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Cleaning out my wallet just now, found a penny and 19 Euro cents. The penny was nearly exactly the same size and color as the 2-cent Euro piece. Ironic that the one is worth nearly 3 times as much as the other....

I was at the dentist this morning and ran into someone I haven't seen in several years (it happens often since my dentist and a good number of his patients go to my church). He asked what's been going on, and I shared my exciting news about having just gotten back from a year in Germany.

"That's cool, that's cool," he responded, "So what else has been going on?"

I tried not to act as surprised as I felt. Um.....what ELSE? What else does there need to be? NOTHING else has been going on, hello, I just spent a year of my life ON A DIFFERENT CONTINENT. The question caught me even more off guard than the question a brother asked me on Wednesday before Minichurch: "How am I doing spiritually?" I had joked to the Minichurch brother that his question was pretty unspecific, and he was quick to clarify that he asked because after his recent short-term mission trip to Thailand, he had been feeling spiritually drained, and I was able to appreciate his concern. The person at the dentist office, however, offered no such explanation for his question, leading me to wonder whether he even understood what I had told him.

Life in the Paki-Costa household läuft so normal wie immer, außer dass Joel jetzt in die Schule geht, sie haben jetzt eine Katze statt eines Aupair-Mädchens, und Jan, Simon, und ich liegen die ganze Zeit rum und faulenzen. Nein, nicht wirklich, ich versuche soviel wie möglich zu helfen, aber ich habe irgendwie das Gefühl Manuela hat schon so was ähnliches wie eine Routine erfunden. Hoffentlich läuft dieses Jahr alles wie geplant!

Rendy had a little bit of free space in his luggage when he left last week, so I let him take a couple of things for me, but not very much because I thought when we met Willow at the airport (she came straight from Sascha's place with all her stuff), she might have extra junk she would be wanting to stuff in Rendy's bag. That very same day, however, as I was in Nastätten waiting for a free Termin bei the Hairsalon, I ended up in Bücherland and bought myself another large book. Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv Sein Tod (even the title is a play on words: Basically, "The Dative is the death of the Genitive". If you've ever attempted to learn German, you know that these are the two most confusing and least used of the four German cases, and one of the many articles about the Irrgarten of the German language contained in the book explains that the Genitive case is slowly dying out through misuse of the Dative. Hence the title, which transforms what otherwise could have been a straightforward thought (Der Dativ is der Tod des Genitivs) into the mouthful of jumble that I only recently understood) is a series that has been mehrmals recommended to me, but whose volumes usually cost 8,95€ apiece. I once found the first volume for 5€, and didn't buy it, and although I later wished I had, I now am glad I waited, because the first three volumes are now available as a set for only 10€.

Luckily, the volume is paperback, but nevertheless quite hefty, but I've been having a fun time reading through it and getting feedback from the family. I hope I can still fit everything into my suitcase before Wednesday!

The end of my Reisebericht is still on the way, but as you can imagine, I'm reluctant to take time out from my last days here to write a silly blog :)

Still taking a break from my Reisebericht at the moment (Simon got home yesterday!), but I just got an e-mail from Rendy that I absolutely had to share!

Before the concert on July 12th, Rendy and I were walking around the Loreley when we saw the door to the backstage area open and guess who walk out, carrying his guitar. Now, neither of us had brought our cameras (photography was not allowed inside the concert, who would have thought we would get a chance to take pictures BEFORE the show?), but as JJ sat down on a bench and began playing, I walked up behind him and posed so that at least Rendy could get a picture of me with his camera phone. The picture didn't really turn out, but little did I know the whole scene was being videoed by some random person who later uploaded the clip onto YouTube. You see me at about the 44 second mark, standing right behind JJ.

