well again it seems there just arent enough hours in the day for me to write on this thing everyday. Yesterday again started at noon with scraping wallpaper and lasted well into the night. Wednesdays are Pizza day after practice and Germany faced off against Whales on the soccer field last night so those added up to be a late one. Plus I had to get in my weekly fix of Jack Bauer and the gang so that took priority over writing yesterday.

I am in my normal spot, on the couch in front of the tv in the basement, writing this today but it has never felt so good. Its never felt so good to sit down and put up my aching feet for the night. even though today was my day off from baseball and all other manditory obligations, I worked more today than ever before. It all began 4 hours after going to bed last night, at 5:30 am when i rolled out of bed. Today Hans Georg, my host father who is the CEO of a major agriculture company in Hannover, took me to work with him today. while he was hob-nobbing with bigwigs about seeds and whatever else, I was busy exploring Hannover via the most popular mode of transportation, bipedal locomotion (walking for the layperson). i set out at 8:30, map in hand, still wet behind the ears to the german language, the rituals of buying goods and services, customs of traffic both auto and bipedal, how they take to Americans that cant speak the language, basically i had no real idea what I was doing or how to go about doing it without offending some unwritten rule of the land. (i found out that Germans will not cross the street if the crosswalk light is red, it doesnt matter how clear the street is. I, on the other hand, got strange looks when i jaywalked in front of a car.) I'm not one to stand out in a foreign place, I like to read the people for a while, get a feel for the flow of things, then mimic exactly what i've seen in order to seem as "local" as possible. I'm sure this made me stick out like a sore thumb to the natives, but on that note, i am proud to say that a guy with a map came up and asked me, in german, for directions...at least thats what i could make out from the nonverbal communication he was trying to get out of me. I politely told him that i am not from here and i dont speak any german, all this was relayed in English of course, but i could tell he at least understood what i was saying. I could see his hopes shatter with the slumping of the shoulders and the glance to the ground, I had taken the wind out of his sails and I couldnt help but feel bad for the poor guy. He was just another shmuck like me trying not to get lost in a new city.

the center of the city is offlimits to all motor traffic, though the streets are wide enough to allow for it. and here too stores line both sides. There were a few recognizable signs like McDonalds, T-Mobile, Foot Locker, and Polo. but most are German boutiques and stores I cant prounouce the names of. You can imagine my delight when i ran across a pub called Heny's. there was a jack daniels sign out front and the door read, "American bar and grill." there was also a menu outside where all the names of the dishes were written in english. I couldnt understnad the descriptions, but I knew what comes on a cheeseburger so i didnt need to be able to read about it. My stomach already longed for the grease of a good burger and beer even though it was 9 in the morning. Now i just had to make sure i could find the place again in 4 hours when it was open. this proved to be a tough task that origianaly anticipated...Walking around in circles, trying to get my bearings in this brick jungle turned into quite a daunting task. the streets of Hannover couldnt be in a grid style like every logical city planner would have it. No, there are streets that turn one way, then the other, interweaving with other streets that do the same. there are dead end streets that go half a block then reappear on the other side of the center and do the same thing. they branch off every which way like the twigs of a thick bush. after 4 hours of meandering around the city, I was sweating, blistered, beat, and too be honest i wasnt quite sure where i was. I'd given up on the map because...well I'm a Meyers and we dont need them. I looked at it last night and got a mental imagine of everything... so i was relying on my own internal TomTom (recently updated with MajorInternationalCities 1.0). I think there is a missing patch that I need to download because it took me an hour to find the American burger joint. Maybe it was me being hungry and tired of 4 straight hours of one-foot-infront-of-the-other, or maybe it was just the food, but that was one of the best burgers i've ever had. A thick hunch of meat, grilled to perfection over an open flame. the warm pink center oozing flavor in every bite. Topping it off with a nice frosty Coca-Cola was a bit of American heaven in a foreign land.

since i still had an hour left and somewhere around that town i saw a sign that said 'english books', i ventured out on a quest to buy something; see if i could handle that without knowing any of the language...looking back now, its really not that hard, you see how much it is on the screen, then hand them the money, but at the time it seemed an insurmountable challenge...but hell the mexicans do it all the time. By dumb luck more than anything, i walked into the back entrance of the first book store i found and it happened to be the right one. the smallest section by far 150 titles at most, the english books are shoved way in the back and i took my time to read all the titles, (not the history ones though, I hate history in any language) I was just glad to finally see something i could understand. I settled on one that the Irish Times said was "one of the best reads of the year (2007)." and some newspaper in Britian claimed was "so funny you wont read it in public for fear of snorting." there was also another reason for buying something on my trip to Hannover, I've yet to use my credit card over here even though I told Chase i was going to Germany 3 weeks ago. I wasnt sure if there would be anything different about using my American card overseas but Mom, youll be happy to know (or maybe you wont since your footing the bill while im gone) that my credit card works.

I wish i knew exactly how far i walked today but i would venture it guess it was close to 12 miles. Then after sleeping/drooling all over myself in the car on the ride, Thies called me and wanted to go throw with him at the field. Changing my socks, boxers, and tshirt (because i sweated through all of them) I rode my bike to the field and threw and took batting practice for an hour and a half...the life of a German baseball player.

Its been a long day and i need to watch tv...not read the book i bought, i hate reading, i just felt like buying something.


A-Ron

American tv is calling my name,

A-Ron