Rainboots

Horrible weather has, unfortunately, been a huge part of my year here so far – I can think of few trips I’ve taken where bad weather hasn’t either kept us from doing something fun or left us a bit miserable, and Detmold has far more crappy cloudy days than sunny beautiful ones.  Today, although it’s the end of May, we’ve got a high of about 55 degrees and it’s been pouring all day.

What this post is really about, though, is rainboots! Now, Germans are a very practical people, and they always seem to choose dressing appropriately for the weather over looking extremely fashionable, although they do rock a good boot.  What Germans haven’t caught onto, though, are proper rainboots.  Few things fascinate my kids as much as when I walk into class with my tall, bright orange rainboots – my 8^th graders have not-so-subtly told me they think they look ridiculous and would never wear such a thing, while today, my fifth grade girls all came over to me and had to touch them and ask a million times what they were.  And when I walk through town in them, the older people just stare at me like I’m crazy.

Maybe when I’m back in a few years they’ll have caught onto the most sensible pieces of footwear one can own in a country where it seems to rain over 50% of the time? I don’t think I’ll hold my breath though.