July 20th, Sunday. My cousin's birthday! The first night camping in the tent, we had learned two very important lessons: First of all, there's a reason why most tents these days are equipped with RAIN FLIES. Secondly, there's a reason WHY a tiny two-person tent from Woolworths only costs 20 euros. To be specific, it did not HAVE a rain fly, and we discovered from the very beginning that this was NOT ok. Of course it was better than huddling under a small blue tarp during a long rainy night, so we tried not to complain, but after about twenty minutes of drilling rain, the condensation on the walls of the tent became a mini-rainstorm of its own. And of course, this lasted THE WHOLE NIGHT. So, having learned our lesson, upon subsequent uses of the tent, we attached the blue tarp over the tent as a sort of make-shift rain fly. This worked much better than nothing, but the tarp was not quite big enough to cover the entire tent, and for some reason the part of the tent which was uncovered always ended up being the places where our feet stuck into the side of the tent. Because, you guessed it, our tent was so small that even I couldn't stretch out completely while laying down inside of it, and Rendy is a good 4 inches taller than I. So, end result, we woke up every morning, regardless of rain or shine, with the feet of our sleeping bags wet and FREEZING due to the condensation from the sides of the tent. Yes, when you look at Swiss weather reports that predict temperatures in the high-20s, be aware: that's the temperature IN THE VALLEYS, not up in the mountains. Gut zu wissen, nicht? On this our second day up in the mountains, we were about to reach the peak which we had intended to reach the first day before having to recalculate our speed, when suddenly we heard a rumbling off in the distance. Rendy and I looked at each other leerily. After spending nearly two days attempting to reach a peak that was only a few kilometers from our starting point, the last thing I wanted to think about was having to descend to avoid a thunderstorm. Rendy, on the other hand, was already sick of ascending, and was not opposed to the idea. I put down my pack to scout the trail ahead and see whether it leveled off ahead, but clouds began rolling in thickly and soon I had to abandon that attempt. According to our Topo map (which was not very detailed: in our enthusiasm to cover a lot of ground, we had bought one large-scale map instead of spending the money for what would have been quite a few small-scale ones. But can you really blame us? Each one was like 15 Franks!), there appeared to be a second trail which branched off heading downhill from the trail we were following just beyond the summit, so we reasoned that by going downhill and skirting the peak, we should be able to meet up with the trail on the other side. In any case, we hadn't gone very far before the thunder started getting louder and it started to rain, so we had to quickly choose a level spot and set up camp. The wind was blowing so hard we had difficulty pitching the tent, but thankfully we managed to finish before we got too wet, and we spent a very long and restless night. The wind whipping around the tarp that we were using as a rainfly made so much noise it was difficult to have a conversation. The ground upon which we had been forced to set up camp was level, but not by any means flat, so my sleeping spot was in a sort of depression which was not too uncomfortable at first, but did not allow me any possibility to change positions throughout the night, and Rendy's spot was on a sort of hump off of which he kept rolling (usually onto me!). On top of that, the sound of the thunder echoing from all the surrounding mountains was rather terrifying, because we hadn't really been able to tell how far we were from the summit, and for all we knew, the lightning could have been dangerously close. Luckily, the thunder and the wind didn't last all night, but the rain sure did, and it was very, very cold.

July 21st, Monday. It was foggy when we woke up the next morning, and I refused to be dragged out of my sleeping bag until I felt the sun start to warm the tent (that was probably around 10am). Finally we got ourselves together and took off to try to find this second trail. We followed what we thought to be trail markings for a while, but the path became steeper and steeper and all of a sudden the markings disappeared completely behind a barbed wire fence which appeared to be telling us that the terrain on the other side was unsafe. Now we had a dilemma. To the northwest, the terrain seemed to level off, and we could even hear cowbells and see a road that appeared to lead to a village not too far from Chur. To the South, however, we could not see far enough ahead to determine what the terrain would end up to be. The rational thing to do would of course have been to head Northwest, and to be perfectly honest, the only reason we chose NOT to do so was because I couldn't stand the thought of having spent THREE DAYS in the mountains, only to end up back in Chur! In the end, however, it was Rendy who made the decision to keep going south. We both knew that I was more steady on my feet when it came to steep terrain, and also had a smaller pack, so I didn't feel comfortable making that decision for him, but that's what he wanted to do as well, so we started off, paralelling the barbed wire fence, to see where it took us. After about a half hour, however, the barbed wire fence took a sharp curve uphill (towards the summit we had been avoiding!), and we discovered to our dismay another very steep dropoff directly between where we were and where we wanted to be. On the other side of a narrow valley, however, we saw clear signs of what we were now certain had to be the trail we were seeking. We looked behind us, and realized we had been descending quite a bit since we had been following the barbed wire fence, so backtracking would mean a lot of uphill when we were both already quite tired. We looked at each other, looked at our Topo map, looked once again at the trail on the other side of the valley, and decided to do the insane. We were going to attempt to cross that steep valley (maybe the altitude was messing with our better judgement??). But anyway, we were now close enough to the tree line that if we had lost our footing, we would only have slid about 50 meters before bushes would break our fall. It would not exactly be comfortable, but we were pretty sure we weren't going to break any bones. And thankfully neither of us slipped at all. Before long we found ourselves on the trail we had wanted to reach so badly, and we sat down to have another look at our Topo map when a Belgian couple walked by (hiking downhill) and I asked them what the weather had been like at the summit. They replied that it had been perfect, so apparently the fog had only been on our side of the valley. They asked where we were headed and we told them that we had spent a couple of nights in the mountains, but now we were thinking we wouldn't mind going to the village and spending the night in a bed and breakfast. They wished us luck and continued on their way, and we followed not too long after. When we reached the following village (after having taken our time the entire way), we were dismayed to see that the only bed and breakfast in town was closed on Mondays! Suddenly, much to our surprise, who should we meet again but the very same Belgian couple! They asked if it had worked out to get a room, and we said, no, we would have to try the next village down in the valley. They looked at each other, and the husband said cautiously that it was still a several hour walk down to the valley floor. Rendy and I hoped that was not true, but we told ourselves that even if it were, we would find a place to camp and make our way down the following day. Then the wife spoke (in accentless German). "We have a car. We could give you a ride down to the valley." The American side of me hesitated in responding, but Rendy seemed to have picked up quite a German side to him, because he piped right up in answering that we would really like that. The couple was extremely nice and drove with us through several villages before bringing us to what seemed to be a rather major hub for that particular valley, a place called Thusis. They drove with us along the main street and showed us where all the hotels were that they knew, and wished us luck in finding one. There was one bed and breakfast which had rooms available, but they were 38 Franks per person per bed, and it was in a 7 bed dorm room, so we left that one, and unfortunately, all the hotels which had a one or two star rating were also closed on Mondays. Mental note: don't arrive in Switzerland on a Monday! There was, however, a campsite in town, which cost much less than 38 Franks per person, but also gave us access to hot showers and even laundry facilities, so we were quite happy, and after getting settled in, we asked the camp director the question to which we'd been dying to get an answer since we arrived in Switzerland: Where the heck can you go to eat Fondue??? The man hesitated for a moment, and we clarified that we have always associated Fondue with being a typical Swiss food, but we hadn't yet seen it available anywhere, so had we been mislead? "Doch, doch," he responded, es sei eine typische Schweizer Gericht, but it was usually only eaten in the winter and he really didn't know if there was anywhere to get it in high summer. I probably don't need to tell you how disappointed I was! I guess that just means I have to go back to Switzerland in the winter!

