Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 15:32:51 +0200
Subject: "The Periodic Adventures and the Adventurous Periodical of Marleigh," 
 Issue 18

Hallo!

So this week went better than last week.  As I suspected, my laptop
wasn't done by Friday evening, so I was without a computer for the
weekend.  On the up side, there was lots of wacky stuff going on this
weekend.  There was "City Fest," dragon boat races, and a traditional
Schwabian choir festival.  All of these events, I was later told, were
unrelated and all just happened to be scheduled for the same weekend.
So Emma and I went to the market as usual Saturday morning and there
were all these random choirs singing as we walked down the street.
After the market ended at two, they took down those booths and put up
other ones for the City Fest.  I didn't really go to that, though.
Seemed to be mostly drinking and wandering about, and hanging out with
drunk people gets old quickly.  Emma and I had lunch on the boat on the
Danube instead, and that was way cool.

In the evening, Emma and I went to the movies with her co-worker,
Micah.  We went to see Entrapment in German.  I even understood most of
it (I mean, the plot wasn't really that important anyway.)  You won't
believe it, but Emma bought some popcorn for us to share, and it was
sweet.  Yup, popcorn in Germany is sugar-coated.  And of course, the
sugar is clear, so unsuspecting Americans don't realize this until the
first bite...  I guess that's how it's always served.  We told Micah
that it ought to have butter and salt instead, and she wrinkled her nose
at us and said that was wrong.

Sunday I wanted to go see the dragon boat races.  Some folks from my
floor at DC were racing, but I promised Emma to let her do laundry at my
place, and it ended up taking forever.  The fact that she didn't come
over until 1 didn't help either.  Anyway, we managed to get all her
laundry washed and packed back up by 6.  She hadn't done laundry since
coming to Germany, since she couldn't find any washing machines, and so
every single pice of clothing she owned needed to be washed.

Since then, life has been less exciting.  The laptop got fixed on
Tuesday, broke again with the same error I reported before on Wednesday
morning, and was fixed again by Wednesday afternoon.  Hopefully it'll
stay fixed this time.  I'm thinking it's an overheating problem, since
the weather has gotten hotter recently.

I leave tomorrow for Stuttgart, to go to a conference thingy for all the
American interns at DC.  Most of these interns are already in Stuttgart,
but Emma and I have to take the train.  We'll go to talks and there will
be a tour of Stuttgart with stops at various museums, so it should be
fun.  Emma and I are staying until Sunday, so we'll be there on the
Fourth of July.  We were thinking of going dancing or something the
night before in celebration, but Emma's ankle is still messed up, so I'm
not holding my breath.

German Word(s) of the Week:
schmerzen = hurt, pain, ache
der Kopf = the head
der Koerper = the body
der Koffer = the suitcase

Sound carries well in our apartment, and my room is right by the phone.
Ahn often calls her cousins in Berlin to talk, and when she does she
speaks this wierd combination of German and Vietnamese.  Her German's
not so great, her cousins don't know much English, and I guess
everyone's Vietnamese is out of practice, so listening to her switch
languages mid-sentance can be pretty funny.  So anyway, she was talking
on the phone and I could hear her really well, since my door was open.
She was trying to tell her cousins something about how she was hurt.
She said she had a pain in her "Koffer" (suitcase).  This was clearly
not what she meant.  I heard her struggling and mumbling in English, so
I listened in to try to help.  I suggested that maybe she meant "Koerper"
(body), since that sounded sort of like Koffer and made more sense.  Her
cousin was also trying to make suggestions on the other end of the
line.  Eventually, Ahn says something like "that thing over my throat,"
after which her cousin realizes she means "Kopf" (head).  It turns out
all this foolishness was Ahn just trying to explain that she has a
headache (Kopfschmerzen), which was probably not helped by the three-way
language problems we were having.  :)

Honor and Glory...
	to the DaimlerChrysler Dragon Boat Team (took a second and third place)
	to two weeks until I go to Rome!
Dishonor and Notoriety...
	to well-meaning roommates accidently overwatering one's plants
	   (I think Esther will be dead in a few days.  It's got some
	   serious root rot.)
	to the lack of coin-op public laundrymats

Tschuess!

Marleigh