Still beautiful weather here in Leipzig...we'll see how long that lasts =)

Yesterday I met a couple from California on the tram...I helped them with some directions and tips about the city and they saw me a little later and invited me to lunch. We had some great conversation about Europe and people here and they were awesome to just hang out with. Cindy and Clay. Fun random people

The money was also transferred into Dwane's account today so it was a relief to be able to go close the account and get all of that taken care of.

This morning I went to the Voelderschlachtdenkmal (yea, Germans like big long words) whick is a monument built in 1912 on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Nations...one of many along Napoleon's attempt to take over Europe. Napoleon lost so they are proud of that =)
It is a humongous big Babylonian temple-looking structure that rises way above the surronding architecture and is pretty cool. The steps up to the top are narrow and chlosterphobic--i don't know if i spelled that right, speaking and seeing another language all the time ruins your ability to spell.
Yesterday I went to the top of the MDR building here in Leipzig so I've had my share of beautiful views from far up in the past couple day.

My time grows shorter and shorter here! I'm realizing that in just over 2 weeks I will be on my way to Warsaw! Blogs will probably get more interesting then =)

singing

Warm weather makes me feel like singing but Germans think you're pretty weird if you are just singing for no reason so I guess I'll have to sing in my room or something =)

It is BEAUTIFUL in Leipzig now and should be for a few days yet. I've been sitting outside reading and talking with random strangers (in German!) and generally enjoying myself and my relative lack of responsibilities.

The money still hasn't been transferred into dwane's account so I haven't been able to close it yet but hopefully that will happen today or tomorrow so that I can go and close the account, get the money, and maybe give it to Randy who lives in Dresden but is going home soon for a few weeks and could take it to Dwane.

I played baseball Sunday afternoon for 4 hours...and it was awesome! I don't really play baseball or softball in the states, though I have played some, but I'm not that good really. Here, though...they think that because I'm american I must be good at baseball. and i guess I'm not that bad :)

Yesterday morning Konrad and I had a good time filling out his driver's liscense renewal form for Texas. He doesn't have a social security number so hopefully they will just overlook that and give him a new liscense anyway =) in the afternoon I met with 3 Germans that have met with Dwane for a while at the Ronald McDonald house at the children's hospital in Leipzig. We had a good conversation and the 2 who are radiologists invited me to come see them at the hospital sometime so that should be fun.

I have to start making specific plans for my travels later so I have to cut this short. Hope everyone is doing great!

Well, God has had mercy on my freezing tooshey =) today is a gorgeously sunny day and I am loving it!! Later on I'm going to play baseball with some friends and I'm looking forward to it!

So...Friday I met lots of people, both that I knew and that I had never met before. A guy from Morocco thought he could woo me with coffee and ice cream but i shot that down pretty quickly =) on a sadder note, I was reading at Lukas Bakery and this girl came up to me asking for help. I was inside and so this is pretty unusual in Germany but for some reason she thought I looked helpful i guess. She said that she couldn't pay the rent and I told her that I couldn't just give her money so she asked me to go shopping with her for her 2 little girls. So I did. I love it when God puts people right in front of me that I can help. It makes it easy. Please pray for that girl because I don't really know what she will do.

I met with Roswitha, an older lady that Dwane knew and we have really good chats about her kids and about all sorts of things, I speak in German and she speaks in English and it is beneficial for both of us!

Later that evening I met with Ina Richter and we ate at Kartoffelhaus again. We spoke German the whole time and I am pretty proud of myself for that. =)

Speaking of potatoes, last night Konrad and I made Kartoffeln and Quark...kind of like sour cream but not really, and it was delicious! it is kind of the same thing as red beans and rice in N'awlins.

This morning we had worship and I appreciate more and more the worship that I can enjoy at home with so many people and great singing and so forth...if you have that, don't take it for granted!! Worship here is no less fulfilling or less pleasing to God, but i really just want to hear the RFCs sing!

That's all I have for today...still haven't put up pictures, sorry...I will try to do that soon
Love to all,

