Happy New Year!

I haven't written in so long, my fingers feel a little bit rusty. Writing requires more thought than it used to.

Normally I would have written hundreds of e-mails by now, but somehow the e-mails never came, even though I've been in 9 different cities in 3 different countries in the past two weeks. I still have two weeks to go.

So, the short version is such:

Dublin was designed to be a mock trial. Can I live there or not? Do Gerd and I get more serious, or do I decide it's to far, too rainy, and too different? I suppose I passed, but only with a C. It is rainy, far, and different. While I had a good time with Gerd's friends, hanging out in pubs, it's not something I'd want every day of the week. Gerd assures me he'd go maybe once a week to meet up with friends, but ordinary life isn't much different than in the US. It's rainy, but I can handle that I suppose, Boston at least prepared me for bad weather. And far away? Yes, but the flights are about the same duration as they would be to New Mexico. I really wanted to live near my mother, but something tells me a little distance wouldn't be bad for either of us. No, the only remaining argument is over work hours, with my concern remaining that Gerd won't come home until 8, which will not work for me. He says he'll be better than that, but can't guarantee me anything earlier than 7, possibly 6:30, which frankly is just too late if we have a family, which is what I want. Oh, and JOBS. I might be able to work, but probably not in elementary, middle, or high schools. Only with students trying to gain credits to go to college. While I'm not entirely sure about this, I'm willing to try it, for a while. I wanted to stay home with children, but have I mentioned Dublin is expensive? Yes, very expensive. Like one of the top ten most expensive cities in the world. New York City and San Francisco didn't even make the list. It's that expensive.

Which brings us to Droghada. That's a smaller city (about 30,000) an hour north of Dublin by train. I had hoped it would only be 45 mintues, because that's what I consider to be a realistic cut-off time for commutes. Sure, we all wish we lived 5-10 minutes from work, which is why houses are more expensive the closer they get to commercial centers. Droghada would mean I could live in a smaller city yet Gerd could work in the city...which he was addimately opposed to. Too long a commute, doesn't want to live somewhere small, etc. I brough up Wicklow, 45 minutes south of the city, same sort of set-up. Still, he doesn't want a small village. I do. Plus, if Gerd plans to bring work home, at least he could be doing it on the train both ways, therefore avoiding time at home on the computer. Obviously this is still a point of contention.

Newgrange. Monolithic tomb one day before solstice. Not much to be said, other than, cool. An ancient mound with a rock tunnel and monolitic art. This requires a more detailed description, but I'm trying for the short version.

We left for Frankfurt, where we were going to meet up with friends from Boston for the morning, have breakfast, and see the blind museam. They have a museam devoted to helping the seeing "view" blindness, and I was really looking forward to it. We didn't have the time, however, if we wanted to catch the first train to Dresden, and the second train got in at something like 1am.

Dresden was the surprise of the trip. While our accomodations (Gerd's brother's bachleor pad) were sparce, Dresden was suprisingly well put together. I thought the whole thing burned down so there wouldn't be anything to see. Not so. Somehow we missed the museams by the river Elbe, and the Germans spend 10 years reconstructing the Frauen Kirke in the center of the city. They develeloped a software program that calculated where the original bricks landed after the explosion and found many of the original pieces of the building. Now the church is both black, speckled with the newer white material.

Chemnitz was mostly spend indoors in a 650 square foot apartment with 5 people and one bathroom. Gerd had a wonderful time visiting with his family, I was glad to get to know them, but ready to go a few days before we left for Basel. I was so ready to leave that, when we had a choice of leaving in 15 minutes or the following morning I was packed in about 5 minutes. Oh, but a Chemnitz highlight is a 50 foot high (I'm guessing here, and I'm really not good with distances) BIG statue of the head of Karl Marx. Chemnitz was once known as Karlmarxstadt.

Gerd liked Basel so much he's going to start looking for jobs in the area. That rather surprized me because he wasn't really keen on Switzerland until we got there. They have more holidays than the rest of Europe though, so I think that sold him on the idea. Originally it sounded like a great plan. I was probably drunk on hot chocholate at the time though. Honestly, I wouldn't mind Basel for a while. It's central, it's beautiful, it's got several nice ways to commute around the town, and it's in the region I love. After a few days though I got a little more concerned how far it is from family (more like an 8 hour flight, and much more expensive than Dublin) and my limited German (not to mention that the Swiss don't speak German, they speak SwitzerDuetch which is a dialect unto itself).

Bad Saeckingen went exceedingly well. We took a day trip from Basel so I could drop in on my German host family. I wasn't sure how it would go, since we had a bit of a falling out near the end of my year as an au pair, but they were genuinely glad to see me. They were selling their furniture store, so I lucked out finding them before they moved. All in all, a healing experience.

Freiburg didn't go so well, however. I've always loved Freiburg, but it was too cold to enjoy it while we were there. The bachle weren't running, nor were the fountains, and the students were home for the holidays. Gerd didn't really get a chance to see what I loved about it, and we left early because everything was going to close for Sylvester. Someday, when it's warm outside, I'm going to drag Gerd back so he can see it all again.

Now I'm in Ulm, and just spent New Years (Sylvester as they call it here) with friends of Gerd from his university. Much computer mumbo jumbo, but mostly just drinking and laughing. I got to play a wii for the first time. Aparently I'm horrible at tennis, but pretty good at bowling. Dinner was gourmet qualifty, with the menu written on leaves. I escaped to our guest room as soon as the fireworks began and Gerd came in and played guitar for me. It was a nice night really, and I'm not really ready for the day to begin.

Well, there's more to write, but already this short version is very long, and now everyone is starting to stir (including the host's 3 month old).