L is back from China and we celebrated our first Turkey Day together as…you guessed it…tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. Here are some pictures of the meal. Yup, A little bit of homecooking for my sweety.
Challa Bread
Ginger Cake
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes and Turkey.
We hope everyone had a great Turkey week and weekend.
We Miss you all,
M&L
Hello Everybody,
As some of you may know, L has been in China for the last week and will return this coming Sunday, leaving me with my own vices, contraptions and the locals for the last two weeks. Yup I’ve been swimming on my own in the deep end, but not with out arm floaties.
I’ve been out to the school several times to teach. The school has also started the paper work for my work permit…so, it shouldn’t be too long before I can start to actually work at the Gymnasium.
I also experienced my first German lunch with my new friend, Herr Muller (with an umlaut on top of the ‘u’)and his family, he is also a teacher at the Gymnasium. Two of his children attend the Gymnasium as well, by the way is anyone interested in taking on a German exchange student. I met with him and his family for Sunday lunch, I also met his mother-in-law, she was amazing. About 5’4 with 90 years of living under her belt and full of spit. I found out she has lived her entire life near Herzo in a town called, Erlangen. If some of you remember Erlangen was one the cities we were hoping to live in, but never found a place.
We ate lamb, potato rounds, celery root/arugula salad and ice cream with plums for dessert. Followed by two hours of long discourse with the grandma about Erlangen and how much Germany has changed through out her life time. It was a good afternoon.
I also visited the German rally grounds which I have pictures of and will be dedicating my next blog to the visit.
So that’s all for now and L says hi from China. Jean- Luc also says
Quelle merde
Pourquoi ma litière sale
and wishes he were in his home land of France. Jean Luc is so French.
Summer Look
Winter Look
hugs,
M&L
After four weeks of vigorous mental reprogramming, we can say without a doubt how much we loved preparing for our drivers test. Yay !!! Now we’re allowed to drive where the streets have no name.
What’s weird is that they had our licenses ready and waiting for us at the TUV. Meaning the driving center was waiting for us to pass the test and L’s co-worker, whom never passed the test and gave up, probably has a license still waiting for him after three years. It’s all a scam…really.
We can officially take visitors for rides, so hurry up and visit, it’s almost six month since we arrived here.
love,
M&L
p.s. If you would like your very own finger warmer write us at...
Hello Everybody,
It’s been a while. I’ve been a bit lazy and trying to get acquainted with the Herzo Gymnasium. The Gymnasium is sort of a Jr. High and High School rolled into one, it is for the brightest students, or at least for students that show ‘promise’ by the age of ten, in town. Yeah! by age ten it is determined, by test scores, where young Jane and Johnny might end up doing, working as, when they are older.
In Germany, students are tested at the age of ten, which also determines if they will be attending one of the three kinds of schools that provide different “life” skills. There is the Hauptschule, a vocationalistic school, also considered a ‘low’ school. A Realschule, a ‘life’ school, general know how is taught here, students learn one foreign language and so on, medium grade school. The Gymnasium, where students get an ‘intellectual’ education, putting it nicely, is the top school, students are required to learn three languages at the least and so on.
Well long story short, I’ve been asked to work at the Gymnasium, as an English expert…(can you believe that, they like to use the word expert quite freely, although I believe it’s a way for them to negate responsibility, did I just write that), provided my work visa goes through.
Without getting too political and bring the blog down, I’ve been feeling really out of place, I believe I’m experiencing what illegal immigrants might go through back home. Except that obtaining a work visa here(Germany) seems more difficult than the hand me outs back home.
Also when I use the word immigrants, I mean all immigrants, Russians, Canadians, Germans, Africans, Scandinavians, Australians and many more, not just Mexicans. Maybe I’m sensitive to the Mexican immigration issue, with walls going up and such, because we seem to be seen as the last to arrive to the party, when in fact I believe we’ve always been here(U.S.). (By the way where is the wall keeping out Canadians…nothing against Canadians, just trying to find a tenor in the whole deal.)
Excuse the jabbertalkie, my thoughts are coming from a recent guest speaker engagement I was asked to do at the Gymnasium. The topic was about immigration in the United States, particularly Mexicans. I found the questions, coming from the students, quite stimulating and thus my rant which was ignited from talking about my work visa.
Or maybe I’m just feeling a little sad because L will be leaving for two weeks to China and I’ll be left here with my thoughts to fester.
On the bright side, I’ll have a job at the Gymnasium, plus now they would like me (potentially) to speak at a conference about Bilingual schools…what!? But hey I wanted a job, so I’ll take what I can and run with it.
I hope everyone is doing great, keeping warm and dry. L and I miss everyone dearly. By the way, can someone send more peanut butter M&Ms, we’re running dangerously low.
missing everyone,
-M