Walking in a winter wonderland....on march 22

Well...it has snowed here in Leipzig for the last 2 days and today it is just pouring snow! Crazy German weather! They have had a really mild winter and i guess this is the revenge. The sad thing is that it isn't cold enough to really stick...but it is snowing hard enough that it is still accumulating...beautiful! I would put some pictures up but I can't connect my camera to this computer...maybe later.
I am still enjoying my time here in Leipzig even though without Dwane and Annalisa and Johnmark it seems to be missing a little something. I am really thankful for the friends I have made here too!
I went to a Toastmasters meeting on Tuesday night with Stephanie, one of the group that Dwane had English conversation with at the Ronald McDonald house here. The other 2 people in the group came too--Ina and Wolfgang. The club is a good idea (making speeches in general but also to improve your English) and we had fun but it was a little too formal for me. I did meet a guy from the consulate, Mark Wenig, who will hopefully be a source of information for me about the foreign service.
Last night Karl and Larry came for devo but no one else was in town so it was just us 3...good times anyway =)
I must go play in the snow...
Love to all,

saying goodbye

The Perrys left today. You develop deeper relationships in life with some people than with others. That's just a fact...sometimes it is a product of long relationships and time spent together, and sometimes it is just because. Dwane, Annalisa and Johnmark and the just because kind of people in my life. I have grown to love them so much over this short month and I will miss them dearly. Can't wait to see the whole family this summer!!
Sunday was a good day. There were probably twice the normal number of people at worship and we had a a good service. It was so hard for them to do all of these things for the last time...everything became "the last one"
Brielle's friends were supposed to be there but with the snowstorm in the states (weird) they didn't catch their flight and so they arrived Sunday at 1230. We all went to eat dinner at Kartoffelhaus...it was delicious and wonderful to spend time in the company of so many great people.
I met with Dirk, who is a guy that plays on the baseball team here in Leipzig that the RFCs had some contacts with last summer. He is a really gentlemanly guy and we had a good talk over some milkshakes for a couple hours.
Yesterday was all about taking care of the last bits of business that Dwane had. I feel a lot of responsibility right now because I am in charge of a lot of things here now that Dwane is gone. I always perform best under pressure though =) Dwane and I ran around Leipzig all day taking care of stuff and meeting with people for the last time (there are those words again) I will continue to meet with Carolin, and we are becoming better and better friends...for which I am thankful.
I am also thankful for Konrad, a good Christian guy who is a medical student here in Leipzig. It is good to know that if I can't figure anything out I can call him...he speaks German lots better than me =)
Last night I stayed over at the Perrys apartment because I wanted to help them get to the airport and we had to leave the apartment at 330...so I just figured there wasn't much point in going home. We took some of the bags to the train station and put them in lockers last night so we wouldn't have to carry them in the morning. One of them wouldn't fit so Dwane decided to get a cart there and put it on...and then we just decided to push it all the way to the apartment and use it in the morning!! It says that you can only use them in the train station but no one stopped us on the way out and so we just kept pushing it =) they only lived 10 min walk from the station but still...you just don't do things like that in Germany and so it is funnier than it sounds. We locked it to the window grate at the apartment with Kondrad's bike lock and it was there in the morning...thank goodness!! It was really nice to have it because with 3 kids it would have been hard to carry it all.
They made it to Frankfurt fine and Dwane called me this morning before their plane left Frankfurt. They are over the Atlantic now and will be home soon. I know they are excited.
Please be praying for me and for the church here in Leipzig...God can do all things and for that I am thankful.

Glue Animals!

It seems that the more I have to write about the less I feel like doing it because it just seems like it can't be done right...there's no way I can fully explain how awesome the last few days have been (at least not without writing WAY too much) and yet, I have to try. So...
Olomouc was excellent. Even though they had to do Czech lessons everyday for longer than I think I could stand to listen to someone talk in English, we had so much fun. Christy was kind enough to let me stay with her and eat her food and get to know her which was a blessing to me. On Tues. night we played taboo...my title is what Graham thinks of when he can't say the word "horses" =) it was hilarious...and now they all know that i can wiggle my ears and the mitch can wiggle his adam's apple and that christy and sarah beall can flip their tongues (you're not the only one Blair!) Wednesday we went to a park/wilderness area just outside of Olomouc and threw the frisbee around and had a great time in the beautiful weather...it was just gorgeous and warm for the past few days. I took the train that afternoon to Prague and I really wish I could've stayed longer!
Prague...oh Prague *sigh* I am so in love with that city. It is just breathtaking in so many ways. If you have never been there, I'm sorry, but I just can't do justice to it with feeble words. I walked around just absorbing and remembering and then went to the church where they have a devo on Wed nights. It was so good to see Vera and Helena and then Karel came and Matus. It is an odd feeling to have such a cameraderie with people you don't know that well and yet they are your family because you are Christians. Brothers and sisters indeed. Petr, who is my age, came late after he got off work and he and I went for coffee and had a great talk about all kinds of things. For those of you who want to know more about how he's doing, email me.
Yesterday I spent strolling around in blissful aimlessness and ate at Bohemia Bagel (yes, i know! it was delicious!) I did see an SUV pulling a 4wheeler in downtown Prague and I thought that was pretty funny...then I caught the 230 train back to Leipzig.
On the way back the passport control guy noticed that I had 2 russian visas in my passport and started to speak to me in Russian...i had to laugh and then tell him that i only spoke a very little bit of russian, sorry. He thought that was hilarious.
I ate dinner last night with the Perrys and Abigail and Tim who are here visiting. This morning we all went to Colditz, this castle that was a POW prison during WWII. There have been numerous books written about it because of all the escape attemts, both successful and not, that were made from it and the famous prisoners that were kept there. We had a great time there.
Whew, so I'm caught up now and sorry if it isn't as detailed as it probably should be, I can only type for so long before I just get tired of it =)
Love ya'll,

