were the people in line behind me) and I felt really stupid.

I’m surprised it took me 22 months to run into this situation, since I’m such a cashless girl back in the U.S. So, here’s to being back in the good ol’ U.S. of American Express in a few months!

Not much to say this week, other than:

• This weekend’s storm closed my normal route to work. I think there might be trees down through the forest. So today, I had an adventure trying to find my way in.
• One guy died walking in the woods near our house over the weekend when a tree fell on him. Which prompts me to question who looks out the window, sees nasty weather (to the tune of 100 mph winds) and goes “Awesome! Time for a walk!”
• Elsewhere in Germany, a woman died jogging when a tree fell on her. See question above.

Our train last night was supposed to leave at 6:30, but there was a big storm that cut through Europe over the weekend, and we were not spared. Because of the high winds, our train was canceled and we were forced to return to our hotel and check back in. It turned out to be ok, as we had no problems getting on the first train this morning (at 7 a.m.) and are now back safe and sound!

Our weekend was not the best, as we spent almost all day Saturday in the hotel room. I think I must have gotten some bad food (or a 24-hour bug) and had an upset stomach. Sunday I felt better, but the weather was worse so we took it easy with a slow day of shopping and eating.

Our last of our little weekend vacations is on the books!

I read Jo’s blog regularly, and her post today made it all sink in. It’s “Fests and Events in June in Frankfurt” and they look AWESOME! And FUN! And… we’ll be back in Denver

I think we need to start the tradition of having more festivals in the US. And although Denver has a few things going on in June, the lineup (below) doesn’t hold a candle to what they’re doing here.

But, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. Life can’t be all fun and festivals all the time now can it?

(Not sure why, but that sounds sensible.)

Denver Annual Event Highlights in June
Capitol Hill People’s Fair
June 5 - June 6, 2010

Cherry Blossom Festival
Check Back for 2010 Dates

Greek Festival

Jazzfest Denver
June 12-13, 2010

Juneteenth
Check Back for 2010 Dates

La Piazza on Larimer Square
June 5 - June 6, 2010

PrideFest
June 19 - June 20, 2010

Since idle hands are the devil’s playthings (did I get that saying right?), idle legs must be equally as bad. So, we’re keeping on our toes by this weekend taking one last trip to Holland.

Holland is kind of fitting for us: it’s close, it’s beautiful, and it’s where our FIRST trip was, way back when. This is kind of our last little mini-vacation of the entire two years (not counting when my parents come in three weeks and we take another little mini vacation or two), and then it’s time to get serious about this relocating stuff!