Ich hätte Geburtstag!

I'm making progress. Me, Willner (boss man), and Ebert each had our own program in excel we were developing, and we compared our results last Friday (5/13). Theirs were in accordance, and mine was off by about a fourth. So I found on Monday (5/16) that I had forgotten a conversion factor, so all my numbers magically righted themselves, and I took it to Willner who said ‘Now we can take the next step.’ Now I'm looking for a way to tie in viscosity into it, but I can't find anything at all, so I'm once again conducting fruitless searches. And as of yet, the fruitless searches are at least yielding SOME numbers that are interesting. But I’m still bored out of my mind with only this one project. (the other is on hold) So maybe I’ll just start pestering people for work.

I feel sick. I suppose I should throw away that spaghetti sauce, finally.

I asked Ebert why he comes in so late to work ("so late" being 10 AM as opposed to 6 AM), and he says "Because I like to sleep." He also says something about preferring the office in the late afternoon, because everyone else goes home around 3 or 4. I must say I agree with him. It’s quite peaceful when no one’s talking. Though it’s unnerving when everyone’s still there and NOBODY’S talking. Haha.

I found delicious reminds-me-of-home nacho chips here! Aaaah, now I just have to find shredded cheese to melt over them!!!!! GANZ GEWONNEN!! :D

Made a popcorn thing last night that mom sent me. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh it was so gooooooooooood!!! :D NOM

It was super hard to get outta bed this mawnin. I think it's slightly bad when I revel in my tea, but I guess it's even worse when I don't even put that much sugar in it and love love love it.

For some reason, the other day when I was listening to Owl City's "Fireflies" song a full 17 months after I bought it, I noticed that at 2:10, I can hear a guy giving a little chortle. And it's only in the right ear of the headphones... Sneaky sneaky!!

This morning I saw my first bad German driver... and surprise surprise, it was a female, and she was blond. Man, I hate some stereotypes.

When I went to get coffee today, there was less than 2/3, greater than a 1/2 cup left. once again, I got the coffee dregs. This makes me extremely angry. When I get angry, instead of throwing whatever it is I'm mad at, I like to imagine myself beating the crap out of a metal trash can using a baseball bat. It's a quite liberating daydream, even though it probably isn't true to life. I mean, seriously, a metal trash can?! Those things seem to be pretty sturdy.... but man, do I make scrap metal of it with that baseball bat. And then I feel better, and whoever/whatever I was angry at is safe for at least one more day. (and to those of you who know of the times where I DIDN'T take a breath, and ended up demolishing the offending object instead of the imaginary trash can... YOU relax!!) Well anyways, back to the coffee dregs. I guess it doesn't make me angry, rather, what gets on my nerves is the fact that on average, 2 out of three times go for the coffee, I've gotten less than a full cup. It's annoying. Especially since they charge money for every cuppa joe, and I feel like I'm getting GYPPED when it's repeatedly an inferior amount. Gah. Maybe I'll get a bigger cup to make up for it... I'll become a coffee sniper or something. Win. I like this new game plan.... now I just need face paint and a ghillie suit... :D

Hmmm... someone has a birthday, you say?!

So. I’ve waffled on for a useless 10 minutes or so by now. For my birthday last Friday. Justin figured out that if he bought a Bavarian ticket, we can ride the train with up to 5 people on this one ticket, so he and I planned to meet up as his train stopped in Nürnberg. WELL, his train was LATE, so we MISSED the OTHER train we were supposed to switch to by only a MINUTE!! Soooo close! Oh well. So we chilled for an hour, then were unterwegs. (“en route”) We didn’t do a lot for my actual Geburtstag, but I did get to say it a lot. :D We mainly just walked around Kitzingen, across the bridge and to a bar. Yeah. Fun! :D We finally got back, spieled a little darts, then went to bed!

The above pictures were taken in the small bar where we stopped. Below is in Corey and Ben's apartment. They have a dart board!

Bridget, Ben, Justin, and Corey. Outlook of
the forests surrounding Rothenburg

Ich, mit Bridget nach hinter.

Saturday we went to Rothenburg for the day. Corey, Bridget, and I did a presentation about this town for our Intro to ICP class, so we made a point to visit it sometime when we were here. Well anyways, we all woke up a little later than we expected, so as we were scurrying to the train station, we saw our train pull away from the platform. NOOOOOO!!!! Gah. So we moseyed around Kitzingen for a while, which included a visit to the bakery! So hours later, around 1 PM, we roll in to Rothenburg. 7 pictures in, my camera battery screams and dies. Wonderful. So, I operate the camera sparingly and with caution from then on out. I managed to somehow take 55 more pictures. Turn on, focus for a splitsecond, click!,
TURNOFFTURNOFFTURNOFF!!!! Hey, don’t look at me like that... it worked, didn’t it?! :) We walked and walked and walked and Ben and I couldn’t figure out how to gain entrance to the ATMs in our bank and walked and walked and walked and went to the Kriminalmuseum, which was basically a museum about the “legal system” in medieval times. Very very gruesome. So happy it’s not like that anymore; it was based mostly on whatever the majority thought you were guilty of, and that kind of mob mentality scares me. A lot. SO ANYWAY! We stand in the main square as the hour turns, and the animated thingies don’t engage, so we move on, continuing our circuit of the town. Weelllll, we get hungry. Naturally. Luckily we find a place to eat outside that has chairs with CUSHIONS!!! Food, more walking, then we find ourselves once again in the main square at the turn of another hour, and THIS time, the windows on either side of the clock open and the carvings which tell the history of the town become animated for a couple minutes. Aaand that would beeee.... I can’t remember. But I think it has something to do with a drinking contest being the deciding factor in whether the town is destroyed or not. Typisch Deutsch. :D We headed back to Kitzingen at ten o’clock, but when we hit one of the train stations where we needed to switch trains, the next one wasn’t coming for ANOTHER WHOLE HOUR!!! Sigh. That was rough.

Note the windows are OPEN! WOOT!

Lunch/Breakfast in Würzburg. Deeeelicious!

Schloss! The sun was shining on the facade, while
storm clouds served as nature's photo bomb. :D

Sunday, travel to Würzburg. Eat lunch at this lovely little patio surrounded by buildings in an enclosed alley, while our waitress slowly realizes that we aren’t from Germany. She says she lived in Minnesota for about 6 months, and has pretty decent English. Later, Justin remarks that every German we know who has spent some time in the USA has gone to these unexciting states and cities. WHYY?! Not that it really concerns me, but it’s slightly puzzling why not the big cities. So then we walk over to a bridge over the Main river, and I notice there’s a lock on one side of the river! Win! Then a boat came through and was using it! WIN!! Except I didn’t get to document the entire process, since we ALSO noticed the looming, very angry-looking storm clouds coming up quick, so we left and outran them to the castle. Do we ever do anything but WALK?! Sigh, walk around looking for Eis (ice cream), FIND IT! Then go get on a train. End of weekend, basically. It was fun!! :D

This is how confused the sky was,
as the storm rolled in. Quite beautiful!