Long long weekend

Well, the children went off to southern Germany for five days, so Giuseppe and I had the rare opportunity to be together as a pair. What a delight, but also, boy, time goes slow when no teenagers or children are around. Thursday was a national holiday, and we had Friday off. By the time Saturday morning came around, I couldn’t believe there were another two days left to our long weekend. Time not only slowed down, I swear I could almost hear the seconds tick by languidly like an old grandfather clock.


I managed to create a collage or two, see a few movies (X-Men 3, Mirror Mask, and an old spaghetti western), go out to one of our favourite restaurants, and visit a friend in Hamburg. I picked up the children in Hamburg central train station last night.

There were a lot of policemen, drug dogs, and anti-riot shields lining the way to and from the trains, which was quite scary to have to confront, for we had to pass through a tunnel of green/black uniformed policemen and their barking dogs to get to the train platform. Though not as scary as being on the train with the drunken hooligans (the police just escort the soccer crowds to and from the trains).

A few years ago, the children and I were sitting on a train filled with a particularly awful crowd just as an unsuspecting teacher entered our department with a large group of French school children (a very multi-racial group). She told the group to spread out and find a seat but changed her mind when I told her the train was filled with drunken soccer fans. They ended up staying together in our small department. Wise choice.