david miller troyer

so ben franklin thought up daylight savings time, and he’s really saving me tonight. (though I’ll be cursing him come april)

sorry for the lack of updateage, but there’s not much to update about. last weekend, chad and I ventured the hour south to Baden-Baden. turns out this is a heavy tourist destination, with hot spas and authentic roman wells. did I say this place is popular? especially for old, rich people. after entering the bus at the train station to make the trip into town, once whiff and we knew we were the minority. the minority, because we didn’t have a load of crap in our pants, or white hair. anyhow, we quickly got out of the onslaught and made our way to the “altes schloß”. this, a very nice hike, was close to an hour and quite strenuous. we were patting ourselves on the back, as it seemed to filter out the crowd on the trail. the parking lot and road up the mountain at the castle proved us wrong. oh well, at times it reminded me of shenandoah national park.

we now have a group of 44 mentally handicapped persons (with 16 helpers). I have to admit, it has only been a joy thus far. I’m beginning to think there are a couple persons with mental illness mixed in the crowd, as today, I met a guy who thinks he is john wayne (cowboy hat and everything). it makes his day if you suggest the fact he resembles John Wayne before he does, even if you have 3 times before that day. anyhow, thanks again ben, I’m out. peace.

that’s right, I have today off… but I just finished 7 days of work in a row. and now I just realized that I worked 11 out of the past 12 days, also. maybe that explains my need to sleep excessively the past couple of days. I don’t mind it so much, but it means that on my “weekend off” I’m going to need at least one of the days just to recover from work… thanks…

last night was the ironical pinnacle of these past 7 days. I worked the late shift, and dinner starts at 6:00. there was a family arriving, and the general trend is that any number of people will be late, as the autobahn on the weekend is basically one big traffic jam. so, the majority of the group came at 6:00, and I was impressed with their uncommon courtesy. then, more people came at 7:00, and basically people kept coming until 8:30 or so… when I was supposed to get off work at 8:00. in the end we just gave up and left, leaving the dishes and food for whoever worked the next morning.

anyhow, I think I’m going to go read on my bed… and if I fall asleep I won’t be too distraught. last night I had a dream where I was Ansel Adam’s assistant. ::back to reality:: on another note, I’d love to hear from you all, if you have the time. thanks, peace.

so this past weekend I had off, and needed desperately to get out of karlsruhe. so I quickly leafed through my lonely planet germany and settled on triberg. an hour and 20 minute train ride later, I was in the black forest. the black forest tourist trap, that is. I had read as such, but I had not taken heed their warning. thankfully, being sunday I avoided a great deal of the crowd, with all the shops being closed. shops selling “authentic black forest” memorabilia, nevermind the “made in china” sticker on the back… but I must admit cookoo clocks are cool.

triberg also sports the largest waterfall in germany. it’s actually a cascade of waterfalls, falling about 160 meters, making it the largest. I climbed the whole trail, about 500 feet in the span of a mile or so… and it felt really, really good. so, I spent the rest of the day hiking in the general vincinity of town and had a grand old time.

I must add there was still a great throng of american tourists, including a group of a dozen or so men with very heavy southern accents. not waynesboro southern, but alabama… kind of made me nostalgic… though I avoided talking with them.

oh, and I came to the conclusion that all the german tourists were there to see the squirrels and not the waterfalls or cookoo clocks. most of the waterfall path was lined with the german tourists, backs to the waterfalls feeding squirrels. this was somewhat disappointing, as chad and I had concluded earlier that week that germany was void of squirrels and we were going to introduce them, and thus acquire our world fame. oh well. I’m out, have to work in 9.5 hours. bis später.

the past week has been slammed full (relatively, for me) of touring. chad and I had last thursday off, and took the hour long train northwest to Speyer. basically a picturesque little town, with 3 cathedrals (one rivaling the size of the national cathedral) and the Rhine all within walking distance of each other. Chad’s eyes opened wide, as he had never experienced european cathedrals, and his mouth moistly fell open in amazement when I introduced him to the dönner kebap (a mainstay in europe with stands every 10 meters). though, our patience was stretched thin with a well-dressed, money bag jingling, 15 year old street worker, who proceeded to warn us of our damnation for not giving her our “big american” money.

friday we left for our intermenno fall conference. it was held in a little town called meckesheim, just outside of heidelberg. good times and stories were shared, and we also spend a time venturing into heidelberg. inspiring visually, but definitely onslaughted by tourists (speyer wasn’t so bad in the onslaught department).

last night was the second time I made it to german class (I missed one for the speyer trip). I am continually amazed at the demographic. I believe a fair conclusion is that most of the members are some of the more fortunate persons who actually need the class, probably considering the price. 3 are pursuing PhDs, and 90% speaks english (even one very quiet girl, come to find out is from Iceland and blew me away with her perfect english). I should mention the chinese student is taking all of his notes in english and uses an english-german dictionary. This astounded me, and I would consider it along the lines of me learning Mandarin Chinese, taking notes in Korean or the like. wow.

Anyhow, don’t forget to pick up your FREE IPOD hehe.