31 July 2008

Somebody stole my bike!

That officially blows hardcore. I was going to sell it Saturday to a bike store, and probably could have gotten twenty or thirty euros for it, and that would have been twenty or thirty euros I could really have used. This SUCKS.

I guess I was kind of expecting it though; bike thefts here are so so common; almost everyone I know with a bike has had it stolen at one point. I'm surprised I made it so long without losing my bike. It still sucks, but at least it happened when I didn't really need it anymore. But it does suck, alot.

Said goodbye to Marina this morning, which was awful. Really not looking forward to saying goodbye to Fabio and Vegemite.

Revenge of the 70's

Today I was at a goodbye party for a friend of mine, and on the way home we ran into a couple of drunk preteens smashing things. Two of them crossed the street and approached us (I thought to smash us too), but they just wanted to apologize for their friends and ask where the local dance club was. We gave them directions, but they were so busy stumbling around that we'd caught up with them 30 seconds later. Then they wanted to know the taxi number. We gave it to them. Then they wanted us to go to McDonalds with them. We abstained. Then they started singing. Just thought I would share.

On another note, I spent an hour trying to explain to a German kid I met today that you can say the word "tight" to mean cool ONLY if you have big poufy hair, aviators, and it's 1975 (a purple boa would go a long way as well). "Sweet" is the way of the future. Unfortunately, he was a bit slow, and rather attached to the word "tight". Sigh. Somewhere under the cover of darkness, the 70's slip down a dark alley, pounce on unsuspecting citizens, and eat them. And it's appetite is voracious.

30 July 2008

German is Bad for Your Spelling

Yesterday I used the word 'raspberry' in an email, and then sat and pondered the spelling of it for 15 minutes. I could not for the life of me remember if it had a 'p' in the middle of it (I'd written rasberry), and I retyped it like 5 different ways before I finally looked it up on dictionary.com. Yes, raspberry has a p in it. That's kind of obnoxious, because it doesn't sound like it does. Himbeere, however, is about 8 billion times easier to say and spell.

29 July 2008

Feeling Retro

New favorite song...vaguely retro and in no cases good, but the Germans absolutley love it:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A_8dn_HykqI

Bought gifts in the city for people, locked myself out of my WG, procrastinated on laundry, cleaning and einpacken. Went to a house party and met a bunch of new Germans. Fabio started his new job today. All in all, a good Monday.

This time next week I'll be in Amerika, and I really can't picture it in my head :(

28 July 2008

The Plan

Hey allz,

Don't expect too much from the next few entries, I really haven't been up to much. The plan is to stay in Konstanz and not do anything except live up my last week.

So for those of you who live under a rock, I'm coming home in exactly a week from today. I know that a bunch of my friends are gone for awhile (Jen, Sam, Jean, anyone else?), so my question is, who's around when I get back? I feel like I should do things. Sitting around my house moping is not conducive to a happy soul or whatever.

Yesterday I got up at 9, cleaned, and then cooked a big American breakfast. Fabio, Canadian Friend, and another friend all came over and we managed to eat all five packages of bacon that I had cooked (but not in one sitting). Then we sat outside, played cards, and smoked hookah...for four hours. Then it was time to go to our farewell dinner at a local Hotel (thanks Rutgers), and then I came back and ate more food (Marina's mom cooked a giant meal! And, no offense Insel Hotel, it was way better than the 25 Euro guinea fowl I ate at your place.) Then I called friends from home. Then I went to sleep.

See? I'm doing absolutley nothing, and the plan probs won't be changing.

Alright, I've got at least an hour before I have to start doing anything productive, so I'm going to go watch The Illusionist. Fabio and I tried to watch it the other night, but I passed out 20 minutes into it. He says it was really good, so I try again, but this time during the day.

Is anyone like an English afficionado? Do you know why we can say both "Look! There's trees!" and "Look! There're trees!" and they both sound correct?

EDIT: The Illusionist was SO GOOD!

26 July 2008

Lazy No Good College Student Style

School's out and the weather's beautiful! And we are celebrating the summer in lazy no good college student style, which means whole lots of doing nothing, but at least doing it together.

