Nostos (homecoming)

Within two hours of having left the Hartsfeild airport bien chargé with the 30 kilos of treasure I had hauled from Bordeaux to Paris to London to Atlanta, I lost everything. Dark parking lot, broken car window, sketchy American city centers, you get the picture. The price of calling home a country whose wealth disparity is unparalleled. Among my most prized possessions were the books I had acquired over my 16 month sejour in France, the fruits of many an afternoon perdu dans les petites ruelles de Paris et Bordeaux.

After a charming christmas filled with festivities and family in Dahlonega, Alan and I continued our tour of American cities, heading first to Baltimore and New York, then turning west towards Saint Louis, and finally south to the capital of Texas. The thing that continued to strike me was how infrequently we came into contact with people. How little our cities felt like cities compared to France's bustling metropolitan centers. The metro system in Baltimore was eerily deserted of people on the first day of 2010. The station was a large echoing concrete structure through which mostly empty trains rumbled every 15 minutes or so. Inside, we crossed a young black lady, heavily made up, two policemen, proudly sporting their pistols on their hips, and an obese white man half heartedly lounging in the ticket window who tried to dissuade us from walking through the North side of the city (you might see a poor person). We exited the station at the inner harbor, which resembled an empty disney land with bright colors and broad streets. We walked the few remaining blocks to our New Year's day brunch destination to find a much livelier scene--all the middle class of Baltimore was there, sipping oversized and over decorated bloody maries and making small talk with the enthusiastic waitstaff. I marveled at the contrast between this and the deserted streets. Everyone had driven in cars, large hunks of metal to keep you distant and safe from the city and your fellow citizens. The site of it made me want to gag. But we stayed on for the two hour wait anyway. And the fried green tomatoes were as promised, if a bit on the salty side.

New York was cold. It was refreshing to see people out on the roads. The roads were loud with honking and street advertisements, but there was life here, and a mixture of social classes, races, and age groups. I threw a french dinner party for my friends there, complete with des tartes aux pommes for desert. We made a table out of packing cartons and listened to Serge Gainsbourg until the wee hours of the morning. Alan and I visited the Met and had lunch with various friends before hopping back on the china town bus to Baltimore and heading west. After driving 10 hours in fairly poor conditions, we arrived at the Indiana border, only to find that the state was closed. Big accident, stand still traffic. We bought a mauve colored hotel room and I took a bath and drank a beer at the same time. La decadence a l'americaine.

I was excited to see the Saint Louis arch that next morning. It had been a long time since I had seen my good friends and I felt immediately at home in Dustin and Ryn's spacious apartment on Pershing. I chatted Dustin excitedly and then we all walked up to Meshugah's where I found everything as I had left it 2 years ago: Derick was loud at work on Newton and Cambridge, Charlie was speaking quietly to some regulars, and the barista asked me for a third time if I had ordered a double or a single shot. I sat at a corner table with Dustin and argued over whether there had been an ancient novel while Ryn read Pamela and Alan programed. That evening I went to Atomic Cowboy to see Firedog play and dance with Rebecca and Liz.

I slept well that night, next to Alan in Dustin's living room. It brought me back to the days of the flophouse, and I got all teary-eyed. The next day I hung out with Mark, and we read Jung's Man and his Symbols out loud and dirty in a poorly lit café. He is going into the dream interpreting biz, and needed some knowledge. The next morning we got up early, packed my bike and blender into the mix, and headed south towards warmer climes. The drive was fairly uneventful save for a second car break-in scare in Oklahoma that turned out to be nothing more than a couple of food service dudes getting lit up on the clock. We were overly paranoid about out duck-taped window.

We got to Austin in an ice pocked car a bit after midnight on the 9th of January. The house was still awake and chatty, and I got to see Arthur! Since then, I have found a part-time gig at a nearby yoga studio and have started auditing classes. Genre and Politics in Antiquity, 19th Century French lit, Cold war Politics, and Aristotle's De Anima. The days are sunny and the cafés are many. Pas si mal que ça.

Prehistory, take two.

