No, I Didn't Die

It has been two weeks since my last post - sorry about that. I have been speaking German every day until my tongue can no longer pronounce the umlauts and my grammar collapses into a jumble of words mixed every which way around. On top of that I have been working very hard at German School two weeks ago and then in an autoparts factory learning to work steel all this week. I will write what I remember, and start from the top.

So I left off with me going out to see the party after the game. Awesome party. We went to the local park and met some of her friends, who were very nice. We hung around there for a while and then I went to Sausalito with some of Monika's friends. She stayed at the park to catch up with some friends. The bar was teeming with crazy soccer fans. We had fun there until it was time to walk the girls home, then we returned to the bar for a few hours before retiring.

The next day, my family and I went on an outing to a huge lake some hours away. We stopped for lunch at a monastery and had some delishious traditional bavarian food before continuing to our final destination. If you are wondering what is on my thumb, that is the German flag that the girls insisted on painting on me at the Rathausplatz the day before. The lake was beautiful, with the Alps looming in the distance. We swam and paddled Bella around in the family kayak chasing ducks. After a couple of hours, we came back to shore and ate some fruit. I practiced my cherry seed spitting skills. We had a great time messing around, and took some video footage with the family camera that we had been using all day to catalougue our trip. Stephan has a great Shakira impression. After all of this, we stopped at a well-known lakeside restaurant, not far from the old German royal palace on an island in the middle of the lake. I had a delicious, fresh-caught, albeit strange fish, a pike perch, which looks very much like a cross between the two species. I wonder how that worked?

The next day was a prelude to a dull week of German school where I learned much, but was too tired after three hours of learning German and an hour and a half of private lessons to do much else. I met up with Monika and we went to the Baggersee, a local see, or lake, and played in the water and with frisbees and volleyballs. I had a good time.

After finishing with German School, I went out like usual on Friday night and met with Monika and friends. It was fun, but the party was nowhere near as happening now that Germany lost to the would-be Weltmeister Italy and was out of the running for the cup. I noticed that I could understand a lot more of what was being said and almost carr on a simple conversation.

Saturday morning I woke up to the telephone ringing. Franz was going to come and pick me up to show me around the factory. I was a bit intimidated at first, to say the truth, with all of the machines, and the people taking steel parts and moving them around. I saw a few kids my age and thought that I would be doing the same work. What if I messed up? These part were used in real cars!

Fortunately for me, Franz took me through a corridor echoing with the grating sounds of steel being cut to show me where I would be working. It was a small work area occuppied by my future teacher, two other interns, and some full time workers. I learned that I would be making a small steel vice from scrap metal in my first of two weeks with the company. I was also a bit surprised when I learned about my work hours. The buzzer to start work goes off at 7 every morning, and the buzzer to go home sounds at 3:30 that afternoon. Naturally, I was a bit disconcerted and planned to get to bed early on Sunday night.

Nothing at all happened on Sunday, except for going to Gino, the Italian place to watch the finals. I had some delicious house made black pasta served with perfectly grilled calamari, all hinting of lemon and european olive oil. I went to bed early for my big day at work, and did not know that Italy had won until the next day when I was on my way to work at 6:40 with my carpool, Florian.

I have to get to bed, but I will write more about work tommorrow and begin to post regularly again. Here is a photo of me at the work-table, filing my vise into shape.