Got back from lovely Austria yesterday. Fat and happy. Being there made me remember how great the German language is. It also made me realize how much easier it is to comprehend than Japanese, especially from a listening perspective. I think my Japanese is better than my German at this point, but it was much easier for me to understand what people were saying in Vienna than in Sapporo. Also, anyone who thinks German is an ugly and spit-intensive language has been listening to too much Hitler. I wish I had a recording of the Vienna Subway system's stop announcements, the guy's voice was awesome: the words "Stubentor, Dr. Karl Lueger Platz" will echo in my memory forever.

Also, how can anyone hate a language with such out-of-control compound words?!?!?!?! (29 letters, for those of you keeping score at home.)

The details of the trip aren't terribly exciting. Saw Salzburg for a few days before the family showed up. Once family arrived, spent lots of quality time together. Mostly eating, drinking, playing pool, and smoking with dad. Having been foiled in a prior attempt to bring foreign-bought Cuban cigars back to America, he decided to smoke one while in Austria. He bought one for a whopping €2.80, a sure sign of a quality cigar (though I'm beginning to believe there's no such thing)! It snapped in half in his pocket, so we each attempted to smoke half. Ugh. Better than Swisher Sweets, but that's sort of like saying liver is better than tripe. We followed that up with one of dad's fantastic unfiltered Pall Malls, a vast improvement.

We also watched a fair amount of TV. The major highlight was the broadcast of a biathlon - holy crap, if I could cross-country ski, I would attempt this sport myself. How does it get any better than skiin' and shootin'? It don't. And it was actually a lot of fun just to watch! Crazy. While we're talking sports television, I'm very curious to see what it's like to watch the Olympics outside of America. I'm hoping it'll mean I get to see the cool/interesting events that fucking NBC chooses to ignore, i.e. everything that is not gymnastics, swimming, and track & field. Anyway - the other show of note was The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Dubbed in German! I certainly wish I'd seen the following sexy news program!

Katie (my sister, for those from whom I have successfully hidden my family) seems interested as well, in spite of the male anchors' more...conservative attire.

Also, I had my first day at an elementary school today! The kids are, even for one who insists he's never going to wittingly make the babies, really cute. And they let me play the kotoand shakuhachi in music class! So cool! Shakuhachi is freaking impossible, though - I could barely produce a sound on the thing.

Now I am going to go attempt to break into my own mailbox (it has a little padlock whose key was lost long before I arrived) with the help of my hundred-yen Family Saw!

great fun to hear about the trip from your viewpoint, we missed the photo op with your sister, pretty cute. glad you like the little kids so much, maybe someday we will get to be grandparents. ha ha take care and be good we love you

Glad to hear you had a good trip. Did you freak out your mother by snowboarding the Alps with a broken wrist? Have fun.

The best part about the Family Saw is that they transliterated the phrase "Family Saw" into Japanese.

since i have nothing else to offer...

that's a hacksaw. it only works in the forward stroke. if you put much pressure on the return stroke you'll toast the teeth lickity split. it might work for your lock, but it might not. the metal of the lock is probably harder than the metal of the saw. if the saw fails, buy a lock/bolt cutter. i'll buy it from you when you get back in 23 years. this post is probably far too late anyway.