Sven’s parents

I have been looking forward to seeing Mike and Sylvia since….well since I started comunicating with Sven again. So, finally, last night I got to. We went to dinner, where we spent the whole time catching up on the past 10 years. I did the best I could to get back into the groove of speaking in german. Luckily Sven and mostly Chen-yu have been only speaking german with me. When we would start speaking in english (because my german has gotten really bad), Chen-yu would say “Sven, your mother is coming in …..(so many days)……speak german!” So he would stop speaking english (which is now very good because many of his class at the university were only in english and at some of his jobs he speaks only english), and we would start in german again. And I would struggle through trying to explain or say what would have been effortless to now speaking in wrong tenses, using weird and strange words that I thought were right, or at least remembered a word similar to it and well just really having a hard time. But it all helped and day by day I am remembering more and more and actually it wasn’t that bad last night.
Sylvia looks almost the same as when I was there last time, its amazing. She gave me a big hug when we first met and it reminded me of the day I left germany to go back to america. She made me a small photo album with a picture of me and the whole family on the front and under the picture read…..Jeremy Chad Wildhaber-Anderson. And inside the album were pictures of all the kids and themselves, and me. As soon as she gave it to me she started crying and covering her eyes ran back into the house. You see she doesn’t cry or loose composure, so moments like these were just to much for her. I started to cry too, and well, she will always have a place in my heart and seeing her and Mike again was great. At dinner, all of the funny stories that happened while I was there came up. Mike’s favorite is the one where I was bunny hopping Sylvia’s bike.
Sven and I were on a bike ride and I was showing him how to hop over the curbs. Well about 5-6 curbs into the demonstration, my bike started feeling ackward to me, it felt like it was getting smaller and harder and harder to peddle. After the next hop, my seat was literally touching the handle bars, and the peddles were almost touching the ground. And I told Sven that I thought that something was wrong and that I didn’t think that is was normal. He just started laughing, saying that he couldn’t wait to see his parents faces. Upon arriving home, Mike came out to see what Jeremy had broke this time. He saw the bike and started laughing like I have never seen him laugh. He then got on the bike, cigarette in mouth, and tried to ride it around the back yard. Yep, he said, Jeremy, you did it again, I think that there is something wrong with the bike, you never cease to amaze me, and he would laugh and laugh, riding in circles almost halling over several times. Ironically this memory is my favorite of Mike as well. It makes me so happy inside to see them again and remember all of those great memories. Giving Lars his first brownie, both the baked kinds and the underwear one. To this day, that is his biggest memory of me there. I just wish that Both Lars and Nora could have been there also, that would have been so fun.
So, anyways many fond memories and experiences.

South Taiwan

We spent 3 days in the south area of Taiwan with a friend of Chen-yu’s.  Her friend, husband, and two cute little girls opened up their apartment to us.  It was very snug.  Sven and I got the girls room, the husband (Win) took the floor in the den, and all the women slept in the main bedroom.

The first night that we were there, we were invited to dinner at a friend of Win’s.  It was a very nice restaurant that served european food as well as taiwanese. He came out after we ordered to say hi. He was very friendly and smiled alot. He said that he had alot of dishes to prepare so he quickly left. So, just to let you know, this restaurant was a 5-6 course dinner event.
Minutes later, our appitizers showed up, a salad and soup. Then 4 extra plates of food showed up, all of Sven, Chen-yu, and me. Well, Sven being vegetarian couldn’t eat any of them, and Chen-yu being on good behavior was only nibbling (faker), so being the polite guest that I am, I ate them all. Squid ink spagetti, sea food noodles, a fish plate, and baked pig nuckles. Then my main course showed up, shank of lamb. I ate that too of course, but now feeling the pain of too much, and at this moment, more started showing up. I was then informed by Sven and Chen-yu that if a person eats all of their food in Taiwan it means that you are still hungry and you want more. Me being raised to finish my plate because there are starving children in Africa, thought that I was just being polite, now understood. After the next plate of food, which I only ate half of, dessert and after dinner drinks showed up. It was really the best food that I had eaten in a long time and I told the Chef that the german pig knuckles and sour craut was better than in germany, and it was. He was very pleased and said that if he could take the time off, he would take us all in his boat the next day. It never happened but never the less, dinner kicked ass.

So, for the next few days, all that I can remember is eating, and ….eating. Oh ya, we did drive around and see some of the local sights, a trading post and small temple/castle thing. We were told by Chen-yu that the local government was trying to improve their english signs through out the city and that they were paying 1000 euen for every sign that had miss spellings and gramatical mistakes. Thats about 35 dollars. So Sven and I spent the whole day at these sights not really enjoying the sights but taking pictures of the signs that were wrong. Well, after about every sign, more than 100, I just gave up and we decided that I just needed to come live there for a few months, earn lots of money and help them write in complete sentences, add a verb when needed, and pretty much redo most of the really funny, strange way they have basterdized the english language.