fresh observations

The revolving door at casa alemania has swung shut for now and the last cupcake crumbs disposed of, so back to our regularly-scheduled blogging.  I think having guests helps me notice things that I’ve already started to take for granted.  Kind of like how A.Frankels used to visit us in SF and point out random things and then lecture us for not appreciating how lucky we were to live in such a cool place.  Note to self: appreciate surroundings.  Starting tomorrow.

Maybe I didn’t notice earlier because there hadn’t been that much rain, but the highways here are made of some special water-resistant material so that when it rains, everything is sluiced off to the sides and the roads stay completely dry, thus allowing maniacal Germans to continue along at the dry-weather pace of 200-250kph.  I suppose this is actually a safe and efficient use of technology, but when you’re driving along and it’s pouring outside and the roads are still pale and dry, it feels like a horror movie.  Maybe only one of those teenage-I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer horror movies, but still!  It’s weird!

And back on the Munich-safety bandwagon, Goofy pointed out that no one locks their bikes around here!  I hadn’t picked up on that, but it is true.  Or if they do, it’s one of those cord-around-the-wheel loops that doesn’t even secure it to a stationary object!  Not a U-lock in sight.  L.T. T.J. would have fits.

Good thing it is so safe here, because I’ve realized I have a terrible habit of leaving my keys in the door.  I have absolutely no idea how this happens, and yet, this has occurred on more occasions that I would like to admit in case the other inhabitant of this apartment comes across this post (in which case, it only happened that one time you found them in the door 20 hours after I’d entered!).  I think I need to start wearing a lanyard in a throwback to collegiate years in order to render such absentmindedness obsolete.

Thanks to my visitors for some highly entertaining weeks.  Keep ‘em coming (don’t forget your cover charge of english-language magazines and strict dress code of hoodies and pajamas only).