Last Saturday Raphael and I woke up at 5am to make the 3 hour drive to Les Ezies to visit the Museum of Prehistory and the expositions available on Lascaux, the most elaborately decorated prehistoric cave in the world which was closed to the public in 1955 because of the co2 damage done to the paintings. The museum provides a well laid out introduction to prehistoric tools and art and it houses a tiny but beautiful lamp found in la grotte de Lascaux that dates back to 20,000 BCE. There are tons of skeletons of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon men, the oldest dating to 34,000 BCE. No one knows what happened to the Neanderthals. Perhaps they were killed by our ancestors, but we have found no traces of violence, or perhaps they integrated themselves into Cro-Magnon society, and didn't go extinct at all. They had larger skeletons and craniums than the Cro-Magnons and their traits can be dated back much further ca 600,000 BCE. They were better hunters than our ancestors and they attacked their prey directly, engaging them in combat, instead of trapping them or scavenging. They also had better tools, were better at fishing, and often had sweeter dwelling spots. The only skill the Cro-Magnon man can claim over the Neanderthal is art. There are no paintings or engravings in the Neanderthal caves, whereas in the caves of the homo sapiens sapiens, the diversity of styles, themes, and tecniques is simply bouleversant. The art instinct dates to 40,000 BCE, or era that marks the rise of homo sapiens sapiens. And not surprising, the first artists were primarily interested in female genitalia. It seems that just as modern day pornography is responsible for the quick advancement of internet technology, the ancient equivalent spurred a similar advances in carving and painting tools. The Museum of prehistory has on display prehistoric vulvas of every shape and size imaginable, and as far as I can tell, we have not made significant alterations to their representation in the past 40,000 years. There is also a panel depicting, in various positions, prehistoric booty, offering us some insight into J-lo's popularity today. Raphael tried to convince me that this booty was religious booty, but in my opinion these booties have more in common with the art my 12 year old students make on their english hand-outs than something you might find in a church. So I have posted the work in question to let you make your own decisions.



After the museum we headed northwest to see the exhibitions specific to Lascaux. The Lascaux museum, in addition to documentary films and representations of the most famous panels also keeps a zoo with modern animals that are the most similar to the ancient ones represented on the cave walls. There was an adorable baby auroch who kept running up and down his pasture to the bemusement of his parents. The first painting to absorb my attention was this painting of a man wounded by a bull (or an auroch). The bull also is wounded, his intestines hanging down from his belly. And the man, very crudely drawn in comparison with the animal, has the face of a bird and an erection. There is a strange bird with a very long leg (perhaps a cane) portrayed below the man. The eyes of the bull are intense, his brow furrowed, his horns lowered, as though conscious that this act of violence will be his last. It is a strange picture. and by far my favorite of those at Lascaux.

Another painting depicted two bulls facing away from each other. It is clear that when the painter began his work he meant for the two animals to be facing the dame direction (look at their legs), but he changed his mind in the process. Many paintings show signs of superimposition, either by the same artist who changed his mind or perhaps by a second artist who thought he could do it better. The documentaries were quite informative in showing step by step how the ancient artist used and reused the same lines to form different images. This reminded me of a documentary I watched on graffiti wars in which it was explained that it was completely acceptable to draw over older works of graffiti, so long as what you created was better than that which preceded you. Its so cool how little things have changed.

If you want to see more of Lascaux and the paintings there, and dont have time to come to france, check out the site: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/#/en/00.xml

Le Pays de L'homme

I spent my 26th birthday in the capital of prehistory deep in Dordogne were I visited caves that have been engraved or painted by men 200,000 years ago. I don't even know how to make sense of that number. As a classicist, I am used to imagining life 5000 or even 10,000 years back, but multiply that number by 20 and I'm more or less lost.

On our way out to Les Eyzies, we stopped by an ancient Roman villa from the 2nd Century CE that boasts some well preserved mosaics and baths. As with many of these ancient sites, the guys from the Middle Ages decided to put a church on it. And so you have to walk around and through this great big medieval church in order to get a clear idea of the grounds. Still it was quite impressive. The mosaics in the baths are all pictures of sea animals and then in the living areas the art becomes more abstract.

After leaving this site, we kept on towards Bergerac where we stopped off to try some of the local wines, the reds darker and stronger than those from Bordeaux, and the whites honey sweet and light. After a quick visit to Cyrano's statues we hit the route again driving through a beautiful countryside scattered with rolling hills and streams and quaint little wooden bridges and finally arriving in Les Eyzies just as the sun was beginning to set. We threw up our tent, shelled out 10 euros, and walked into the little town in search of food. Even in the dark you could feel the presence of the vast overhanging cliffs that threatened the little village. We toured the whole area in less than 10 minutes and shortly after returned to our tent, since there wasn't a single cafe lit up on a sunday evening after 8pm.

