I know Germany won their world cup game vs. Ghana.  How do I know this?  Car horns are blaring outside.  Germans love their soccer team.

There was a volcanic eruption in Iceland today.  Apparent a handful of European countries shut down their airspace because of the threat of volcanic ash in the air.  There is not any word on how long airspace will be closed, but British officials have closed their airspace until tomorrow morning.  I first found this article on MSNBC, but I am still listening to a Columbia Missouri radio station and flight cancellations were highlighted on the top of the hour news.

Volcanic eruptions is not one of the natural disasters I considered being effected by when I moved to Germany.  There are threats from the New Madrid fault in southern Missouri, but that is mostly from earthquakes and not ash in the air.  The closest thermal spot in the Western portion of the United States would be Yellowstone National Park which has never seemed a threat when living in Missouri.

I knew living in a different region of the world would bring about natural events I was not used to.  A volcanic event in Iceland is not what I was expecting within my first week of living in Germany.  Each trip I have made to Germany has been very calm.  Maybe a thunderstorm or cold weather so I am expecting a very stable climate.  Actually very similar to Missouri.  I wonder what other natural occurrences will come up that I am not used to.

I am glad I got here Monday.  I would have hated to be delayed because of ash in the air.  The below MSNBC article talks about two instances where ash in the air caused flights to land in the past.

Read the article here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36543312/ns/world_news-europe

While looking through the German Missions website I found an article titled Americans’ Image of Germany Reaches New High.  According to the article Americans’ appreciate Germany more now than at any point since September 2002.

Quote from the article:

American perceptions of Germany have been steadily improving since a dip in 2003.  The latest survey shows that 48 percent of Americans rate their image of Germany and the Germans as excellent or good.  That is the highest value since the German Information Center began asking the question in 2002. The political relationship between Germany and America also gets high marks, with 41 percent of respondents rating it excellent or good.