i sure like the kids better on a friday

yes, fridays are always decent.
but today there was a sesame bagel and a latte, blue skies and a fully loaded Holga, a very good novel in hand, new yellow shoelaces, and a long-awaited pumpkin pie. it may be out of season, but it is delicious.

and tomorrow i am going to the sea!
i'm waking up before dawn, grabbing my tupperware of pie from the fridge, and taking a train n o r t h.

ciao february

february ended with some sun, thank god, and i found a little magic in freiburg again. i want to leave the city on good terms, but i am feeling faded from the winter.

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.

treat

it is crucial to always have something to look forward to, especially in the winter, and especially when you're an underpaid aupair in an awkward country...

+ i have a plane ticket to boston at the end of april, and plans for a grand cross-country spree
+ a few days in new hampshire with summer friends
+ fasching in february, the kids are already assembling their costumes
+ a train ticket that expires in march, so maybe a trip to the sea?
+ a dinner date tonight, delicious turkish food

the moss forest

i've been wondering since i moved here why our neighborhood is called "mooswald." i wasn't aware of any forest, or any particularly impressive moss. but today the sun was shining, and i started walking, and just beyond the hill where i sometimes run i found a discreet bridge across the autobahn. there were good things on the other side.

107 days

i 've been tormented for weeks, trying to make a decision, but now i have a PLAN. i just signed a contract for a third summer at swiftcurrent.

in 107 days i'm leaving germany
and heading towards the place i like best.

a few gratuitous cat photos

after my visit with mumsey and pops, i spent an idle week in frankfurt, sitting on kelly's bed and watching these two creatures.

the vegetating was necessary...i needed to store up some energy for my re-entry into aupairland.

rollin' with the homies (dos)

greetings from freiburg and gengenbach.

guten rutsch

in german we say have a good "slide" into the new year, and i slid into 2010 in the german fashion.

Silvester is a ridiculous holiday here- the one day of the year when a particularly orderly and clean country goes balls-to-the-wall crazy and shoots thousands of fireworks into the sky, onto the streets, and at each other. the streets of freiburg looked like a fall-out zone on the first.

i have a good feeling about this decade.
bring it on.

Strasbourg