July 22, Tuesday-July 24th, Thursday. From Thusis, we weren't too eager to ascend too quickly back into the mountains, so we stayed down in the valley, and were very glad we did, because the Hinterrhein (the river we were following--a main tributary of the Rhein!) flows through some gorgeous rock formations. We spent one night at a campsite called Rania, another in a campsite in the city (village??) of Andeer, and after that we ascended steeply and passed through a village called Bagnusch which is so remote there aren't even any roads that lead to it! From there we continued another couple of hours and passed a village called Cresta where we asked about lodging and were pointed in the direction of a hut which we headed towards, but didn't reach before the sun sank behind the ridge and it began to get cold quickly.

July 25th, Friday. My other cousin's birthday! This was a particularly exciting day because we were planning to cross the Italian border! The plan had actually been to spend longer in Switzerland, but we just couldn't afford it, because (even though the exchange rate with the Frank is currently better than with the Euro), EVERYTHING is expensive in Switzerland. The nights that we spent camping were not too expensive, but we hadn't been able to treat ourselves to warm meals or any of the things that make vacations relaxing! Taking another break from writing. Again, will try to finish when I get a chance.

Has it really only been a month since my last update? It feels much longer.

As I am writing this, Willow and Rendy are on a plane back home. Simon comes home tomorrow, and it's slowly been sinking in that his return is the LAST thing I have to look forward to before going home. After he left, I was able to comfort myself by remembering that I was going to Switzerland and Italy. Once I was in Italy, I was able to comfort myself by the fact that I'd be going back to Diethardt to see the family again (and meet the new kitty!). Upon returning to Diethardt, I was still able to be excited about the fact that I'd be seeing Simon again, but after tomorrow, I think it's going to really sink in that my year here is OVER. Of course I still have things to look forward to back home: seeing my 22-month old goddaughter again (I haven't seen her since she was a BABY: I talked to her once on the phone, but it was obvious she had no idea and didn't care who I was; nevertheless her mother had taught her to repeat the words "I love you, Amy!" which nearly brought me to tears!), seeing my family again (and my doggy!), going back to school, starting my training with Wycliffe, teaching Sunday School again! Nevertheless, I'm going to miss my GERMAN life terribly.

Way too much happened in the past month for me to possibly write everything, but I'll at least try to reconstruct a rough timeline (more for my own benefit than for anyone else's, since I never got around to keeping a journal).

July 12th, Saturday. The family left to go on vacation. Jack Johnson. AMAZING.

July 13th, Sunday. Ferdi drove Rendy and me to the train station where he boarded an ICE train to Basel to visit a girl that he'd met traveling, and I went to Tübingen for the end-of-the-year barbecue for Willow's program.

July 14th, Monday. I camped on the Swiss shore of the Bodensee with just a sleeping bag and a tarp, and after it rained the entire day, I began to reevaluate whether it was really a good idea for Rendy and I to plan our trip in to the alps without a tent.

