Is this Hessen...or Hawaii?

Spring has arrived, and with it, genuine mid-summer style thunderstorms in the afternoons: actually kind of a nice change from the cold, dreariness of the German winter. And there was a nice side-benefit of it this afternoon, too. As I was driving home, there was the most beautiful double rainbow arching over, of all things, the autobahn. And like the big nerd that I am, I had to pull over and snap a couple photos of the spectacle: you gotta love the digital! Anyway, it was enough to make my Monday. Hope something made your Monday, too! Have a good week!

Guten Freitag Fun Facts

I don't know how fun this Friday fact is, given that it means losing an hour of sleep, but I have discovered that Daylight Savings Time arrives in Europe a week earlier than it does in the States. Hmmm. This should make Easter Sunday just that much more interesting as we change over the day after tomorrow. Happy egg-dyeing and enjoy the holiday! Fröhe Ostern!

My beloved Blazer: 1997-2005

Alas, my little Blazer has met its Waterloo. A little over a week ago, and just two months after its safe arrival in country, it was smashed into by one of the Army's civilian employees at an intersection on post and was, gulp, totaled. Fortunately, noone was hurt, but as the little silver Opel (think Ford Escort) was bouncing off of the front end of my Blazer, I noticed that it still had Army-issued temp plates on it, which is generally a sign that you are new to Germany. Or at least new to driving in Germany. So after making sure that neither of us was injured, I inquired as to how long the other driver (a 46 year old Army retiree) had been in country. Two months. Hmm. So, how long had he owned the car? Yeah, 10 days. He paid 800 euro for it...definitely a hoopty. Or it was, anyway, because his car was totaled, too. Oh geez. This happened on Friday evening, the 11th, a little bit after work. The MPs arrived, and there were statements to be taken. Fortunately for me, the other driver was exiting a parking lot when he hit my car as I was driving on a through road. So that's good. The second issue was that I was coming from the right and he was coming from the left, so even if you didn't buy the whole parking lot thing, he failed to yield the right of way, and in Germany, right of way is king. People here won't even look left at intersections. They'll look right and just plow on through. It's amazing: that's how set in stone this traffic rule is. Anyhoo, liability was pretty clear, which made me feel better, however, there were a few tense moments with the MPs, as the 19-year old specialist handling our "case" kept waffling back and forth and going, "Gee, this is a tough one." You could tell it was just killing him to assign blame. Finally, the other driver was like, "Listen, it's right before left." And I think that settled it, but they wouldn't let us have a police report that evening, which made for a few extra worries until I was able to obtain the police blotter the following Tuesday. M., incidentally, was on his way to Darmstadt at the time, and arrived as the accident was being cleaned up. So, I've delayed posting about this, because the accident created some major kinks in our schedule, as anyone who's had an accident can attest to. The good news is, we were able to spend yesterday scrounging the lemon lots and various car exchanges in M.'s neck of the woods, and I may have just found my new ride. I'm planning to head to Wurzburg this afternoon to put a down payment on a car that we found for sale near 1st I.D. Headquarters, so I will likely be joining the ranks of everyone else in country and driving the ubiquitous BMW, if all goes well. But what will I do without all of that cargo space? A car with a trunk? I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get used to this! I'm definitely mourning the loss of my car a little bit: I'm gonna miss it. The engineer from my insurance company that totalled the car thought I was pretty funny: I made quite a production out of not wanting it to be totaled (yelling "Noooo! Noooo!" and putting my hands over my eyes....trust me, it was hilarious!) but it's okay. The new-to-me car is German-spec which means it goes lots faster, and uses a lot less gas, too. It's a couple of years old, but has remarkably few k's on it...owned by a little old lady who only drove on Sundays, perhaps? Who knows. Cross your fingers for me! Vroom vroom: Molly Murphy, shlagt den autobahn!

Spring is Here! Well, sort of...

You know how every winter, it's cold, there's a ton of snow, and then, there's a day where the weather breaks a little, the air is a little warmer, and it's just easier to be in a good mood? That first pseudo-spring day, that seems to happen every year, finally came to Darmstadt last Thursday. It was short-sleeve weather and people were just noticeably happier. Not that any of this great weather on Donnerstag stopped 3 inches of snow from falling on Friday, but it had all melted by noon the next day...not that we native South Dakotans find this unusual in any way, of course! The weather here is actually reminding me of home a little bit, especially with all of the big snowfalls and quick melts. In fact, Heidelberg, about 30 min. away, is even referred to as being in the "banana belt", kind of like Rapid City. Come to think of it, there's even a hill running through Heidelberg that looks a little bit like Skyline Drive. Now if only there were a green Brontosaurus on top...

A Gem from M.

