Surfs Up!

I'm trying to download a picture to put on here... but its not working, so here's a link. Yes, surfing in Munich. What don't they have here? I was in the English garden yesturday and saw the a few guy surfing, its pretty crazy, especially considering how cold it is.

So, what else is new in München? not a whole lot I guess. I've been going to some more classes at my schools. I haven't actually done any teaching yet, just introducing and observing. I'm getting a little frustrated with the head teachers because they still havn't worked out a concrete schedule for me. As a result I usually get dragged along to school at 7am and then sit around until someone decides to take me along to a class that they don't really need me in.... arg. Hopefully they'll figure it out soon. The classes I have gone to have been kinda fun. Its basically about the same as american high school. I'm excited about the higher level conversation classes that I'll get to teach on my own. Today in one of the upper level classes we talked about oil prices and huricanes and racism... oiy. It's hard being the one American put on the spot, I feel like I should know way more about things than I really do. I also I guess should have more definite opinions on everything, but I can't very well speak for all Americans. I'm going to be getting a whole lot better at keeping up on current events this year.

I'm also getting a tad sick of living with Gudrun, the teacher I'm staying with. Like I said, she's nice and she cooks for me and its allright, its just annoying to have to tell her where I am and when I'll be back all the time, and she likes me to come home at 6 for dinner. Which means if I go into the city I have to leave by like 5 to get there. If I know ahead of time I can tell her I wont be home, but I never really know what I'm going to do. And she hasn't given me a house key. Yesturday I was going to the school she doesn't teach at and didn't need to be there until 11, so she had to give me a key to lock up. She gave me like a 10 min. lecture on how to properly lock the doors and how even though Munich is pretty safe there may still be thieves and how her key is registered so if it were lost it would be expensive to replace.... oh my goodness! She lives an hour outside the city in this little residencial town with mostly elderly people and young families. sheesh. Oh, and when she left in the morning she actually locked me out of the whole bottom floor of the house. She's a little crazy... But of course I am gratefull that she's letting me stay with her and am incredibly lucky to have a free room. I'm just anxious to get my own room and have a set schedule so I can get into some kind of rutine.

Ok, so enough complaining about me. other things going on in Germany.... Elections!!! I don't really understand how things work. No one really won the election, neither the SPD nor the CDU had a majority, but aparently Schöder (SPD) has formed a coalition with the Green party and the Leftist (comunist) party so that all together they will have the majority. I don't get how thing works out exactly, sounds like a lot of choas to me. I can't believe the comunist party is so big, the got something like 9% of the vote, and its mostly the eastern states that support it. One would think that they saw how poorly comunism worked the last time and wouln't want to go back to that, but Germans are very idealistic people I think. For the most part Germany is very liberal, except for Bayern which is an island of conservativism. I talked to Gudrun about the election a bit, she has a fairly pesimistic outlook on Germany's future. She said things will get worse before people realize things need to change, i think the same could be said of the US. She seems surpised in general that I would come here to Germany, she said young people are leaving here to go to the US, not the other way around. I guess thats true, but Germany is not exactly impovered at the moment, especially not Munich. But true, the economy is on a downward slide. I don't think I'd ever move here permanently, but there are plenty of things I don't like about the US too, there are always positives and negatives.

In other news, I haven't been back to the Wiese'n (site of Oktoberfest) yet, but I may go tomorrow or saturday. I did go to that Bavarian theater thing last Saturday with Gudrun and Frau. S, it was fun I guess. They were speaking in real Bavarian dialect, so I didn't really understand much and I definitely didn't get the jokes. Its amazing to me that a languange can vary so much from one little region to the next here. I also went to the big parade on suday which was HUGE. Its a parade of people wearing the traditional Trachten, costumes, it was at least 2 hours long of marching bands and groups from all over germany, austria and switzerland dressed up and walking through the city in the freezing rain, its pretty crazy. I couldn't believe how many people were in it.

Someday I'll be able to post my pictures, but at the moment niether of the schools I'm working at has a working internet conection. !!!!!!!!!! The're a little behind on these things at German high schools... hopefully they'll get it up and working soon so that I don't go broke paying to use internet cafes!