July 15th, Tuesday. Rendy met me first thing in the morning and we rented bicycles ("Velos") from the Swiss train station in Rorschach. We left our luggage in the lockers there, and took off coasting along the shores of the lake. The weather was GORGEOUS, and after eating breakfast in Switzerland, we had lunch in Austria (at McDonald's, of all places), and dinner with Frank in Friedrichshafen. After dinner, Frank showed us around his University (the first private Uni I've ever seen in Germany, with a gorgeous campus right on the shore of the lake), and then we crashed on his couch. His apartment was tiny, but after having seen Jorden's brother's in Holland, I've learned to appreciate space!

July 16th, Wednesday. Our butts were SORE from the previous day, so we took it a little bit easier. We rode from Friedrichshafen to Meersburg, but then we took a break from bicycling and rented a paddle boat to go out on the lake a little bit. We had no bathing suits with us, but the weather was so nice we jumped in in our clothes, and Rendy nearly lost his shorts! We ended the day by taking the ferry from Meersburg to Konstanz, where Willow's friend Evan had agreed to let us crash in his apartment. Problem was...Evan had only given us his street address and forgotten to include his apartment number! This was a bit disconcerting when we discovered that he lived in a 7-story student housing complex.... Luckily, all the students' names were listed on the mailboxes, and only because I had just seen his name on a telephone list in Tübingen did I know that his real name is Gilbert Lopez. We searched the mailboxes up and down, but although we found S. Lopez, A. Lopez, and H. Lopez, there was no G. Lopez or E. Lopez. Finally, however, I spotted the name of someone else from Willow's exchange program: K. Smith, whose last name I only happened to know because we are friends on Facebook. Lucky for me, K. Smith is very good friends with Gilbert Evan Lopez and was able to point me to his apartment right away (whose real name, it turns out once again, is not even Gilbert, but the Mexican spelling "Hilberto". H. Lopez. I should have thought of that). Anyway, Evan's apartment was considerably larger than Franks, but he doesn't even have a couch, so Rendy and I got practice for our zukunftige Wanderung in die Alpen.

July 17th, Thursday. Only two more days until my 24th birthday! (the keyboard just bugged out and that almost came out reading "2th" birthday...) It was pouring down rain when we woke up, so we were forced to abandon our ambitions of getting an early start on the last day of our bicycling tour. In fact, we postponed the start of our trip as long as we possibly could without wearing out our welcome at Evan's apartment (he had apologized in advance for the fact that he was just finishing up a very stressful semester and wouldn't have much time to be a good host). We first made our way to Woolworths where Karin and Evan had informed us we could get a cheap tent, cause our little blue tarp would not have been big enough for both Rendy and me with our stuff if it rained like that in the Alps. It cost 20€ and weighed only 2 kilos, so we decided it was definitely worth it. We then had breakfast at McD's (I know what you are thinking...again?? and it was still not to be the last time we would eat McD's on the trip...) while we tried to dry off and warm up (it was only about a kilometer from Evan's apartment to the train station, but trotzdem waren wir klatschnass, that's how hard it was raining!). We even hung out at the mall a bit to kill time, and I found two pairs of Tom Tailor shorts for Rendy for under 15€ each (Frank asked us: "Are you sure they are Tom Tailor and not Tim Toolar?"). Finally, we had to admit that the rain was NOT going to stop, so we bought train tickets back to Rorschach to make sure we got the "Velos" back by the agreed time. The lady at the Swiss train station in Konstanz sold us tickets at the reduced rate because of our German Bahncards, but the tickets we had to buy for the bicycles cost us more than both of our own tickets combined. It was truly disappointing. Back at the trainstation when Rendy was unable to locate the key for the locker where he had left his stuff, we attempted to reconstruct the scene where we had stowed the backpacks in the locker, and slowly came to the realization that he must have left the key hanging in the locker, and to our very great dismay we discovered his locker to be empty. We went immediately to the service counter where I explained to the man in my best Hochdeutsch what had happened, and asked whether any of Rendy's stuff had been left in Lost-and-Found. Without even asking what the bag looked like, however, he responded simply "no" with a bluntness that we later discovered to be quite as normal in Switzerland as it is in Germany. I, however, was unsatisfied with his response. "I'm sorry," I began, trying to stay as calm as possible, "Maybe I asked the wrong question. IF (hypothetically speaking) Rendy's bags HAD been turned in, where would they have been brought?" The man responded brusquely that they would have been brought to him, but repeated that they had not. "Can you at least check???" I asked, irritated that he hadn't even asked to know what sort of bags I was inquiring about. He responded in a tone that would have been considered quite rude by American standards that I was welcome to check for myself, and he unlocked the room into a back storage area, where it was plain to see that no backpacks were stored. That was the point where I changed my strategy. "Look," I said, in a tone that was obviously fishing for sympathy, "There was absolutely nothing of value in that bag. There is no reason someone would have wanted to steal it. It MUST still be SOMEWHERE around here! Where is the police station? Maybe someone turned it in there. How about the dumpsters? Maybe someone rummaged through it, and threw it away when they realized there was nothing of value." The man assured me that the dumpsters were locked, so no one would have been able to throw away a backpack of any size, but he seemed to take me a little more seriously when I mentioned going to the police. "Why is it so important to you to have it back, if there's nothing of value in the bag?" He spoke this sentence, however, in such a way that I detected he was starting to have a little bit of sympathy with us. I explained our situation in what was probably a little more detail than he wanted, but nevertheless it seemed to have the desired effect. I told him that we were Americans who however lived in Germany, and we were supposed to be on vacation until mid-August, but since we didn't have that much money, we were planning to go backpacking, and even though it was only clothes and toiletries in the backpack, it was all we had to last us for an entire month, unless we were to cut our trip short. By the end of the story, the man motioned to me to follow him to the back of the train station. He showed me the locked dumpsters, and dutifully unlocked one by one to show me that there were no backpacks inside, but his attitude was no longer one of "I told you so", but rather of wanting to show us that he really did understand the difficult situation we were in, and would have liked to help if there was anything he could have done. As we reached the last dumpster, I still hadn't run out of hope, but I was definitely running out of ideas, but at that very moment, a janitor walked by, and the gentleman asked him whether he'd found any lost luggage around the locker area. "Actually...." said the janitor in a thick accent, and I almost couldn't believe my ears when he said that in a shopping cart behind the train station they had found a large, heavy, blue backpack. The man didn't even have to ask me whether that fit the description of the bag I was looking for, because I was nearly jumping up and down as the janitor showed us the way back to the room where he had stored the bag. Of course it was Rendy's (it would have been too much if it had been a different big, heavy, blue backpack), and except for a couple of the snacks we had packed for our backpacking trip, EVERYTHING was still inside. Just like I had thought, it had probably been a homeless guy who found it, discovered that there was food inside, and left the rest behind. Needless to say, we didn't let our bags out of our sight again after that, and we camped that night in a town called Buchs on the banks of the Rhine river.

