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Back on Duty
Mar. 8th, 2004 05:34 pmVery first thing: Happy belated birthdays to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eliathanis and tribun, respectively!
Well then, back to my homely PC. Tomorrow we'll finally get phone and internet; now if I manage to get my PC AND the internet connection up and running all on my own, I'll be back online for good. Yay. Since I wasn't the last week, I'm now abusing my lj as a diary, but I hope I'll be briefer than I usually am on those occasions.
Saturday - Left for Pertisau with Mom and Dad, picking up little Ricardo on the way. He's five years old, and these are his first vacations without the rest of his core family, so we hope he won't be too homesick. Visit at Burger King; Ricardo's very proud of his crown.
Lots of snow the farther south we get, but Bavarians seem to be able to cope with that sort of weather better than Colognians are. Arrival in Austria; Ricardo's disappointed because the border is rather unspectacular, without soldiers or policemen or barriers. Good food. Ricardo thinks it's taking too long, though; he's playing with the napkin rings and referring to himself as Sauron. Ooook.
Unpacking, sleeping.
Sunday - After breakfast, we go and book ski lessons for Ricardo and lend skis for him and my dad. Ricardo loves the ski school mascot, a penguin named Bobo. He starts to learn and my mother decides to stay close in case he's not yet old enough to stick with skiing behind an instructor for two hours. My dad and I go up on the mountains.
Ricardo is old enough, apparently, and in the afternoon he's put out of the kindergarten group into the school kid group. So we take my mom up for skiing, and lo and behold, all goes well. Snowing all day, so everything's rather wet and foggy and slow, but still ok.
I manage to convince my parents to leave there bed (which is in front of the tv) to me.
Monday - Woke up at midnight, woke up at 1 am, woke up at 2 am again. Since I was awake anyway, I actually watched the Oscars. Anke Engelke seems to be overwhelmed; Miriam Pielhau seems incompetent and Elmar Biebl arrogant. Damn Pro 7. Manage to get over the dead points with the help of two kanji lists. But the show is highly enjoyable, and LOTR gets 11 Oscars. Yeehah. And Billy Crystal is really funny - much better than last year's idiot macho warmonger...
Two hours of sleep, and it's time to ski again. No news - still snowing, I guess we can be glad it's not rain because it's coming down all day.
Tuesday - Guess what - still snowing. I seem to have indoctrinated Ricardo quite well, which I see when he's brought to his ski school group's lunch: They're going there in a little train, which is driven by an instructor called Isi. (He already drove that train when I learned to ski.) Anyway, overheard the following discussion:
Random kid: "Isi, what's your real name?"
Isi: "If I got a Euro whenever someone asked this, I'd be rich... It's Isidor."
Ricardo: "Isildur?!"
Isi: "Isidor!"
Ricardo: "Isildur, Isildur!"
That's one of those times where you want to pat him on the back and say, "You have learned well, my young Padawan..."
Wednesday - No more snowing, but sunshine! So we decide to go cross-country skiing and have a nice trip to the Gramai-Alm. My dad keeps trying to keep up with me and then complains that I am a slave driver. What? He needn't be as fast as I am! (He says he does, because Jörg asked him to keep an eye on me. Hah, hah.)
While skiing through the valley, every now and then there's a terrible racket and you can see a little avalanche go down from the mountains next to the track. A bit unsettling, but very impressive.
The hotel has a fat black tailless cat named Ambrosius, though some people call him Rufus for some reasons. There seem to be no more dogs in the village. Maybe Ambrosirufus is so fat because he ate them?
Thursday - More sun. We spend the time until lunch downhill skiing, but switch to cross-country in the afternoon. Orange punch in leaning mugs. Have to bring home two of those. For some strange reason, people are braking like mad on their way down from the Alm - and here I am glad whenever the skis glide by themselves! *sigh*
During dinner, Mom has to tell Ricardo about "Polyphem and Mr. Nobody" for the hundredth time. Asking him whether he knew the adventures of Odysseus was not a good idea, because he didn't, though he should now. He's also very inventive making up new adventures and new characters, both for the Odyssey, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Expect to see Ricardo among the fan fiction writers as soon as he can write. I'll be watching his career with great interest...
