On Monday all the Americans got together for a BBQ. One of the families has moved back to the states this week and it was a going away party. Most of the time we end up talking about how things are different in the States and when people are visiting home again. We also talk about how difficult German is for Americans. I wonder how many years those will be the main topics of conversation.
Elisa got me shoes on Tuesday and I am so excited! I have to give you a little background on that first, (so forgive the long story). I had been looking for new shoes for awhile and I finally bought a pair (size 43). After I wore them for a day they had stopped feeling like they fit. But the store wouldn’t exchange them for a different size by that time. I was really sad, because I had wasted the money on shoes that were going to be so fun but that weren’t comfortable. After that, Elisa and I went to the mall near our house to a different shoe store run by the same company. We went because we also wanted to look at dress shoe styles. I brought my first pair of shoes just in case they could do anything about it. No one in the shop spoke English. So Elisa chatted with them in German. She explained how I had gotten the wrong size before, and we wanted help to make sure we didn’t make the same mistake with my dress shoes. The ladies chatted with her for awhile. Elisa has learned so much German! They ended up going down to their cellar and finding a pair of size 42 casual shoes to exchange with me. It was especially lucky because they didn’t even carry that shoe style. I was so excited, because the shoe style is my favorite. I never could have gotten by in English like that. Thanks Elisa! π
This weekend is another three-day holiday weekend in Switzerland. We get Whit Monday off, even though nobody knows what that is. Well, people know that it’s some Catholic holiday. Elisa and I decided to take a trip to Munich. It’s about 5 hours away by train. We’ve been walking around seeing the sights. Our feet are kind of tired. Some of the things in Munich that were fun are the Glockenspiel, which is like a giant cuckoo clock. And the Olympic park, which was used in the 1972 Olympics. And the Nymphenburg Palace, which is enormous. Unfortunately we weren’t prepared for the weather to turn cold and wet. Today we wore shorts in a cold drizzle. Yesterday while we were on a train Munich even got hail.
When we arrived on Saturday we took a train to Dachau. Elisa’s grandpa Walter Stabler was in the 69th Rainbow Division with my grandpa Jack Parry during WWII, and that division was the first of the American forces to arrive there and liberate the camp. Dachau was the only camp to be used during the whole time the Nazis were in power. They had a good museum. But the whole thing was really unsettling. We didn’t see anything that was graphic. We saw a lot of cells and barracks and read some sad historical captions.
On Sunday we did an excursion to Salzburg. The Old Town there is a good place to go walking around. I loved Salzburg. I tried to get Elisa to sing the Sound of Music soundtrack at each of the historical sites. She sang for a few of them but she was too shy to be on camera at every one. π I was really excited because I recognized so many of the places. There is a staircase in a garden where the movie shows the family leaping up and down the stairs and singing. We got Elisa on camera for that one. She thought she had sung the wrong notes (“do,” “re,” “mi”) during part of it, so she spent a long time singing it to herself to transcribe it from memory. She admitted to being a little obsessed. I do the same thing though. Sometimes I take hours to run through a math problem in my mind until I have it figured out. Elisa pointed out that music is all based in math too, so we decided that we have the same obsession but we just give it different names. Also in our tour group we met someone who had worked for Maria von Trapp after she had emigrated to Vermont.
Wednesday was a part-day at work. Elisa and I went to the zoo with two coworkers. Elisa went sliding down the slide at the kids’ playground. I had to be the grown-up. π You’ll have to imagine what that means for Chad.
Thursday I was off work for some Catholic holiday. We went with the Mascaros on a trip straight south to Genoa (or Genova), Italy. Genova itself was not that interesting. It’s kind of dirty, like a lot of Italy we’ve seen. We enjoyed the rats and the graffiti sight-seeing. We won’t mention the smell. (Don’t touch the subway walls). They have a great aquarium though. It’s one of Tony’s favorite areas. He served his mission there so he showed us around. We met some of their friends who still live in Genoa. Paulo brought us Italian chocolate. A warning to everyone else: you have to be either brave or stupid to give chocolates to someone who lives in Switzerland.
After Genoa we went down the coast to Santa Margarita. That’s where we got to play on the beach. The water was just barely warm enough to play in. The gelato is really good there. Santa Margarita is what I imagined when I thought of Italy. On our last day we went home through Como, Italy. Como is another of Tony’s favorite places. It’s on a lake in some mountains bordering Switzerland. No matter where we go, we never regret that we are going home to Switzerland because it is so incredibly beautiful here.
I got lots of comments on Elisa’s primary lesson today. She’s a superstar here. We’re learning the song about the golden plates being hidden so last night Chad and I made some golden plates. And then I had the kids write their favorite scripture stories in it. We hid the golden plates around the room while they played hotter-colder singing louder and softer to find it.
We had the new missionary couple over for dinner on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday Chad worked pretty late, so I slaved away on my Independent Study class. My brain is pretty fried. We do not remember Thursday so maybe we partied hard that night. π On Friday we hung out with our buddies, Tony and Rachel. By that I mean, I was using their iron to finish curtains, and everybody was kind of doing their own thing. They have become like family–we just do nothing with each other for the sake of company. We had plans to take a day trip on Saturday–but we spent the day doing a lot of little jobs and errands that have been backing up. WOOHOO!It was nice to talk to family on Sunday. We felt kind of obligated since it was Mother’s day. π It was my brother Jeff’s birthday–he has officially reached the late 20’s and it was fun to tease him. Primary was a little terrifying. My pianist wasn’t there and we were starting to learn a new song. Then the sister who was supposed to hang around to help translate suddenly left the room. I tried not to show the little kids how panicked I was! Elisa is laughing now but she wasn’t on Sunday. I hope I never have to do that again.
Chad has been waiting to get a haircut for a LOOOOONG time. I really like when his hair grows out. It gets all cute and curly. He finally got one this week. I was shocked when he came back with such short hair. I thought we had gone over the haircutting vocabulary enough. Kurz und Lang. I wasn’t even positive I was ordering a haircut. He had quite an interesting time. In the middle of the haircut the lady left a few locks kind of long. I guess she thought that my cowlicks would make it stick up if she didn’t. But I don’t know any of those words in German, so she just grabbed a lock of hair in her fingers and stood it straight up and said, “BING!”
With all of my emotional waterworks I was inspired to ask Chad about crying. Apparently only fiction makes him cry. The only time I think I have seen him cry was at Wicked. His long list of highly emotional moments include, the first act finale in Wicked, Les Mis and Of Mice and Men, oh yeah and Mr. Holland’s Opus (but thats embarrassing). I figured bringing the subject up would make him more secure with his emotions. He now tells me every time he cries invisible air bubbles. He has explained that he is always just SO emotional but his tears don’t work like mine.
Well besides conversations between Chad and I that probably do not make any sense to anyone else, we haven’t been doing too much worth noting. It will be nice to include some of the family in our bizarre conversations when we visit the States in July.