Yesterday was a pretty sweet day. We remembered that when we registered with the city we got a book of coupons and gift certificates, which we've barely used. So we used one to get a free buffet lunch on the Rhine (which was yummy!), and then decided to go all out and see how many coupons we could use in one day. We went down to the supermarket and got a gift basket of free stuff, and then went to a really expensive hotel on the waterfront to drink our free glass of...orange juice.

Then Marina's family came! Her parents are awesome, and her little sister is back to visit again, which meant PARTY. We chilled out inside for a little bit, and then decided to take our party outside. Over the weekend, a playground magically appeared behind Europahaus, the dominant feature of which is a pirate ship. So we drank and hung out on the pirate ship, and it was quite a good time.

Today I headed down to the university beach with a friend, but somehow we wound up accidentally on the nude beach, freaked out, but finally found the normal beach. Woot. But even the normal beach had way too many people in speedos.

Then Fabio and I headed back to the pirate ship for a picnic, and I made friends with a 5 year old German kid who wanted to climb up onto the ship but wasn't tall enough. So I helped him out a little bit. But give little German kids an inch, and suddenly you find yourself their personal picker-upper, because Little German Kid wanted to get on and off the pirate ship like 8 times. But I didn't mind, he was adorable, and totally didn't care that I have an accent.

At around 10.30 Canadian Friend and I met up with Sungmi and a friend of her's at a local club which was throwing a big semester end party. Danced for a few hours, then on the way back, got caught illegally crossing the street by the Polizei. Thank goodness they were too busy following an ambulance to do anything more than yell at us with their cop-issued megaphones. There's also a whorehouse in Konstanz (for those who may be interested), it's called Little Paris, and the German girl I was with just filled me in on what actually goes down there today.

Sun will be coming up soon, and I am off to bed! Adios amigos!

23 July 2008

Vienna, oh my!

Howdy folks.

Sorry for not posting since forever (or just the 18th), but I was in VIENNA! (read: the only city I hate more than Montreal.) But when Rutgers pays, you order the most expensive thing on the menu, right? So I went.

The city is beautiful, but in like a pompous in-your-face sort of way that I really dislike. Plus there like, waaay too many tourists. Also, we were on a bus tour the whole weekend, which meant we were the only people under the age of 70, which meant all our time was very heavily structured, which I'm also not a fan of. But minus my sheer and utter hatred of our destination, the trip was actually pretty okay. Austria on the whole is absolutly stunning (even prettier than Germany, if I'm being honest). Also, some really neat/hilarious stuff went down, which I will now detail for you in the form of...short stories!

There Are No Women In Romania

Okay, so the hotel that Erin (the other girl from my school that also went) and I were staying in was really nice--right at the foot of the mountains with a pretty kickass view. Except also staying on our floor was a (male) football team. We originally thought they were Italian, but then we heard someone say something about "The Romanian soccer players" so...who knows. The point is, they were absolutley out of their minds, and everytime we passed them they would stop talking, turn, and just stare until we were out of sight. It got especially awkward when the coaches started following us around and flashing weird U+Me hand signs at us, which is when we usually saw fit to vanish ASAP. But one night we were coming through the lobby when the a bunch of footballers playing Dominos stopped us and said in broken English, "You want to play with us?" "What are you guys playing?" we asked. "You learn as we play." "Oh." Erin and I stood there very awkwardly, trying to think of something to say. Luckily Romanian Footballer broke the silence by throwing out a "Or if you do not want to play, you could give us massage." "What? What? What? Bye." And we vanished ASAP. On later discussion, we decided that the reason for their retarded-ness is because they don't have women-types in Romania. If they did, they'd be normal.

Holland Loves Us

On our first morning in the hotel, we made friends with a Dutch woman who heard us speaking English and got all excited about it, because she was an English teacher. Then she decided to just be in love with us, and every time she saw us would come running to ask us what we had done today, what we were doing tomorrow, and basically just have an hour-long conversation with us. On the morning we left she was all depressed and said, "When your bus pulls away, I'll wave a handkerchief at you!" Does Holland jest? Of course not. Take them Dutch at their word, she stood outside and waved us away until the bus was out of sight.

