Regensblog

Tonight we met the Eurotrippens. They are really cool people.

One thing we Sarah noticed: they are the first American couple we have ever met over here where both parties are American. I thought that couldn’t be true when she first said it, but when I think about everyone else from our budding little ex-pat community in Regensburg (thanks go to Christina for her organizational efforts), they’re all not a couple, or not both American.

One thing I noticed: meeting people in real life, with whom our first contact was via our blogs or other websites (or, in our case, a BBS) has been a singularly cool experience, every time.

In roughly chronological order:

1. Sarah (homerun on the first at-bat!)
2. Miss-Efficiency and her husband via BookCrossing
3. Zmrzlina via BookCrossing
4. Ron & Kaori via BookCrossing
5. a bunch of German bookcrossers at various meetups
6. Margot and Nick, indirectly via BookCrossing
7. Christina and Rainer
8. and now B and Jim

Are we just lucky? Or are you all as thrilled with your on-line meetups as we are? You can post anonymously if you want.

It’s been doing weird stuff here lately. Fierce, sudden winds, surprise snow, hail, and freezing rain storms, and all this after last week hit the 60°F mark.

The guy below looks pretty tame, right?

He even fooled me into thinking that I could work some Cesar Millan-style magic on him. Actually, that stuff does work on him indoors, but outside on his leash, even saddled with Apfelschorle bottles for extra resistance, he is constantly trying to assert his pack leadership. Christina took Sarah and me out for a rousing hike through the woods around Laaber and Young Master Charles was a force to be reckoned with. He accepts the leash and initially responds well to hisses, foot taps, and other assertions of pack leadership, but it became clear to me that he was just waiting me out. He didn’t mind tugging at all. He did do a surprisingly good job of following my instructions to calmly wait for approaching dogs to get their freak on, thereby thoroughly embarrassing their humans.

Last night two very good friends independently informed us that they are ending their relationships with their long-term significant others. These two friends are not connected to each other except that they have another mutual acquaintance (if you can even call it that) besides me. (And no, I don’t think they would make a good item together.)

It just weirds and saddens me to hear of two breakups on the same day, especially as we approach Narg & Carrie’s wedding and spent last Saturday at a wedding in Neuburg an der Donau.

Or maybe there’s some kind of Conservation of Couples natural law in effect here. That would be a bummer, of course.

Well, isn’t that nice? I got a nice write-up from good buddy Phil on his blog over at myspace.com. As you will read, Phil and I have been pals since freshman orientation at OU back in the day (circa July 1994).

Sarah I and were talking about long-term friendships and stuff last night, and we realized…wait for it…we’ve been shacking up for five whole years as of December 27! I bet my mom prefers to focus on the time period starting, oh, mid-February 2004 or so, but we keep different kinds of records between each other, like

• when we first met online
• when we first met in person
• when we moved in together (remember that ordeal, Narg & Sara?)
• when we got married
• when we moved overseas

I guess that’s our most recent recurring celebration. What are yours?