The Eagle has landed ..... hhhhhhmmmm .... in Siberia???

Well I am pretty sure that I booked a flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. Did I screw things up in the hectic before my departure? Did I hop on the wrong plane? Did a major storm divert our course? When we landed on Wednesday morning I would have put down $ 100 that it was some place in Siberia and not Germany in the summer. The newspapers had photos of snow in a Bavarian Biergarten, mountain bikers in shorts snow up to their ankles, snow in the Black Forrest (my destination), even in the Rhine Valley temperatures around 30 degrees, ice cold rain ..... bbbbbbrrrrrrr ........ Brazil beware, if this weather does not improve dramatically my world cup favorites will be Sweden and Ukraine ... folks that are used to the cold ... no Samba in the freezing rain. Of course Germany plays usually pretty well in rainy weather, so maybe I should sacrifice my tan for another world cup? Deutschland, Deutschland ..... Klinsman (our national cooach) will do all the right things.

Can you believe it? It has been 2 1/2 days in Germany now and I still have not enjoyed any Spargel (white asparagus). Hopefully tomorrow I will strike for the first time. The good side of this yucky weather is that the Spargelzeit will be hopefully a little extended, more opportunities for me ....

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of a good friend with a traditional "Badischer Wurstsalat" (think German Bologna cut in very thin slices or stripes, with pickles, tomatoes, onions in a vinegar dressing) and Czech Beer (what happened to the infamous "Tannenzaepfle"?, a local brew that is considered the best German beer). There were many little kids running around and good childhood friends, it felt very good.

This weekend I am planning to see my cousins, meeting up with some more friends as well as going to the annual field hockey tournament hosted by my former club, hoping to see some old buddies there.

Is it hard to guess the theme of the first few days in Germany? Family, friends, Spargel and soccer .... ha ha ha ... After visiting my god child next week I am planning to take off for a little trip around the country as well as visiting cities such as Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Bratislava. I will however make the detailed plans a little dependent on the weather. I brought some sweaters and long sleeved shirts, but was not at all prepared for this. Eastern Europe might be even colder than here so I want to wait until the weather improves or I might have to take a trip to Spain, Portugal or Greece to get some sun. We shall see.