Happy Christmas
Dear friends,
The year is drawing to a close. For me, this year is still inconceivable. Inconceivably wonderful things have happened. But also inconceivably horrific things. Christmas time and the turning of the years makes you reflect. And you wonder: Who will I be in the new year?
My best friend got married. In February, only ten people were allowed into the registry office because of Corinna. Those who waited outside had trouble not to freeze to the ground. Also in April, when we were both staying in Dresden, the weather was cold and he had a cold. In the absence of a kettle for sick tea, I remembered how my grandmother made coffee and bought an object out of time: an immersion heater. I also bought two mini bottles of wine to choose from. Naturally, we drank both and also raided the snack machine. It’s nice when you can be unreasonable together.
It was much warmer at the end of July with Olaf in Rome. Unfortunately, also loud and insolent, because a favourable dollar exchange rate had unleashed a load of cliché Americans. It was the public transport of Rome, however, that ruined it for us: in the overcrowded buses during rush hour, no one could reach the one single validator. The ticket inspectors knew this too, boarded at the stop before the Vatican when all Romans had left, fished out a dozen tourists, us among them, and collected their daily earnings in ten minutes. Two things we enjoyed: Nasoni, drinking fountains with clear, cool, free water, can be found at every street corner. And they have unbelievably good ice cream.
The Czech government has contacted me if it isn’t time to pay second home tax.
I have been to Prague and other cities six times this year. In February, my friend Matěj invited me to a house party with live music. The lady of the house had been an interpreter at the parliament.
She was surprised how well I spoke Czech and so was I! I was happy all around that evening. 
At the linguistic summer school in Budweis, I could be a student again and lived modestly in a dormitory, but with an immersion heater and thus a coffee-like morning drink.
In summery Prague, I sat with my two language tandem partners over cake at the Obecní dům and with a beer on the banks of the Vltava. At the international 3D congress in picturesque Český Krumlov,
situated on a bend in the Vltava River, I helped the Czechs with packing congress bags. My husband also had some packing to do, namely a parcel of jumpers for me,
because on the very first day the forecast late summer temperature of 27 °C was corrected to 9 °C. Over all these Prague tales, my cousin complained that he had never been there.
So I showed him and his family around the city in October. And Olaf and I felt very grown-up and sophisticated when we bought a painting in a gallery.
How the phonetics textbook is coming along? Very well, thank you. Nine chapters are at the publisher, three more have to be written. What my godson is up to? The strapping young man is 1.90 metres tall and twice as wide. I watched him play American football in the summer. But that’s already over and now he boxes. Sometimes I do wonder if he really is my son. Where we are going to hang the painting? In the living room. In January we will get a large bookcase there and we can finally unpack the last of the moving boxes.
At the moment, there is only one thing on my mind, though: my father is gravely ill. Ten years ago, a tumour was removed and everything seemed fine. Now the spine is full of metastases. So, he is often in pain and has to vomit. He is on chemotherapy now and we wait and see. It wears me down to see how badly he is doing and not being able to do anything.
Four countries are in the game for the new year. France, because my brain misunderstood that Czech was not meant to overwrite French. My godson wants to go to London with me. Harry Potter World, here we come! For their 75th birthday, I promised my parents a trip to Prague and I very much hope to be able to keep this promise. And the International 3D Congress will be held in Tokyo. And no, I am not going to learn Japanese now. Well, maybe a little.
Merry Christmas to you all!
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