In the morning we woke up early and hungry. We walked through the town again really taking in the scenary this time, and noticing how appealing this area might have been for the cro-magnum man because of its cliffs and rock formations offering shelter from weather and wild animals. After eating we headed to la Grotte de Fonte-de Gaume famous for its paintings that date to the Magdalénien period. We have found the tools that they made to apply the paint--tube like things from which the artists would blow the paint onto the engravings. This was the only polychrome site that we visited on our trip (black and red paints). But since any vegetal based coloring would be lost to the ages, we must imagine that these paintings were probably much more colorful à l'epoch.

We hiked up a sizeable hill to the entrance and then were led through the narrow entrance of the cave. These caves were not inhabited because it would have been impossible to light or heat them because of the limited oxygen capacity. This means that the beings that drew these pictures and the other beings whe presumable view them did so in a space that was only frequented to that end, the artistic (perhaps religious) end. Sadly, the paintings on the doorway and in the entrance area were destroyed or badly damaged by kids in the 19th century, before the historic importance of this cave was well known. Still, the cave was incredible! Housing over 80 bisons, a number of Mamoths, and some well-endowed prehistoric ladies, depicted more or less like my friends Caroline sees them today. Something funny is that many of the animals are superimposed one onto the other. That is to say that the artist(s) used lines from one animal to form a different picture if the light hits the work in a different way. very cool, prehistory. Another thing that I found interesting was that most of these animals are depicted in pairs: a mother and her kid, two lovers, (more rarely) a fight between two animals. But always in pairs. On the other hand, the humans were always alone. And the humans were never a part of the animal scenes--no scenes of hunting or anything like that.

Its so amazing how little and how much we know us these people. I like to imagine that they painted everything, all the cliffs and rock faces native to their region. And that they used tons of colors to create their world.

After a couple days of caving, we headed south to visit some famous chateaux that date to the 11th and 12th century and that house modern museums of medieval warfare. Then we visited the old seat of Josephine Baker and her rainbow tribe, paying hommage to one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and remarking the extent to which our conception of art has changed throughout the last two millennia . not as much as all that, I imagine.

Ulster: her capital, her coasts, her craic

My Parisian plane arrived at Belfast International about 30 minutes late Saturday evening, and we all descended into the cloud and drizzle to wander our way to the building and through the airport's long and blank corridors. A few feverish minutes later, I burst through the customs door into the brightly lit waiting area and was swept up by Liz, all smiles and twinkles and led out to the car. I jumped in on the left side, ducking 2 giant surfboards and greeting Ben, husband and driver. And we headed off to the coast amidst loads of story telling and laughter. We arrived at Ben's parents' an hour later, and started dinner, wine, and peace talks. Rachel and Collin were a engaging middle-aged couple, activists in the peace process here in Northern Ireland since the 80s, and well read across a large gamut of texts, all of which in the end spoke to the problems of peace and communication. We talked everything, from internet to the stage and visual arts, from hiking the Alps to baby-making, but all in the context of promoting peace. It was a charming evening, and my brain recently french, made the leap rather quickly into academic English.

In the morning I awoke to peacocks and sunlight at my glass door. I jumped out of bed hours before the rest and ran to the living room where stand these massive glass windows that look out onto the coast, from which one can see Scotland across the sea, Irish peaks up the coast, and the remains of an old fortress just a few feet down from the vegetable garden. I went out into the vast open sky clouded in every shade of grey, met more peacocks (it turns out that the nearest neighbor raises peacocks and rents them out for weddings and parties and the like), a few cows and sheep, examined the little garden, a bit compromised by the peacock presence, and did some cartwheels. Liz woke up and we jaunted off to explore the ruins, too excited to mind that our speech had been rendered more or less null by the fierce gales of wind. We returned to the house to find Ben and Collin drinking coffee and discussing peace and without further delay hopped back into the car in search of a nice surf. The drive around the coast was beautiful--hilly greens dotted with ruins of the middle age and sprinkled with farm animals. We scoped out a couple of spots before Ben settled on one and geared up to hit the waves. Liz and I wrapped up in winter's finest and meandered up and down the white sandy beaches chatting and shivering and doing our best to avoid the steaming heaps of cow dung.