We Climb Castles

Possibly the COOLEST part of our trip was when, on our way home, we stopped at a little wine town so the seniors on our bus could pick some alcohol up. We, however, spotted THIS piece of kickass on the mountain:

and decided to explore. Yes that IS an old ruined castle sitting above the town, and yes it HAS been destroyed and abandoned since before the pilgrims settled at Plymouth Rock. If that's not totally awesome, nothing is. Here are some more pictures:

An old ruined gate:

Heehee:

Some more coolness:

The view from the very very top:


It's fair to say that Austria is absolutley breathtaking. Their major cities may blow more than French Canada's, but at least the view is nice.

The Bowling Club, or, How The Americans Learned To Be On Time

There were maybe 30 people in our group, but the ones we made friends with were the four married couples who made up the local bowling club. So minus how this in itself is kind of funny, they absolutley loved us and we really loved them. At one point they almost got on the wrong tour bus, and came up to me and said "Hey! We almost got on the wrong bus!" I didn't really know what to say, so I just said "Cool." "Cool?" "Yeah, really cool." "Hey everyone! The Americans think it's really cool that we almost got on the wrong bus!" And then they proceeded to have a good laugh at my way of saying 'really cool'. I said 'echt cool', but apparently you can't say that past the age of 15. But they had a blast with it, and the whole trip was one long : "Hey! Look at that Tree/River/Town/Mountain/Castle. What is it!" To which all the other bowling club members would burst out with "Echt cool! Echt cool!" And then everyone would laugh some more about it. So hanging with the bowling club was quite a good time.

Our first morning in Vienna the bus driver said specifically, "We're leaving at 9.15." Erin and I got to breakfast a little late, were eating and not really paying attention to the time, when our program director ran in all in a panic because she couldn't find us. "Hurry! Hurry! We're late!" So we ran like mad to the bus, climbed in all out of breath, and of course the bowling club started yelling "The Americans are late! Echt cool!" But just how late were we? I looked at my watch. Time was 9.16.

People don't believe me when I tell them Germany is punctual, but I swear to you, we held up the entire bus and pissed off the driver because we showed up at 9.16 instead of 9.15. At the next stop we made extra sure to be on time (Bus driver: Is everyone in the back there? Bowling club: Yes! And America's here too, don't worry!). But we're Americans, we slip up sometimes. We were four minutes late after hiking down from the castle, which meant the bus driver waving his arms like crazy, us running like crazy, and the bowling club erupting in shouts of "Rounds of schnaps for every minute the Americans are late!" I don't think they needed our schnaps, they managed quite well on their own. They were doing shots at one point...it was awesome.

Here's a picture of us and the bowling club:


So that's about all folks! Will report back soon! Adios!

18 July 2008

America Triumphs!

I had my visit in Tuebingen today! Had to get up at 6.00 AM in order to get there on time, but I did it. The teacher took me out to breakfast and showed me a bit of the city first, and then we went to class. I totally thought the 16 year old kids wouldn't be interested in the least, but surprisingly, they asked questions pretty much non-stop for the whole hour and a half that I was there. And they spoke really good English!

Some of the questions were surprisingly educated (How do you feel about Barack Obama coming to Berlin and speaking at the Brandenburger Tor, even though our chancellor doesn't want him to?). Most of them were pretty ordinary (What's your favorite German food? Is there anything that makes people from New Jersey different from the rest of the US? What's your favorite movie? Are there any differences between the east and west coast of America?) And a few of the questions were just plain weird (How do you feel coming from America, and knowing that all of your companies use childlabor?)

Uhhh...

Okay, funny incident. Story goes:

Girl (same girl who asked about the childlabor): So, do you guys have any bad words for foreigners?
Tina: Well, yes, but they're not very nice. I don't really think I should teach them to you.
Girl: Pleeeeease...pleeeeeease...pleeeeease can you teach us?
Other students: Yeah! Yeah! What are they, teach us!
Tina: Umm...
Teacher: Go on, teach them.
Tina: Well, there's like...fob.

