Dates of vacation

For those of you keeping track, and I know you're out there...here are my official dates of vacation and break. This is FYI so you can plan your life around coming to visit me or vacationing with me. :)

I've not included the weekends before and after the dates.

Christmas Holidays: 24. December through January 5th (so in reality 21 December through 7th of January)

Carnival!: February 4th and 5th (include 2nd and 3rd)

Easter Break: March 20th through March 26th

So, now, who wants to party?

I could learn to love you

A great weekend was spoiled by a week of work. The weather has reached top bottom. This bone chilling type of mist covers the Northern German landscape and in the middle of it, Aachen.

Toto, we're not in Florida anymore.

It's November 15 and the low for tonight is expected to be 26 degrees. My apartment is freezing. My room thermometer says 68F but it feels much colder. I took a nap and woke up shivering from the chill. I'm now wearing long sleeves, a sweater vest and a sweater on top. I'll be wearing it to work tonight too. Its just really cold and windy. The Taxi driver that picks me up every Tues and Wednesday tells me though while it is colder in December, the weather is dryer. That is something to look forward to.

Germany is famous for their Christmas Markets and Aachen is no exception. Monday workers began assembling wooden houses in the middle of the square. Its rather quite odd. Next Saturday thousands of people will descend on Aachen from all over to visit the Markt. Glühwein (mulled wine) will be served hot with ginger cookies. This part of German culture I'm looking forward to celebrating. Having thousands of people daily in front of my office being loud no doubt something I'm not looking forward to.

I've been drinking coffee as if it was the essence of life. At least two cups in the morning before I leave the house followed by coffee at lunch often. In the evening, Starbucks might get a little visit. I've discovered this amazing chocolatier in Aachen (from The Netherlands) who makes their own hot chocolate. They bring you a cup of steamed milk, then you go to the counter, pick a flavor of chocolate (its chunked onto a spoon) and then you dip the spoon into the milk and stir. Bam! Amazing hot chocolate. I'm going to take back the states lots of these little amazing chocolate spoons. Then you get a slice of cake or brownie or amazing apple strudel for €5.00! So cheap! Its so tasty too. :) Their website can be seen here. While it has no information, you can look at cool pictures of it, chocolate company.

Speaking of Dutch companies, its amazing really how much Dutch I am able to read and understand. I've watched a Dutch movie before and was able to understand about 65% of the script. Dutch is a mix of German, English and I believe a dash of French. For example, the word for chocolate milk in Dutch is chocomelk. Especially when I see something in context its really amazing my level of understanding.

Thanksgiving is next week and its so hard to believe that I'm doing nothing for one of my favorite holidays this year. :( It is certainly something that I will miss. In other news, to get my German drivers license, it turns out I don't have to take any exams at all. Only get a translation of my current license, which inlingua offers, take an eye exam at a local optician and go wait in line. Nice.

And now i have to teach.

Three Countries, One Day

I often think fondly of my blog and the desire and need to update it on a more regular basis. I've let this slip recently and I personally feel as though that is not acceptable. I'm going to make a more conscious effort to update it more regularly.

The past week was fine. The Russian woman who is the bane of my existence at inlingua has finished her lessons this past week. Thank the Lord. I mean, honestly, there is only so much I can take. But now its over. I lied, this week has been really great actually, I've grown much closer to a few of my colleagues and I've been able to go out and do things.

The weather has turned to sheisse. Rains everyday, most of the day this slight, mist type of constant sprinkle. Windy yesterday and this morning.Still hunting for a trench coat. Monday morning I'll be teaching a class at a firm which requires giving me one of the school's vehicles. Do you know what that means when you get it on a Saturday through Monday?

Joy riding. And by Joy Riding, I mean going to Holland.



After class this morning (Saturday) Faye, and my colleague Ace and I packed ourselves up and headed to The Netherlands. That's right. Just like that I got in the car and drove off to the Dutch city of Maastricht. Only about 35 minutes away by car it was a very nice visit. Would have been better if you could see the city without the gray and rain but we had a great time none the less. On our way back we HAPPENED upon Belgium.



We decided that we should eventually turn the car around and go back home.