Friday - Still sunny! Pretty much the same as before; in the afternoon the snow is melting rapidly, though, so it's not much fun anymore. We'll be leaving tomorrow, anyway...
Another nice dialogue with Ricardo. Apparently, he got bitten by a girl called sofie in the swimming pool.
Mom: "That wasn't exactly nice of Sofie -"
Ricardo: "No, she bit me!"
Me: "There's sharks in the pool?!"
Ricardo: "Yes, a shark!"
Me: "And it's called Sofie?"
Ricardo *thinking for a second*: "No, Bruce!"
Yeah, yeah, Generation Intermission at its best...
Packing up.
Saturday - Leaving. Apparently, my phone calls to Jörg cost 51 €. Holy cow. And the phone wasn't even made ofGlod gold or anything...
Driving home horrible - lots of traffic jams. The shortest one 8, the longest one 50 km. Evil.
Lunch at McDonald's. Ricardo has a horse with his Happy Meal, which is, of course, actually the girls' gift (the boys are supposed to get police cars and helicopters, though I don't know why a boy shouldn't like horses, too). He's disappointed when he sees another little boy's helicopter, but I tell him it's a horse from Rohan, and he's content with it at once. "Yes, it's Aragorn's horse!" As I said, why shouldn't boys like horses.
Finally back home, I just manage to unpack before driving to Solingen. My car has made it through the TÜV in my absence. Sometimes, my brother is quite useful...
Jörg is bone tired and so am I, though we don't quite fall asleep right away. Shan't say no more.
Sunday - Renovating. Jörg's mother and I take care of the wallpapers in the hallway; Jörg takes down a wall in the office. (I've been cleaning up the mess this morning, and afterwards I could see what I'll be looking like in 50 years - my hair, eyebrows and eye lashed were all white, covered up with dust. Gah.) He also wanted to climb onto the roof to fix the satellite dish, but it was to slippery, so he didn't. His mother said it was a good thing he's growing responsible.
And now he's left for Heilbronn again, and we probably won't be seeing each other for two weeks at least. Stupid job. Stupid nuclear plants. Stupid distance.
eliathanis and tribun, respectively!Well then, back to my homely PC. Tomorrow we'll finally get phone and internet; now if I manage to get my PC AND the internet connection up and running all on my own, I'll be back online for good. Yay. Since I wasn't the last week, I'm now abusing my lj as a diary, but I hope I'll be briefer than I usually am on those occasions.
Saturday - Left for Pertisau with Mom and Dad, picking up little Ricardo on the way. He's five years old, and these are his first vacations without the rest of his core family, so we hope he won't be too homesick. Visit at Burger King; Ricardo's very proud of his crown.
Lots of snow the farther south we get, but Bavarians seem to be able to cope with that sort of weather better than Colognians are. Arrival in Austria; Ricardo's disappointed because the border is rather unspectacular, without soldiers or policemen or barriers. Good food. Ricardo thinks it's taking too long, though; he's playing with the napkin rings and referring to himself as Sauron. Ooook.
Unpacking, sleeping.
Sunday - After breakfast, we go and book ski lessons for Ricardo and lend skis for him and my dad. Ricardo loves the ski school mascot, a penguin named Bobo. He starts to learn and my mother decides to stay close in case he's not yet old enough to stick with skiing behind an instructor for two hours. My dad and I go up on the mountains.
Ricardo is old enough, apparently, and in the afternoon he's put out of the kindergarten group into the school kid group. So we take my mom up for skiing, and lo and behold, all goes well. Snowing all day, so everything's rather wet and foggy and slow, but still ok.
I manage to convince my parents to leave there bed (which is in front of the tv) to me.
Monday - Woke up at midnight, woke up at 1 am, woke up at 2 am again. Since I was awake anyway, I actually watched the Oscars. Anke Engelke seems to be overwhelmed; Miriam Pielhau seems incompetent and Elmar Biebl arrogant. Damn Pro 7. Manage to get over the dead points with the help of two kanji lists. But the show is highly enjoyable, and LOTR gets 11 Oscars. Yeehah. And Billy Crystal is really funny - much better than last year's idiot macho warmonger...
