...then we take Berlin

Hello Friends!

I feel like I have neglected you. There are so many posts I write in my head, but then never put pen to paper…or fingers to keyboard as the case may be.

Going back to September:

I had a great (whirlwind) trip back to Canada, with a pitstop in Duluth to be part of a very special day for two of our bestest friends. At the wedding, we got teased a little bit about being Swenadians, and there was a minor controversy about whether a marriage certificate witnessed and signed by a Swenadian is actually legal. (It is.)

The Canada portion was fantastic, but again, far too short, and at times incredibly bittersweet. I was so happy to have time to visit with family and friends, especially my grandparents who came up from Saskatchewan.

Bittersweet, in part, because again I was leaving my husband on the other side of the Atlantic and taking my third solo trans-atlantic flight this year (out of a grand total of 7 trans-atlantic flights this year - How did I end up with this gypsy lifestyle?)

In the last 12 months I have lived in France, Canada, Sweden, and now Germany.

Germany. Which brings me now to October. I am here in Potsdam for one month doing some research at a famous (in the science world anyway) institute for pflanzenphysiology.

Potsdam. East Germany. Formerly GDR. Capital of Brandenburg. Just outside of Berlin.

Remember high school? Remember after the war was over and Stalin, Truman, and Churchill met up to discuss ‘what next?’ That was the Potsdam Conference.

The names of all the treaties like that never meant much to me in high school. The Potsdam Conference falls in the same category for me as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the British North America Act, and the treaty of Versailles - words you pull out on social studies tests when you can’t think of anything else. But now, actually being in the place where it happened, makes it much more interesting to me.

I’ve only been here a few days now, and am really looking forward to my first weekend to get some exploring done both in Potsdam and Berlin. Stay Tuned...

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

As I sit here watching the movie “Ghost” on Sveriges TV, I am reveling in the revealing revelation that… I actually love this movie.

Then I think about Patrick Swayze and how he starred in almost every other guilty pleasure movie of the ‘80s: “Dirty Dancing”, “The Outsiders”, “Big Trouble in Little China”. Wait – isn’t that Kurt Russell? meh. Close enough.

Since I am not, nor aspire to be, Perez Hilton- I generally wouldn’t make an entire blogpost about Patrick Swayze a.k.a. Sam Wheat, Johnny Castle, Captain Ron - but there is actually an Umeå connection.

There is a random building in downtown Umeå which has a Patrick Swayze related neon sign on it…for absolutely no reason that is apparent to me – or most likely to anyone else either.

Where else in the world would they have random “Dirty Dancing” quotes written in noble gases on the side of a building? It would be funnier if it were in Swedish. Ingen kropp sätter barnet i hörnet

Uh oh. Carl Bruner just “spilled” on his shirt.

“No Molly! No! Don’t believe him! He’s in league with Willy Lopez!”

Must go. I’m emotionally vested now.