woo! so the speech went wonderfully, better than I could have ever imagined. The ladies loved it, totally ate it up in all of its glorious corniness, mostly since I delivered it in German, and now I've been invited to more events. One involves American college students, and the other a bunch of American ladies new to Stuttgart. I even got invited to a ski weekend! Too bad I can't ski. And in this case, trying _would_ hurt. but I might as well...

Oh man. Takes just one of these events to really boost your esteem. I walked around the Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt for a few hours afterwards with this feeling that I truly had a handle on the German language. After all the praise from the old ladies, I was convinced I was, in all things German, untouchable. Course, I've come down from my high now, but I should be able to comfortably coast into tomorrow's festivities and on into the weekend of fun with the other American DAAD scholarship kids.

Whee!