A six month sejour is almost done.

Sitting in Cafe Celona updating my blog feels like a satisfactory completition to another chaper of Europe. When I first settled in Frankfurt (if you call living in a hostel settling) I was sitting here, with a coffee of some description, coercing Skype to function in order have a chat with my mother at the other end of the world. Now she has discovered the technology that is SMS, our phone calls manifest themselves once a month or so with thrice-weekly SMS updates in between.

On Wednesday night, around midnight, I have the dubious privelidge of sitting abord the first leg of Quantas' flight to New Zealand. I do like flying and don't have a problem with spending 26 hours travelling, but what bugs me most about the whole ordeal is what I'm going to do with my baggage between saying sionara to my apartment and boarding the plane. I'll doubtless head to one last German lesson, then hang in the airport for three hours. I think for the first time in my life I would have exceeded the quoted checkin window of 2 hours. I doubt many except my father and any German on the planet would achieve this pointless request of the airline companies.

To avoid degenerating too far in to the mundane, some noteworthy activities are:

I was lucky enough to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra (European version, although sactioned by the Glenn Miller corporation ivory tower) Wednesday last week. It was fantastic stuff. The stage was very minimalist, which did surprise me. The music was toe-tappingly fantastic. Lots of old people were bobbing their heads (hope it didn't inflame their arthritis) , but surprisingly little getting up and dancing in the aisle.

Thursday was my last work day.

Today is easter Friday and all the shops are closed notwithstanding cafés, so you'd think town would be quiet. Well, it felt like a scene from 28 days later - everyone was wondering around slowly, ;eering in shop windows - looking for a chance to find a rogue retail shop open for business. I guess you had to be there.

Today's grammar lession comes to you from Garner's American Usage (via a SomethingAwful goon):

one of the [+ pl. n.] who (or that). This construction requires a plural verb, not a singular one. After the who or that, the verb should be plural because who is the subject, and it takes its number from the plural noun to which who or that refers--e.g.: "It is one of the few writing texts that is [read are] worth reading." THe reason for this construction becomes apparent when we reword the sentence: "Of the writing texts that are worth reading, it is one." But many writers wrongly think that one is the (singular) subject.

So, an example would be:

One of the dudes who are aiming the gun at me is waving goodbye.

It contradicts how I thought the grammar goes. It makes sense though if you place the "one" complement at the end of the main clause, thus saying:

Of the dudes who are waving the gun at me, one is waving goodbye.