Of Roommates and Waterfowl (an interlude in Munich)

After a delicious delay in Philly, I ended up: flying into Frankfurt; scrambling to catch a bus to Darmstadt; and scrambling to catch a train to Munich, where I will spend three days. I didn't sleep on the flight, or on the train, so by the time I walked into my apartment I'd been awake for... ... ever? About 30 hours, I guess.

So I walk in:
    Me: "'Allo, ich bin hier!"
    Roommate: "Allo!"
    Me: "Wie geht's?"
    Roommate: "'Come see who lives with us now!"
    Me: "We... who lives... what..." [ticks. slowly.] "Did we get a kitten."

No. No, we didn't.

We got a duck.

Yes really.

My roommate's a hassle but she's interesting.

Apparently she got her as a duckling, then after ten years of having a pet duck, put her in some kind of waterfowl sanctuary. While I was in Canada, the roommate visited the sanctuary; she disapproved of something she saw (of course), so she reclaimed her. She's been looking for a sanctuary that meets her impossible standards ever since.

She's super cute. (The duck.) And bitey, but it doesn't hurt much. She's a running duck – she can't fly; they move kind of like roadrunners. Running ducks are strange! They're kept for meat and eggs, and they walk themselves to the market in (fairly adorable) droves. She's very long and slender, and weighs about two pounds total.

She also hates me. And stinks. She comes when my roommate calls her, though; I don't know that I would have credited a duck with that much brain. They go out to a pond or the English Gardens at least once, usually twice a day, so the duck can swim.

So now I live with a stinky duck that hates me? I guess?