So that's how a whole slew of teenage germans learned "fresh off the boat" today, courtesy of Tina. Please don't judge me.

The best part was the teacher came up to me later and apologized for Weird Questions Girl. She said "Try not to take her too seriously, she's really weird like that."

Then, at the end of class, the teacher gave me gift basket, with a bunch of different food products in it and a University of Tuebingen T-Shirt. It pretty much made my day when she said "Well, I didn't know what size you were...and you're American...so I got you an extra large." The shirt pretty much comes down to my knees, but it was SO AWESOME.

I survived German teenagers!

Adios amigos!

17 July 2008

why it's good to be a foreign student

Reason #587:

When you're a foreign student, you almost die preparing a kickass oral presentation for your sociology of scandals class, and you spend so much time almost dying, you forget to do the other work for the class that you need to complete before you can get a grade. So you go to the professor and ask about those two ten page essays you're supposed to turn in by the beginning of August, and he says "I'll tell you what. Your oral presentation was really good. You type up exactly what you said in class for me, make it like 3 pages, email it to me, I'll give you a grade, and we'll call you done for the year."

Being an exchange student is AWESOME!

words germans will never be able to say

Marina and I have started compiling a list. Here it is:

squirrel
quarrel
jewelery
Mediterranean
anesthesia
t.v (it's so cute, they say tee-wee)

Fabio and Vegemite have taken revenge by making their own list of words americans will never be able to say:

Eichhörnchen (squirrel)
rühren (to stir)
Möhrchen (carrot)
Röhrchen (I forget what this means)
Schornsteinfeger (chimney sweep)
Tschechische Republik (the Czech Republic)

My oral presentation went AWESOME! My Professor was thrilled out of his skull. Woot! Rent an American visit tomorrow in Tübingen, going to go talk to some 16 year old German kids about American. Knowing Me and German teenagers, I should come back dead. Vegemite's birthday today! SCHOOL IS OFFICIALLY OVER!!

WOOOOOOT!!

Adios!

15 July 2008

Quick Updates

Some quick updates about life:

1) Claire left yesterday morning :(. Dragon is lonely for his Pirate Duck.

2) After Claire left, I've basically been locked in my room during my stupid giant oral presentation. 15-20 minutes in German on a text that's so hard, it took reading it 4 times to understand it...and it's in English. The title is "Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance Between Ritual and Strategy", and if that doesn't make you want to throw yourself off a roof, I don't know what does. At some point I have to bring Monica Lewinsky into the picture, but right now, I'm concentrating on not dying. I've got Fabio and Vegemite helping me (and they are AWESOME), but as Vegemite was reading it through with me, making sure I was making sense, she said, "Shit. This is hard." Which is probably the best way to put it.

3) Some cool things are coming up. Vegemite's birthday is Thursday, and we are partying like rockstars. Friday I (finally!) have my Rent An American school visit, which should be awesome, and I will probably get cool stories from it. Saturday I leave for Vienna, Rutgers is paying for it, and, truth be told, I don't actually want to go because a) I've already been there, b) I wasn't a huge fan of it the first time, c) when I come back, I'll only have 10 days left before I leave Germany and d) I would much rather spend those four days in Konstanz instead of Vienna. Bleh. But Rutgers pays. This is good.

4) That's about all that's new or interesting. Hopefully cool stories will come up. Trying not to be sad about leaving, but it's hard because friends are starting to go home. That's about it.

5) New favorite song! I found a new band: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0JKohRJfRrA

Adios amigos!

13 July 2008

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Meersburg yesterday, Austria today!

Austria is beautiful, and, according to our waiter over lunch they don't speak 'German', they speak 'Austrian', and have nothing to do with Germany. Cool. We hiked down a ginormous mountain, and for your viewing pleasure, made you some videos. Here they are:

Part 1: We decide to hike down a mountain. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8NQ-9acAuOg



Part 2: We realize just how enourmous the mountain really is.
link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=giEU9hAvAsQ



Part 3: We debate Heidi's inadequate footwear, and why are we still on the mountain?
link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nBMQuyYKR8o



Part 4: I said two and a half hours, but really it was 3. Finally off the mountain, 3 hours later.
link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=W7dVbWn8wFI

In other news, Vegemite is absolutley ecstatic, because her boyfriend sent her a big box for her birthday, and she got (you guessed it)...Vegemite (among other things.) Have I mentioned that she is absolutley the coolest flatmate in the whole wide world?

