ha det bra, Norge :(...

So, as promised here's the last post about Norway. (Side note: I'm back in Constance, and the trip here was fine. I would have liked to have posted yesterday evening, but I had no internet - surprise!)


The Stokkelands have done some remodeling since the last time I was there.


Their house is gorgeous. And it's seriously hard to believe the view they have from it.


We went the Munch Museum, where they have "The Scream" (above) and "Madonna". Both of these paintings were stolen by very stupid thieves who nearly ruined them because they didn't know how to take care of the works. I lucked out, however, to have come during the brief stretch of time that the two pieces are back up on display before being taken down again in order to be further restored. I struggled to decide which photo from this museum to put up (I really like Munch); I ended up choosing "The Scream" simply because even if the name Edvard Munch didn't ring a bell, the image of the second most recognizable painting in the world (BNET) would.


We had a picnic in the Botanisk Hage in Oslo. (Look at Mira!)


Then we waltzed to the Viking Ship Museum ;)


This is the Oseberg Ship. It was buried in the ground around 800 CE and discovered near Tønsberg (Norway) in 1904. Imagine burying that massive thing. That was someone's funeral!


The Viking Ship Museum inspired Magnus to become a gansta.


Oslo harbor - I like the mixture of eras here: You have the fortress from around 1300 CE, some very modern looking ship (I own that one) in the foreground, and what looks like a pirate ship (but probably fishes for shrimp) to the right of that.

And, though I'm sure most of you didn't, we obviously watched the last soccer game in the EM 2008. Only one goal was scored, but it was by Spain, so unfortunately Germany's chant "So seh'n Siegler aus" doesn't end in "Deutschland!" this time.

But this does remind me of something I'd been wanting to post for a while now. Lukas Podolski plays for the German national team (although he was born in Poland). He's quite the player. For example, he scored both goals in Germany's first game - against Poland! (I think the Poles might think of him as a traitor.) Well anyway, I'm not writing about him because of his sweet Fußball skills. No, I'm writing about him because he has some amazing quotes.

Soccer is like chess, only without the dice. (Fußball ist wie Schach, nur ohne Würfel.)

There's only one possibility: victory, defeat, or draw. (Es gibt nur eine Möglichkeit: Sieg, Niederlage oder Unentschieden.)

(Spiegel article in English)

So Germany's game against Spain?

sorry, Podolski…

But seriously, thank you, Stokkelands, for the wonderful five days in Norway!

weitere Infos über den Alltag

You know those entomologists who go into the Amazon to catch insects? That’s me every day. Each morning I trek into the steaming lavatory (or WC, as they call it here) to shower, and each morning I discover a new species of bug previously not known to live in our “bungalow.” Today I was especially lucky to find not only mosquitoes, flies and spiders, but also three very large moths.


One of them (which looked like a bird dropping) was unfortunately no longer there by the time I’d gotten my camera.

Speaking of bugs, in order to protect myself from being covered by mosquito bites during the night, I recently purchased this lovely silver net (Fliegengitter) to cover my window. (Apparently Sonnenbühl Ost doesn’t believe in window screens.) Well, it cost me €5,50 (or like a trillion US) and it sucks. It came with “tape” (Klebebände) to put it up, but it’s only one sided, and the other side is covered with these brail-like bumps that you’re supposed to press the mesh onto. Nonetheless the Gitter falls down more often than it stays up. So I duct-taped it to the sill, but it still falls down. Plus it looks like one of those metallic sheets they put up when the bad guys quarantined ET. That was a good purchase.

But anyway, to keep with the “daily life” theme of this post, let me tell you about the every-night excitement of the EM (European Soccer Championship, or Fußballeuropameisterschaft – yes, that’s one word). So there are one or two games a night, and most Europeans go crazy over them. People drive around honking and screaming and celebrating until 3 or 4 am basically every day. It’s awesome! The last game that Germany won, fans ran into the street and were draping passing cars in the German tricolor, sometimes not letting them pass until they’d called out every one of the German players’ names.

So apart from watching soccer, what have I been doing recently? Well, this Saturday a few of us went to Meersburg again.


We took the ferry there.


It’s much prettier in the summer.

Then yesterday a bunch of us Ostians went to the beach, laid out and swam.

And this Thursday I’m off to Oslo to see the Stokkelands and will head back to Constance on Monday.

Glückspilz/kostenloses Wochenende!

So I really lucked out this weekend: I paid for just about nothing and still did tons of stuff!

My weekend started on Thursday (I don't have any real class on Friday - just tandem team). That night my March language course group got together at a beer garden on the harbor.


Here's my half of the table. (The guy next to me is Denis, my tandem partner.)


Our professor came, too. She is great. I gave her this drawing I did of her as a gift, and she loved it and kissed me on the cheek and kept thanking me. That was sweet. (I purposefully did it on notebook paper, because she always teased me about my doodling during class. She said once that she wanted me to make a booklet of all of my best doodles from class.)

On Saturday we Oles went to Sea Life Center (yes, that's its German name), which is an aquarium mainly for little kids – screaming little kids with microscopic attention spans. We got in for free with a coupon from the booklet that we got when we became residents.


What's a blog post without a photo of Chrissy doing something weird?


There was a cool tank with baby sharks and rays and the real mermaid's purses from which they "hatch."


And they had one of those tunnels you walk through with sharks and sea turtles and eels on all sides. I'm a sucker for those tunnels.

At the end there was this wall where kids stuck post-its answering the posed question "What do you wish for the future of the lake?" Here's my favorite response:

DAS GANS FILE DELFi NE GiBT. [sic]
(dass [es] ganz viele Delfine gibt. that [there] are lots of dolphins.)

After that we went to a free museum above Sea Life with taxidermied animals, which was also cool.


I love Constance.


Then we split up, and Kirsten and I went to Osiander Café to use another coupon (Gutschein) for free hot chocolate (heiße Schocki), which was perfect on a somewhat chilly day. (Don't worry, parents, it's already back to beautiful today!)

After that the two of us went to the Archäologisches Museum, which is free Saturdays. It has artifacts from all over Baden-Württemberg from the prehistoric up through about the 14th century.


Here are some trepanned skulls.


And here's a Carnival (Faschnacht) mask and part of a window from an old Gothic church.

Then yesterday six of us (one German and five foreigners) went to Kreuzlingen, our Swiss neighbor city, to watch Germany wallop Poland in the European Football Championships. While we were standing in line, some extremely nice woman offered us her tickets for free (they had cost her 11 franks, or about $11, a piece)! We lucked out so much! Plus she said there were only four tickets, but it turned out there were six (perfect)!


Deutschland schalala!

Tonight I'm going Shamrocks for their Monday special: delicious half-price hamburgers and €1 off a pitcher of beer! And better yet, my family is coming from the US to visit on Wednesday!