Two hours of sleep, and it's time to ski again. No news - still snowing, I guess we can be glad it's not rain because it's coming down all day.
Tuesday - Guess what - still snowing. I seem to have indoctrinated Ricardo quite well, which I see when he's brought to his ski school group's lunch: They're going there in a little train, which is driven by an instructor called Isi. (He already drove that train when I learned to ski.) Anyway, overheard the following discussion:
Random kid: "Isi, what's your real name?"
Isi: "If I got a Euro whenever someone asked this, I'd be rich... It's Isidor."
Ricardo: "Isildur?!"
Isi: "Isidor!"
Ricardo: "Isildur, Isildur!"
That's one of those times where you want to pat him on the back and say, "You have learned well, my young Padawan..."
Wednesday - No more snowing, but sunshine! So we decide to go cross-country skiing and have a nice trip to the Gramai-Alm. My dad keeps trying to keep up with me and then complains that I am a slave driver. What? He needn't be as fast as I am! (He says he does, because Jörg asked him to keep an eye on me. Hah, hah.)
While skiing through the valley, every now and then there's a terrible racket and you can see a little avalanche go down from the mountains next to the track. A bit unsettling, but very impressive.
The hotel has a fat black tailless cat named Ambrosius, though some people call him Rufus for some reasons. There seem to be no more dogs in the village. Maybe Ambrosirufus is so fat because he ate them?
Thursday - More sun. We spend the time until lunch downhill skiing, but switch to cross-country in the afternoon. Orange punch in leaning mugs. Have to bring home two of those. For some strange reason, people are braking like mad on their way down from the Alm - and here I am glad whenever the skis glide by themselves! *sigh*
During dinner, Mom has to tell Ricardo about "Polyphem and Mr. Nobody" for the hundredth time. Asking him whether he knew the adventures of Odysseus was not a good idea, because he didn't, though he should now. He's also very inventive making up new adventures and new characters, both for the Odyssey, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Expect to see Ricardo among the fan fiction writers as soon as he can write. I'll be watching his career with great interest...
Friday - Still sunny! Pretty much the same as before; in the afternoon the snow is melting rapidly, though, so it's not much fun anymore. We'll be leaving tomorrow, anyway...
Another nice dialogue with Ricardo. Apparently, he got bitten by a girl called sofie in the swimming pool.
Mom: "That wasn't exactly nice of Sofie -"
Ricardo: "No, she bit me!"
Me: "There's sharks in the pool?!"
Ricardo: "Yes, a shark!"
Me: "And it's called Sofie?"
Ricardo *thinking for a second*: "No, Bruce!"
Yeah, yeah, Generation Intermission at its best...
Packing up.
Saturday - Leaving. Apparently, my phone calls to Jörg cost 51 €. Holy cow. And the phone wasn't even made of
Driving home horrible - lots of traffic jams. The shortest one 8, the longest one 50 km. Evil.
Lunch at McDonald's. Ricardo has a horse with his Happy Meal, which is, of course, actually the girls' gift (the boys are supposed to get police cars and helicopters, though I don't know why a boy shouldn't like horses, too). He's disappointed when he sees another little boy's helicopter, but I tell him it's a horse from Rohan, and he's content with it at once. "Yes, it's Aragorn's horse!" As I said, why shouldn't boys like horses.
Finally back home, I just manage to unpack before driving to Solingen. My car has made it through the TÜV in my absence. Sometimes, my brother is quite useful...
Jörg is bone tired and so am I, though we don't quite fall asleep right away. Shan't say no more.
Sunday - Renovating. Jörg's mother and I take care of the wallpapers in the hallway; Jörg takes down a wall in the office. (I've been cleaning up the mess this morning, and afterwards I could see what I'll be looking like in 50 years - my hair, eyebrows and eye lashed were all white, covered up with dust. Gah.) He also wanted to climb onto the roof to fix the satellite dish, but it was to slippery, so he didn't. His mother said it was a good thing he's growing responsible.
And now he's left for Heilbronn again, and we probably won't be seeing each other for two weeks at least. Stupid job. Stupid nuclear plants. Stupid distance.
