Snowman's Nose: It's What's for Dinner

I knew going into this trip to Germany that it was going to be interesting and unique in many ways. For one, there's a bit of a language barrier despite my dad being from the land of bratwurst. I never really picked it up, but I have this ability to get by in the majority of situations. My go-to response unfortunately is nodding my head in agreement and saying okay, which has caused some conspiracy theorists in the family to assume I'm fluent and just refusing to respond in German. Clearly I didn't think through my use of this unconscious reaction, but then again, that's the point behind it being unconscious. Unconscious = no thought involved.
I've been here for a week and a half and have seen numerous Christmas markets spreading from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden to Frankfurt and Bad Homburg. The majority of my travel has involved taking the S-bahn, but I did opt to walk the three miles to Bad Homburg yesterday. I was just excited by the fact that the walking trail went through fields and over the autobahn, with little signs along the way telling me to only cross when it's green to set a good example for the children. I pity any New Yorker who ever comes to Germany.
As I neared Bad Homburg, I reached into my back pocket for my written directions to the Landgraves Castle, but they weren't there. I had to laugh at this because that would be something that would happen. Thankfully with my memory I knew the first two streets I was looking for and as I crossed Urseler Strasse, I realized that I didn't really need directions. For one, there were signs with arrows pointing in the direction of the castle. On top of that, with Bad Homburg being an older town made up of mostly houses, it's quite easy to spot a castle on the horizon. I felt like it was shouting, "I'm over here stupid." Needless to say, I made it to the Landgraves Castle and wandered the small Christmas Market being held in the courtyard before making my way to the Marktplatz and then on to the bahnhof for a ride back to Oberursel.
Upon arrival at Oma's, I realized that my aunt's car was parked outside so I prepared myself for listening to conversations that I would understand maybe one out of every twenty words, which definitely makes it hard to follow. Luckily my brother helped me out with translating when he could, and facial expressions help me realize that my relatives think I was crazy for walking over to Bad Homburg. But my favorite realization was the fact that Youtube videos are a universal language. My aunt happily showed me Crazy Cow and a trailer for Frozen (yes, even the Germans can't seem to let it go). Little did I know that Olaf would provide me with such a humorous talking point over dinner this evening. You see, with my minimal German, there are a handful of awkward silences when my brother and Oma aren't in the room. So when it was just my aunt and I tonight, I was determined to make conversation. My Oma had left a bowl of carrots on the table, so I pointed at them at said, "Olaf Nase." Apparently my aunt thought that was wonderful because soon after my comment, she was on the phone with her sister telling her that we were having Schneemann Nase (snowman's nose) with our bratwurst, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes. This continued on even into dishing up our plates with food because she asked if I wanted some Schneemann Nase. In a land where you barely understand the language, it's important to be thankful for any positive contribution that you make in someone's day and I truly believe I succeeded tonight. It's the little things in life that keep you going and tonight I'm thankful for the laughter I was able to create thanks to me learning the word for nose and watching Youtube.

Island Life

I feel like I've been living in the Twilight Zone, minus the Rod Serling narration. Nowhere else in the world that I've traveled to has caused me to feel like I've been here forever and just arrived all at the same time. Island life seems to disorient me in the best possible way. I have no idea what day it is or what time it is the majority of the time. I go to bed with the sunset and wake up as it rises back into the sky. The simplicity of it all is the refreshment I needed after a chaotic summer along the Delaware River, accommodating the hustling, bustling inhabitants of New York City.
This experience has been full of so many unplanned adventures that I've almost lost track of them all. Never in my life did I actually picture myself snorkeling with a sea turtle, and yet that's exactly what happened on my very first day here in the Caribbean. I've learned how to budget and make delicious meals out of nothing more than a slice of bacon, two slices of cheddar cheese, and a soft tortilla. Rather than having cats share my living space, I've adjusted to the island inhabitants that include ants, mosquitoes, geckos, and cockroaches. The cockroaches and I have an understanding...they can come out and play while I work, but must hide in their sanctuaries when I'm home or else it's curtains to their creepy little life.
On top of all that, I've met so many wonderful people who enjoy adventure as much as, if not more than I do. Without forging these new friendships, I don't think I would have had half as much fun as I have so far. We've sung karaoke in order to earn a ride back home, wandered along beaches searching for coconuts, enjoyed happy hour at bars with swings instead of stools, rode in the bed of pickup trucks in order to go to a reggae concert, thrown a hurricane party, and hitchhiked when the bus has decided to not function on schedule. There's no place else where all of these events could occur and nobody would bat an eye, and I'm so thankful for this opportunity to discover a new part of the world. Now it's time to see what my last two weeks will bring here in St John.