July 18th, Friday. It had rained off and on that night and into the next morning, so we didn't start our backpacking trip that day, but rather decided to stay a second night in Buchs and spend a day exploring the tiny country of Liechtenstein. It was, as Rendy had anticipated, NOT a very interesting country (as opposed to Luxembourg, which had DEFINITELY been worth the day I spent exploring there), and we couldn't even afford to have lunch there so we walked back across the border (about 8 km from our campsite, it took us about an hour), treated ourselves to lunch at a Swiss Pizzeria, and bought groceries for the following day.

July 19th, Saturday. My 24th birthday! We had bought cake for breakfast (a German tradition), and packed up our tent, then boarded a train to Chur, where we were planning to begin our journey. Chur proudly holds the title of oldest city in Switzerland, but except for a quaint Altstadt, didn't have that much to offer us as tourists. Nevertheless, we found a bookstore where for 8 Franks (almost exactly $8), I bought a Swiss-German phrasebook. I had already been picking up a couple of words: "Grüezi" is the Swiss equivalent of the Bayrisch phrase "Grüss Gott", "Velo" means Fahrrad, "Poulet" means Hähnchen, and even in the German-speaking part of Switzerland they say "Merci" instead of Danke (and when they do say "Danke", it's followed by "Vielmal": "Danke vielmal" instead of "Vielen Dank" or "Danke Schön". I even heard a couple of times "Merci Vielmal"!). Our reason for wanting to start in Chur was that there was a chairlift that would allow us to get a nearly thousand meter headstart in our ascent into the alps. The plan was to head pretty much straight south from Chur over several peaks whose names I can't look up right now because Rendy still has our Topo map and they are not named on Google Maps, but long story short, we were in much worse shape than we expected, and had to go much slower than anticipated. To be precise, RENDY was in much worse shape than he we expected. Don't get me wrong: he's still in better shape than I am, but I always knew that I was in poor shape. For some reason, he and I had both expected him to be much faster than he actually was, especially when ascending.

July 20th, Sunday. My cousin's birthday! Taking a break from writing. I'll try to finish when I can...

One of the main differences Germans notice between their culture and ours is the concept of distance. For example, I don't know many people in Los Angeles who consider San Francisco too far to travel for a long weekend. But in the amount of time it takes to get from LA to SF, one could travel from Diethardt to Amsterdam, Berlin, or Zurich, and I know very few Germans who would consider traveling so far for a weekend. I, however, always try it, and end up thinking that maybe Germans are right in thinking it's too far for a long weekend. I wonder if I'll feel the same way next time I'm in California and someone suggests driving down to Ensenada.

Anyway, I knew going into it that driving to Holland after an entire week with the kids at Jadogar would be tiring, but I did it anyway because I couldn't stand the thought of missing my last chance to hang out with Jorden.