11 July 2008

Tina gets abandoned in porn.

Tina and Claire here!

So the theme of Claire's visit is vaguely freaky sex stores. This wasn't the intended theme--the intended theme was "see Germany", but the new, unintentonal goal of the trip is to "see the freaky side of Germany." Stories follow.

First things first, yesterday out of sheer bordeom Claire and I decided to go into a sex shop and run around. We took pictures of Pirate Duck with various sex toy rubber ducks, with such cool names as "Bondage Duck," and "Rub My Duck." And I would just like to mention quickly that everything in that store looks really painful and capable of putting someone in the hospital, and I don't much plan on going in there again.

Then today, Claire and I decided to go swimming in the Rhine, where our virgin eyes were assaulted by old men in brightly colored speedos. But before this occured, Claire (who, sadly, was left alone for several hours today while I was in class), managed to find her way back to the sex store where she bought me a lovely gift of gummy genitalia (and the red ones are the best.) She has promised Marina that tomorrow she will go back and buy pasta genitalia. I think I'll let them have that special party alone.

Also today, Claire, Fabio and I decided to walk down to a pizza place and buy some pizza (duh). Right across the street was a video store with an adult section, which Fabio thought would be quite cool to drag us into. So, against my will, we went with him, where he promptly dropped us off in the triple X aisle and vanished to go look at horror movies or whatever. This meant me and Claire, totally alone, surrounded by walls of naked women on video covers with various painful looking devices, in various painful looking positions, with some donkeys or whatever, while the boy, who's idea it was in the first place, considered the merits of watching Hostel versus The Exorcist, not even thinking about the two sad girls he'd abandoned in the porn aisle. Thanks Fabio. Thanks.

That will be all.

10 July 2008

Claire Writes!

So for those of you who live under a rock, Claire's visitng for a week because she's AWESOME! She's also writing my blog entry for today. Here goes:


WARNING: pretty much i dont believe in grammer only the occational period and am possibly the worst speller you will ever meet and it just gets worse when im typeing so good luck

ok so pretty much tina has a cloud of paper cranes that she has hung from the ceiling and im kinda jealous because iw ant them so im thinking about stealing them before i leave and when she asks where they are im going to say that i dont know and act like im concerned

heres the rundown of everything that iv learned since iv been here:
1. it smells like cows not in a gross way but in a fresh amish way i kinda like it
2. there are many brightly colored buildings that are sorta flamigo pink next to these cute little ones that are more like the sound of music
3. the paddle boats are massive they look like real boats but there not there made of wood and it looks like some one actualy takes care of them
4. ATTENTION!! TINA HAS YET TO SAY SORRY FOR ANYTHING!!!!! AND THAT IS A BIG DEAL SO JEN MAKE SURE TO TELL YOUR AUNTS I THINK IT WILL MAKE THEM HAPPY
5. schmuck means jewelry (julery)
6. all germans are obsessed with country time lemon aid so much so that they will resort to being tinas friend
7. people take country time lemon aid over alcohol
8. rice cakes come in strange flavors like strawberry
9. i went to a class with pickels freehold and i found it facinating mostly because i could draw pictures through the whole thing and not feel like a may be missing something and it was a refreshing feeling and i got some serious art work done and a very impressive rap that i am more than willing to sing upon request
10. gremans seem to have difficulty deciding what color their hair should be so they just take all of them staring with blond in the frind and progressivly getting darker as they go back it even applys to side burns but the eye brows are generly darker than the rest of the hair by at least 3 shades
11. the feilds in switzerland are perfectly geometric all of the feilds are perfect rectangles and on the extremely rare occation that they do not all of the corners are at right angles i have yet to see a german feild so i have nothing to compare it with other than england and america in england all of the feilds are misshapen blobs and in amreica the are so haphazard that they end up running into the road so the swiss are the definate leaders here
12. the cherrios are not perfectly round some of them almost pring open and its not like they are even made my some generic brind thier made by kellogs it was baffeling


so that was claire!! woot! our plan for the week: visiting islands with castles, going to the largest waterfall in Europe, and doing a day-trip to Austria. HELLS YES.

adios amgios!
Tina and Claire

07 July 2008

Good/Bad weekend

So definitely some highs and lows to the weekend.

