As part of Anika's "cultural immersion program ;)" I have been volunteered to speak to her class in English. The first time I did this, searching for something to talk about, I decided to explain Thanksgiving to Anika's fellow students. I explained how Thanksgiving comes from the pilgrams giving thanks to the indians for saving their silly europeans butts. I said that Thanksgiving is now a family holiday where everyone comes together and shares a traditional meal. To quiz the students I asked to whom the pilgrams were giving thanks. One student said: to God. O.k. that's an alright answer but let's be a little more specific, what about those helpful indians eh? After the talk I showed the kids how to make a turkey drawing by tracing the outline of your hand (thumb is the head, other fingers the tail feathers, draw the feet in from the base of the palm). Everyone thought that was way cool.
Two weeks later I did another presentation, this time about waves and surfing. I explained how waves on the beach come from ocean storms thousands of miles away; how waves finally break on the beach because the water becomes increasingly shallow forcing the wave, or rather swell, to grow taller until it topples over, or breaks. I showed them a couple scenes from some surf videos I have. I showed them footage of the big wave spot "Mavericks" close to where we used to live. I showed a picture of Anika on the beach at Mavericks. I briefly explained how you catch a wave; how seals pop their heads out of the water to look at you in the water; how pelicans fly right above the waves; how dolphins surf inside a wave. And of course I showed them the hand sign and explained the expression "Hang Loose," auf Deutsch "Sei Locker."
After organizing and presenting all that info about sunny california, the surf, the sand, I was really salivating for the state. I started to figure, "If we can move all the way over here, would we move right back to the same place in California? Where could we live in California? How about San Diego? It's got sun and surf, a foriegn country right next door and a decent biotech industry. What about that? I even looked up some rentals: 3 bedroom, $2500 per month and about 6 blocks from the beach (ya, the photos below are of that beach, JUST 6 BLOCKS AWAY). Awwh, it's just a projection born out of a cold winter in a big city, it's just California Dreaming.
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