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It's possible that I've lost the will to blog!

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Friday was shockingly warm and sunny, and the city rushed to greet the unusually pleasant weather. The banks of the Leine were strewn with small groups arrayed around small barbecues, and on Limmerstrasse, the bike/tram street running through the heart of Linden, all of the restaurants immediately set out sidewalk tables, and they were all full. The pleasant weather ceased as abruptly as it arrived, yet the sneak peek bodes well for summer!

Yesterday I went with the glider club to take the aircraft from the workshop in Hannover to the airport in Oppershausen, my first time out at the airport. It's actually a bit far outside of Hannover (map). We assembled the gliders, did the weight-and-balance measurements, and fired up the winch to inspect the tow cables. Next weekend we fly!

Kate is gone this week, at the LIGO meeting in Boston. I'm on my own in Deutschland for the first time!

It's a rainy day in Hannover today. After a long morning walk, the dog is snuggled up in a blanket on the sofa. Next up, an art show by one of the students in my German course.

Current reading: the Tin Drum

Rai Weiss exhorted me to read Günter Grass after I admitted to having family connections to East Prussia. I bought the English translation and the German version, thinking I might read the German (slowly slowly) and then reward myself by reading the English. But this seems a bit too ambitious, since even the translation requires some attentiveness. Reading the translation first and then the German has the advantage that text always makes more sense after you know what it says (and you can fool yourself into thinking you understand, like when watching a movie with subtitles.)