The week at Jadogar was exhausting, and I came suddenly to appreciate just how ORGANIZED was the Vacation Bible School that I did last summer at Coast. I remember thinking then that it was a bit "übertrieben", but Jadogar was borderline chaos.

What happened was that the person who's organized Jadogar for the past five years had chosen to step back this year, and Rita Fischer stepped up, not because she particularly wanted to, but because it was needed, and as such, she attempted as much as possible to delegate all responsibilities. Now, this in itself was not a problem, except that it left no one in a position of directing what was supposed to happen at what time. We had plenty of activities planned, but without a set time schedule, the kids were left mostly free to themselves to jump on the trampoline, play sports, or splash around in the stream that runs behind the cloister (all under supervision, of course). Now, this also was well and good, and most of the kids left Friday afternoon with a very positive impression, HOWEVER, large groups of kids have a limit as to how long they can play nicely together. Sooner or later, someone starts to get bored, or feel left out, or bully the others, and then we would have to attempt to hurry them in for an activity to distract them, but once the activity was over, it was back to playing by themselves.

Joel was one of the younger kids there, and was a bit reluctant to initiate contact with the older boys, so except for during activities, he spent most of the week with his little buddy Constantin, the neighbor kid. This also was not a problem, except that Constantin only wanted to play with the girls, meaning that Joel still did not have any contact with the older boys. And not only that, Constantin was not feeling well which manifested itself in the form of him being a party-pooper and not wanting to participate in any of the activities, and of course when Constantin didn't want to play neither did Joel.

The situation reached a peak Wednesday, the night of the sleepover. The kids had been distributed among the various dorm rooms, and I asked where the adults were supposed to sleep, and I never got a specific answer, so I found a free bed in a room that contained several of the other younger kids whom I expected to be problematic, and sure enough, during the course of the night, one of my six kids peed his pants, a second pooped in hers, and a third vomited all over her sleeping bag. Nevertheless, I found out later that none of the other counselors had slept at all, running from room to room, and I understood why they didn't have an answer about where they would sleep.

I was exhausted Thursday night, but I didn't allow myself a chance to rest. Katrin, you remember, my German twin, was leaving the following Monday for a year in Australia, so I drove into Wiesbaden to hang out with her one last time. I got home late that night, slept a couple of hours, and went back to Jadogar one more time.

I was on the road shortly before 5, and made my way to Koblenz train station where I was supposed to be meeting Willow, and another girl who had responded to my ridesharing ad online.

Hillary was already there by the time I arrived, but as I had pretty much expected, Willow's train was delayed and we had to wait nearly an hour for her to arrive, by which time Hillary and I were very anxious to hit the road.

We arrived in Utrecht around 10, where Hillary met a friend, and then Willow and I had to keep going to get to Delft (you know, the place that sells the blue pottery), and after construction on the freeway, we finally made it to Jorden's apartment, where we briefly met his brother, picked up Rendy who was already there, and made our way to our campsite. If I had to guess, it was probably around 12:30 before we finally got to sleep.

The next morning we went to Amsterdam for a free walking tour. If you are ever in a European capital, I highly recommend them. They last about 3-4 hours, are extremely informative, and the guides are usually highly entertaining because they rely only on tips.

We were hoping to still make it to Den Haag in time to visit the MC Escher Museum, but the tour went longer than planned, and by the time we arrived, the museum was closed and there was a wedding reception taking place. I was disappointed, but then at least I didn't have to feel guilty about seeing the museum without Simon (he's probably the biggest Escher fan I've ever met).

Dinner that evening was typical Dutch fast food: there's a counter with various pre-prepared meat products which upon your request are placed in a huge vat of sizzling hot oil. It was delicious, of course, but I don't think know how often I could eat it without my stomach exploding.

I really didn't want to leave so early Sunday, but that evening was the final match of the Eurocup in which Germany was playing and Holland unfortunately not, so of course we had to be in Germany for it. Willow begged me to go to Stuttgart with her and watch it at the public viewing on screen, but I had to work Monday, so I had to turn her down. Instead, I watched it in Diethardt in the Burgerhaus. The game was.....highly disappointing.

Manuela had to work Monday morning so of course I was at home with the kids, but it was beautiful weather so we went to the swimming pool. Manuela met us there after work, and then I was free to drive to Frankfurt and visit my Andrea! We had a lovely dinner and drinks on the bank of the Main. I spent the night at her house, and the next morning I went shopping before meeting another friend for lunch.

Afterwards I drove into Wiesbaden, where I did some more shopping (I finally bought the book "Hector's Reise" which I've been hearing about for months. It's really good, although not as impressive as it seemed after the first couple of chapters. Still, as far as I can tell, it hasn't been translated into English yet, so I'm tempted to take that on as a project. Then I met Natalya, Iryna, Barbara and Kristof for probably the last time (Maria was already on vacation :(

The rest of the week was relaxing. We went two more times to the swimming pool, and didn't end up going to Paris after all. I don't know what it is about that city, but somehow I've never had much luck getting there.