Fourth of July party was SWEET! SO many people came to our giant grill-fest which was awesome, and we taught all the non-americans about roasting marshamllows and making smores (which actually came out pretty well considering you can't get graham crackers in Germany. But butter cookies are actually not a bad replacement!). We decided to be as absolutley American about it as we could get, so we banned the speaking of German (at least amongst ourselves), and played country music (and I was the dj, woot!). But we lacked an American flag, so we put up a New Zealand one instead, just because the colors are the same.

I had a ton of fun, I made lots of new friends/saw a bunch I hadn't seen in awhile. Then we all decided to go swimming at midnight in the Rhine (which, see last post, is still really cold.) At midnight on a windy night, it's even colder, which means Vegemite, a Canadian friend and I only went in up to our knees, but Michigan Friend actually went swimming. Canadian friend tried to throw me in, but I kicked his ass a little bit. Then at 3 o clock in the morning, we all decided to go swimming again, and this time I went all the way in. Water was way cold but it was worth it. When I came back the party had mostly wound down, so a German friend broke out the guitar and we had a sing-fest. Then another Canadian friend did a pretty hilarious slam rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon, in which Puff kills all the other magical animals in order to protect his supply of weed. Random, but pretty awesome.

I went to bed at 4.30 in the morning, only to have to wake up at 8 Saturday to catch the train for a day-trip to Zurich. Forgot my passport (common theme? One day this will get me into trouble), but it was okay. Zurich is alot prettier than I would ever have guessed! Actually, it looked alot like Strassbourg, with the river running through the city and the frenchified architecture. Also, the Swiss stop for pedestrians, which almost (but not quite) made up for the ridiculous prices and the fact that they wouldn't take euros. Here are some cool pictures:

This poster is not funny.

Oh, Swiss German.

Canadian Friend on a bridge with a sweet view!

Life would be SO MUCH EASIER.


It was super hot, so I jumped in the river with all my clothes on.

Sunday was spent doing lots and lots of homework/being really upset because Michigan Friend to go back to the US that night. Me and a couple other friends decided to meet him at the train station to send him off, which wound up being really emotional and sucking in general. I miss him lots, and he's only been gone for a few hours. It sucked because we all realized that he was only the first friend to leave, and that in not too much time, we're going to have to say goodbye to lots and lots of other friends. Bleeeehhh, goodbyes suck.

At any rate, CLAIRE IS COMING TOMORROW! And I am so ridiculously excited! It's about time we get another American up in this joint.


04 July 2008

30 Things I Hate About You

I had a bit of a minor freak out today, because I realized I would be boarding a plane in exactly one month. Therefore, I've decided to write a list of everything I hate about Germany in the hopes that this would make me want to leave. Okay! Here goes:

1) I hate that the mosquitos here are mutant bloodsuckers that attack you during the day, bite you through your clothes, and go for your face.

2) I hate that none of the windows have screens, which means lots and lots of bugs.

3) I hate the labyrinth bureacracy.

4) I hate the lack of air-conditoning.

5) I hate how the peanut butter, syrup, and ketchup taste different.

6) I hate how much more expensive everything is.

7) I hate how there's only three busses that go to Uni.

8) I hate how if you cross the street before the green symbol, you get glares.

9) I hate the constant election coverage.

10) I hate how all the stores close at 4.

11) I hate how unhelpful sales people are.

12) I hate how closed the Germans as a general rule are.

13) I HATE PFAND! Where stores put charge like a 20 cent down payment on bottled drink that you only get back to return the bottle. But seriously, who goes out of their way to return a bottle for 20 cents? No one.

14) I hate how militant the pre-teens are.

15) I hate how gothic and wacked out the regular teens are.

