rain showers...

Dear All,

Spring has come (more or less) to Mannheim! After several days of gorgeous sunshine, however, the clouds have reclaimed the horizon and the weather report for Mannheim looks something like: rain, rain, rain forever. I hope this translates to a verdant summer, but most likely it means we've met our sunshine quota early this year. That was it. One week.

The week was splendid. Fortuitously, it fell right in the middle of Easter break. Chrissy and Kevin were here and though I was back in the States for a while, we got in some quality travel time along with Chris' former host brothers, Felix and Tobias. We hit Stuttgart, Freiburg, Strasbourg, and Basel. Yay for three countries in one road trip!

Here, St. George on an old city Tor in Freiburg. St. George is all over the place!
Here, a picture from the hike just outside Freiburg. A great view of the hills:
So just on the edge of Germany, where we later ate the Biggest Schnitzel Ever, we stopped in a really neat George Nelson design museum. I loved all the clock designs:
At this point, my camera died. We made it to Basel, and here is Chrissy inside the Rathaus courtyard:
And, finally, a picture from inside a little now-protestant church in Strasbourg I'd never been in before. My heart skipped a beat when I saw all these original wall paintings. So back in the day, all churches were painted just like this one (columns red, walls covered like stained glass with stories and saints). These beauties date from the 14th century:
Crazy, right?

So, I'm kind of tired of teaching. It's really draining and I find it unnecessarily stressful. I also find my relationship with the other teachers to be very strange and, at times, strained.

Yesterday, though, I befriended an English teacher whom I'd never met before. He told me horror stories of my predecessor and how, though we'd never spoken, he thought I had a sort of "modesty that gives an air of nobility." How delightful and bizarre! He also liked to speak English with a thick English accent and describe his times at Cambridge, Oxford, Exeter, and NYU. He studied English literature, no less. Oh, academics at any level.

What else? It's raining now. Lots to do: wedding planning, 7th and 12th grade lessons to plan, cleaning, and push-ups, too.

I'm really in love with Ingrid Michaelson's cover of "Can't Help Falling in Love." Check it out, it's on her Myspace.

That's all for now. Scattered and sleepy. Naptime.