It’s been awhile since I’ve given any updates. Life has been pretty exciting. We just got back from a trip to Munich a few weeks ago, during which we traveled to a bazillion different towns, saw a thousand really cool cathedrals, hiked in the Alps, and ate a lot of sausage.

Now, back at the apartment, I realize again that I’m tied to the bus schedule and feel a little secluded. Regardless of the isolation–if I was really outgoing I could go to discoteks or just go downtown and make friends–I’m going to miss Germany when I get home. The cheese, the yogurt, the bread, the gummy bears–all these things are really great. Not to mention the castles, the Roman battlefields, and deep history that this place has going on.

In the end, though, I’m an American and love my country. I can’t imagine living anywhere else permanently. I mean, true, Germany has castles. But we have the 4th of July.

The 4th
Speaking of the 4th, let me tell you what I did for that day. I watched Bruce Willis take out domestic terrorists in Stirb Langsam (Die Slowly) 4.0. Afterward, Matthias and I went to an ice cream parlor where I ordered a scoop each of red, white, and blue ice cream. We asked a Russian guy to take our picture, and he declined as he raced into the parlor as if getting his fix of ice cream RIGHT NOW was a matter of life and death. Man, he thinks he has it bad; the only blue ice cream they had was bubblegum flavor. Everything else was on the purple side.

I had to have red, white, and blue . . . so I took one for patriotism and ordered bubblegum. Afterward I ate a burger and fries at McDonalds and then wondered why I didn’t just settle for Pizza Hut.

Snow White
A few weeks ago I was in Hanover at a local Doner place. (Doners are a Middle-Eastern lamb-filled pita that Germany has adopted as their own.) I looked down from the second floor at the dinner guests eating at tables in the open. A woman dressed as Snow White caught my eye. She was placing dinners in front of seven of her friends, each wearing dwarf hats and t-shirts proclaiming which dwarf each was supposed to be. Something made Snow White very mad, and as she refused dinner to one of her dwarf pals, she let out a string of German expletives. Tally this one up there with Mickey Mouse beating up rowdy kids at Disneyland.

Grunt French
On the subway in Munich, I heard a girl speaking with a family a few seats in front of us. She wasn’t speaking German. Over the sound of the moving subway, all I could tell is that it sounded like French to me, except it wasn’t French. It was like, Grunt French, as if someone had taught a monkey to speak French and he couldn’t smoothly articulate all the syllables and can’t pronounce anything right.

When the subway stopped, the girl’s talking became clear. She was speaking English and was an American.

Skater Boi
A few days ago on my way to a young men’s activity, I was sitting on the bus reading China Mieville’s brilliant Perdido Street Station, when the bus stopped and let on a new passenger. A kid no older than twelve sat down in front of me and set two broken halves of a skateboard in his lap. He looked on the verge of tears, and I caught his eye and nodded a manly hello. He nodded back, looked out the window, determined not to let his emotions show. He couldn’t have looked more discouraged if the skateboard in his lap had been a dead puppy. This scene is one of the most heart-breaking ever.

Gummy Bears
I figured I’m going to run out of memory for my camera on my France and Scotland trips, so I ordered two 2gig SD cards from Amazon. They came in the mail yesterday from their affiliate partner. Included with the memory?: a mini bag of gummy bears. I’m going to order more stuff. I hope my Harry Potter book comes with Bertie Botts beans. So long as they’re not the rotten-fish flavor.

Cola Tigers
My coolest purchase lately has been a bag of Trolli gummy tigers called “Cola Tigers.” There are all sorts of cola candy here in Germany (no caffeine! so they don’t keep me up at night), and these little tigers are just another attempt to candyfy another German drink: the Spezi. Spezi is a mix of cola and orange juice. Cola tigers are a mix of gummy cola and gummy orange, which may or may not taste like their fruit counterparts. They taste good, and not at all like what tigers in the wild taste like. I don’t think.

Pizza Hut
Less greasy than the American counterpart. I ate myself silly last night and still had leftovers. Including cheezy crust!