Things are not any better than they were, and my German and I find ourselves older, wiser and back at square one, but I am strangely relieved to face it all (the housing search) with a clean slate. I am headed to Paris for the first time in two days - how sad can a girl allow herself to be?
MG left his wallet at a wedding on Saturday and it was safely recovered by S., the most organized bride ever. Even the weather bent itself to her overwhelming planning powers. (There will be pictures when we get the camera back!!) We spent Sunday afternoon with more amazing folks in little America-in-Germany. We had our rental car searched with mirrors and I touched all of the couple's American major appliances. They fed us and spoke English and once in a while, I noticed a big word coming out of my mouth. I didn't know words like that were still in there somewhere. Tonight I am headed off to yoga class with a young lady of superior courage and wit. And the weather is gorgeous.
Clearing my aborted blog posts, here is my jotting from yesterday:
Reading this my be nearly as depressing as having it happen to you. My apologies. We didn't get the apartment, but thank you for being so kind and wishing us well.More from last week
This isn't a rant. It's a whine. Even finding a place to rent is complicated. We missed a good chance a few weeks back, and missed another one I got really excited about over the weekend. My dear German is going to one open-house tonight - the "last" one, but I don't have the impression that we are so appealing that a land-lord would be looking to take us over the "competition".
I want guests, or at least just to be able to extend an invitation instead living in my house of moldy shame. I should just be excited an glad that there are dream apartments out there, and not so disappointed because there is always a little something wrong with each of them (5th floor walk-up, no balcony, too loud) we don't look at places with yucky bathrooms anymore. I really -really- want to move on to the next big step in my life and we don't do that until we do this. So we will continue doing this.
In happy news 3 days of splendid weather and a totally decadent brunch followed by several hours in the Landesmuseum with concepts of Egyptian beauty followed by lots of Egyptian-influenced work by the Beuron School, which totally rocks, btw.
A link to the St. Hildegard Abbey near Rüdesheim - photos of the chapel.
Even if we had a place, I cannot move on, i.e. even think of reproducing until I am out of my frieky name phase. At the moment I am all about "Traudl" and "Lorelei" and "Tristan"*. We cannot give our children these names without everyone thinking we are great big na$i's**, and that couldn't be further from the truth.
* The "Tristan" obsession is not a new one. I had a
secret crush as a child on Tristan Farnon from the "All Creatures Great and Small" series. The actor went on to play another BBC fave of mine - Campion. The best part is that Tristan has become strangely popular in the past few years, breaking the top 150 names, and making me slightly less of a dork (ok, I can dream).
Want to see how popular your name was in the past 15 years (in the States)? Thank you Social Security Administration.
** Google searches amuse me, but I don't want anyone looking for neo-you-know-what material coming here.
5 comments:
lorelei?
don't get all gilmore girls on me, PLEASE.
tristan is kinda fun :-P
The house / apartment hunt will look up. At some point though, you will find that some compromise will be necessary. I REALLY wanted to build a house with as many American features as possible. Unfortunately, it was costly and took a lot of time. So we decided to buy a house that I did not like too much. However, a year later, the house feels more like home. Getting over the hurdle is hard, but once you get there it was worth the struggle.
You might want to find some way to disctinguish between "MG" your husband and "mg" your sister.
You watched All Creatures Great and Small as a kid too? Although, I did know Peter Davison better as the Fifth Doctor, though. (My nerd heritage is creeping up on me again.)
i heartily agree, paul! i get very confused when reading her entries..
(it often doesn't take much to confuse me, but still..)
Lorelei and Tristan are getting use in the States. Maybe you could get away with them, though I really wouldn't recommend Lorelei. I don't think it's really even considered a first name.
Think you'll have to drop Traudl though.
I really wish old German names could come back. I think they are sweet (I know I'm in a really, REALLY small minority). Did the you-know-whos even ruin that!?
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