I am now in a tiny little black forest village called Salzstetten. I am staying with a host family whose numerous members seem to constantly come and go so that I can't tell who actually lives here. There's the older couple, their grown sons and daughters, one of the daughter's two young children, and a guinea pig. The two little kids are both very animated- with the exception of the son while he watches episodes of sponde-bob spuare-pants, during which he might as well be comatose. The rest of the time he is running around, playing with everything, constantly bringing me random household things, and throwing tantrums. I guess he must be almost 4. The little girl is almost two, but already understands everything you say and can talk pretty well. She is a little angel compared with her wild brother, but they get along really well.

Their mother spent time as an exchange student in Los Angeles, but so far I have only spoken in German with everyone, so my conversation ability has improved already... the grammar is all still a little beyond me- trying to remember that past tense transitive verbs use 'have' and intransitive ones use 'been' trips me up a little. I haven't even tried to nail down the article declinations in conversation, either. But my german class starts tomorrow, so I'll start to work on all that.

I practiced in my host family's house for the first time today. They said that they'd hosted a Taiwanese student a few years ago who was also a bassoonist. I played some well-known tunes for the kids, who were intrigued, and the family insisted that I was a better player than the other musicians they had previously hosted- probably out of politeness, seeing as my reeds are all on their deathbed and my technique is shaky after weeks of sparse practice. They said that I can practice here as much as I want, but I will try to see if there is some other place in the neighborhood I can go to practice- a church or community orchestra space.

I'm surprised by how beautiful the summer is here- maybe it's a consequence of living without real seasons in CA for 10 years. Here everything is bright green and when there's a breeze you smell all the plants. most of the buildings here are centuries-old farmhouses with flower gardens and fruit trees around. Traveling here, I have hardly ever been on what could be considered a highway by US standards. Everyone drives through fields and hills on little windy roads. At least one californian ran to puke in some bushes after our bus arrived in this rural area.

The food is pretty good here, too. We had a picnic yesterday, during which the two little kids climbed naked into a fountain and chased each other around screaming. I was pretty impressed by the quantity of various food items comprising the lunch: different sausages, breads, cheeses, fruits, salmon and beer. The Kebab places that everyone told me about are pretty good, but it's a strange sensation- it tastes like real food when you eat it, but afterwords in feels like you've just eaten a hot dog.

At our orientation in Tubingen, they tried to convince us to buy liability insurance, which covers anything that I destroy out of carelessness or recklessness during my stay in Germany. A lot of people signed up for it, too. I guess most people in Germany have it, but I felt a little weird paying for something that I've never heard if and have lived without for the rest of my life back home. Hopefully I don't carelessly set fire to any buildings or I'll regret my decision.