The next day we returned to Belfast, hit a cow en route, and saw Liz off to school and Ben off to work. I took the morning to promenade about town and coffee shop. That evening Liz and I taught her beginners yoga class at the community center and threw in a couple of tough arm balances to mix it up a bit. The next night, we visited Kelly's Cellar, a pub the east side taxi service would have refused to service only a few years ago because of the stark catholic / protestant line that still scars the city. Now the one time meeting place of the IRA has signs on the doors to clarify that that business is no longer welcomed. I ordered a Guinness for myself and a glass of whiskey for Liz and we found a seat not to far from the band, a traditional Irish group of three with a violinist, a guitarist, and a guy playing this funny little accordion bagpipe thing that Ben tells me is called a ... The locals were quick to strike up conversations and keen to hear stories from a couple of yanks. We left after midnight after a second drink bought and paid for by our new friends at Kelly's.

Yesterday I woke up early to accompany Liz to the university and to see the downtown area of the city. I stopped off at the tourist center to browse the guided tour section and found a brochure that offered free tours of the city leaving at 10:00 from the city hall. As it was close to ten, I decided to give it a shot. I found an old Irish man holding up an umbrella with a handwritten free tours sign who was in the company of a shy New Zealander and an Anglican minister to be. After a few rambling stories from our guide about the devastating effects of religion and English rule on his city (pointedly directed at our young priest) we headed off to discover the city. Our guide was thorough. He had the story behind every building--this building here was an old dance club in the 50s owned by a matron famous for physically dictating the proper space between young dancers, bombed in the 70s and rebuilt after the 98 peace agreement. And here's the square where ... was hung for being a protestant, and here is were Bloody Friday took its victims, and here there were walls and metal detectors that I passed through every evening as a youngster to meet my girlfriend who was on the other side. I remember spending many an evening waiting for her to pass or standing in line to do the same, and it all seemed quite quotidian to the both of us. And here is the bar were I bashed in the face of John Lennon for trying to support the IRA, well he was a mean codger, and in the end it was me who got the short end of it, and so on and so on... We must have covered the city 6 times over, popping in and out of business, artist's workshops, old libraries, music venues, and churches. And at many of the stops, a new guide led us through his specialty, be it the 18th century famine or the time square beheadings, after warmly greeting Arthur and catching up on family and local news. We saw the orchestra practicing, we saw a baby being baptised, we chatted with the whole of the city. By the time he had begun to wind down it was well after 3pm. I left a tip and my new friends to meet Liz and devouer 2 late lunches to fix my calorie deficient.

We walked through the park to get to the yoga studio, stoping by the newly opened mummy exhibit at the museum. Got to the studio, set up, and taught a kick ass partner yoga class. Then we took a taxi to West Belfast (the catholic side) and were hosted by a local radio that still does a number of its emissions in Gaelic. The taxi pulled up to an iron gated junkyard around which kids and teenagers were setting off fireworks and throwing rocks. We waited in the car until the radio host came down to open the fence and lead us through the urban remains up a a wide stair case glowing with yellow light and through a warehouse of sorts to the little room that housed the radio equipement and a couple of DJs. The lady interviewed us about our yoga practice and got Liz to talk about all the stuff she is doing to promote mind / body art forms in Belfast. Two hours flew by and we ended by showing off a couple of acro tricks in the studio.

We came home and crashed. Today, bookstores and halloween costume shopping!

Mes premiers jours à Bordeaux

It has been almost a year since I moved to Bordeaux, and I believe its time for a few reflections on the whole experience. I couldn’t understand a word if French when I arrived. I had no idea how ostracizing it would be to live in a country, work in a school, or dine in an apartment in which I couldn’t communicate readily with the people there. On the flight from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me, an old Bordelais who was busy reading Le Monde and taking advantage of Air France’s liberal wine policy. I told him in English that I was moving to Bordeaux and he asked how long I had studied French. When I replied that I had not, in fact, studied his language, his face changed from one of coldly interested bemusement to one of out and out disdain. I forgot the exact words he used, but his tone was clear enough. Il a pensé que les affairs n’irent pas pour moi.

I arrived to the city by taxi. The bright afternoon sun cooled by the breeze from the Garonne pleased me, as did the rows of grapes we passed along the way, each with a rose at its head to protect against a certain type of disease common to vineyards. I met Iris, the girl I had found on appartager.com to be my roommate, and she whisked me around to diners and parties for the first week or so. I stayed with her some nights, with other of her friends other nights; for our lovely apartment on 47 Rue de Begles was yet to be vacated by its current tenants. Finally we moved in; I collected my things from all over the city, met Hanna, our third roommate, and began cleaning one of the dirtiest charming little 3 room apartment I had ever seen!