Instead I went down to Tübingen where Willow and I celebrated the 4th of July with the other Americans. Saturday we hung out in Heilbronn with Sascha and his coworkers, and then I came home late that evening.

Sunday I went to church in Wiesbaden for probably the last time, and this is my official last week of work. I've already packed my suitcase, and it weighs approximately 28 kilos. I can take 23 for free, but up to 10 kilos extra costs only 25€ so that's probably worth it. Still, I'm hoping after I get back from Switzerland and Italy, that I'll be able to rearrange more of the heavier items into my backpack(s), which currently only weigh 18 kilos together.

Rendy gets in tonight, and Nelly Furtado is giving an open-air concert in Wiesbaden which I'm hoping to be able to hear a bit of without having paid 60€ for a ticket.

Satuday is the Jack Johnson concert that I've been looking forward to since January, and Sunday we leave for Switzerland. First stop along the way is Tübingen, because Marion and Anita are having a going-away barbecue for the students who have mostly finished classes and are already heading home. Then it's (hopefully) off to Konstanz where Rendy and I will be renting bicycles and riding around the Bodensee, visiting Frank in Friedrichshafen along the way.

We'll also make a quick stop in Liechtenstein (just to say we've been there), and once again in Chur, which is where we will probably buy supplies. Then it's off through the Alps into Italy. From Chur it's about 200 kilometers until we reach the flatlands of Northern Italy, and we are hoping to cover it all on foot until we are supposed to meet Willow in Milan around the end of the month. I'm estimating about ten days, figuring that there will be days where we cover a lot more than 20 km, and days where we take it easy, but I think it's doable.

From Milan, next stop is Venice, then Florence (with a day trip to Pisa, of course), then hopefully about a week in Rome before we fly back to Karlsruhe on August 12th. Then we are in Tübingen from August 13th-15th where Willow will be volunteering at the orientation for new students, and on the 16th Rendy and I will head back to Diehardt and Willow most likely to Heilbronn, and the two of them fly home on the 18th.

Simon comes home on the 19th, and then I have one more lovely weekend with him and the family before I fly home on the 27th.

I'll try to update now and then in between, but I can't promise anything. If you need to get a hold of me, e-mail is as usual the best.

Love you all and can't wait to see you back in California!

So, I've been having a schlechtes Gewissen all week for not having updated in so long, and I still don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to at least start, and I'll post more as a get a chance.

All year, I've been thinking to myself, "Ach, once summer comes, I'll have all the time in the world." However, my experience has been quite the opposite. The kids only have 6 weeks summer vacation, and I'm only here for the first three of them, but those three weeks have filled up quickly, and it's actually been rather stressful trying to fit in everything I wanted to get done.

The weekend before last was the große Paki Familientreff in Darmstadt. There were ungefähr 50 Leute aus verschiedenen Ecken Deutschlands und der Schweiz. Ich habe "Schwiizer Deutsch" gar nicht verstanden, aber es hat trotzdem Spaß gemacht.

Letzte Woche Freitag war der letzte Schultag (und Simons Geburtstag--ich hatte zwei Woche früher ihm eine Karte per Post geschickt, und es kam genau an seinem Geburtstag an). Dann am Wochenende waren Josef und Manuela weg auf eine Fortbildung Seminar in Frankfurt, also ich war allein mit den Kindern zuhause, aber was heißt allein? Die waren beide beide Tage von 10 Uhr morgens bis ungefähr 7 Uhr nachmittags bei Freunden, bis ich sie endlich mal zurückgerufen habe.

Dafür habe ich auch beide Tage besuch gekriegt. Samstag kam die liebe Andrea zu mir. Die hatte ich auch aus Mexico kennengelernt, aber die war nicht eine der Darmstädter. Die kommt aus einem Dorf in der Nähe von Frankfurt, hat aber in Marburg studiert (wie mein Papa!). Ich hatte schonmal versucht mit ihr zu treffen, konnte aber nicht, weil sie zum Feiern ihr Diplomabschluss ein 3 Monatelang Reise in Amerika gemacht hat!

Sonntag habe ich die Leute aus mein Sprachkurs zu mir zum Grillen eingeladen. Es waren nur 4 gekommen, war aber dafür sehr schön: Barbara und Kristof (ein Ehepaar aus Polen), Maria Gabriela (das Aupair-Mädchen aus Venezuela), und Iryna (das Aupair-Mädchen aus Ukraine, die ich jetzt erfahren habe hat schon vor ihren Russe-Deutscher Freund zu heiraten! WAHNSINNN.......)

