bloom

i forgot something important:
spring comes early in freiburg.

it comes very early. like now. the snow is gone, the wind us warm, and things are growing! it's been raining for days, but that is also great, because freiburg will come out of all this water a shocking green. and all these buds will burst open, and the last sixty-four days in aupairland will fly by in colorful blur.

(such optimism this spring has already instilled in me!)
((when the forsythia blooms i might just die))

eatdrinkdance

sometimes i go to frankfurt to visit kelly, and all the pent up energy, the repressed appetites and obscene dancemoves, bust out of me in a big way. this time i rode to frankfurt at 200 km/hour in a car full of swiss men, danced two nights away, drank beers at ikea, and feasted on oatmeal pancakes and white bean burgers. take that, february.

let the wild rumpus begin

FASCHING/FASTNACHT is a wonderful and bizarre holiday.
and the germans' preoccupation with american indians will forever shock and entertain me.

happy mardis gras everybody!

fastnacht

i woke up on another planet this morning, helped my 6 year old put on his warpaint, and sent him to school with a bow-and-arrow.

(all about fastnacht)

"the cure for exhaustion is whole-heartedness"

thank you emma dearest...
such wonderful advice for a winter like this one.

today i carried a rosemary plant home from the grocery store and made a totally baller lunch. it's nice to have the german grandma gone, free range of the kitchen, eurodancetrance music pumping through the house, concocting delicious things.

i'm a notorious february-hater, but man i'm trying.

switzerland

the kids' grandma just left after a trying two and a half week visit. aupairing is a lonely business, and it's nice to have an ally, but german grandmothers have some very strong opinions and some very strange rules. by the second weekend i had had enough, so i got on a train and went to french switzerland to visit my friend cheryl. i saw some mountains and i had a nice time.