No real theme, just rambles

The sun sets these days around 4:45-5:00. Yes, it is completely pitch black by about 5pm every day. That being said, here's how I spent my weekend:

Friday night I went to dinner at my host family's house, where Minami (the other Rotary scholar who is Japanese) cooked us all a fantastic Japanese dinner. We had lots of fun doing things her way, including table manners and order of eating.

Saturday Jordan and I went to Königstein, a small little town with a really huge castle/fort. It was really cold, there was snow on the ground, and we had to climb a mountain in the wet and fallen leaves - I swore I would break my ankle by the end of the day, but luckily I came out whole. The weather was pretty crappy but it was cool because there was so much fog and mist, and we were climbing a mountain through the forest on our way to a giant castle, and we were convinced Frodo Baggins and Gandalf would come around the corner any minute.

Then today I went to an orchestra concert for the Musikhochschule, that lucky for me was in the opera house! They played fantastically and the opera house is gorgeous. Then I met up with one of Chris McCains friends from Würzburg who was in town for the weekend, and her boyfriend (who studies here, the reason she was in town of course), and had a lovely afternoon getting to know them.

The more Germans I meet, the more I am reassured that they really ARE nice people. Then I have another altercation with my roommate. Yesterday morning I was in the kitchen, and he came in and sort-of struck up a conversation:
P: You've been out a lot lately, haven't you.
R: Yeah, why not? There's a lot of stuff to see.
P: Well, I don't have anything against it, but it'd be nice if you cleaned the kitchen once in a while.
R: Wait a minute...I rarely use the kitchen. I'm not going to clean up someone else's mess when they cook and don't clean, and I'm not going to wash someone else's dirty dishes. When I do use the kitchen I completely clean up my things start to finish, but that's all I will do.
P: Well....it'd be nice if you at least sweep the floor every now and then.
R: Fine. I'll sweep the floor. But I'm not cleaning up other people's messes.

So then this morning I heard him on the phone complaining about me - telling whomever about his American roommate who is lazy and rude, and never wants to help out or do anything...and our walls are so thin I could hear every word. This kitchen was dirty when I first set foot in the apartment, people consistently leave dirty dishes all over the place and don't wipe up their messes, and I will not take responsibility for something I have never contributed to. And I don't think the adjectives "lazy" and "rude" could ever be used to describe me.