Germany, Cham

I keep thinking about this stay. It never was that much fun for me to “have to” go back to Germany. It’s not “home” anymore and I never felt really home in Germany either. This time was different though. I spent a lot of time with my sister Michaela, her husband Gerard and her kids Sara-Mia and Helena. They are amazing. And exhausting. The talking is most exhaustin. For me at least, but it is also looks exhausting to me what they are doing the whole day. They talk the whole day and run around all day and try to move all day. Sara-Mia will be two in June; Elisa will be one a month later. Last time I saw them, Sara-Mia was about 2 months old. Sara-Mia got to know me from pictures as the famous Aunti Marion from Honolulu and she indeed recognized me when I arrived. I thought this is impressive. She is in fact scarily smart. Elisa has an insane deep look. She just looks at you and you can tell that she is thinking something seriously. Her hair is so thin and about 1 inch long and sticks towards the sky like she’d got stroke by lightening. I cracked up because of laughing so many times. I think that is the main reason why I enjoyed my stay so much! My sister and her husband are finishing building her house and they saw me as a welcomed guest for the reason that I would be the baby sitter to give my sister a time out so that she can do more outdoor work on the property. I always liked kids and I seem to be able to easily connect to kids; but I really feel more for Sara-Mia and Elisa. They are mine, kind of. Just looking at them during the day was fun and did not seem wasteful, although really nothing got done (in terms of studying and working). And at the end of the day, I was so out of energy that I had to drag myself to the gym to get on the spinning bike to do my interval workout. Respect to all the mothers out there that have the drive to do triathlons while having kids.

Another thing that I always enjoy while being in Cham is that I am known. People know me on the streets, they know what I do, they know my name. Physiotherapists call me up to ask if they can work on me and if I can leave an autograph. This time some of them even called my mum prior to my arrival. When I go to the local pool, they close up a lane specially for me. If I go to the gym, I can have the entire spinning room for myself and I can train for free on the machines.
Again I was reminded that I am so blessed for what I have. I have an awesome family, including the most goofy cat there is and most snoopy dog there is. Basically one bunch of ‘amusingly genius individuals’. I have a home that will always be home even if I am the exotic one of the family. I am blessed for being able to live out my talents, that my parents pushed me to do sports when I was younger and that they have let me make my own decisions and let me go to Hawaii. Hawaii is the place where I have my home, that’s ‘where I am’. I will go back to Germany in 2010 and look forward to it.

Tripping

The last 3 weeks my body felt mixed around like a 'Zusatzzahl in einer Lottoziehung in dieser durchsichtigen Mixkugel'. (I know most of you don't have a clue what that means, but I don't know an english explaination). I flew to Germany for 10 days, just got acclimatized to the 12 hour time difference, then heading back to Hawaii for 6 days and then flying to New York for 5 days. I already wrote a little bit about my Germany visit, but will write some more about it and about Hawaii and New York.

Today I received an email from my mom. Apparently my neith Sara-Mia, a 2 year old found a picture of me in my mom’s car. It is now her “comfort-item” in the BMW. She holds it in her hands and says, “ Mati – Honolulu”. That would be me then. Sara-Mia calls me “Mati”. My sister tried to teach her ‘Tante Marion aus Honolulu’ (Aunti Marion from Honolulu -in English), but even if she is able to toss in whole sentences in the middle of a conversation, she kind of refuses to pick up ‘Tante Marion’. This is a good thing. Being called “Tante” in Germany has something negative on it. We call fat slow people Tante. We call old fat slow people Tante. Not sure why Germans do that.
Today, I spend time thinking about Sara-Mia on my long Pali-Loop ride. Long rides are always dangerous for getting into some serious thinking. So here is the second good reason, why ‘Mati’ is preferred to ‘Tante Marion’. Obviously “Mati” is shorter than saying “Tante Marion”. About 50% shorter. Lets say we would condense 2 or 3 words into just 1 word. Lets think further: if my professor cut his blablabla-privat-stuff by 50% during a usually 3 hour lasting lecture, I would save 1.5 hours. Figure that out, I could go for a nice run or swim or bike ride or just sleep longer!! It would be of high interest to me which language actually uses the least amount of words. I would love to learn it!! Time for googling it out.