Odd and ends

So many things still to write about--dinner with Stefan's brother's family yesterday in Odelzhausen and our conversation about whether Jewish soldiers would have been included on WWI memorials with crosses (yes, if the crosses were "iron crosses," but probably not if the crosses were church-affiliated, and so much more to say about different kinds of anti-Semitism and how it played out regionally in the part of the world now known as Germany); how to recognize small Bavarian churches from afar (see photos below--there are basically two predominant types of Baroque towers, the onion dome and the simple triangle); lunch with Inge (Helen's best friend for the past 70 years); the annual dueling Haensel und Gretels in Muenchen (today we reconfirmed that the Gaertnerplatz performance is not the one to attend if you want to be able to hear the singers over an adequate pit orchestra, but we aren't sure we can handle going to the Staatsoper performance next year to confirm that it's the one to see); and how sad it is that the performance of "Aloha He, Stern der Suedsee" by Die Flippers has been removed from youtube.com because of copyright restrictions.

But (to paraphrase Chaucer) instead of writing about all those things, we're feverishly packing and repacking, already pining for Germany before we get on a plane tomorrow to head back to the U.S. We thought we had all our suitcase and carry-on space cleverly mapped out, and then a Nigerian guy tried to blow up an airplane in Detroit the other day and our airline changed its baggage rules. Oh well. Back to work.

There are, of course, lots of things to look forward to back home: our friends, our cats, our house, our neighborhood; organs to play, pots to wheel-throw, a choir to conduct, writing workshops to give; a gas oven and stove top, American baking powder, and local streets that are wide enough for two cars to drive on in opposite directions at the same time. We're dusting of our "might coulds" and "oughta shoulds" and girding ourselves for culture shock.

I don't know that I'm ready to give up my Wadlstrumpf home quite yet, but our final week of Vodafone service expires at ~22:30 tonight, and that deadline seems an appropriate way to mark the end of a lovely six months of talking to myself and to you dozen or so loyal readers out there in ether-space.

But saying farewell to Wadlstrumpf doesn't mean I'll be giving up my new blogging habit. Tune in Tuesday at mightoughtashould.blogspot.com for the next exciting installment.

Also, pfirdi, pfirdi, also, also, servus, pfirdi!