Passport Please!!

Well, I few adventures have transpired since I last posted. On Saturday the Perry's and Brielle and I went to Dresden for the singing there. We went early so we could see the gruenes goewelbe...that's my approximation of the spelling...it means "green vault" in German. They have some pretty neat stuff in there that's not your typical collection. A huge green diamond is part of it too...it's green because of radioactivity...maybe that's why martians are always green. Anyway, so we couldn't go to the "old green vault" because the tickets were all sold out and that has some of the cooler stuff but we'll go back. The singing was funny to me because they take it so very seriously. Each part had it's own section (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and we had a really good time. It was sad though because it was the last time for the perry's...so many things are like that for them now.
I had to catch my train at 9 min after 7 at the hauptbahnhof. I made it there fine and got on the train and I was really excited to be finally on my way to the czech republic. At least i was until I heard the voice of the customs officer "passports please!" my heart went to my throat and then sank....way, way down. yep, i definitely committed the cardinal sin when travelling internationally...i forgot my passport in leipzig. I wanted to kick myself. The customs officers were really nice though and they just told me that i would have to get off the train. bummer. and the place i got off at was the little hole in the wall town...but it was ok because right there was a train waiting to go back to dresden. so i got on, but wouldn't you know it, it didn't make it back to dresden in time to catch the train that the Perry's and Brielle had to get. So...thought I was going to have to buy a saxon ticket, which is good for the region and is cheaper, but just as I was about to put my money in the machine, this guy came up to me and offered to sell his to me for about half what I would pay normally. God was definitely watching out for me, despite it all =)
I am now in Olomouc, though, and having a GREAT time with them here. They picked me up at the train station yesterday afternoon and we worshiped together last night and in the end watched videos of some of the team members boxing one summer...pretty hilarious stuff.
I definitely remembered my passport this time around!

i can be all things

It is amazing how busy I seem to be! I really didn't expect it but I guess it's natural for the time to fill with stuff. I have started a project with Elfi (i live with her) and her boss at Stuff Advance. There are so many business names in English. Stuff Advance does internal performance evaluation surveys for companies. I'm going to do a project on management evaluation surveys in the states and we are going to discuss the differences (of which there are many) between management/employment here in Germany and in the States. It's not terribly exciting but I figure it will help me remember how to study and research and things that I'm going to have to be doing a lot of next year and I better not forget how =)
I'm also meeting lots of new people and spending time in coffee shops and out in town with them and that takes up more time, and I'm playing basketball a few nights a week too. Plus I take the public transportation everywhere, which I LOVE but it also means that I have to work on its schedule, not necessarily on mine.
Dwane accidentally sent Johnmark's mathbook in some boxes to Stuttgart with a friend to be mailed back to the states from the military base there. Annalisa was distressed about it for a little bit but Johnmark didn't seem to mind... ;) I have kind of taken over his math lessons for a little bit...yesterday we did some fractions. He learns really quickly.
On Saturday we are going to Dresden to a singing that the congregation there is holding. After the singing I am taking the train to Olomouc, Czech Republic and I will be there until Thursday of next week. I'm really excited about seeing the mission team there and getting a little glimpse of what it is like!
Sorry this post isn't really exciting but for some that are reading it I'm sure that's preferable =) Love you all,
Megan

hubba bubba--really funny story

BREAKING NEWS!! Last night, March 3rd, Dwane and the kids and Brielle and I were on our way back from Berlin. We had to change trains in Dessau and just when we got off the first train a guy came up to me and asked where the train came from. I was a little confused because it says right on the board where it comes from but I told him Berlin anyway. He then walked the same direction as us on my right and proceeded to blow a HUGE bubble. While this was amusing in and of itself, the look of abject adoration that Johnmark, who was walking on my left, gave him was even funnier and so I had a good laugh at them both. The guy didn't seem to mind...in fact he was pleased and offered Brielle a piece of "hubba Bubba" gum. Brielle accepted and then he offered me a piece, which I declined politely because I already had a piece of my own. A few seconds later at the bottom of the steps leading to the next platform and to our onward train, I thoughtlessly blew a much smaller bubble with my own gum, merely to enjoy the pleasure of blowing a bubble. This guy quickly grabbed the bubble and then pulled the entire piece of gum out of my mouth! The best, or worst, part is that then he put the gum into his own mouth and chewed vigorously to assimilate it into his own already large wad.

