How has it been a month since we landed in Germany?

It's hard to believe that it was exactly one month ago that our plane touched down in Germany. Time flies ridiculously fast.

The ripple effect of that trip continues. I am processing more of it now than I was when I was there. I also can't help but feel a tad jealous of my son, who lives there full time. Then again, he speaks fluent German and me--not so much. Also, I do think that, though the United (United?) States drives me crazier and crazier by the day, there are definitely aspects of life here that I'd miss if I lived in another country. 

A few years ago, Nora's parents gave us a small book about Dresden and a CD compilation called Die 100 Großten Ost-Hits, Volume 1 that contains a hundred big East German pop songs. I have to admit that prior to December 30, 2021, these items remained relatively untouched at our house. I did play a little bit of Ost Hits at one time with mild curiosity (and found much of the music surprisingly better than I expected), and might have flipped through the Dresden book. It's just hard for me to fully engage with something if I don't have any understanding of it, or any context in which to place it. I'm not sure if anyone else out there feels the same. That could be a failing on my part, but I think of it as roughly the same as how I often appreciate a musician/band's albums more if I actually see them perform live.

This disengagement/disinterest all changed when we returned from Radebeul. 

I absolutely shot through that slender volume about Dresden (Colour Image Guide: Dresden). I knew who Augustus the Strong was, could picture the area of the city that was decimated by the Allied firebombing in 1945, and knew many of the landmarks pictured and mentioned in the book. Then I grabbed the Großten Ost-Hits and have made it through Disc One. I may need a separate blog post to describe the music on this compilation, but I'll at least say that now I have a greater appreciation and understanding of musicians like Karat, City, Silly, Puhdys, and Ute Freudenberg. This is not to pat myself too much on the back, as there is absolutely no way I am any way near to being an expert, and since all the lyrics are in German, I don't even understand what they are singing. That said, I get it more now than I did prior to December 30, 2021.

Now I will announce that I started reading a book called Burning Down the Haus, which is about punk rock in East Germany during the late '70s and '80s. I feel compelled to officially announce this because it should force me to read the whole thing so that I can report about it later.

That is all for now.