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because I had nothing scheduled for today, but I managed to fill the day with walking and ducking into shops to look at things I didn’t buy. Kept warm enough. The long-johns helped.
Had a lightbulb in the bathroom of my hotel explode this morning. That was fun, but it was cleaned up before I got back. Looks like I am better off buying a new ticket than I would be trying to change by DB ticket for the first leg of my trip, but I will have to add that to my list of things to do tomorrow. Just a wee bit stressed. If all else fails, I can fall back on my booked connection and pray for a miracle.
Pictures will have to wait-I’m packing. No problems getting to the hotel last night. It was too cold for the muggers 
.
We would like to say good-bye all passengers leaving us.
that mobile internet is great. I do check my emails from the train in the morning these days instead of doing it from home, which means I have a few minutes more to tidy up.
Other thoughts – It is beyond cold in Fulda. It may be beyond cold in Karlsruhe, but Fulda is where I missed by §$%&! connection this morning. To top it off, we should probably have stayed on our train and gotten a connection to our destination cities further down the road, but the conductor failed to relay this information.
I am upset because my destination is in a city where I don’t like the trainstation environment during the day. We got up at o’ dark thirty so I could get where I am going (no details, sorry) before it got too far past sundown, but that’s out the window now. All I got was a whopping 17.60 for two hours of my life. I did run around /&%$ freezing Fulda and take some pictures which I will get up this evening if I make it to my hotel without being robbed. I am definitely thinking of investing that 17.60 right back into making sure that I have a big long transfer time on the way back and don’t miss my night train!
The person sitting across from me in the train is singing. Ach Latino culture. Estamos en Alemania, amigo. Silencio por favor!!! It would appear that this will be yet another opportunity to be grateful that God invented the ipod.
Can’t tell me that Germany’s not a melting pot. I should be timing this to see how long it takes until someonoe says something to him. (It’s not constant singing, just when he gets overtaken by the “estimmung” of the piece, I imagine.) Nor do I recognize what he’s singing, there’s just a lot of “corazon”s.
Dios mio, another hour of this before I change trains.
update: its Mana
at least for most of us in the south. I have been rejoined in the train by the little darlings who brighten my every commute. At least they are still basking in the glow of their Christmas electronics instead of screaming and shoving and declaring their disgust that the seat they would like to have is occupied by an adult. The amusing bit is that we’re on the same train ticket, they and I. A little strange, that – to still be a schuler at my increasingly advanced age, but who am I to complain? The ticket is cheap and my employer pays for it. Wins all around.
There are very few sc hool kids here this morning leading me to truly wonder what’s up. Is there school? I know German children’s free periods often allow them to show up mid-morning, part of the reason German exchange students find the US system (where leaving campus is often a privelege reserved for seniors if it is allowed at all) so frustrating. I just asked one of them and apparently, at least one of the schools is on a different schedule. Relative peace reigns until next week (yipee).
We actually got some snow here, which is nothing short of a miracle. It has been very icy, however, and I am very much hoping that D makes it to work without doing a faceplant from his bike (which he did last year). As much as I hate to see him scratch up his face, I am more concerned about potential dentists bills, which we luckily avoided in last year’s incident. The rest of Germany has been locked in a truly deep freeze. I have learned a new word as a result, and can I make my dislike of this word crystal clear – bibbern. It sounds made-up, but it’s in the dictionary. I am not sure that the words the newscasters are using, like “Bibberkälte”, are. The problem is that the word probably reminds me to strongly of “blubber” and since both have to do with having limited control over the lips, are probably great words and onomatopeias.
If any more onomatopeias in German occurr to you – there’s always the comment box.
Also, please vote for Christina (American Expat in Deutschland) in the European (Non-UK) category at the weblog awards. Here’s the link weblogs.
and predictably, I have nothing special to say. Our New Year’s celebration was very quiet. Not big partiers anyway, our New Year’s plans rescheduled to the 27th about a week before Christmas and I wasn’t willing to deal with the disappointment of calling around trying to find something where tickets were still available. So we picked up a few treats at Aldi, including the champagne that St.iftung W.arentest rated so well.
I was disappointed that all of the year-in-review shows had already been shown that that there was NOTHING worth watching. We had a very cheap premiere package and I finally got to see “Enchanted” earlier in the evening, which I thought was adorable. Then we cleaned up a bit to head into the New Year on a good food, and get my mind off things.
Apparently, my mind stayed off things because I completely forgot the Vienna New Year’s concert and the pope’s New Year’s address, which are my version of “can’t miss tv”. It makes me about 1 for 15 this Christmas season, but I guess there is always next year.
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a good foot not good food. i obviously should have dieting on my list of new year’s resolutions
- watched a collision between a tram and a very small car from my home office window the other night. don’t know what initially caught my attention, but i definitely heard the tram bell and saw the crash. no one injured, amazingly and luckily
- got a tree, or perhaps just a tree-lette. it is tiny, but it is mine. still have feelings of guilt because all but 2 of the non-ball ornaments represent markers in my life (just like the decor in our apartment). D insists he does not need to express himself on the walls (but then he cut out the pictures from a photo calendar they had at work and wants to hang them – eeeeeek.
- tree
- Unfortunately, I have no photos of the menorah ligthing I was at this year to keep this ecumenical. (I mean that word in the broader sense, not the narrower one.) After just googling around, I learned that electric lights are a no-no, although I am certain I have seen large electrical menorahs in the States. Our small-ish German city had a menorah across the street from the Christmas market, although I didn’t look at it carefully enough to be able to say what the light source was.
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