Autumn mist

My parents have been here for about 24 hours, and my father has already struck up more conversations with the natives than I have in my entire three months here--and in English, no less. Yesterday, we walked over to the farmers' market on the corner, and it happened that one of the local candidates for the SPD (Social Democrats) was there schmoozing for votes. His supporters--dressed in bright red and handing out bright red pencils, balloons, and political info--were happy to chat with the camera-wielding tourists about how great it is that Obama has cancelled plans for an American missile shield in Europe and to ask why Americans can't get health care right. At a Thai restaurant in the Altstadt, my dad struck up a conversation with the Philippino waiter about linguistic similarities between Tagalog and Malay. Oh, to be an extrovert.

Today's itinerary included a stop at the Lienhart bakery to see if my blog-reading mother could tell the difference between Kuchen and Torte; and the Best-of-Ruins-Reachable-by-Car tour, featuring Hochburg and Kastelburg.

Thanks to a week of school, Elias now knows how to say "snap" in German. For those of you who came of age a generation or more ago, "snap" is the current American elementary-school version of "drat." German kids say "Mist." (I looked up "Mist" in a German-English dictionary, and the dictionary said it meant "Bugger! [Brit]." I haven't told Elias what "bugger" means, but he heard the word and now thinks "Mist" means "booger," a substitute he finds sufficiently scatalogical).