Yes, I was shocked.
Yes, it was hilarious.
I hope you tell your friends =)

Oh, and I almost got attacked by a minature doberman this morning on the way to church...viscious German dogs!

"you are leaving the american zone"

We went to Berlin today and though it was miserably rainy and cold, had a great time. The Checkpoint Charlie museum is really excellent if you want to find out cool things about what it was like in Berlin while the wall was still up. There is SO much information that you could spend the whole day in there but whatever time you do spend, it is well worth it. You can see out the windows where the Checkpoint was and they have left part of the bare zone there. You can just imagine what it was like to be so desperately close to a free, better place and to have to content yourself with glimpses for years. Some of the escape attempts were ingenious.
Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time with Annalisa and Johnmark...helping with homework, which of course was mostly math...which I haven't done in 4 years. So that was interesting and fun =) I remembered it but it was doubtful for a bit. Thanks Mrs. Wegerer! We played soccer too...Johnmark is a fanatic and it was hilarious to watch him run around while Annalisa and I just tried to look like we were working hard.
I also met with a girl named Ines yesterday for a couple hours over coffee. She and Laura Beall became friends when Laura was here last summer and we had a great conversation. She's a great person and I really hope to get to know her better.
Last night I spent some more time with Carolin too. We went to Ruoy's apartment (this guy that we met on the tram who is from Israel) and spent several hours in conversation with him and his flatmates and a guy from Brazil named Fabio (his hair was kinda pretty too =) My German is getting better, thank goodness.
Tomorrow Brielle and I are going to watch Napolean Dynamite with Carolin and we really hope that she gets some of the humor...it will be even funnier if she doesn't though!
I don't have time to write more, sorry, but I will post again Monday
Love to you all,

dresden and basketball

Tuesday we went to Dresden, an hour and a half by train from Leipzig. Dresden was almost completely obliterated by the allies during WWII. Today it has been rebuilt and is a really gorgeous place. The Frauenkirche there was left in ruins until about 5 years ago when the began to rebuild it. They used what they could of the old stone and incorporated it into the new structure...the effect is really powerful because the new stone is so much whiter and cleaner than the old stone and it serves as a stark reminder. Dresden moves at a much slower pace than Leipzig. It is more beautiful, but I really like Leipzig...everything seems to be happening all at once here! They have a saying here in Saxony (the region of which Dresden is the capitol) that you make money in Chemnitz (industrial center), keep it in Leipzig (banking and commerce), and spend it in Dresden (tourism and shopping). It fits really well =). We had lunch with Randy and Brianna Carol who have lived in Dresden for about 5 years now.
Spending time with the Perrys is so much fun. They LOVE to sing and I love to sing too so we have such a great time and they have been so wonderful to me. For any of you who know them, this is no surprise but for those of you who don't know them, believe me, they are wonderful.
On to the basketball story. Dwane happened to meet some members of the city league basketball team (which is a professional team) here in Leipzig and they talked and said that if I wanted, I could come to their practice and try to convince the coach to let me play some with them. I went on Monday night and the coach wasn't too keen on the idea...which is perfectly understandable to me...if I was a coach I wouldn't want some girl coming in and messing up my practices and causing problems. But...I'm not going to do that and I know it...so I kinda hung around and after their practice she said that I could come on Wednesday because they have less players then. So last night I got to practice with them! I was really excited because it feels so good to be able to play...and they are pretty good so it isn't easy...hopefully I will be able to do this until their season ends or until I leave. Yay!!
Funny thing about Europeans and Germans in particular...they think that you MUST be covered from head to foot if it is even chilly outside after working out or getting sweaty. I was about to go outside with my shorts on, and I had my coat on...and the coach looked at me askance and said "what are you doing?" I laughed and put my jeans on because I had thought that I could get away with it but no such luck...they will catch you every time and the Germans have no qualms about telling you to do it the "right way" =)
On Saturday Brielle, the Perrys and I are going to Berlin for the day just to see it and have fun. I've never been there so I'm really looking forward to it. Another planned trip for me is to Olomouc to see the team there! I will go next Saturday and return to Leipzig the following Thursday. I am really looking forward to that!