Friday Shuffle - Idling Edition

Let's just put the latest happenings together, shake 'em up and dump 'em out and see what turns up.

• I rarely get into traffic jams, mostly because they simply don't occur very often in my city unless there's a big soccer or handball game going on. I guarantee you I've sat in more traffic jams in my 14,500 person hometown in Mississippi than I have in my 230,000 person hometown in Germany. Today was the exception. I foolishly set out about 4:20 this afternoon to drive about 6 kilometers to the home of some friends. I wasn't more than about a half kilometer from home when I got caught in traffic - commuters and tour buses and trucks avoiding the Autobahn in order to save paying toll. After a while I realized that it wasn't going to break loose at any moment and get going and so I finally cut out of the road I was on and took a roundabout way to my destination. And what time was it when I arrived? 5:40pm. Good thing I topped off my gas tank yesterday!
  
  
• While in traffic I spotted cars and trucks from Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Bulgaria and the Netherlands (that one was a camper - you folks in Germany will appreciate that one). Somehow it made getting stuck in traffic much less tedious knowing it had that international flair.
  
  
• If I don't get this pair of sock I'm knitting for my niece finished I am going to scream. I am dying to start a new pair for my other niece and I'm right at the end of this current pair and I just can't get the time to get them done.
  
  
• Too bad I didn't have my knitting with me while I was in that traffic jam. I'd be finished with them by now.
  
  
• I called B while I was in my dead-stopped traffic jam. Held the phone up to my ear and all - didn't use the hands free function. Using a cell phone non-hands-free while driving a car is illegal in Germany. I've been living the Ordnung muss sein! life too long because I actually feel a little guilty for being a scofflaw.
  
  
• Germany won their match against Portugal last night in the quarter-finals of the European championships so the good feeling the country had two years ago during the World Cup is returning a bit. B and I both have a variety of friends from the Netherlands that we met on various online sites and all of us are wishing for a Germany vs. Netherlands final. What I'm enjoying is the fact that we're all being very friendly about it all and encouraging one another's teams in the meantime. Germany and the Netherlands have a sometimes rocky relationship (lingering bad feelings over WWII) that comes out during soccer matches and even discussions about soccer matches so it's nice to make friends online and stay friendly about it all instead of being asses about it.
  
  
• A few weeks ago I received a card from my younger niece to thank me for the gift I sent to her for her 16th birthday. It in she told me that next year she's dropping taking Latin in favor of taking German - she really wanted me to know that she wants to learn German. Yesterday I received a card from her brother thanking me for the gift I sent him for his high school graduation. He wrote the card in German (he doesn't know German - he just used an online translator so actually the translation is sort of funny) because he really wanted to write something in German to his aunt and his German uncle. It just cracks me up no end (and rather touches me) that these kids that I never get to see still want to do something that'll make me proud of them.
  
  
• We had bratwurst for supper tonight. One of the things I love best about living in Germany is the ease of obtaining the most fabulous bratwurst. One of the things I hate is how after eating bratwurst I am painfully, painfully thirsty for hours.

Let's commence to shuffling.

1. Runaway - Grant-Lee Phillips
2. Highway Star - Deep Purple
   
3. God's Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash
4. Your Love Alone Is Not Enough - Manic Street Preachers
5. An End Has A Start - Editors
6. White Unicorn - Wolfmother
7. 1976 - Alan Jackson
8. Dazed And Confused - Led Zeppelin
9. When Love Comes To Town - U2
10. Hello - Oasis