hackfleisch

Well, we are here in Portland and, as you can see, we are snowed in! Jessica's flight to Sacramento was cancelled this morning but she is scheduled to go out tonight (subject to cancellation, of course). Highway 84 to Pendleton is closed from Troutdale to Hood River so we may head to Madras instead. For now, we are snug as a bug at the hotel - watching English television, playing Farkel, designing a senior page for yearbook, knitting, and eating. We enjoyed a visit with Aunt Denna Rae, Uncle Gordon, Chad, Joy, Jason, and kids yesterday - they met us at Shari's - and then we went shopping at the mall near the airport. Jessica couldn't understand why they were even open on Sunday and I reminded her we are in America now - the home of capitalism!! More later...

Quick story: Before we left Germany I went out with the other first grade teachers for dinner in Frankfurt. On the way home (at 11:30, oh yeah 2330) we were "approached" by a guy at the train station asking for money. He said he only needed 2 or 3 Euros to help him get a hotel room. Everyone tried to look away and ignore the guy but he would not be denied. When he realized we spoke English he became more insistant - in English. When he said his girlfriend kicked him out I couldn't take it anymore! I said "Whoa, maybe she knows something we dont!" Of course, this pissed him off. But, he started pulling things out of his rucksack to trade for some money - cigarettes (sorry I don't smoke), a very frothy CocaCola (um, no thanks), wait - a package of ground beef (tempting, but I don't really know how long you've had that in there). The guy got mad and started cussing at us and flipping us off (hey, that's illegal here!). The fluent German speaker in the group had enough and gave him a good first grade teacher chewing out in German. I guess he told her that he was only frustrated because the Germans don't help him either!! I felt bad but I didn't have cash to give him anyway. He didn't look like he was hurting.