I'm leaving on a jet plane

I will be heading back home tomorrow, November 2nd, for my Grandpa's wedding on Nov. 3rd. And, as a surprise plus, my father's family is having its Thanksgiving celebration on Nov. 4th. So, two wonderful events for the price (gulp, plane tickets) of one.

I do know when "I'll be back again." My plane leaves the U.S. on Saturday, November 10th, and gets into Stuttgart at 8:50 AM on, yes, November 10th! So I get to live that day all over again. Yay!

In other news, I completed my second German class (Deutsch A1.2) on Tuesday. I got a pretty little certificate and everything! My third class (Deutsch A2.1) starts on November 5th. Alas, I will be in the States, so I'll miss the first week. Actually I am quite fine with missing a week as my brain has taken to zoning quite a bit during class. I think I'm just tired of learning. Break needed! For example, just yesterday in the grocery store, a man leaned over the railing and asked me for something. I couldn't understand him so I just started pointing at the articles surrounding me. He looked at me like I was stupid as I kept pointing. Finally, I pointed at the correct item, a little hand-held shopping cart. Then the correct word registered in my brain and I thought --- DUH! No, Stephanie, he was not asking for a cigarette lighter or a pack of gum!

Yesterday, in my day off, I walked down to the Landesmuseum Stuttgart. This museum is located downtown, inside one of the old castles.

View of the entrance.

Inner courtyard.

Man on horse.

I mostly enjoyed my time inside the museum. Supposedly I was able to get a free Audio Tour-Guide headset with the entrance fee but they were all out of the English guides (sniff!). There was a small line formed near the guides, which made me think that several others were in line for the English headsets. I decided just to do it alone. Now this marks my second museum in Germany--- but I hadn't learned my lesson.

I understood which period I was in, generally, as words like "Roman" and "Middle Ages" are pretty easy to translate. But after that, I was left to guess what most of the artifacts were. I couldn't read about the history, little details, etc. And that, unfortunately, is my favorite thing to do at a museum. That's why Nate and I very rarely go to a museum together. I'm usually lingering behind reading each and every plaque while he is tugging at my coat, whining like a 3 year old.

SO, I guess the point of this rambling post is... if you are like me, you might want to hold off on going to "history" museums in foreign countries until you have mastered the language a bit more. Otherwise, you spend 10 euros and want to scream as you walk past all of this magnificent history and have no idea what you are looking at.