Hello blog readers!

Quoting an exchange I recently had with Mom in an email, "No news is good news."

I picked up a few extra classes at the school because I had free hours on a couple of days, so now I am teaching English around 15-16 hours a week and not 12. I've spent the past couple of weeks just sort of going about my everyday business:

- I've been enjoying teaching more and more recently. A couple of teachers have finally branched out and gave me the opportunity to prepare some lessons of my own and teach smaller groups of pupils. It's been very fun and has kept me more involved at my school. I decided to give my pupils some say on what exactly I teach them on a week to week basis. So far I have done lessons on how America got started (Albeit it was a VERY simple version), a couple of Obama-themed ones, a little bit on St. Patrick's Day (it coincided with the teacher's theme), and then some routine grammar stuff (for example, the differences, similarities, and difficulties of "I will" future tense and "I'm going to" future tense). You would be surprise at how incredibly tricky the "I'm going to" tense can be for Germans who are learning English.

- I've been spending and increasing amount of time in the city meeting up with friends. I think we all get a mutual satisfaction and enjoyment out of meeting and being able to practice our respective foreign languages. Lot of my friends just relish the chance to practice their English, so I get the opportunities to speak a lot of the only two languages I know. (Note - I would normally use this opportunity to start a new language, since French, Italian, and Spanish are all there for me to learn from friends, but I'm still working on getting down this whole German Language thing. It's a tough one.)

- Still doing my best to maintain a high level of fitness and show-up my Mom's prediction, but have been slowed recently by an illness. I stayed home in bed on Wednesday with a cold and have been slowly recovering. (Don't worry Mom and Dad, all is well. The Mini-Apotheke I came to Germany with helped out a lot).

That's about all the update I have for you at the moment. About to start what should be a very exciting month of March, as the whole Wacker gang is coming out for a week's visit, during which is a week-long Fulbright Seminar in Berlin - my favorite city.

Also - After getting somewhat hooked on Coach Sark's twitter updates, I thought to myself, "Why the hell not?" So now you can keep even more updated on my daily happenings - check out my twitter page @ http://twitter.com/russellwacker

Tonight I'm going to a Jazz concert in the city with the family I live with! Should be a fun night. Hope everyone is doing well back home. I read that it snowed again. The weather here has been somewhat warmer as of late, in the 5-7 degree Celsius range.

Gotta run!

Russ

Wein Abend

Breaking from my usual of detailing school or family outings, I have a little bit to write about a fun night of partying at a friend’s apartment in Bremen. The evening, Friday, Jan. 6, was dubbed “Wein Abend” (wine night) by the hostess, Amelie.

Amelie is a friend I have made while living around Bremen. She is also a language teaching assistant and teaches French, because she’s from France (duh?). Oddly enough, most of the friends I have made that live in or around Bremen are neither German nor American. I have more French, Spanish, and Italian friends in my host city than those other two nationalities combined (almost all of whom are also language teaching assistants).

Anyways, it was a fun party – with lots of wine (every guest brought at least one bottle), cheese, bread, yadda, yadda, yadda. We were at Amelie’s until, oh, about midnight or one in the morning or so. Then we decided it would be a good idea to go out and hit a couple of clubs before it got too late. So, it was at around that time when our group of at least 10 people, a mix of several different nationalities, hit the streets. Long story short, we weren’t walking back to Amelie’s until 7:30 in the morning!

A good story that came from this night: Upon waking up on a mattress in the middle of Amelie’s living room (I wasn’t about to go home at 7:30 in the morning while still…under the influence…and already developing a hangover), I quickly realized that a very important item of mine is missing – my bag! I bought a bag that I call my “side satchel,” and take it with me everywhere. Eva, my sis, likes to call it my “man purse” when I refer to it. Anyway, this thing is extremely important to me. Not only for practical purposes, but also because in it are my house and school keys, my iPod, and a Christmas present from my family – Obama’s newest book, The Audacity of Hope. The first words that came to my mind are not appropriate for this type of media and audience.

