On marital fueds, national anthems and German vocabulary...

Hello my favourite Cyber stalkers!

Bus rides have quickly become a point in my day I look forward to the most. I have obviously started to look European or at least not like a tourist... the latter is good news... because I have had an astonishing amount of people come up to me und start to speak rapidly about things in German. I usually can understand basically what they're saying by following their eyes to see what they're looking at. I've become very good at pantomiming conversations, as well as matching peoples emotions like laughing when they laugh, smiling when they smile... etc. and praying that they're not laughing at me or asking me a question. These newly formed skills are usually necessary because even after I tell them I only speak English they generally begin to speak in a combination language between mine and theirs and it ends in confusion and laughter. I always have to congratulate these people for knowing even the little English that they do because here I am in their country trying my hardest and they simply switch languages... or get caught in between the two... to accommodate me.

Yesterday morning on the bus, a very loud couple and there child came on. They were loud and pushy and took up a lot of room in the aisle and their child was doing her best to join the conversation with squeaky baby noises. It would be cute if the whole things wasn't deafening. Well, their stop came and they got off the bus. The woman somehow made the man mad because all of a sudden he EXPLODED and started yelling at her at the top of his lungs! I have never heard such a loud argument let alone in public! I mean I've definitely screamed that loudly before... when I was 3... So the bus was watching as this guy just screamed at his wife and everyone felt really awkward... they could understand the conversation and I could see it on everyones faces that it was a private matter because everyone looked away and pretended not to be listening but they were all staring with glazed faces and obviously still listening. The couple got off the bus and walked down the street and as the bus passed (and everyone shifted to see out the west facing windows) we saw the man gesturing furiously and obviously still shouting at the woman. So that was awkward and I would feel bad sharing it with you if it didn't happen again later that day...

I was waiting at the bus stop for the return journey and unknowingly part II of this story...

I heard a crash and then saw an elderly woman come running out of a shop holding something in her hand and YELLING very loudly at who knows what. She was walking towards the road brandishing what looked like a wooden spoon in her hand and screaming at a target that had not yet shown himself. When she got to the road, with oncoming traffic moving quite rapidly, she didn't stop, but stormed across the street still yelling really loudly. The cars on the road screeched to a halt and honked but the lady just kept going across 4 lanes of traffic. She got to the other side and we saw and old man standing on the other side. When she got there he started walking away and she continued to follow him and yell at him... everyone at the bus stop was confused again und Chrissy and I just started laughing! Yesterday was obviously the day for marital feuds, so if you get in one after reading this and it happens to be in public, don't be shy, it will turn into a funny memory for those people around you...

On anthems...

I have started to burst into Americas patriotic songs at random points of the day. For example, I saw the amazing castle of Shonbrunn and as I sat on a bench to take in this glorious sight I began to instantly hum "God bless America" quite loudly. Later that day I started singing "My country 'tis of thee" after seeing the breathtaking national library of Austria. Later at a monastery it was our national anthem that blessed the ears around me. I am honestly not sure what is going on but it has begun to annoy Chrissy who usually gets an earful of patriotism every time I'm impressed by something.

On the Chrissy note. Last night I realized her hatred of memorizing material. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her study for her German vocabulary test. She said "yes!" and I was happy because usually offering to help is declined and I was looking forward to something other than locking myself in my bedroom until sleep claimed me. She said that she was going to review the words and then come up and I could quiz her. I agreed and went to my bedroom to wait. She came up around 9:30 and said she was ready. I opened the book and asked her a word and she said she forgot (schon). So I went to the next word on the list Hasslich, then habsch...lang, kurz, komish, auge, nase... she said she didn't know. I looked at her strangely and asked her if she wanted me to keep asking her and she said "well I haven't really looked at them yet"!! AH! So I decided she needed an intervention and told her that I would ask her the words again and mark the ones she didn't know (there were 4 pages of words...). So we went through them and marked the ones she needed help with. Then I began systematically teaching her the words... Hasslich?- ugly... good... Habsch?- pretty... good... lang?- Long... good...hasslich? Etc. We went in this way through 2 pages of words. This is the way I study, it's tedious but take it from a procrastinator, it's the only way to learn and retain! I began spouting them out from memory and asking her what certain words meant. Arm, bein, korpe, lippe... she realized I was no longer looking at the paper and became discouraged. We continued doing this until 11:00 when she said that she was going to email her boyfriend! We hadn't learned even a quarter of the words! I asked her how she was going to get through the test with only 1/5 of the words learned and she said "pray" and walked out of the room! So the upside is I now have about 45 German words under my belt...and have retained them through the night!... the bad news is I don't think Chrissy is even wearing a belt. Let us bow our heads.

Love you all

"and I'm proud to be an american... where at least I know I'm free..."