Blogspot in German!

I logged on today to get caught up on the blog -- we only have one Internet account at a time, so I've been checking my email from Daniel's computer a lot of the time and haven't been able to steal it long enough to do blog posts. But I discovered that everything on the site is in German, and I don't know how to change it back -- the top of the page said "Blog Durchsuchen / Blog Melden/Nächstes Blog", which was funny. It took me a while to log in (and meanwhile I lost my wireless signal).

Anyway, I've been eating extraordinarily badly and getting tons of walking in. My clothes don't fit like they used to and they weren't fitting all that well before. So I'm in for it when I get back. But I don't have a scale so it's not truly awful until next week.

Amy, you're right about Hungarian! I didn't feel nearly so strange there as I do now that I'm in Germany. In Germany everything makes more sense -- things are cleaner and better-ordered and the standard of living just seems so much higher, like better food and well-stocked stores (but Germans can't do window displays much better than Hungarians -- except they do keep the glass clean). But in Budapest I always knew there were zillions of people around who didn't speak the language, and most people who work there could at least take a stab at communicating in English. Here I bought some things in a department store, and I handed over my credit card and the clerk said something confusing in German ("something confusing" means "something other than hello, goodbye, please, thanks, or numbers"). When I got over my deer-in-headlights reaction and remembered how to say, in German, that my German sucks, we had to appeal to another customer to translate for us -- it turned out she was asking for my customer card if I had one. But I felt completely inept. I have forgotten what little German I once knew!

At least the second time I had a transaction at the department store I did much better -- I was expecting the question this time, I vaguely understood it, I answered, "Nein," and I never had to admit that I only know about twenty words in German.

In Hungary everyone did think Cecilia was the cutest thing going (and they were right!). Here it's different -- we're not in a tourist town so people are more serious and in more of a hurry. So we don't get nearly so many smiles, except from the other parents (but of course I smile at their children too) and the waiters.

Today my eating is going to be even worse than before, it seems -- I had a normal breakfast but I've had a chocolate bar for lunch, because that's all I'd bought this morning while we were out. Cecilia threw up after we got to the hotel so I had to skip lunch and the trip to the museum, the Mathematikum, which I'd really been looking forward to! Daniel is supposed to bring me something substantial later on. I fear I will also have to miss dinner out at our host's home -- I was looking forward to seeing a real house and meeting his wife, too. Phooey. I just hope we can come home tomorrow and don't have to delay our trip because of this! Poor Cecilia.