Pasta boiling away on the stove, tennis on TV, and a new post in the works; truly out of an old Dutch painting. We've had pretty constant rain the last two days, with clear, blue skies in the mornings, so I've decided to stay inside and devout my time to the construction of this pastoral scene. But the weekend's been good so far, kind of homey and laid-back.

Andreas' wife and daughters are away at church camp somewhere in the north of Schleswig-Holstein (yes, there ARE Germans who go to church), so he was left alone at home with Louis, the 1 1/2 year old, and like all fathers and sons across the entire the planet, they spent the weekend going out to dinner and generally just doing, you know, stuff. Together. Anyway, I went out to dinner with them last night and the night before, and it was nice. Suprisingly enough, Louis was really good, mainly because there was food around, and, as was the case last night, an old ship's throttle to pull that made NOISES! I know, it was too much. OK, so as soon as I saw it inside the door, I wanted to play with it too, but that's beside the point. What?! Look, it's a part of a ship, which is close to pirates, and pirates are cool. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for ships and things like that, even though I'm not a sailor at heart and have no real desire to take up the hobby. The idea, though, that's something else, the stuff good stories are made of.

Oh, dinner reminds me: the asparagus harvest is BIG news here in Germany. I'd try to think of something at home that compares with "Spargelzeit," "Asparagus Time," but there just isn't anything. Try to imagine the energy and misplaced nationalism that goes into soccer, apply it to a crop, and then you might come somewhat close. It's official start was about three weeks ago when I was in Dresden; we ended up walking through a little fest with an asparagus raffle and a "Spargelschnapps" tasting. No, I didn't drink any, but I didn't need to; the knowledge that asparagus Schnapps exists was enough. White asparagus is the norm, by the way. Oh, you can buy it green, but if you go out to eat, or eat dinner at someone's house, you'll get the pale stuff. It has a bit of a milder taste than the green variety, and it doesn't have such a strong....after effect. And unlike at home, asparagus is an entire meal. OK, not all the time, but it's pretty common to see just "Spargel" on a menu as a meal option, and get A LOT for your money, too. Andreas had it at a sea food place on Markt, and the small mountain of opaque vegetables, the obligatory potatoes, and clarified butter and Hollandaise Sauce on the side was enough to make my stomach bulge just looking at it. Me, I had fish.

While I'm on this whole dinner thing, I'll just say: have I ever mentioned how much fun it is to be at a table where multiple languages are used to communicate? No? Well, it's awesome. The Gymnasium here on Fehmarn does an exchange program every year with students from the French-speaking area of Switzerland, and the teachers came over to eat dinner with my landlady. They both spoke French as their first language, obviously, but they also knew German, thank God, because otherwise, dinner would have been slightly less than interesting. The little English they knew was pasted around a bit just to warm it up, but it was pretty useless. That said, it made three languages at one dinner, and that's just fun.

Speaking of fun, Germans are OBSESSED with the Wild West, "die Indianer," in particular. Before you start asking me why, I don't know. What I do know is that Winnetou, a noble Apache chief created and put to paper by Karl May, Germany's king of pulp literature, is the Alpha and Omega, THE Indian in this neck of the woods. A century of better writing and improved race relations hasn't succeeded in dulling his presence in the collective German psyche, and as a result, a huge portion of the population carries a dormant twelve year old in them that springs to life whenever it sees a feathered headress and black braids.

So I guess that explains the dancers in the town square this weekend. The Indian dancers. With drums. And flutes. And headresses. They spun themselvees around in the shadow of the Rathaus to the thump of drums and recorded wolf calls. The crowd that gathered around them was charged with an energy I can only imagine I had as an eight year old reading books on pirates and Indian tribes with my dad on the couch. They were rooted to the spot, the spirit of Karl May descended upon them, and it was good.