Now, imagine this situation. You wake up fairly (that means very, in this case) disorientated and a little hung over from a long but fun night with friends, only to first realize that you are missing some very important things. To say the very least, I was not feeling too good about my current situation.

Despite my current levels of high stress, I was able to sit down and logically think out what happened. We first thought it was at the first club we went to, because she didn’t remember seeing me with it at the second and final club. Upon further review of the photos on my camera, however, we were able to establish that it was indeed with me at club #2. So the next thing we did was call Helga, who was also at the party and whose apartment we stopped at on our walk home early in the morning. To my great, great relief, it was there! Crisis Averted!

Photos from the night (the last one is "upon further review" picture!):

Bosseln and Gruenkohlessen

Off we go!

Way back on the 29^th of January, of this still very young year, some of my colleagues and I went and did what is a very traditional Northwest Germany tradition – we played a game called bosseln and ate a delicious dinner called Gruenkohlessen (basically a sweet dinner focused around green cabbage).

I’m sure you are sitting there in front of your computer or notebook thinking to yourself, “What the heck is bosseln?” Well since you’re wondering, here’s what this game is all about. It’s actually about as simple as it gets.. Bosseln has a couple of possible ways of playing, so I will just explain what we played, which I think is the most common one. There are two teams, each team having one ball. The ball is made of a hard material (so that it wont break when you roll it down the street) and weighs about the same as a big grapefruit. The teams start at a predetermined spot and begin rolling the balls. For example, player 1 from team A rolls it as far as he/she can. Then player 1 from team B does the same. Then the second players from each team do the same, with the team with the least distance always rolling first. A team earns a point when they have “lapped” the other team. This means that, for example, when player two is up for team 1 and player three is up for team 2, but team 1 is ahead, team 1 gets a point.

After a point is scored, the balls are set back to an even distance, and the next players roll (obviously, the players in the same position must make the first roll here).

That’s pretty much it. There is some strategy involved when there are obstacles are involved, like ditches, small hills, cracks or dips in the road, etc. But other than that, there’s not much too it. But there is a secret reason as to why it’s such a simple game. That is, the game is normally played with a bottle or two of some form of hard alcohol. Every time a point is scored, the team on the wrong end of the point must take a shot. This way, the game gets more interesting and fun as it goes along. Unfortunately, I was not exposed to a proper game of bosseln, as the alcohol was left out. But it was a great time nonetheless!

Now, a short little bit about the dinner. As mentioned before, the dinner is essentially focused around gruenkohl, which is green cabbage. The other main types of food associated with a gruenkohlessen are pinkel (a type of sausage special to the area), potatoes (I am in Germany, after all), and other wurst (sausage) varieties. Oh, and let’s not leave out the beer – that is a necessity at something like this.

Bosseln and Gruenkohlessen – a great cultural experience, a fun time, and good eats.

Here are some pictures! (If you are having trouble seeing, simply click the photo for a much bigger version)

Shots From My Way To Work

Hello all -

Here are some pictures taken from random spots during one of my many bike rides to work/school. They are, for the most part, in chronological order.

While looking them over, you will see a Northern German "hill" that I struggle up on my way home, a nice sunrise over an expansive cornfield, some frozen things, me not trying to drop my camera, the most bumpy, uncomfortable road I've ever biked on, the city I work in, and my school!

So now, when I write that I struggled through another day of biking to and from work, you can imagine me laboring through these photos on my stylish lady's bicycle.

Coming soon: Photos of my stylish lady's bicycle. Also of the house I live in and my room.

Today (well, tonight for me) is the Super Bowl! It starts at 6 PM on the East Coast, which means that it starts at 3 PM on the West Coast, which means that it starts more or less at midnight for me. But naturally that's not going to stop me. I'll be faithfully watching on the internet from my little corner of the world.

Bye!