just john

Continuing the normal winter process...

Kind of a high price to pay for a normal summer here but there it is. Today is the first real snowfall in my part of Germany. Everything was dusted last night and it has continued throughout the day. Fortunately, it was not the abnormal 10 inch snow dump the sky took on us last year and Germany was prepared this time. The roads were pre-salted and cleared for us to drive on this morning. At least the weather is predictable this time of year. I seem to be able to count on precipitation of some sort during the drive to work, maybe a couple of hours break before lunch where the sun might shine, and then a regrouping of clouds and continued falling of some kind of water in time to go home. But! As o yesterday there were 5 local ski lifts open and I will be heading to Switzerland on the 30th to remind myself what that's all about. I'm still getting out cheaper than going to Colorado and they don't having any snow(ice)-making here either.

Sort of going into the holidays with a bit of resignation. I always seem to forget about Thanksgiving, which I have explained to the folks here is an basically an American version of fall festival that commemorates peace and fellowship between the American colonists and American Indians. Them I explain the original story about the famine and the three (or five) pieces of corn. Most of them get a puzzled look and then ask if we didn't round all of the Indians up onto reservations. I tell them the Indians helped us out happened before that happened. We're still thankful though.

No Thanksgiving here means no transitional period of store decorations from pumpkins and straw to Christmas. They've just set out the Christmas stuff which seems to work nearly as well. No day off work either. It's as if they have no concept or appreciation of American holidays here at all. Don't even get me started on the 4th of July. I think if every country just adopted everyone else's holidays in addition to their own things might run much more smoothly.