An Odd Encounter

On Saturday I had to come in to school for an open house day for prospective students. Basically, the English department hoped to woo potential students by showing off their fancy native English speaker...who of course will not be here come next year, but never mind about that. Basically I sat around eating candy and playing board games with small children for 3 hours, hung over (yuh), and was eventually permitted to go home. However, one of my teachers approached me with some most unusual news. Evidently there is an elderly unmarried couple who lives together in a nearby town. The man is an avid model airplane builder who specializes in American fighter planes. At a craft show elsewhere in Germany, he met an American military officer stationed somewhere in Germany who shares his enthusiasm for model-building. They struck up a friendship, and the American (and his wife) have been to our region to visit on a few occasions. What does this have to do with me? I have no idea. So after seeing a feature article about me in the town's weekly paper (yeah, I'm like the Paris Hilton of Zwönitz), this old couple was greatly excited to learn that an American was living in the area. They came to the school with copies of old letters exchanged between them and the Americans (dated 2006), and wondered if I would be interested in calling the Americans on the phone. Why? Again, I have no idea. In the article about me, the author made a point of mentioning how much better Christmas in this region is than Christmas in America. Here we have the traditional Christmas markets and craft displays, while in America everything is commercialized and evil. (I obviously said nothing even remotely indicating that opinion, but whatever). Due to my alleged enthusiasm for the Christmas market here, the elderly German couple hoped that my calling these Americans and telling them about the wonders of Christmas in the Erzgebirge would somehow persuade them to come next year. Apparently the Germans have invited them before, but the Americans did not take them up on it. What I don't understand is, these letters are 2-3 years old, why haven't the couples corresponded more recently? Why am I expected to convince complete strangers that they ought to come to the Christmas market in Zwönitz next year, rather than returning home to celebrate the holidays with their families? I am still bewildered, but will be giving the letters and photos back tomorrow, and will most likely not be phoning the American couple. Needless to say, this is all very unsettling.

Speaking of unsettling, what the fuck happened to the Eagles last night? In a truly Boston College-esque performance, they got torn apart on defense for the first half, made an outstanding comeback in the second half, and then decided to fuck it up again with 3 minutes remaining. Good thing that was the only football game I had a chance to watch all season. Very frustrating. Go Sixers?