The first week of October was an orientation of sorts to my new job. We had eight hour long meetings each day explaining how our contracts worked, what type of insurance we had, general job description stuff, etc. Or at least, that’s what some friends told me we had discussed; for, I had not understood a word of the meetings. not a word. My head was frantically trying to process this language, but I didn’t understand a word. It was wearying. By the end of the second week of meetings during the day followed by diners and fierce discussions of politics with Iris and her friends, I was exhausted. By the end of the forth week, my shocked brain learned to comprehend French. Of course I didn’t understand each word, still don’t; pourtant, j’ai compris. I could feel the computer in my head, physically feel it rewiring itself. It was an agonizing evolution. I’m not sure I could force myself through it again. Well maybe I could, but that is because there is something of the masochist within me…

After the orientation process, I was to present myself to my new school and my new principal. I woke early, dressed myself in the fashion, and rode my bike 3 kilometers outside the city center to Jean Cocteau, Ecole Elementaire. I clumsily asked the lady who came to the door for Madame la Directrice and was immediately whisked up the stairs into a small, poorly lit but brightly decorated office where sat Madame Gabrielle with her black frizzy hair branching out stiffly over her bare shoulders as though it had a volition of its own.

She wore thick dark makeup around her eyes, which, along with her coiffure and sharply manicured nails, added to her misplaced forest creature appearance. She was a petite, plump middle-aged lady stuffed into a long skin-tight black lace skirt with a generous slit up the leg, complete with fishnet stockings and dangerously high stilettos. Before her, rising out of the heaps of papers and childrens books, lay a tiny cup of coffee, a paper cutter, and a large hunk of uncut sugar. After kissing me with her rouge covered lips, she let out a shrill plaint in French about the lack of a proper sugar cubes for her coffee, and she violently lodged the hunk of sugar in the paper cutter’s teeth and shattered that hunk with all the force those fat little hands could muster. She finally succeeded in forcing a large shard of sugar into her petite little cup.

After a few minutes of confusion and chaos, she brought out her first English sentence. “vouldayoooleekatay, marie?” Oui Madame. And we went arm and arm down to find the other teachers in the break room. The chaos recommenced and I kissed a thousand strangers who soon after began arguing loudly amongst themselves about when I would come to whose class. I was sitting there with them, drinking coffee (for although La Madame had offered me a tea, she had done this so much as to propose a tea as to try a "proper" English sentence), but after the initial kisses, I was more or less irrelevant. After a half an hour or so, I was handed out a scratched out and scrawled over piece of paper that was my schedule for the next year. I was then led off to another office, where a haughty French man gave me important papers and asked me important questions, none of which I understood. After he left the room, a secretary came up to me and shyly asked in a heavily accented English (but in English!) if I would like some help. I gratefully accepted and we got to work on the nightmare of documents and signatures and letters that is the French bureaucracy. Monsieur Renault, the haughty French man who was in fact the boss of my boss (La Madame) returned and showed annoyance at the aid his secretary was giving me, but the work was for the most part finished, and I was soon released with orders to present myself for courses the following Monday. I went back to my dirty little pallet on the floor of 47 Rue de Begles and I slept!

My Bavarian Education

I just said goodbye to the people who have been my family for the past month. I cried when I kissed Hanna, and my eyes continued to glisten as I hung my head out the train window to spend a parting moment with the four of them. Hanna reassured me she would soon visit Bordeaux and Hildagard encouraged me with smiles and hand signals to dry my eyes--alles ist in ordnung, Mary! But the tears streamed down my face in spite of my efforts. I caught the eye of Harald and then those of his father and before I could blow a kiss to Hanna the train pulled her from my sight and headed off with a heavy thud towards Paris.

It is difficult to put words to their kindness and generosity. L'affluence d'émotions a l'air plus acceptable dans la langue française; donc je dirai tout simplement que j'ai passé des vacances de rêve chez eux. I felt like a child in the most positive sense. Everyday someone taught me something new. Hanna trained me in table tennis deftly hitting the ball ten times to the left side the tens times to the right side of the table, patiently fetching my wayward balls when I hit them into the garage, the flower garden, down the hill, etc. Helmut taught me to hit a tennis ball, cheerfully running back and forth across the court to return my clumsy serves in exactly the same spot on my side of the court.