16) I hate how hard it is to find still water.

17) I hate how none of my roommates clean...ever.

18) I hate that you have to smuggle fourth of July fireworks from the Czech Republic.

19) I hate how retarded Switzerland is, because they should just shut up and join the EU.

20) I hate how Germans can't small talk, and only discuss deep topics like politics or the apocalypse. And expect you to join in.

21) I hate how nobody says "How are you?"

22) I hate how everyone presumes to know more about America than I do.

23) I hate how in my Sociology of Scandals class, these kids discuss America like they live there. But they don't. Bite me, I do.

24) I hate how deoderant comes in really tiny bottles.

25) I hate nude beaches.

26) I hate how they don't sell twizzlers. Or goldfish crackers, or wheat thins, or swiss miss hot chocolate.

27) I hate how all the music on the radio is in German, and that all movies/tv shows are originally American but dubbed into German.

28) I hate how the Rhine is STILL COLD.

29) I hate Quark.

30) I hate how nobody tells you ANYTHING. They expect you to know, and if you don't know, they expect you to ask. But if you're American, and you're used to people just telling you things, this train of logic blows.

I can't think of anything else. I hate how 31) this was a totally unsuccessful idea.

FOURTH OF JULY!! And we are GRILLING! No fireworks (see #18), but lots and lots of grill food anyway. We're going to make smores too, but 32) I hate how they don't sell graham crackers here, meaning we're going to have to make do with butter cakes. Should be fun. Hopefully the weather is good, I really 33) hate how we got so much rain today, it kind of sucked a little bit. At any rate, this has been a very food-oriented week; we went out for German food Tuesday, Marina cooked Greek food today, and tomorrow (well, today technically), it's American grill-ness! Going to Zurich on Saturday, working all day Sunday and Monday, and CLAIRE COMES TUESDAY!! Wooooot!

01 July 2008

wake up and smell the roses

How is it July? How did this happen? Oh snaps, I am totally not ready or willing to come home in a month. How am I supposed to go back to serving pancakes without stabbing myself in the eye with a spatula? I forsee huge readjustment difficulties in America.

Today (well, since it's 1 AM, technically yesterday now) I was sitting on the bus, kind of not in a great mood because I was trying to read an article for class and the girl in front of me had her music cranked up obnoxiously loud. Like, so loud, she might as well have had a radio on her lap instead of headphones in her ears. At Konzilstrasse a lady in her early thirties carrying a rose got on the bus and sat down next to me. We sort of smiled hello at each other, and I went back to my (attempts at) reading. A few minutes later the lady laughed and said "I bet it's pretty much impossible with that music." "Yeah," I said, "it's tough."

And so we got to talking, and I gave up totally on my reading. She asked me what I was reading and what I studied, I noticed she had an accent and asked where she was from originally. Turns out she was Persian, from Iran, and had been living and working in Germany for the last year. I asked her how she liked the country, and she said "It's hard. The language is totally different, the culture is totally different, the people aren't anything alike. Right now I'm a cashier at the local tech store, I need to find better work, but it's hard sometimes, it's just hard. But you do what you need to." "Yeah," I said, "I guess you do." And she smiled and said "But you know, it's okay," and held up her rose.

"Is it real?" I asked. "Of course," she said, "smell it." So I did. "What do you think?" "It smells beautiful," I said, because it really did, and I'm guessing she'd just recently picked/bought it, because she'd been holding it like a prize possession the entire bus ride. But as the bus pulled up to her stop, she stood up and put the rose in my hands. "It's my gift to you," she said. "I can't take your rose!" I said, "It's yours." But she was insistent. "It's my gift and I want you to have it. Take it, and best of luck to you." I couldn't think of anything else to say but "Thanks," but she smiled at me before getting off the bus.

Okay, so forgive the sappiness or whatever, but I was kind of touched. I mean, thinking about it now, I figure no matter how much life sucks, if you can enjoy the roses, you're pretty much set. Plus, sometimes there's a nice stranger to remind you it's not so bad at all. I've got faith in humanity, and I'm pressing the rose so I don't forget it.

Adios!