April 17, 1992

 Monday 30 March

Dear Mom, Dad, Nathan, Caleb, Joel, Evelyn, and whomever else might presently be living at 619 Stanvid Drive,

           I received these photos from Jean Christoph today and thought you'd enjoy seeing them. The first was taken during Jean Christoph’s birthday party. That was a fun evening! We ate fondue and drank French champagne and had a good time together talking.

I think you know all the people present: Sylvia, Herr von Halem, Frau von Halem, myself, and Jean Christoph.

Then you have the photo of your lovely daughter (I'm surprised my nose isn't beet red, because it's always so cold here. Maybe it was the champagne that warmed me up).

 

Then (photo 3) you see the desserts we made: one American style birthday cake (with the sun motif reflecting our unrealized desire to be somewhere warm) and one Sylvia style, freeform most dessert with assorted fruits, and, of course, the sun shining above. Photo four shows Sylvia and me happily at work, and #5 was taken after a dinner party.

Photo six was taken in my room. The three of us had gathered after dinner to drink tea and talk and look at photos etc. We both look so photo-ready, eh? I never realized how cock-eyed I am!

And the last photo was sent to me by Frank Vervuert, the one who drove me from Aix-en-Provence to Geneva. That's not frank in the photo. That photo was taken outside of the youth hostel in Geneva. What I find most interesting is how brown I am in this photo, and that was exactly this time of year, one year ago! It is April now, and I still look like a ghost. Remember I told you I was beginning to get accustomed to the cold period well, now my body is telling me, “Hey, what's up? It's April and still you freeze the entire day!! It's time to head South!" My body's right I'm not cut out to be a cold weather creature. But I must stay at least three more weeks because I've got a long way to go with my German. Right now, I'm reading Damian by Hesse. It's such a good feeling to be reading Hesse in the original version! And often I read it without my dictionary thereby, and it goes good. My reading and listening understanding now is very good, fluent, if I can say that in connection with reading and listening. But I have such difficulties speaking! Some people say they can speak a language before they can read or write but I don't understand that in the least. How can you speak a word if you don't know how it's spelled?!

Donnerstag, 9 April

The first thing I must do is make an apology I was so I write that you didn't send my sleeping bag along with Scott. He told me that she simply didn't give it to him. You knew that I wanted it (he said) but you didn't deliver it. In other words, he lied to me. I wouldn't have asked him to bring these items along if he hadn't offered. But he did. And the wine he “completely forgot” and he lied to me about the sleeping bag. And I haven't heard from him for two months. How nice. So anyway, I'm sorry for getting angry with you. And Sylvia has said that I can take hers along with to use for a couple of months.

           Monday night Paul from England arrived. He's an interesting guy. he's 20 comma studies French and German at Oxford, and he bought and accordion along, which he began learning to play two days before. Tuesday Sylvia and Paul and I went walking with the dogs and brought tea and freshly baked cake (baked by Paul) along for a picnic, and Paul brought his accordion.

You can imagine how the novelty gradually wore off since Paul's repertoire is 1 1/2 songs large. No, really, it was very nice. I even played a little. Then later that evening Paul taught me a song on the piano a duet. It was the first time I've used the piano here. It's a grand piano and sounds so good! And feel so good to play. Last evening, I must have played for 1 1/2 hours or so. Paul is driving to London May 7th as his birthday is the 9th and I think maybe I'll ride along. Saves days on my train pass plus my Eurail isn't valid in Great Britain. Then yesterday Scott and Walter came. Scott is the Vandy student I met here three or so weeks ago who also worked at Granite Falls. And Walter from Italy. Now we're 5 and the work goes quicker, but there's still always too much to do. Walter trains for triathlons and Scott was on the cycling team at Vandy and Paul used to run in high school so we're all going running together later today. Something I can't figure out is why I must continually run into Vandy students during my travels. How do they fit into the big scheme of things? There was the girl I saw running in Exxon Provence with the black and gold bandy T shirt, bleach blonde hair, artificial tan and Walkman, there's the friend of George Robinson I “coincidentally” Matt in Norway in this tiny city, and he also studies medicine at Vandy. And now Scott. It all seems so strange. Vandy’s not so big!

           the weather here has taken a sudden turn period since Monday we've eaten lunch outside every day because it's been continuously sunny and warm. And the air is so clean, it's a joy to be outside exclamation point on Sunday Alex comes for a visit. He's the country music fan who I invited over to our house through eat. We'd met at the Gerst Haus and he came from Warstein (western part of Germany). Then next Wednesday comes Werner, the guy who overnighted by us with his girlfriend. I'm still waiting to hear from Andreas… haven't worked in Die Sonne recently because the owner has a girlfriend from Munich and maybe she quit her job or something turn off because she's been here already almost a month.

Kai is in England now. I haven't heard from him since he's been there but his friend Rheine called me and told me. Rheine plans also to come for a visit.

At this point, Julie goes into some detail about things that need not be shared publicly and so we will skip to the end.

I know this letter is short but it's hard to find time to work and I want to send you guys the photos. Please keep them in a safe place for me. Till next time take care! Love,

Julie