Whoops.The good news is, I can now mark off my list of things to do "accidentally drive into a foreign country." It was a great day and I had an excellent time.
Tomorrow I've got a lot of lesson planning to do but not before I go to the local "Thermen" or Sauna/Spa water for a couple hours of relaxing, etc. Its much deserved. I'm going to miss Thanksgiving this year, which makes me sad too.

Nation Building : Like it Or Not

Back in January, I posted some points of a lecture I attended at Florida State. I had lunch with Peter Romero, former Ambassador and Depurty Head of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department. It was a fantastic lecture and a fantastic lunch. Romero is an extremely intelligent diplomat, in my opinion. Like I do, I realized recently that Florida State posted the video of the lecture. i recommend you taking a quick look at it for some insight into what the US should be doing in Iraq.

The video can be found here.

Think It Over

I realized last night that its been a week since my last update. In blogging terms, thats like ten years. I was too tired last night (as I passed out while taking my bath, safe) to update then.

Today in Deutschland, well at least in the state of Nord-Rhein Westphalen, where I call home, it is a holiday. NRW being both a Catholic and Protestant state, we usually celebrate both holidays. :) Today is All Saints Day. So nobody is working really.I beg and pleaded to have tomorrow and Saturday off. Well, its not that hard seeing as my Saturday morning class was canceled for this week anyway and I normally on Fridays only teach one to two classes. However, I got the day off. I originally going to take the day off and go to the Consulate in Frankfurt to take care of some personal matters, however upon calling them learned that any German notary will do. Already having the days off, I booked a last minute flight to Dresden to visit my friends. Its a much needed release. This is my first weekend off since I've been here. Its going to be fantastic. I'm flying from Düsseldorf to Dresden and come back Sunday evening.

Besides that, the weather has gotten a bit worse. Now we are lucky if the daily hi's kiss around 48 or so. Some days are absolutely gorgeous and other days are absolutely miserable (ie Monday). My skin is so dry over here. I don't understand why because there is no lack of moisture in the air. I wake up and I have scratches all over my legs from where in my sleep I've been scratching my legs. Nichts kosher.

Work is fine. Sometimes I have some students who I'm convinced will never grasp the basic concepts of the English language. I have two in particular. An older Vietnamese woman who allegedly had four years English schooling 20 years ago (no, I do not believe this ever happened). She slaughters the entire language in a way I wasn't sure was possible. In this basic English class, I have students from Belarus, Turkey, Khazakistan and Germany and all of them seem to be doing just fine. This woman though kills me. Every time she opens her mouth to speak, I cringe. I left my class last night with a headache. Now, I'm a patient person and I appreciate the difficulty of learning a foreign language, but this, this takes it to a new low. I correct her and she can't seem to fix it. I have a Russian woman who is also a bit older. While she knows the basic grammar structure, etc she can't speak. She taught herself basic English so there are many mistakes that I have to correct. She's nice enough (and creepy too). She keeps paying me compliments in a way as to make me slightly uncomfortable. "You're voice is so beautiful Christopher." "Umm....thanks." Nobody has ever accused me of having a beautiful voice before, ever.

I'm really getting to know some of my colleagues and they're all pretty fantastic on a level I've not seen before. Of course, Faye and I have really taken off. We mesh real well together and I appreciate her because she's really showed me some of the inside loops here in Aachen (like where to find the best grocery store that closest to American) and what I have to do to get a German drivers license. However, I'm waiting with baited breathe for Holly to arrive. It'll be a glorious day when she arrives and we can enjoy the DE together! The FSU Colony has really taken off at full-force and for that, I'm thankful. I'm going home at Christmas and I"m looking forward to it. Only a week though. I thought about staying loner, but I needed to get back here. I have a life here and I'm going to be using this time to get ready for Holly to arrive and I'll be looking at some apartments if anybody will let me.

Gotta run. I need to get ready to leave for Dresden!

