Torrential Rain, Travels and Turkey

For some reason its been like torture trying to get this next blog out. I've been doing lots of fun stuff lately, but this rainy weather is just exhausting, and even though I am still spending most of the wet evenings on this red couch getting a computer tan, I am still just not motivated. And I think the forecast is rain for the next 7 months! (Honey, get the arc!)
I finally got the light on my bike fixed so I can ride in the rain, but, low and behold, its broken again. Super annoying, super mysterious. I think its a German gnome who doesn't want me out riding in the dark rain. Speaking of dark, it was still dark until the second period of school today.
So really fast: a run down of my travels in the past few weeks. I went to Duesseldorf, sponsored in full by the Northrhine Westphalia government! What a beautiful region I have to opportunity to live in! Its similar to the rust belt in the US...lots of scenic industry parks, run down factories, and old coal mines. I am particularlly impressed with the pride the people have in their pasts, though. We went to a beautiful and well-kept industry museum on our propaganda tour of the region, and were suddendly in a coal mine! It was mine-d blowing! Actually, I really am not a fan of working in the mine. Good thing I am an English teaching assistant here instead of a coal miner. Anyway, we also went to this old huge silo that is now a museum. It has a GIANT MOON in it! Can you believe it? A GIANT MOON! It also has other not-so-giant representations of all of the other planets and some stars. It was truly a magical place. Good for meditation and such...but...inside that old silo. Finally we ended the tour with a middle-of-the-night freeze-your-butt-off tour of an old industrial park that they turned into a museum. We got torches to talk through the park with and felt like we were back in the olden days. They make the old storage house into a restaurant. It was well made risotto, although, in typical German tradition, next to tasteless. You may have to wade through a bunch of sarcasm to see it, but I did enjoy my time in Duesseldorf. The Americans there (let's say...MOST of the Americans) there were super nice and just plain brilliant. I am so impressed us! I also had an opportunity to meet some other international language teaching assistants there, too. My roommates were Italians. So nice, so smart. And we got to speak German cause neither of us could speak our respective languages, how foreign.
And I was also able to go up to Kiel to see Jane...my sister's good friend from South Carolina. She and her husband live up there in a beautiful apparment with furniture that has arms and is more than 1 foot off the ground; and food that has flavor. It was a great time to just chill with friends while in Europe. We hopped over to Hamburg for the day and I saw the most beautiful church of my life! St Michaels. Just great! There is a lot of English influence in that city, according to Jane. And I noticed it right away. The shopping streets were bright with lots of lights and beautiful store displays. Everyone was setting up for the Christmas markets. Boy am I going to have a good time with those soon!
And finally in school, we have just started the American Dream unit. The students are learning all about how bad it is to live in America...jk. But I was (and still am) experiencing a lot of resistance from teachers and students, as well as others around in my daily life--a lot of people have a LOT of NEGATIVE things to say about the US. But so far I have been very impressed with this American Dream unit. Now of course, the expected "everyone in America has a gun and shoots their neighbors" argument is still very strong. And the teachers are very eager to point out that the death penality is barbaric but legal in the US, but in general this has been a unit that I have been glad to observe and take part in.
So all in all nothing too crazy happening right now. My big project this week is pumkpin pies for my classes on Thursday...made in a spring form pan. Oh yeah, did you know!?!? They don't have PIES at ALL here? Wow what a disappointment. (Although their cakes make up for it, in some ways.) Anyway, maybe I'll take a picture of what will surely be a strange pie to show you. And this weekend a bunch of Ami's are getting together to celebrate Thanksgiving. We are all meeting up at a friends house about an hour away. Some people are even traveling 3 hours to meet up! Boy am I thankful for my friends!
Happy Turkey Day to all!

Vocab:
Turkey: der Truthahn
Feast: das Fest
Family: die Familie
Friendship: die Freundschaft