Number Three

To say that I'm looking forward to eight more weeks of school when everyone's already done would be both an understatement and a lie. Tomorrow I begin that stretch, which feels weird since I just left school and have been vacationing in 90 degree (F) weather for the past week.

I missed Friday and most of Saturday, so here goes.

Friday Geli and I met with two of her friends, Chrissy and Tina, at the Ludwigsburg train station where we went to Stuttgart and met Jenna. It was good to see her again and she was doing great. We walked around Stuttgart for a while, not really doing much, ate some ice cream, taking a few picstures. Stuttgart is quite modern and chic though it does have some older structures. We later said goodbye to Jenna, then went back to Ludwigsburg and met up with Steffie and Valerie, two more of Geli's friends, and went to a dubbed version of "Garden State," which has surely been out for a long, long time in the states, but which I had wanted to see and hadn't. Also the fact that it was all in German, almost all of which I understood, made the already weird movie even stranger.

Saturday the Reinhardts took Geli and I to Heidelberg, headquarter of US troops in Europe, hot tourist destination, and town dating to the Middle Ages. We saw the old cobblestone streets, went up to the huge castle overlooking the older part of the city, then Manfred showed us out where he went to college. Since my mother had taken Geli and Fanny through NDSU on our way to Grand Forks one time, I guess what goes around comes around. ;) Just kidding, the Heidelberg campus was pretty cool to see. Coming home, we were again blessed with silence, since the construction workers don't work weekends, and oppressed by the heat, which was probably in the 90s, and Manfred assured me it was irregularly hot for May. That night, Geli, Jörg, Lala (Geli's friend and Jörg's girlfriend) went down by the Neckar with even more of Geli's friends, although most of these aren't in her class and therefore luckily don't warrant my remembrance of their names. I did have a nice conversation with one, though. They liked to speak English, just because they could, I guess:

"So, you like German girls?"
"Sure."
"I like... American girls better."
I was about to expand on their differences when he cut me off. "They always want... sex!"
"Huh?"
"Yeah! Like on the... talk shows. Haven't you seen talk shows?"

Great. Their impression of us is what they get from Jerry Springer. No wonder they despise us so much.

Today (Sunday) I went into the Catholic church in the Marktplatz with Geli and attempted somewhat to follow along. Later, we went to a big outdoor public pool a few cities over, where there was also coincidentally a giant travelling kids' show sort of performance thing. There really are no words to describe it. All I know is that they were chanting "Daddy... daddy... cool" as we left. Geli and I took the opportunity to try and get tan.

School starts tomorrow. I hope I can survive.