Not Deutschland. Bayern. Bavarians are, first and foremost, Bavarians. The Deutsch part is incidental. In this way, and with its strong regional accent, the German state of Bayern is much like the American state/republic of Texas, only with really cute painted buildings, lots more trees, and the Alps.

So what do I absolutely love about Bayern?

• The view outside my 14th-story window (mine is the only tall building in the neighborhood)
• The adorable city center (though unless one does not mind looking like an inebriate one must be careful of one's footware, as cavernous gaps lie between each 4-inch-square paving stone) (heels are a VERY BAD IDEA)
• Sacrament Meeting object lessons involving very large reddish-brown umbrellas
• The shimmery tree outside my window (when the wind blows, the leaves sparkle like glitter--I don't know what kind of tree it is, but I really want one)
• The men's jacket-slung-over-the-shoulder oh-so-casual saunter/stroll
• Johannisbeeren (little red berries that are almost incandescent and entirely delicious!), rucola (fantastisch lettuce-like greens that make every salad wonderful), bratwurst (any) with mustard (any)
• Train station up- and down-stairs conveyor belts (you put your luggage on the conveyor belt, either at the top or the bottom, and the belt magically knows which way you want your suitcases to go, thus preventing the possible hernia that could result from carrying your myriad and very heavy possessions up or down the stairs)
• The weather*
• Garmisch and Partenkirchen (freaking adorable towns in the Alps about 8 miles from the Austrian border where I spent my 4th of July)
• The counter-culture renegade anarchist teenagers who WILL NOT jaywalk
• Fashion**

*The weather. Oh, das Wetter. In a word: Insane. It changes every couple of hours, usually going from one extreme to another. At 9:00 this morning it was hot and partly sunny; at 2:00 this afternoon it was hot and sunny; at 4:00 this afternoon a huge storm blew in (New Englanders would call these Nor'Easters [you know, the ones where the rain blows horizontally in gale-force winds]--we've had four or five of them since I've been here); now at 7:00 the clouds have all moved eastward and the sun is out again, as if no crazy storm with high-velocity winds had ever graced the sky. All this makes for fantastic displays of cloud and light and color; I've seen six rainbows--yes, SIX--in the 29 days I've been in Bavaria (two on the Fourth of July), and late afternoons and sunsets are exquisite.

**Fashion. Where to begin... For women, think Punky Brewster tag-teaming with Cyndi Lauper against Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice (the 80s are back). For men, whose individuality is generally manifest through weed-whacker-inspired hairstyles instead of clothing strewn randomly about the body, think Flock of Seagulls meets Patrick Swayze circa 1985 (can't decide between a mullet or a mohawk? Move to Germany and you can have both at the same time!), add watergun-fight-inspired bright yellow or red bleach streaks (only on dark-haired men: greater contrast = greater sex appeal), and finish with liberal splashes of hair spray and/or shellac. On Friday I was in a store that had a fairly low-hanging sign, and a local punk had a great time showing his friends that he could whack the sign with his mohawk (thus causing the sign to swing back and forth, but with no visible effect on the sehr modlich hairstyle) without even standing on his toes. Oh, WOULD that I had charged my camera battery on Thursday...

Next installment: Learning German in Germany... Das macht Spaß!