The Social Porcupine

I have a question for you: "If you lived in Germany during the Third Reich, would you have been one of those that stood by silent as Jews were dragged away from their homes? Would have refused to believe that Jews and many others were being killed and treated inhumanly at several large concentration camps scattered throughout your home country?" Before I answer this question for myself, I want to take a break and share a story from my siblings and me.  When my Dad was in the hospitable last year for a month, my mom spent all of that time with him, I was mostly in charge of my ten younger siblings. The few just under me in age were able to take care of themselves and help out with the younger ones, too, but as the oldest one I ended up dealing with most of the messy, stressful situations that arose.  Such as making sure my younger siblings did their chores and school and not spend every moment watching movies or playing video games. The only problem was dur...

See the shadow in the background?  Before I left for Germany, one of my friends told me, "You gotta go to France." I'm afraid that as much as I pretend, I'm not actually always that adventurous. Deep down I want to go to every country. But, also, I have this thing where I want to only focus on one big thing at a time. Going to Germany was enough. France? Eh. Not this time. It's not really that big of a deal to go to other countries in Europe. It's like crossing state borders—I was told Europe doesn't have border control, except through airports. I didn't even need to show my passport when going to Switzerland which is not a part of Europe an Union. My view of France outside my hotel room Well, it turns out I went to France after all. With my Au Pair parents and their youngest son. I didn't even know we were going until maybe two days before. And I thought we were only going for a weekend, but the day before I found out we'd be g...

Kathlyn and I admiring our robust reflections.   By the end of the previous day, Kathlyn and I had walked 34,000 steps. We were soaked and exhausted, and considered eating out—we actually found a lovely place called KartoffelLand (Potatoe Country), but it was full. We didn't want fast food, so we bought some bread, cheese, and fruit from a grocery, then ate it on her bed. Someone else had the bed I was sleeping in the night before, so I claimed another empty bunk, though I think this time it actually was number five (and if not five, it was six, and whoever should have had six was sleeping in my bed). Later some other girls came into the room and had a bit of trouble sorting out whose bunk was whose. It was fun being the observer this time around. Kathlyn and I talked to the girl a bit more, whose bed I'd slept in for an hour the night before, and had fun getting to know her. We'd originally planned to walk three hours to Bonhoeffer's house, but we were exha...

I remember hearing of Kathlyn many times through another friend as "someone like you, who also travels." But because of the fact that she liked to travel, whenever I was around she wasn't.  A few months back she sent me a Facebook friend request and we talked a bit, about life and work and how it'd be fun to get a place together. I think I'd even considered employing her as I was desperate to find someone to clean for me at the time. But despite our great FB chat and us only living an hour and a half apart, we never managed to actually meet up in person.  But ... as I was coming to Germany, I saw she was coming, too. So, of course, I had to message her about it. I found out she'd come to work for a farm and was here only six weeks, and wanted to see some things but not on her own.  So, I suggested we meet up and see Dietrich Bonhoeffer's house, as she didn't seem to care what she saw as long as it was something German. Now I'm quite ...