devotion to blogging. and some insomnia.

typing this on the computer in the paris flat which has something wrong with the keyboard such that what looks like an "a" key for instance actually types an "f"; "b" types a "p"; and so on. i am getting faster but am still only up to about 15 words a minute...

my last day in kiel was very mellow; i said goodbye to kate in the morning, and then went for a run which turned into a walk around the botanical gardens because i was feeling lazy. then a trip to the art museum to go look at greek pots and heads and then to the train station to get to hamburg to catch my flight. i was ready for them this time; i shoved the laptop and my heavy notebook into the waistband of my jeans, umbrella and camera tied to my belt, books packed under my jersey... lo and behold, no overweight luggage charges. i unpacked myself into a dutyfree carrier bag, went through security and got on the plane. so silly. they are so strict about not exceeding 25 kg checked and 8 kg hand luggage and only one piece of carryon blah blah blah then you are allowed to buy as much heavy crap as you want in dutyfree. ???

anyway. i arrived safely at the flat in paris late last night; it is quite beautiful and very comfy and the only real downer has been the discovery that some artistic baggage handler stole all my paints which i am trying very hard not to care too much about (only moderate success so far). they also failed to close my palette box after taking the paints and an oil sanguine pencil escaped and wreaked havoc with several favourite items of clothing grrrrr but i have decided that i will donate the extra karma to the universe in thanks for the election of obama and call it a day.

today i went to the grand palais to see the two exhibits currently on there - picasso et les grands maitres and emil nolde. i was unwowed for the most part by the picasso and the nolde (although it was cool to see the nolde just days after having been in the exact part of denmark where he lived) but woweezowee les grands maitres were cool. i saw several velasquez paintings, goyas (incl. la maja desnuda), and ingres, including one i had done a master copy of, so that was fun. i also got to see french people being rude to each other, which is weird - argenton chateau was so gentle i sort of forgot about the whole paris thing - but at least so far they have been ruder to each other than they have been to me.

B&F arrived late tonight and we had dinner at a little pizzeria before bed. not sure what the plan is for tomorrow - make it up as we go along...

woohoo obama

screaming for obama

preparing for a nocturnal dip in the baltic sea, complying with vow to the universe

a little colder than anticipated

trip to denmark

mike

pew carving in danish church

danish street

lunch at the guildhall

lübeck main square

heiligen geiste hospital

k. playing the cello after 12 + years

last night in AC at the pub


allo allo -

so day 4 in deutschland, having had a lovely lovely three day weekend with K. sunday we drove to lübeck, which is a very pretty old town up in the north, and swanned around there for the day - highlight being a raspberry marzipan cake at THE marzipan shop of northern germany ooh la la. (we also had lunch at the old seamen´s guildhall, which was fun: you can´t really see from the pic, but it is an old room that does not appear to have changed at _all_ since, oh, 1400, except for the model ships that they have hung from the ceiling. long intricately carved wooden benches and trestle tables that you sit at to eat your potato soup and liverwurst, painted murals of the hazards of sea-going life on the walls, chandeliers, dim light. very atmospheric.)

yesterday (monday) we drove to the west coast of denmark, which is like another planet. nobody lives there, and the people who do are apparently all completely inbred, the landscape is really spooky, all flat marshy misty with dikes and canals everywhere, and then when you hit the actual coast there is grey sea and grey sky as far as you can see, except for the occasional boat (either medium size fishing boats or MASSIVE princess-cruise-size ferries to norway or sweden or somewhere). we came back via toldern, which is a bit of denmark which used to be german where M´s family is from, and walked around there for a bit, and it reinforces the feeling of total insularity. everyone looks the same, and although it is cute and picturesque, cobblestoned streets and thatched rooves and the whole bit, it is quite clearly a question of nobody having bothered to change anything since the 17th century rather than purposely preserved for touristic opportunism.

