In Deutschland: Warum Nicht?

Valentines, Baselines and Games like Zombie

So yesterday was Valentine’s Day, which everyone insists they celebrate here, but I saw no real celebration. No valentines were made and passed out, no couples were parading themselves shamelessly through the streets. It was pretty much a normal day. Gary and I celebrated by engaging in the manly right of passage of teaching German kids baseball. This is an extremely difficult task, and we ended up playing a game that I could call chaotic at best. Then I helped with the Klub kids, we made Valentines and ate food and most of the kids coughed or sneezed on me. (There is a cold going around.) Then we watched Kill Bill, which is a decent movie (if you don’t mind excessive fake blood). I also finialized my second trip around Europe which will consist of me visiting Norway and Scotland (both of which use different currency than Euros, so I may just convert a few dollars to pounds and kroners, though Euros trade better.) It is stressfull to spend money, but trips are fun and I am hopefully going to have free places to stay. I am travelling on my own, but am visiting friends I have made during my life, so it should be fun.
Needless to say I didn’t get any Valentines, but eh, I never really got them anyway, so save your letters for something good like my birthday...or something. We also spent some time in the Truck Stop, which is a nice place to hang out and watch TV (which is something we can’t do everyday), the guy that owns it is very nice and sometimes gives us free things, so it is cool to hang out there.
Today we taught Baseball again, and it was easier as we were more prepared (I wrote out some rules in German, my written grammer is quite good, but I usually get confused when trying to speak) And the kids were better, and actually listened to us. It was alot of fun, even though I got stuck playing Catcher, which I don’t enjoy at all. I also made Valentines with the first graders, but it turned chaotic as they all asked for my help at the same time. We arrived home around 4 PM, pretty tired and looking forward to a little time to be lazy. I had just settled into relaxing with some Reliant K when my doorbell rang. It was Ina, one of our bosses, telling us we had Sportgruppe today, even though we were told it was next week. I roused Gary from relaxing and we grudgingly headed to the Sporthalle. It turned out to be pretty fun, we played soccer and a game called Zombie which is really quite fun. Then we all played this pointless game called something like Berliner Höhe Ball, or something. You just throw the ball in the air and call someones name, they catch it and yell stop and try to hit someone with it. If someone gets hit, they call the name. That is it.
It was a weird realization that we have been doing the sport group once every two weeks now for six months. I thought about the first time we did it, and I was excited about knowing some of the kids from school. We rode our bikes there, but it rained on the way back, we vowed never to ride bikes there again, but if we get the bikes fixed I am sure we will ride there again (we are a bit tougher about the rain nowadays). I remember it seemed to go on forever and I couldn’t understand what was going on at all. We knew no German whatsoever and the kids would try to tell us to do something but it made no sense. It is alot different now, we understand the kids, and sometimes give them suggestions. Not as many kids come, but it is still alot of fun. Sixth months gone by now, so fast, time does fly. I just think back to this time last year as I started my job lifegaurding at the YMCA, now I am enjoying the fruits of that labor, travelling across Europe, and I still wonder if it was worth the hours.