One of the first mornings after my arrival we all decided to go to the lake for a day of wind sports. Hanna, excited to be on her surf board after months of waiting, was off like a flash, sailing skillfully against the strong alpine wind. Her father helped me construct a second sail and showed me physically what I was to do. I got in the water. Freezing cold lake I thought then (in fact it was only my second day in Germany and I had yet to habituate myself to the German taste for cold). I balanced myself on the board, feeling fairly confident--my legs firmly planted slightly more than shoulder length apart, toes spread, muscles engaged--fertig! I found the rope attached to the sail. Hanna had told me that I might find it a bit heavy the first time. What an understatement. The thing wouldn't budge--I mean not in a million years could I hope to lift this 5 million square meter submerged sail out of its lake. But Hanna's father continued relentlessly to advise in a language that I did not understand. And I, frustrated that I could not obey, tried again. This time slipped off the board completely. Halt! Halt! Halt! said my teacher, and without delay he went off in search of another boat onto which he loaded my board, my sail, and me. We rowed to another side of the lake where the wind was less strong. We reconstructed the sail, rather he constructed as I looked on, and I tried again. Harald arrived on his sailboat to translate the words of his father and lend me a hand. By now I was exhausted, but with Harald's help I managed to pull the sail out of the water and even sailed a few meters before losing my balance and tumbling back into that cold ass lake. When we arrived back at the house, my sentiment was still one of frustration. As I mounted the stairs, Harald, who as descending, tousled my hair as if to say cela n'est pas grave; I appreciated that!

Hanna's mom taught me how to make knudel--a delicious Bavarian specialty made from day old bread, eggs, herbs, and veggies. Her father taught me how to chose the ripe hazelnuts from the trees and how to crack them open with the light stroke of a hammer. Together, Helmet and Hildegard showed me the best places in the high Alpes to find wild mushrooms. I have no idea how we didn't get lost that day! Harald taught me some basic chess strategies. And Hanna, since the first day that I met her, has never stopped teaching me the most important things! From introducing me to the works of the Blaue Reiter, in particular those of Franz Marc, to showing me the proper way to tie the bow on the back of a dirndl, to explaining the petite nuances of French adjectives and their placements. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time with this family and to have learned so much from each member. It all makes me feel so proud to be human!

bin so stark

I arrived in Munich one evening with a suitcase loaded with wine for my hosts and the soft remnants of a half eaten camembert who had bravely gotten me through the day en route (Bordeaux-Paris-Munich) couched in my sac à main. Hanna met me with a bisou at the station and led me and my enthusiasm off to find her father and mettre la cap sur Walchensee, the little Bavarian village that has been my home for the past few weeks. Her father offered me a lively handshake followed by a warm hug, cheek to rudy cheek. freut mich!--i tried in German, aggressively clearing my throat to the tune of his laugh, and we set out. Hanna and i sat in the back, chatting and giggling, reeling off the last few months in the span of a few minutes. The roads turned mountainous and we pulled to a stop in front of a large dark house, the shadows of flowers falling over every partially lit window frame. Toute de suite I was offered beer, soup, and a lovely bed, all wooden and flowery, in that traditional german style.


My schedule quickly adjusted to the early morning call for Frühstück and the even earlier morning dip in the nearby lake encircled by the low Alpes. My first days are a blur of tennis and ping-pong spielen, wind surfing, and sailing. My french cafe habits have suffered significantly from this change of pace!


Hanna, dressed and coiffured in the proper fashion, spends the evenings dancing the Plattler with other elaborately adorned girls and boys. The men tell jokes in a raucous dialect and the band plays the bartender's favorites to receive his favors. And how they dance,

these Bavarian boys and girls! skirts flying and hands clapping, beer sloshing, and faces reddening. and the girls spinning faster and faster, Hanna spinning the fastest of them all!




When people from the village meet, they greet one another with "servus," a latin word meaning something like "at your service." The first time I tried my voice at this new word my mind spun into Latin and I called out "salve" to a confused villager and hurried away, ever embarrassed of my faults! I spend a good 3-5 hours of each day Deutch lernen, but my progress seems frustratingly slow. However, the people here are incredibly encouraging of my baby steps, laughing at my accent, repeating my exact phrase to their neighbors in case they missed my attempts, and explaining with slow and wide eyes and lips where I went wrong.


I'm happy here, and strong. I feel healthier than I have felt in over a year. The mountains suit me well, their fresh winds and flowers. My mind is clear and sharp, ready to inhale it all.