In the end I made it to the thanksgiving-dinner at No Sé. And it was great. The food was good (though a bit cold by the time we got it) and the beer lasted until I left. Unfortunately today I'm suffering for it. I had already strongly suspected that my stomach wasn't really up for turkey, cranberry, mash and pumpkin-pie - but I simply had to go. Well, in the night I got the shakes and today I'm feeling everything but fine but whom have I to blame but me?

It was actually a pretty good day yesterday. I finally found someone again with whom I can go to Salsa Classes. So that was pretty cool. There was a shockingly dumb American girl there as well, who seriously had never heard of Germany. She had asked me where I was from, I said Germany, I repeated it a few times, described a bit of the history (Worldwar I, II), but she just shrugged and said: "So, it's in Europe. That's alright then. I don't know anything about Europe". And I thought people of that stupidity would be a cliché. And someone like that is allowed to vote? Scary.

Anyhow: The dancing was good and the thanksgiving dinner was a lot of fun as well. I sat at a table with three people from school (two Americans, one English), two Norwegian Girls and another American Guy. Since in Germany, and most of Europe, Thanksgiving is actually a church-day where we give thanks to god, the Americans on the table filled us in on the background of Thanksgiving in the States which resulted in a rather funny exchange between Tom the American guy.

Tom: So basically you are thanking the indians for keeping your ancestors alive so that their descendents could kill all the indians. Is that about right?

American bloke: A bit drastic, but yeah, pretty much.

There was also another exchange later on at night that I found pretty funny. After the local kids had set of another barrage of fireworks on the street someone, I don't remember who, said that in his state in the US it is illegal to buy Fireworks. To which a girl remarked: "So let me get this straight. In your state I cannot buy a firecracker. But I can buy a gun. Or even an automatic weapon. Doesn't that strike you as a bit odd?". The girl's got a point.

Plans for the weekend and next week

I've made a 180 degree turn on my plans to go to Costa Rica next week. Instead I'm gonna stay in Antigua for a bit longer, going to school for at least one more week and then I'll see. I just figured there are still so many things here that I have't seen, that I really don't have to spend the 250 bucks to get to CR. Besides, Costa Rica is much, much more expensive than Antigua. And, most important of all, I like it here. I have a lot of people here whom I genuinely like and with whom I can go on weekend-trips to all sorts of places. So why leave, especially since it would only be for a bit more than two weeks. This weekend I'll probably go rockclimbing again. I really enjoyed it in Yosemite and the two Norwegians said they'd be up fo it. I'll meet them later in the park to see how serious they were. If they don't come I'll just take it easy this weekend and get well.

Is 31 too old?

One of the things I'm doing in Antigua in my spare time is looking at jobs. Particularly jobs in foreign countries since, even though I'm ready to go home for a bit, I don't really want spend the rest of my life in Germany. But you know what I found? And I'm genuinley shocked by this: For a lot of jobs given out by the German Foreign Ministry you have to be under 32 the day you start or even under 29! I mean - what the hell! I'm really quite outraged by this. Ignorant, stupid bastards!