Last night K´s friend Gunter came over for dinner which was great; his English is slightly more limited than M´s (although still impressively good - everyone i have met here so far seems to be able to carry on a basic conversation in English), so by necessity more of the talk happened in german and i am amassing new words at a fast and furious pace. i can discuss apples, potatoes, broccoli, lead-free gasoline, gewurstraminer, mushrooms, nipples, sugar, quantum physics, driveways, cheese, furniture, dogs, water, snow, marzipan, colours, days of the week, and numbers up to 8 (for some reason i find nine and ten impossible to remember). lots of progress. by the end of my stay i should be fluent, i think :)

anyway. today is tuesday; K is at work, and Mike is at home studying for his board exam and letting heating repairmen in, so i am on my own for the day. i am going to go for a run, and then see what downtown Kiel has to offer, as i actually haven´t spent that much time in Kiel proper. this house is difficult to escape from, as it is crammed to the gills with books and pictures and and random things to look at (representative sample: a plastic R2D2 robot, four feet high, whose head opens up so you can fill him with ice and store beers in him during parties, a set of acupuncture needles and a fake silicone ear on which to practice, an extensive antique model train set, a wooden dinosaur model kit that kate is putting together to send to her niece, two motorcycles from (i am guessing from their appearance) the 1930´s, a sauna... etc.)

tomorrow i am going to take the train to hambourg and check that out as well, i think. fun fun.

okay, well, love to all, and fingers crossed for the election results.

safely eingang'ed into deutschland

allo allo -
so sitting at K's computer which is has a wonky german keyboard so there might be a few transposed z's and y's (ooh, and ä's instead of apostrophes, that's kind of fun) having arrived yesterday evening. M and i left AC at 7 in the morning after an insomniac night for both of us - i couldn't sleep because i was nervous about not waking up in time, and apparently he couldn't sleep because he decided he needed to drink all three of the really strong local beers that someone had given him rather than leave them in his fridge (not such a good idea as it turns out) but we made it one piece to angers (driving through torrential rain, which just seemed to validate the decision to leave), and onto the train to paris, where we went our separate ways. i got the bus to the airport, where i spent a tragic and semi frantic fortyfive minutes trying to decide which of my treasured paint-stained possessions to ditch, because lufthansa was going to charge me 150 euros in overweight luggage fees (as it turns out they are very strict on the intereurope flights). i finally winnowed it down to only 50 euros in overweight luggage fees, and put the rest in a shopping bag in the nearest trash bin, feeling _very_ pathetic and sorry for myself, duly checked in my main luggage and then realized there was absolutely nothing to stop me from pulling the shopping bag out of the rubbish bin and incorporating as much as i could into my previously weighed-and-cleared carryon bag (they have a limit of 8 kg carryon to start with, but then you are allowed to buy as much duty free booze as you want?? someone explain this to me). i decided if anyone questioned me that i would say i had bought the grotty tennis shoes, several paperbacks, and some extra canvas in one of the duty free shops. hey, it could happen. anyway. airline adventures. the really sad part was that in my frantic last minute reorganization of my bags, the little goodie bag of local honey, camembert, and olives that i had put together for K&M ended up in my carryon, and was deemed liquid by the evil security lady and taken away. i personally question all three of those judgements (creamed honey, still unripeish camembert, and olives? semisolid if anything) but i figured i was not in a position to quibble at that point.
kate met me at the airport in hamburg and it has been lovely lovely to see her again; we went out for dinner last night (with husband M) to a tapas place in downtown kiel and for a walk around (followed by a very satisfying sleep of nine solid hours without a break), and then today a lazy traditional german breakfast of rolls with mystery sausage, liver, quince jam, nutella, etc.

K and I went for a run together down by the port where they have seals (seals! so cute. seehund auf deutsch. i have now tripled my german vocabulary. i can say yes, no, and seal. i got K to write down on a piece of paper for me, 'i am so sorry i don't know how to speak german' 'one hot chocolate please' and 'do you speak english?' and with yes, no, seal, and my cheat sheet i think i can survive for a long time.). down by the harbour they also have submarines, which is kind of spooky, since you don't usually get much chance to see submarines in regular civilian life- they had two pulled out of the water for routine repairs - and also huge monster ferries which go to norway. we had lunch at a little pizzapizza place downtown, then wandered home for tea. so far it has been a fine balance between calorie consumption and expenditure and not much else OOH except we dug K's cello out of the basement and had a go at playing duets which was pretty funny since neither of us has really touched a cello since we were old enough to vote. it sounded horrible, but i have to admit it really made me want to try it for real again. there is a woman in my choir who is a professional cellist and occasionally gives lessons to adult students... hmmm.... wheels turning...

anyway. seeing K again is really nice; we are having a good time together, and it is so much fun to find how instantaneously the connection is reestablished and how little either of us has really changed since we were 12. eek - more later because M's sister has just arrived and i need to play hostess (M&K have run out to the grocery store).