Sand, beaches, and crazy bitches.

There is always something depressing about the end of July for me. Summer is almost over, the year is half gone, and I look back and wonder where its going. I've been to the beach once this year despite a plethora of warm sunny days here in Marburg. Can you feel the sands of time slipping through your fingers, grain by grain? Hmmmmm........

The beach in Marburg is on a private lake and is quite different than any beach I have ever been on. You pay about 5 bucks for admission and then once inside you have a couple of options. Swim, jump on the water trampoline, or go water skiing or wakeboarding. I just swam and jumped on the trampoline with all the other 12 year kids, trying to do flips without landing on my head. When I was 14, I was quite good at flips, front and back, but things have sadly changed.

The other option is water skiing, which is funny when you consider they dont have any boats on the lake. They have a giant cable system that pulls you in circles. It costs about 20 bucks an hour and you have to do training before you can try, which costs about another 50 bucks. I kinda laughed at the whole ridiculous situation of people paying to get pulled in circles. While in the lake I tried climbing the floating rubber rock climbing toy. It is in the shape of a pyrimad and about 12 feet high. While trying to climb to the top, I slipped and starting toppling down. Unfortunetly, there was about four kids underneath me and well, gravity, inertia, and a 30 old man took them all down to. They were surprisingly happy about the situation and I was really relieved to see none of them crying. They said something in German at me and then went back to climbing. Sometimes its good not to understand.

Some strange observations for me in Marburg lately. I seen a homeless lady wearing a Vikings Football shirt. I thought there was some justice in that, but I dont know how. Last Friday, some friends and I went to a club. The music was absolutely terrible as they were only playing 50`s and 60`s rock. I wondered what wormhole I just went into. But it was too late, I already paid my 3 euros so I just had to make the best of it. I tried to meet this girl who was looking lonely at the bar, but she had some strange german accent that I couldnt understand, so when a friend came over, I introduced them, and went off dancing. It looked like they had a good conversation going to. About 20 minutes later he comes up with a scared look on his face and I asked him how it went. This was what he had to say:

Her name is Isabelle and she likes Tequila. So far so good. She just got out of the psychiatric hospital after a five year extended stay. She now lives in a half way house, where she is allowed to go out once a week. One of the reasons she was there (in the hospital), was she decided to jump off a 5 story parking garage. Somehow she lived to tell the tale, and proceeded to show the stomach scars to my horrified friend. He mentioned her stomach looked like healed hamburger. I asked my friend if he got her telephone number---she seems like quite the catch. She was quite pretty actually, but I have a feeling thats kinda how her problems all started. So to my lady friends, should you ever need a good story for a persistent guy, this tale is sure to work.

I think I will be coming back to America in October, but only for a seminar in Boston. I hope to setup some job interviews while there too. I'm getting a little nervous about not having a job in six months. It will be my first time in Cambridge though. The conference is on the Harvard campus, so I will have to see if I can find me a Trust Fund girl who really likes her for who she really is. Uh huh. Thats all for now--Ill write more, when I have more.