A Lange Story

So, my favorite German word, up until last week, was Krankenschwester. A Krankenschwester is a LONG word that means nurse. Literally translated, it means “sick sister.” Apparently, here in Germany, men can be nurses as well, but they are not Krankenschwesters, or even Krankenbruders, for that matter. They are something else.

Anyway, this week I have a new favorite German word. The word is Schlange. A Schlange is a snake (a LONG animal). Schlange is my new favorite word because my sense of humor has not matured past the 5th grade. But then, you already knew that.

In the spirit of things that are LONG, I have some photos to share from the last few weeks….


These men have LONG beards (Lisa, by the way, is the new fan club president of Beard Team USA, and if you have any questions regarding membership, I will gladly pass along her information).


Lisa and Frank are LONGing for some more Bier.


I bought a LONG Dirndl (and this is Monika. She’s been wearing Dirndls for a LONG time.)


Hey Todd, why the LONG face?



This guy has a short bun.


So, to make a LONG story short, the last few weeks have been busy and fun. Lisa and Frank were here, and their friends Kelly and Irwin joined us. We’ve been to Oktoberfest, and around Munich, and even a day trip to Salzburg. Last night, Nissa arrived, so we are getting ready to wander around Munich, and see a bit of the Fest. There is an honest to God “Flea Circus” that I am hoping to catch....

-Mel

Mel’s Kampf

So, my semester has officially started, and I feel a bit… far away. I guess next year, SFSU plans to actually start an online component to their Instructional Technologies Master’s program, but for now, I am making due with missing classes, and communicating online, and waiting patiently for paperwork to come via snail-mail, and feedback on my assignments to come via email. It is a challenge. A bigger challenge, however, seems to be finding the momentum to get my work done. I have no class to go to, no peers to meet up with, and I am in a place that is still relatively new. When the weather is actually nice, I’d much rather be outside than in, staring at books or my computer. Sigh.

OK, so that is all for my “struggle”. Otherwise, things here in Munich are moving along. Saturday, we went to Bad Hindelang, about 2 hours outside of Munich to see a spectacle known as Viehscheid. Basically, farmers send their cows up into the mountains for the summer, and the festival celebrates the cows coming home. They dress the ol’ girls up in bells and flowery wreaths, and then men in Lederhosen lead them back down the mountain into the loving arms of their rightful owners. Well, something like that. We, of course, arrived too late to see most of the bovine action, but we did take a Gondola to the mountain top, so I have for you here an aerial image of cows. The countryside was beautiful, the beer was fine, and folks seemed to be generally having a good time.




Next weekend is the start of Oktoberfest! Lisa and Frank will be arriving shortly to partake in celebrations, and we are immensely looking forward to their visit. In conjunction with Oktoberfest is the World Beard Championships in Berlin. I shared this website with Lisa, and the next thing I know, "Good Times Galli" has written a letter to the hairy men, AND they responded with an invitation for her and the rest of us to join them one evening at Oktoberfest. I’d like to get myself a beard before we go, as I hate to stand out in a crowd. What do you think of this look?


A few days after Lisa and Frank’s departure, Nissa arrives! Yay! Nissa and I endured several years of German class together in Junior High, and High School, most of which I have sadly forgotten. However, if you want to know the name of my German teacher’s therapist, with whom she was madly in love, I can tell you right now it was Robert. I also might remember how to sing the Beatles’ “She Loves You” auf Deutsch (“ja, ja, ja”) but my recollection, and your appreciation, will improve greatly with the addition of many Biers. Do you think I remembered my verb conjugations?

Anyway I am so happy to have visitors, and am looking forward to sharing Munich with them, and discovering a few new things for myself. Sweeeeeeet.

And before I sign off, just a few words about the floods in the U.S. I have no T.V. and no newspapers, and I will just admit it right here and now, that embarrassingly, most of my news comes from Yahoo! Now that you understand my source for keeping up to speed with the world, you will understand that I am hesitant to describe how exactly the disaster is being portrayed here. Those I have spoken with (who are better connected than me, no doubt) generally mention issues of race, and the victims in New Orleans. What I have been grateful for, are the tidbits that get emailed to me from all of you. I have read blogs of people stuck in disaster areas, and have seen amateur photo documentaries shared via online photo albums. These kinds of stories are alien to traditional media, even, dare I say it, Yahoo! news.

Hoping all is well with all of you....