home stretch!

So the weather has turned beautiful here, the Rhein miraculously became blue (no longer a murky green/brown) and the grilling has become insane. Public bbqs are more or less allowed in Germany, so everyone brings these tiny, transportable grills to fields along the Rhein or Neckar and hangs out, drinks beer, and eats sausage, pork, and broetchen. It's really really fun, but I'm getting tired of eating so much sausage. Particularly because it's Mannheim's Stadtfest this weekend, which means basically a festival of eating sausage and drinking beer. I mean, the Germans have got the one thing right, and they do it again and again and again.

Here, David demonstrates perfect grill-lifting form:


I actually have a laughable number of classes in the coming month. Monday is free because of Pentecost, and next Thursday for another religious holiday (what would that be... Corpus Christy, I think). Also, on Tuesday I'm taking an entire 6th grade class to the dentist-- alone. Usually two full-blown teachers supervise these trips, but teachers are flaky sometimes, so the task fell on me. Two hours, 25 sixth-graders... that's a looong time in a waiting room.

Other exciting news for next week, though, is that the 9th graders are learning about Australia, and I have a really good friend here from Australia who has agreed to come in and teach a little lesson on it! I'm excited to show her my school, but also to not have to plan those lessons...

My free time has been good this month, as I officially start half-marathon training June first. I did a nice long run on the Neckar on Friday and I'm feeling much better about it. A and I are running a 10K in July, which falls perfectly into my larger training goals. Kendall's pushing for under 2 hours this time for the half... But, I've been playing soccer at least once or twice a week, usually with the University of Mannheim team. I was recruited to also play in Heidelberg, so I've done that once, as well. I've been really surprised at how much women's soccer is a trend among German lesbians. I play sometimes with male friends, since every boy has played since childhood, but girls are just now getting into the sport. It's an interesting time for the sport since the German women's team won the women's world cup... or something...

Anyhow, off to enjoy my long weekend. Grilling for lunch (though all the grocery stores are closed on Sundays, so who knows how we'll get food. Rather unlikely anyone thought to buy stuff yesterday...)

ah, well. cheers!