On Self-Identification

There are several reasons why I moved to Europe. Among them to travel, get a different perspective and of course, to improve my German. As a perk to my job, I get to attend language courses of my choice. So having the evening free (and the day really) I decided I would drop in on a German course (book 3) that my colleague teaches. In my class I had (I'm assuming nationalities now) two Russians, a Polish girl, another American that came later, a girl from, SE Asia and a Turk. All there to improve our German. Turns out my conversation skills are a bit higher than the class but since I'm not enrolling in it full-time, its quite acceptable for me to sit on this class from time to time. Anyway, my German grammar can use a fresher. I hadn't been in a class since April.

I don't know if I'm in that "find myself" period of my life. Should I be? Should I have already "found myself" by now? Sometimes I think I'm stupid for moving to Aachen, sight unseen, to accept a job that pays moderately at best (my saving grace being the poor exchange rate to the dollar). My colleague and all around fantastic guy,Bruce drove me home last night. He moved here in 2006 for his girlfriend. We were talking and told me that I was brave. Brave? Me? I'm the type of person who dashes through dark basements to get to the door and finds the light quickly. I don't swim in dark water either. And here I am being called brave. He told me it takes a lot of guts to do what I did. And I stopped for a moment and thought about it. I guess it does. I moved to a foreign country, didn't know anybody, accepted a job sight unseen, found my own apartment, and did the things that one has problems doing in his/her own country and I did it here. I don't really think about it too much, I just do it. Sure, I ask for help when I need it but mostly I'm living as an independent person in a foreign country and that is a strange thought.

Faye (who moved here with her boyfriend) and I were discussing being a foreign national. Living and working like a German in Germany, but Americans. Not always understanding customs and beliefs or ways of life or, the language. I had to go to H&M to pick up some socks and we couldn't figure out what the German word for "tag" or "label" is. Faye said I should ask and I told her that in general my rule in foreign countries was to blend in as much as possible and asking what a label is called would disqualify me and make me known as a foreigner. And then she told me:

Yes, but then you're not being true to yourself.

And that kind of hit me.She's right. I'm not a German (nor do I really want to be, although an EU Passport wouldn't hurt) I'm an American living in Germany. While I should assimilate as much as possible, I feel as though there eventually comes a limit. My accent will never be 100%, I'll have a slight American twang for the rest of my life I'm sure. I'll never really warm up to grocery shopping in Germany or Sunday's of doing nothing. But I appreciate many things as well. It's a strange feeling to not quite fit in.

I wonder how my self-perception will change over the next few years.

Rain drops are falling on my head

Since I woke up this morning, I've decided today is one of those stay-in-bed/doors days. The weather today has been in a general malaise. Yesterday was nice but today the weather hi is 49 degrees Fahrenheit and its been gray all day. I'm okay with this. It can't be sunny and beautiful all the time or one forgets the beauty of sunny days. So today I'm appreciating it from indoors. I might actually go out for a walk. Its now drizzling/sprinkling outside. However, I've just brewed some good German coffee and am about to sit down to lesson plan for the next week.

I just woke up though from one of those naps that almost paralyzes you. Are you familiar with it? When you nap and you're decently tired, you might be awake but find it impossible to actually move or get out of bed, a feeling of unbelievable sleepiness clouds your mind. Having no reason to really fight it, I lost the battle and slept for an hour I'm sure.

Last night I finally got to go out and experience a bit of Aachen's night scene. Well, nothing ridiculous. A fellow English speaking expatriate from Australia, Meri, an au pair, was also interested in meeting people. So through a website for expats, we met and has some drinks last night. It was quite a bit of fun actually. It was a nice opportunity for me to get out of the house and not spend another Saturday night watching tv.

I spent the entirety of today by myself. No cafes, no colleagues. Just me, the TV, my lesson plan book and several phone calls. The farthest I got to today was my cleaning closet. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I had thought about going out for a walk, even out in the rain, but its too cold and wet to do that. I feel a bit lame for having not moved out of my apartment, but I figure from time to time, its okay to spend your entire day alone. Although this bothers me if it becomes a regular occurrence.

I've decided that the more I teach the English language, the more my language capabilities digress. I am often second guessing myself, misspelling common words (like synopsis) and drawing a blank. Dissecting your own language all day long is tiring on the brain too. I didn't do anything at all today except grade papers, why am I so tired?