sprechen sie englisch?

So, um, how do I follow the previous post?

Especially since I'm kind of in the mood to write about nothing special.

You see I'm on my final night in Germany (yay! 10 nights away from Ryan and EJ stinks!) and at the moment trying to avoid the painful task of packing. Normally I find packing to go home much easier than packing for a trip since I don't usually care about trying to keep my clothes neat and everything organized anymore. But I'm still dreading it tonight. So I have been trying to distract myself for the last hour or so.

But I can't take anymore CNN!! I even decided tonight that I would treat myself to the one pay channel in English... only to find out it doesn't actually exist.

Now I did pay for it. And the channel guide next to my bed says channel 31 is the "English Movie Channel." In fact, when you use the remote to select pay TV and accept the fees, it specifically offered me the "English Movie Channel." But once my payment was accepted....

NOTHING.

I called the front desk to ask about this and they said they would send someone up to my room to assist. Unfortunately, the girl they sent looked to be about 12 and didn't quite understand the problem. She spent 20 minutes playing with the remote and then informed me that there is no English Channel. She admitted it was strange that the hotel's channel guide describes an "English Channel" and even stranger that the menu on the TV also offers this option. But she agreed that there did not actually seem to be such a channel.

So I asked if she could please just cancel the request and remove the charge, as I wasn't interested in the extra German-speaking channel I received when I paid for the "English Channel." She said this was not possible.

I won't describe the next 15 minutes that ensued. But the net result is that my 12 year old friend could not help me and told me I could enjoy the German movie. Oh and that maybe the English Channel would come on later.

Huh???

So here I am.

Watching CNN and not packing.

Anyhow, there is not much to report on the adoption front (at least not for us - but congratulate these new parents). We hit both the 2 month and 9 week milestones while I've been here, and even though I think this is actually a good time in the wait (if there is such a thing), I must admit that I've been feeling a little obsessed with blog stalking lately. I think I am finally starting to really believe that our adoption will happen... that we are now closer to the end than the beginning of the process... but I still so want (and need) to see the next round of referrals, to feel like things are continuing to move along. It is at once such an incredibly painful and challenging and draining experience and also the most exciting and hopeful and crazy (in a good way) one.