Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 12:52:09 +0200
Subject: "The Periodic Adventures and the Adventurous Periocial of Marleigh," 
 Issue 19

Hello!

I haven't written for a bit.  Let's see, what have I been doing...

Oh yeah, I went to Stuttgart a few weekends back.  It was much fun.  It
was just for the MIT-Germany people working for DaimlerChrysler, which
are me, Emma, and Raul, who's working in Berlin.  They flew him in for
the weekend.  Frau Albrecht had borrowed this really nice car (S-Class,
leather seats, huge car, built in GPS and navigation system) from the
company to drive us around in.  On Friday we did official DC stuff
during the day, like touring a car factory and hearing about this other
internship program they had.  Frau Albrecht paid for everything.  Emma
and I had talked about going to see "Miss Saigon" on Saturday night,
when the official part of the weekend was over.  Raul said he wanted to
go too, so Frau Albrecht got tickets for us on Friday night and came
with us.  She got second row, center tickets and put them on DC's tab.
She's so cool!

Saturday we went to the Stadtmuseum, this big art museum.  We had a
personalized tour, where this really goofy but enthusiastic guy told us
all about the archetecture and the art and stuff.  It was really cool.
Frau Albrecht left us at the museum and we headed out on our own.  We
hung out in a biergarten for a bit, then decided it was too hot and went
in search of air conditioning.  We found a showing of "The Matrix" in
the original English (with German subtitles) and went to that to wait
out the hottest part of the day.  More bumming around in the evening.
Sunday we went to a park, then all went home.  It was the Fourth of
July.  We had intended to do something more clever than that, but Raul
had to catch his plane and we were all getting tired, so we just went
home.

Since then... hrm, what have I been doing.  Hanging with Emma.
Shopping.  Stuff.  There was an IAESTE meeting (IAESTE is an internship
organization, it's the group my friends Ivan and Anna work for.)  I
guess enough of the other interns are here to make it worth planning
trips.  There's a whole bunch of interns.  Phillipe is from French
Switzerland, Alper is Turkish, Maria is Yugoslavian, Chio is Spanish,
and Robert is Brazillian.  They all seemed pretty cool.  Many of them
only speak their native language and English, no German.  We all went
out Friday night and had fun getting to know each other.  Hopefully
there will be cool trips planned before I go.  I'd like to go down south
and see Lake Konstanz and the Alps.

There was this sort of amusing thing that happened yesterday.  I was at
Emma's having lunch with her.  She was busy when the phone rang and
asked me to answer it.  I often get flustered answering other people's
phones.  It generally confuses the caller who isn't expecting my voice,
but if I answer it with my name, then they think it's the wrong number.
My compromise is usually to say something to the effect of "Emma
Tevaarwerk's, this is Marleigh."  That's what I attempted to say when I
picked up the phone.  Of course, I realized at the last minute I should
say this in German, and got nervous and totally garbled the
translation.  It was this woman with this really strong Germanic accent
asking for Emma.  I wasn't clear what language I should answer in, which
also threw me off.  Finally, I figured out it was Emma's mom (she was
raised in Holland) and managed to explain no, this wasn't Emma or her
roommates, it was the girl she was going to Rome with.  Mrs. Tevaarwerk
then started telling me how we should be careful in Rome since Amy
(Emma's sister) got robbed there, and don't take too much with us since
it might get stolen.  Emma has figured out who it is at this point and
is saying things like "Is that my mom?  Is she lecturing you about
Rome?" and laughing at the expressions on my face.  Finally I managed to
break into Mrs. Tevaarwerk's monologue and tell her Emma was here.

German Word of the Week:
echt toll! = totally cool!  really neat!

Emma says this constantly.  I thought it rated a slot in the German word
of the week.

Honor and Glory...
	to Kate for a letter, and to Mike P and Ted for moving
	   furniture for me
	to Frau Albrecht, for being echt toll and entertaining three spoiled
	   Americans for a weekend
Dishonor and Notoriety...
	to German weather (I was supposed to go hiking today in the Alps, but
	   the trip got rained out)
	to Emma's roommates, who are complete twits

That reminds me, I got an apartment in Boston.  It's in Bean's new
house, she's got a three person apartment there that she's going to
share with me, Jeremy Brown, and Raphael, The Amazing Feline
Fuzzbucket.  It shall be exciting.

I go to Rome on Wednesday.  I'll probably stay overnight at Emma's the
night before.  I'll be back Sunday, so if y'all don't hear from me for a
while, that's why.

Tschuess!
Marleigh