Ich verstehe das nicht.

Today is . . . Saturday? No, Sunday. Sonntag. Sonntag, 14 Juni. Einundvierzehn.

I can’t remember what happened yesterday because nothing did. Which was sad, becuase Thursday and Friday represented the first two days consecutive days that I spent with people in my own peer group since I arrived here in Germany. On Thursday we bowled, sadly. I consider bowling the least enjoyable and least constructive social activity people can take part in, becaus a) bowling sucks and b) when you’re not bowling there isn’t any real chance for conversation.

Friday was better, because we went down to the Schlossgarten in downtown Stuttgart and ate at a biergarten. A biergarten is like the kind of outdoor cafe you might find in Italy, France, or Spain, except it’s bigger, with a long wooden table and benches, and the emphasis is on the Bier rather than the Kaffee. I did not get any bier, for personal reasons, but I suppose one of these days before I leave Germany (who knows when that will be) I will have the take the plunge and get a giant frothing mug of dunkelweissen or pilz or what have you.

On this same occasion we went down and played with the big chess sets in the park. I owned my American opponent, and would have mated him more quickly if he didn’t have four old German guys trying to point out the right move. Then I played a German guy my age who obviously did this habitually (I offered to play black and he said, “No, no, I’m practicing black.” Bad news.)

Anyway, it was a day spent out of my American terrarium, and I was able to use my limited Deutsch (Wie heissen Sie? Woher kommen Sie?) on one of the on-lookers to our high-stakes, super-exciting chess match.

Hopefully this (the spending time with peers and / or the conversing with Real, Living Germans) will become a trend in the near future. As opposesd to a single, solitary point pinned to an otherwise empty co-ordinate plane, which is what it is now. That lonely, lonely, little point.

Things are shaping up to be pretty odd.