Getting to the Point in a Quick (and Rare) Fashion...

Blog bites: Short, concise snippets of information found on a personal webpage.  -Definition provided by 'Rachel Micaiah Lopez's mostly infallible Dictionary of the American Language'-

~  I have decided to start a new type of post that gives me license to paste lots of random thoughts together and call it a blog post.
~  After an 'Indian summer' with visible green grass, blue skies, and warm 40 degree weather that lasted about a week, there is, yet again, a layer of sparkling snow covering the ground.
~  School has officially begun again.  Last week we did some school but our schedules were so mixed up with Mom going to her "Welcome-To-Germany-You-Are-Not-In-The-States-Anymore-So-Get-Used-To-It" class during the school day.
~  Last Thursday afternoon was spent bowling at the bowling alley with the Club Beyond kids, eating free burgers and wearing awesome tee-shirts, drinking two sodas and then a latte ... it was a very exciting afternoon/evening :P ...
~  My sewing and craft area has been arranged in a completely neat and orderly fashion.  Now, I can not promise that it will stay that way, but ...
~  I am anticipating with great delight and impatience the lovely curtains and PAINT that I will be putting up in my room in the near future.  And yes, I said PAINT!  I'm so happy!! 
~  Today I decided to go with the 'totally comfortable' look and dress in sweats and an oversized shirt.  Hey, a girl has to have comfort over fashion sometime!  But then, I think fashion was the last thing on my mind when I was walking around (in the house) wearing my ballet flats and leg warmers with my sweats rolled up to my knees ... not the look I usually go for unless I'm stretching and my sweats are in my way ... and I don't want to change  ...  I'm going to stop now ...
~  My mom just pulled calzones out of the oven, so I am going to go stuff my face now.  Would you all please excuse me?  'Kthanksbye.

~RM

Internet Troubles and Magic Sticks That Complicate Things

This may come as a shock ... I ... am not a computer wiz.

I know, you're stunned.  I am not only, not a computer wiz, I have been the cause of computer malfunctions in the past.  But I can guarantee that this time, it's not my fault.  Our house does not have internet right now and will not have internet until a port opens up in our area.  It is a lot more complicated than that, but right now I'm not feeling patient enough to try and remember every detail enough to explain it.  So, because of not having internet, my dad purchased a stick.  A magic stick.  A magic stick that provides really slow internet access.  It is too slow to stream anything, which, as you may very well know, puts a chink in the whole "online class at 8:00 pm Germany time after all the free internet hotspots have closed".   Because of this predicament I emailed my teacher to see if it was possible for me to switch to an earlier class.  His reply explained that all his classes are full and I would have to change teachers in order to switch classes.  I love my teacher and my class too much to leave them so that option was scrapped.  Then, yesterday some friends of ours from chapel offered to allow me to attend my class at their house on their internet until we get ours.  One problem down!!  Thank you, very-nice-friends-whose-name-I-am-not-going-to-put-on-my-blog-without-permission!  You know who you are :) 
There remains the problem of a slow computer.  If I tried to upload photos to my blog for you all to see I would look like that guy who grew a beard while waiting for his internet to load.  (I am aware that if none of you have seen that commercial, then that sentence sounds really strange and you are now contemplating my mental stability.)  I am living in GERMANY!!  I have tons of lovely pictures sitting on my SD card waiting to be shown to the world and I. Can't. Upload. Them!!!!

One moment while I regain my composure.

Yesterday, after chapel and lunch, my family went to the Java Cafe (one of those free internet hotspots mentioned earlier whose hot chocolate does not taste right).  While Bear played in the 'Kids Zone', my dad and I attempted to get onto the internet and upload pictures.  An hour and a half later we were still endeavoring to access the 'free internet service'.  Eventually, we gave up and my father formed a plan of attack.  Right next door to the Java was the Bowling Alley which also has wifi but you have to pay for it.  My dad dropped me off there for an hour so that I could try again.  I tried without success for about fifteen minutes and then all of a sudden, I was on the internet without paying.  After bringing this to the attention of one of the employees, he told me 'a little secret'.  He said that I was sitting in the corner and that corner picks up the Java's internet connection.  He said that if I had connected to the internet without paying then good for me, just don't spread it around.  I guess I am kinda 'spreading it around' by posting this on my blog, but I have this strange feeling that none of you will be here in Germany at that particular bowling alley anytime soon.  Anyways, I was more than a little exasperated because I did not want the Java's screwy connection, I wanted the connection that I could pay for and know that it would work.  Well, to make a long story longer...I spent my specified amount of time attempting to gain internet access without triumph.  So, I ended up purchasing myself a soda to heal the heartache.  Sodas can do that, you know.  Turned out that the problem was the magic stick.  It had been interfering with our wireless connection.  I will never trust another magic stick again...

