Studying - and Knitting - Abroad

Tonight I dragged my self out of my sickbed - or off my sick La-Z-Boy - to attend a reunion of last year's Spring Break group. This was the Best Group Ever for a Study Abroad trip. It's obviously a good bunch if they're still getting together a year later - one guy even drove up from Indianapolis for dinner. This time last year, we'd just returned from a week in Munich and Greece, studying history and having a lot of fun. It was cold the entire time we were there, it snowed and rained most of the time, we drank too much, slept too little, I had to have my bathroom door knocked down by a soldier (this is how I learned to avoid the lots-of-Ny-Quil cure for colds), and we had a wonderful time.

Here's a picture of the group in Distomo, Greece, where we were warmly welcomed by the Mayor, who taught us about the town's tragic WWII history.






I really don't know what it was that made this group so good. Too often, groups splinter into cliques, but that didn't happen here. There was only one other knitter in the bunch, so I can't credit knitting - although two students very patiently accompanied me on my first trip to the yarn store. I went back again later when I wouldn't have to worry about boring anyone!

I wore these to the reunion tonight - they're my German toe socks. I bought the yarn from the Ludwig Beck store in Munich. I started the left sock when I was visiting Aaron in October, and finished it on the flight home. The socks are Lang Jawoll yarn, with the instructions taken from the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook. I've always wanted to own a pair of toe socks, and now I finally do!



I call them my "Wilhelmshaven" socks, mostly because I did a lot of work on them on the train to Wilhelmshaven. I like to think it's for the color, but there wasn't nearly that much blue or green when we were there - it was pretty uniformly grey. It's a lovely city, with lots of sea-themed tourist attractions, but cold days in October aren't the best time for visiting the North Sea.

And this is what I returned home to tonight. It's Oscar 2, Plungers 0 in the battle to keep the toilet unclogged. I'm sorry to lose this plunger...it was a good one, and had just done a fine job of clearing the bathtub drain. My EvenWorseDog has a strange fascination with water - and, it seems, with plumbing.