Ok, finally I'm posting, my goodness!

First, It's been incredible how much my German has improved in the last 2 weeks. Incredible.

Second: I'm really excited about Annie and Carrie coming!

Third: I'm driving to Stuttgart (actually south of Stuttgart in Gärtringen) to stay with Alex's parents. I'm excited about that.

I have my History of the German Language class today. Let me tell 'ya, not the most intriguing stuff one could hope to listen to...but it's a lot better now that we are in to Middle High German. Old German was...

And MHD (mittle hoch deutsch) is more like middle english...Chaucer's era and I can understand about as much Middle German as I can Middle English. WoooHoooo.

But the Prof always seems into it, which is really cool.

Other observation: The weather here is humid. There are lots of little flies and when I ride my bike they come blizting into my face and all over me. When Mengni and I were riding to the ferry we were covered (the front of us anyway) with flies...ewy.

I've been playing my violin more lately, which has been wonderful. I kind of forgot how much I like playing the violin. I've also been giving lessons and I must say that Amelie is doing fabulously...we're already done with all the twinkles (for those of you who know Suzuki method) and we're on Lightly Row. She learns fast. Probably helps that she can already read and count music and play piano.

Oh yeah! My garten. I also have some pictures of my garten that I've been working on. We started a little late, but it's coming along nicely. A lot of work, let me tell you, but worth it. If I don't stay in Germany I won't be able to harvest my veggies, but it is still worth it.

Oh, and I got some German music from Alex (andra), which I'm looking forward to hearing. Unfortunately i can't put it on my ipod until I get it on my stick because my CD drive doesn't work...wow.

Ok, here are the pictures of the adventure that Mengni and I took...we tried two other times to take a boat ride on the Rhine but were too late both times before. Third time's the charm. We rode up the river to Linz, a beautiful little city, had soup, hung out, and then had ice cream. We had a really good time!

Here's the boat we rode up on. As I saw it coming, I was like "are you serious? We are rideing in that thing?" of course, I thought that and didni't say it. But seriously, how touristy can you get? However, it was totally pleasant and wonderful and professional. It didn't look like a whale on the inside. We actually sat on top in the open air in the very front. It was beautiful and relaxing and because it was so warm and sunny most of the other people were in the shade. Fabulous.

Here's our view of an ICE train, the really fast inter-city ones. I'll be riding one of them today when I go to Stuttgart. This one that goes along the ride is probably the most beautiful train trip that one can imagine.

Ok, these next pictures are all out of order, but OH WELL! I don't have time to organize them. This was the ice cream than Mengni bought. It was 5 scoops. I was totally impressed that she downed the WHOLE thing.

Conquered. She did it, and in enough time too. We had to make it to our boat on time, but she finished it. She's a kick. Full of life...you know when you meet those people who are just full of life? That is Mengni.

This is completely out of order and extremely irking that it is still sideways, even though I rotated it on my computer. Bwawwwww. Irritating. Anyway, this is totally non-typical, to have basketball on the newspaper front. Oh yeah, the European soccer championships start on Sunday!

Here's me doing the double peace thing, I don't know, the students from China and Japan do it, and I was hangin' with Mengni, so I did it to. Right after this picture was taken it started to rain like torrentially (not spelled right, I know...)

Mengni, very content on top of the ship...

Sideways. Ergg. There's a view fromt he back of the ship.

When it started raining we went inside and Mengni noticed that we were the only people under the age of like 65...hmmmm. Ok.

Ah, there we are in the ship.

In Linz there was this fountain. I think Mengni and I took about 20 pictures of ourselves making various faces...

<> Ok, after the Boat Adventure on the Rhine we had to ride home with the bikes. I, being the clever thinker that I am, did not remember to bring a rain jacket or umbrella with me (I mean, COME ON, it was like 90 degrees and sunny when I left!), however, that same brain that didni't remember the umbrella was clever enough to think "Oh, hello, a garbage bag will keep the rain off", oh aren't you smart hilary. Ok NOT. I didn't realize that a garbage bag was such a big deal. Drama, anyway, I don't have much time, but the lady in the boat wouldn't give or sell me one, and the lady in the cafe on land wouldn't either. It was lame. I was shocked and appalled. Really? No garbage for a poor, freezing, drenched girl who (I told them how far) has to ride home with a bike? Nope. We had fun though and it was an adventure. When we got home we watched an old German movie about the queen of Austria and drank tea.

This is totally unlrelated. I woke up last week to this. It was fabulous. We had thunder and lightening about 3 nights last week.

Ok, there is my garden before the work that I did this week....

Maybe you can't see the difference, but the difference is about 2 hourse of work. Ripping up that grass and weedness (left) is very strenuous, and then breaking up the soil with a shovel isn't too easy either.

Here are herbs, Kohlrabi, Fennel, Lettuce...On the other side I have Cukes, Zucchini, Tomato and peppers.

Oh, there are the Cucumbers!

Ok, Bye! I'm so late.