~RM

A Quick Update

We are officially Lupburgers (Lupburgians?... however you want to say it.  People who live in Lupburg.)!  We moved into our house on Thursday and we are almost completely unpacked!  I love our little German town so much!  There are many places to explore here and I can't wait to post some pictures of the castle ruins found on the top of the hill.  But, right now, our favorite place here in Lupburg would have to be the bakery that is just down the street.  And thank goodness for kind, English speaking cashiers :)  Right now I happen to be chowing on a delish pretzel that has been left un-guarded on the table for much too long.  I will post pictures of our home and Lupburg as soon as possible!

~RM

Hello, I am from Spare Oom.

In front of our hotel there is a large wood. 

With a path running right through it.

Being the adventurous children that we are, my siblings and I decided to bundle up and see just where the path led.

I found a lamp-post in the wood.  And then I thought I saw Mr. Tumnus.  But it turned out to be just my brother in a scarf with an umbrella.

~RM

A List

Of things that are different here than in America.

• A rather large difference being the whole language issue. 
• There being two buttons to press while flushing a toilet. The 'On' button and the 'Off' button.
• Almost all the cars are five passenger.
• The fire trucks are teeny.
• All the menus in the restaurants are unreadable.  For us un-German speaking Americans anyway.
• Everyone has an accent here ...... Except for us Americans.  Pooh.
• One of the differences that I have a big problem with is: the soda here is messed up.  And I'm not exaggerating when I say that it tastes like medicine.  I would be the one standing at a soda machine filling my cup, tasting it, deciding it didn't taste right, dumping it out, and then walking over to the other soda machine to try again.  I do this almost every time we go out to eat.  I've gotten lots of knowing nods from other Americans who are suffering through the same tribulation.
• Carbonated water.  Another thing I have a problem with.  Our first experience with carbonated water was at the airport.  We bought three big bottles of what we thought was water to quench our thirst and then almost choked after tasting the awful stuff that was plain carbonation.  Harsh wake-up call.
• No ice.  Restaurants do not put ice in your drink.  So picture that lovely medicine-tasting Coke at room temperature.  You have now pictured my detestable torture.
• No closets.  Except the water closet which is what the Europeans call the bathroom.  So instead we have wardrobes.  And trust me, the minute we get ours in our new house there is going to be much opening and closing of doors until we find Narnia.
• Streets that almost taper off entirely.
• 110 and 220 electricity.
• Walking into a small, privately owned furniture store and having the German owner exclaim in his lovely accent, "Oooh!  Beeg a family, yah? Hahahaha."
• Walking through a store, having your way blocked by two women speaking in German, saying "Excusez-moi" and getting a reply in English.  Then you wonder..."Do I really look that American?"

That's all for now, but I'm sure I will be posting a sequel to this list sooner than later.

~RM

Outdoors-y Photographs :)

This is my entry for my friend Sierra's photography contest at His Handmaiden.  A photo taken from the bus window while driving through German countryside.

~RM

~RM

Caribou? Yup, Two-Footed German Caribou.

First of all, before I begin my un-holiday-spirit-like rant, I hope you all enjoyed the year of 2010 and are having a great New Year.  That said ...
Holiday buses should run on holidays!!  I mean, some people (say, my family?) actually get out on New Years day, do not have a car, need food, want to get out of a tiny hotel room and stuff like that.  My dad looked up the Hohenfels holiday bus schedule this morning so that we could ride around base and pick up a few necessities.  So we all got bundled up to trek down to the bus stop.  The bus did not come.  And then I allowed myself to get roped into walking across the base to the shoppette that may or may not be open.  In the snow.  I don't know what I was thinking, I was not wearing walking shoes.  Those boots were purely ornamental.  Well, we got to the shoppette which was open and I did not die.  I came close to, but I did not die.
Now, in case you were wondering, there is a connection to my near death experience and the title of this post.  All along our extremely strenuous forced march there were several different animal tracks in the snow.  Some that looked like a rabbit's, some like a cat's, others that we weren't so sure about.  I identified them as caribou tracks using my tremendously educated knowledge of the outdoors.  My dad pointed out that there are no caribou in Germany and I countered with the all purpose: How do you know?  Maybe the caribou had grown tired of where ever they were from and migrated to Germany?  Then one of my family members tried to debunk my theory by asking why the tracks looked like they belonged to a two-footed animal.  And yet again I gracefully defended my position through a lengthy explanation of how the caribou mutated into bipeds when they migrated to Germany.  That stopped their critical remarks.
Then we saw the deer.  I watched my theory crumble before my eyes.  And we were only half-way to the shoppette ...
~RM