Sonntag Abend sind wir zusammen ins Piano (die relativ große Cafe-Bar-Restaurant in Nastätten, die einzige Ort da wo man mit Freunde treffen kann) gefahren um Kasias Abschied zu feiern. Ich weiß aber nicht ob man das wirklich "feiern" nennen kann: sie und ich haben beide geweint!

Diese Woche bin ich mit Joel bei Jadogar, die Kinderfreizeit im Kloster Strüth, und es macht spaß aber ist auch ziemlich anstrengt. Ich bin von halb neun morgens bis fünf Uhr nachmittags da, und bin jeden Tag müde. Dieses Wochenende habe ich aber nicht so viel Zeit zum Ausrühen! Mittwoch Abend übernachten wir bei Jadogar, dann Donnerstag Abend fahre ich nach Wiesbaden Katrin besuchen (die fährt am Montag nach Australien!!!), dann Freitag geht's los nach Holland fahren, Jorden besuchen! Ich werde Montag kaputt sein, kann aber immer noch nicht ausrühen weil ich fahre dann am Abend zu Andrea nach Frankfurt, übernachte bei ihr, und Dienstag auf der Heimfahrt besuche ich noch mal die Leute aus Sprachkurs in Wiesbaden! Mittwoch werde ich noch kaputter sein, kann aber immer noch nicht ausrühen, weil wenn es geht, fahre ich dann Donnerstag Abend mit Willow nach Paris!

Ich weiß, es ist viel zu viel auf einmal, aber die sind alle sehr wichtig für mich, und wenn ich die nicht JETZT schaffe, werde ich wahrscheinlich nie wieder die Chance haben.

Also dann, bis in ungefähr 2 Wochen :)

until I get a chance to write a real update, this is just for everyone who's been praying: I've been accepted! I'm a member! Now the real questions: what does that actually mean?????

We've still been having crazy weather all week...it will be sunny and downright hot (it was so hot last Monday we took the kids to the public swimming pool in Nastätten), but then all of a sudden the sun disappears behind the clouds, the temperature drops ten degress, and we'll start to hear thunder in the distance, and then the rain is never too far behind.

My German class in Wiesbaden finished up at the end of May, so on Wednesday Kasia and I were back in Nastätten with Rita Fischer.

Saturday was the day I had been waiting for. After being here for nearly a full year, I finally contacted all my old Mexico friends in Darmstadt. I tell you, the hardest thing about travel contacts is writing the e-mail afterwards. Once you are there together with your old friends, it's as if you had never left, but actually deciding how to go about writing to them is difficult.

Torsten had let me know ahead of time that they were all pretty busy Saturday during the day, so I should come by about 6 pm. It's only an hour and a half drive from here, so I didn't mind. I spent the morning at home, trying to think of something productive to do, but not really having much motivation, so I ended up going for a jog through the woods. I hadn't been down that trail in a couple of weeks, and was therefore not too surprised to see that it was quite overgrown with all the recent rains. Nevertheless, I was in shorts, and it didn't occur to me until I was halfway through that perhaps that wasn't a good idea. I got back home at the end of the jog, and sure enough, I found no less than 6 tiny black ticks clutching tightly to my legs. I managed to remove them all without difficulty (after my last experience with the tick, I had bought a special set of tick tweezers from the local pharmacy), and decided that Six Ticks sounds like the opening of a Dr. Seuss rhyme.

Tina and Saskia were the two girls from the Mexico program with whom I had the least contact, but I ended up seeing them on Saturday as well, because Bea and Toto, two with whom I had a lot more contact, were helping them build models for what could be considered their "senior projects" in architecture. I got to help a bit as well, which removed the standard awkwardness usually associated with, "I haven't seen you in three years, what the heck do we talk about??"

Afterwards we watched Turkey lose to Portugal in the second game of the Europameisterschaft (the European Soccer Championship), for which Toto was glad, not because he's a particular fan of Portugal, but because there are a lot more Turks than Portuguese in Darmstadt, and the fact that Turkey lost meant we didn't have to hear them partying all night long.

Sunday I had promised to be home in time for lunch because Norina's godparents, Sabine and Siggi, were coming to celebrate her belated birthday. I hadn't anticipated this being a problem, but I also hadn't anticipated having such a good time with my Darmstädter friends. Anyway, Sabine and Siggi ended up getting lost and arriving late, so I still made it home before them. We ate strawberry cake and drank strawberry punch (yes it is strawberry season) and barbecued, and then they were on their way promptly at 7:45 so that they would make it home in time for Germany's first game of the Europameisterschaft. I must say, the atmosphere here is almost as animated as it was two years ago during the World Cup. Germany won two to nothing against Poland, and I'm still nervously awaiting to hear if there were any violent outbreaks between Polish and German fans.

I'll be back in Darmstadt again this weekend. The Paki family is having a reunion, which is a big deal, considering Josef has 8 siblings.