While my parents were here I took them down to Hallstatt, a small, salt mining village nestled into the side of an Alpine mountain and overlooking a lake surrounded by more mountains. It really is breathtaking.
So my mom finds these swans that swim up to us and almost fills up the camera with pictures of them, even getting me to pose with them once. You'd think she'd never seen a swan before. I think they were expecting food, but all I had was a postcard. So I offer my postcard to the swan, but he just hissed at me. The nerve!
So I went to a pirate/ninja birthday party Friday night. I decided to be a ninja. I walked home from the party with a pirate and spent part of the time darting from shadow to shadow much like I'd envision a ninja doing (see picture).
So a result of all the sickness these last few weeks at school are that a couple students and a teacher have scarlett fever. This old-timey disease reminded me of that old Oregon Trail game where you’d put your family in a wagon and try to make it to Oregon alive. A very noble goal. I would always be rolling along fine until, “Ralph has typhoid.” As far as I was concerned the cure to typhoid and all those other diseases was buffalo. And so I would go hunting, and little Ralphie would die, and then one by one my family died from diseases that buffalo apparently didn’t cure. Those were the good ol’ days.
Here’s some random thoughts from last week when I was sick:
For the second time in the span of a month I’ve had to say goodbye to a good friend of mine. At least this time I know she’s coming back, albeit in September. Jo does freelance interpreting at the IAEA, but is without work until the fall. Though she is fluent in four languages, we often have trouble reconciling the differences between American and British English. For instance, last night I spent a considerable amount of time trying to explain the difference between an American biscuit (pictured) and a British one, and apparently “pudding” means “dessert” in British. Who knew?