That's right. M.'s a jokester. In fact, M. was once upon a time in San Antonio, one of the competitors in the unofficial Bad Joke Olympics of second platoon. This competition was chronicled in an as-of-yet to be published post, which fell by the wayside, somewhere in cyberspace last fall. However, in preparation for sharing with you the Gem from M., I will share some of the text of the lost post now. Here it is, a clip from the Bad Joke Olympics, written while we were still attending school in San Antonio:

Sometimes having too much time on your hands can be a good thing. And then, on the other hand, there are the Bad Joke Olympics, which are currently being contested by two guys in my platoon. What are the Bad Joke Olympics? Well, I'm so glad you asked! It's also probably not going to come as a great shock that one of the competitors is a dentist with absolutely the most comprehesive arsenal of the worst jokes I've ever heard. The other is a lieutenant from Georgia and in his case who has amassed frankly way too many of these horribly bad missives in his short lifetime. The really good news for all the rest of us? Oh yes, both of them are bound and determined to be crowned the Bad Joke King of 2nd platoon, and you're not going to get anywhere without becoming part of an audience for the sparkling comedy of these, my two classmates: lucky us! So ANYWAY, if we find ourselves with a few minutes to kill in class, or wherever, one of these two guys, our very own Olympians-0f-the-bad-Joke, will pick up right where they left off, usually trying to corner an audience on which to try out their latest crop of the worst jokes you've ever heard. Ever. You know that a particularly bad one is coming from Lieutenant M., because he'll usually preface it with, "Okay, I came up this one up myself..."

I'm happy to report that M., now the XO of a whole detachment, has an even bigger audience for his jokes. In fact, he's taken it upon himself to declare whole days of the week as things like, "Knock Knock Tuesdays" or "One-liner Thursdays". I know, I know. It's bad. But, when you're going to be deployed, it's pretty easy to lose your funny, and he's doing is best to keep his soldiers' sense of humor intact. So, are you ready for today's funny? He didn't exactly come up with this one himself, but he might as well have. Here it goes: Why shouldn't you play poker in the jungle? Because there are too many cheeeeee-tahs. Bah ha ha! Cheee-tahs, get it? Okay, it went over well with the 5 year old that a cemented a band-and-loop on today! Here's to a good weekend: enjoy!

Eau de Cologne

Finally getting settled, we've ventured out on a road trip to Cologne (or Koln, as it is known here) over the long President's Day weekend. Koln is really easy to visit: not only is it a quick trip up the autobahn from here (about 90 minutes), but several of the main sites are all clustered in the neighborhood on the banks of the Rhine, right around the Dom, which is really spectacular. It is the largest cathedral in Germany and was built in the Gothic style...Notre Dame in Paris would be a good comparison, style-wise. It's really beautiful especially at night, when it is lit with bluish floodlights and the spires seem to go on for ever as they stretch up into the sky. In the interior, the shrine of the Magi is located behind the main altar and is said to hold the remains of the Three Kings. It was very beautiful with big, fat snowflakes coming down all weekend, but again, verrrry cold, especially inside the cathedral! We decided to warm up a bit and hit the Ludwig Museum, a 5 minute walk from the Dom, which has a really great collection of mid-century and pop art, including many Warhol pieces that you would probably recognize, like the Campbell's Soup paintings. There was a Picasso exhibit on display, too, which M. really liked. There were also some more, um, experimental pieces, which neither of us felt qualified to interpret (Scrabble tiles? Glued to a wall? Well, okay....). Later that night, we found a Mexican restaurant. I know, I know: this sounds like a recipe for disaster...but it was just what we needed after walking around in the cold all day. That evening, we found an Irish pub that, probably not surprisingly, is frequented by lots of expats. We had an English-speakers' bonding moment when M. ordered our drinks in German, and we quickly discovered that our waitress was British: not that we don't like trying to use the ol' German skills out and about, but it was fun to be able to chat with most of the people around us without much trouble. I think both M. and I agreed that our favorite stop was the Romisch-Germanische Museum, which is also right downtown. Its focus is Koln's origins as a Roman settlement, which I didn't know really much about at all until our trip...the museum was really easy to get something out of, and pretty interesting. Plus, one of the main features of the museum is the giant Dionysius mosaic, which has been installed in a main part of the building: really cool. We took our time leaving town and stopped at the Fruh am Dom, a huge beer hall downtown, for lunch before heading home. Lucky for us, the people of Koln were gearing up for the football match later in the day. So, we were surrounded by hundreds of locals and, fueled by plenty of Kolsch (the type of beer local to Cologne) there was no shortage of random singing and general mayhem to go around! It was really fun, but alas, it was finally time to come home. I would highly recommend Cologne, and I can't wait to go back when the weather's a little nicer! Hey, by the way, I've got waaaaaaay more snow than I need over here. I hope that what they say about March coming in like a lion is true...we're ready for spring! Have a good Wednesday!