Playing Catch-Up

Sorry for leaving you all in the lurch! We've only been home six days in the last two weeks, which leaves us but little time to update. Curious as to what we did? Keep reading!

First off, we made our first international trip (well, while we're on our international trip…) to Děčín, in the Czech Republic. By the way, Děčín is pronounced "Dyecheen," for those of you that don't speak Czech, or don't have a wife and friends that speak it! A good friend of ours from Madison is there for a year teaching English and working on an International Policies project. Currently, she's the closest American, and she's definitely the closest Minnesotan (Amanda is from St. Cloud). We took the train across the border, where Amanda met us at the train station. It was a rainy, gloomy day, but we had great company, so the time flew by.

The next day, we got to visit with our friends Jana and Matthias. They've got two small children (one is two years old, and the other is eight months), so we got to experience life with little ones for a short time. They're fun, but noisy!

The day after that, we took a sight-seeing trip to a little district of Dresden called Löbtau to watch a movie called I Served the English King, or something like that (the title was in German). Nadine wanted to practice her Czech, since the movie is set in the Czech Republic before, during, and after World War II. Unfortunately, you never hear Czech being spoken, since the Germans have a penchant for dubbing, rather than subtitling their foreign language imports.

Löbtau was… interesting. Whenever we've discussed that part of Dresden with people, they've either given us a surprised look or knowingly chuckled. The movie theater that we went to is in an old factory, which Nadine thought would be hip and cool. Unfortunately, it was also located in the dingy, poverty-stricken, and politically radical part of Dresden. We've decided not to revisit the district, in part because it was the only time I have ever been that nervous in Europe. There are definitely some scary (and fiercely xenophobic) parts of Dresden, but fortunately, we now know that they're mostly in Löbtau.

After that we were in Narsdorf for a few days, watching the cats sleep under the apple trees. Well, it was a bit cold outside, so they spent most of their time inside, begging for food. Finally, on Monday we went shopping for a new jacket for Nadine. As you may be getting, the weather here took a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse. The weekend before we went to Děčín, we were visiting Nadine's parents for a few days. Since it's a little ways from Dresden, we had to bring a few days' worth of clothes. It was nice and warm (upper sixties, lower seventies), so we brought t-shirts and thin little jackets. That was Friday. Saturday dawned rainy and cold (lower forties), and we were woefully without anything warm for two days. We're still waiting for it to warm up, but the rumor is that it's coming at the end of this week… We'll see.

One of the biggest things that we've noticed here might be the weather. We're so used to the Continental climate that the Midwest enjoys (or suffers through, depending), that having the weather turn so suddenly really leaves us spinning. It's so common for us to have clouds, then rain, then sun, then rain, then sun, then clouds, all in the same day. Plus, there doesn't seem to be any accurate way of predicting anything. It's not like Wisconsin, where we know that if it is raining, it will rain for the next several days. Conversely, if it is sunny, we'll have beautiful weather for a week.

So, anyway, that's where we've been for the last couple of weeks! Busy-busy-busy… Photos are coming, so keep your eyes peeled!