Happy 4th of July!

Nothing is more depressing than celebrating a national holiday in a foreign land.

Yesterday was the 4th of July and even though I made all my students learn holiday vocab ("parade," "sparklers," "stars and stripes") no one was really excited. The Germans aren't too big on national holidays and understandably so: Their country day is Oct. 3, Reunification Day of East and West. Too bad Reunification didn't actually happen on Oct. 3. Most argue that Reunification day is Nov. 9, 1989 when the Wall came down. But Nov. 9, 1938 was Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass when Nazis attacked synagogues and Jewish businesses...so, Oct. 3 it is.

This week has been major for our lives here in Germany. I got permission/acceptance to become a Gaststudentin at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Univeristaet starting next semester! I will be taking Master's seminars in Americanistik and I even have an academic adviser named Bernd. Bernd rocks. He's obsessed with the idea of American space and the Western frontier. I went in for a meeting with him and he had sickeningly good English. Granted, he lived in Boston for 4 years, but he actually said stuff like "No problemo," and "Man, hot enough for you?"

We also found a perfect new apartment, with.... drumroll... an OVEN! It's also in a much better neighborhood, Sachsenhausen, and it's in a pre-war Altbau house. And it has a bay window. I can't get too excited since we still have to get approved by the landlords but I am jazzed for the potential move.

While Courtney and I were at our regular quiz pub on Thursday evening something sweet happened, and I guess it sort of embodied the spirit of Independence Day one day early. We were sitting and a group of Germans started talking to us. A woman at the table asked where we were from and when we said Minnesota she exclaimed, "I knew it!" Turns out, she spent 1986-87 living in Hastings, and she said our accents made her "feel at home," which is just about the nicest complimet you can give a person. Then, she started talking about her Homer Hanky and Kirby Puckett. It is a small, America-dominated world after all.