The Lumberjack Tourist

So far my first two days in Renton, WA, have been interesting. I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting out of the trip because I made no real plans other than booking my flights to and from Seatac. Okay, that's not totally true. I wanted to visit the Freemont Troll, too, but other than that, I was going about this trip day-by-day to see what it would present.
My first day, I slept in until 10am in order to beat jetlag before it had a chance to fully set in. I'm in a cozy little room and the end of the house, crashing on what would be a futon if I pulled it out, but I prefer sleeping on couches because I'm weird. After I showered, Jimbo asked if I wanted to go to the Museum of Flight since he had extra tickets. I was pretty excited about this prospect because my grandfather was an aerospace engineer who tested spacesuits with Northrop Grumman and then worked on F-14 tomcats and spiral staircase designs for Boeing.

Before the museum, we went to an eclectic diner named, Randy's. It had a sign proclaiming that they were "always open," which was tempting me to show up in the middle of the night to see if this was in fact true. Also, as we pulled into Randy's, there was this really cool drive thru Starbucks constructed completely out of shipping containers. It was a rather unique setup, but I digress. I enjoyed the interior of Randy's because it was decked out in military and flight memorabilia. There were books on the back of the benches to read if you were interested, and old bombshells and parachutes along the walls and floor. I enjoyed some french toast and bacon before we ventured over to the Museum of Flight.
Once inside, there was a man who kindly suggested that we check out the Amelia Earhart exhibit, since it was only going to be there for another week. Jimbo and I wandered down to that floor and spent lots of time gazing up at all of the planes suspended from the ceiling. We made our way to the exhibit, and in typical fashion, we managed to wander through it backwards. I enjoyed learning about her life and how she influenced aviation. It was intriguing to read her thoughts on marriage from a letter she wrote to her soon to be husband. From there, we went through the Space Exhibit, which was one of my personal favorites because my grandfather helped work on the original lunar excursion module, tested space suits, and knew a handful of the original astronauts from the Mercury and Gemini programs. Soon we wandered to the WWI and WWII exhibits, which explained how dogfighting in the air came into being. There were many stories about pilot survival rate, pilots witnessing their wingmen getting shot down, and differences in the planes utilized during both wars. After these exhibits, Jimbo and I took the skywalk over the road to check out the mockup of the space shuttle. I had to laugh at the awful music playing along the walkway; it was a step down from elevator music, all puns intended. It was amazing to see the capacity of the space shuttle and learn how much fuel it burned. We then ended our tour by wandering through the British Airways Concorde that was on the premises. There was some excess condensation in one of the windows, so Jimbo and I joked that it just needed some fish to turn it into an aquarium.
This morning I got up around 9am. Since the weather was decent, Jimbo and I opted to go do some tree work for a few of his clients. I was happy that I packed some plaid in order to maintain the classic lumberjack look. We stopped for breakfast at Jay Berry's and then made our way to the first job. I mostly supervised on the first tree, and took a few pictures to pass the time. For the second tree, I was manning the rope that was tied to the branches so they could be slowly lowered to the ground since they were so close to the guy's house. We then made a quick stop at Jimbo's mom's house for some pop and chit-chat before venturing to the last job. We needed to prune the top of a tree in this woman's yard, so I spent the second half of my afternoon up on a 12 foot ladder using a pruning saw and lopping sheers in order to cut off certain branches while Jimbo just climbed the tree like the monkey that he is. With teamwork, we cut the time of the job in half, and I was happy to learn a few new skills while helping out. I came home covered in sawdust, but was happy for my contribution to the work.

We finished off our day by going to see The Grand Budapest Hotel. As expected, it was completely, utterly, ridiculous, which was just what I was looking for. And as weird as this sounds, my favorite part involved Willem Dafoe and a cat...reminiscent of The Boondock Saints...sort of. But the whole feel of the movie was much like something out of Monty Python.