Today's Blog Post. The REAL one!

Not that the other one I posted today was fake, but this is the one that I was planning on posting. The other was a (happy?) mistake.

This weekend was fun! I originally didn’t have anything planned but another lazy weekend in which I could gather strength for the upcoming weekends when family and friends will be visiting, BUT, as last week progressed, people started making plans. First, Justin and I were talking about the Harry Potter movie, and how I was going to see it on Tuesday in the english speaking theater. And he decided that he might be coming in town, and also wanted to see the movie, so there HA. Then I told Bridget what he was doing, and she decided that it was indeed a brilliant idea, and she wanted on board!! Even though she had seen the movie already. But she HADN’T seen Nürnberg yet. So she and Speer were coming. Then the twins (Ben and Corey, both working at LEONI, which is why we call them the twins) were interested in coming and watching the movie and hanging out Friday night, though they had to be somewhere Saturday. THEN, it turned out that the twins could stay Saturday night, TOO! PARTY WEEKEND! Haha. All these shenanigans were ALMOST enough to distract me from the fact that this was the weekend at home when the FIRST EVER Pub Golf outing was being held in Bloomington. And that was sort of the birthday celebration for Erik. Double sadness. But anyways. I get off of work Friday at 5, call Bridget, and she says COME TO THE HBF NOW!! And the following sequence of events, with no time inbetween, went: hang up, buy tram ticket, collect change, turn around and board tram. Phew! Great timing! We go to the biergarten in Wöhrder Wiese to meet up with the boys and have delicious Nürnberger wurst things in a DELICIOUS bread roll. The beer was okay. Since it had been raining for practically the past WEEK, a few lakes had sprung up in the park. It was hilarious watching all the kid bikers ride slowly through them, though one almost fell over when it was deeper than he thought, LOL.

Then Wukie led the way to the movie theater he had found that was huge and legit, and SO unlike the cute little podunk theater I had found to watch POTC. But the only english version this place had was in 3D. Poo. Oh alright. But wait, we don’t have enough unreserved seats available. Wait five minutes, then they’ll be freed up and you can try again. Awesome. So of course there were two chunks of seats that were freed up, and we jumped on them! The 3D glasses were HUUUUGE!!!!!! Dude. But hey, that’s actually a good idea, since I was unaware of them (for the most part) and they weren’t annoying the entire movie. Speaking of the movie. Meh. It was alright. Made me miss the books. So much more intense. Well anyways, then, we went to O’Shea’s Irish Pub! This place with an awesome atmosphere. Makes me so happy.... next time I’m there (and there WILL BE a next time) I’ll take a peeekchur. So, I’m in Germany, in an Irish pub. What do I order? A British beer, of course! Isn’t Newcastle Brown Ale English? Oh well, it made my statement hilarious, so I’m keeping it. So there, ha. After that, we walked clear across town to another bar that wukie had in mind to check out. Super tiny and super packed. I was not happy. I think after that, most of the other bars were closed, so we just took the bus home.

Wukie said we’d start our outing at 10. Ha. Woke up to an angry alarm clock, confused about my location. Hop in the shower, while Corey and Bridget were still asleep on the couches. Hop out of the shower, get dressed, and C&B are STILL asleep! Whaaaat. I made eggs for everyone. Nom. Then we got over to wukie’s. At 11. Oh well. Wukie’s apt was nice! Like mine, his was initially unfurnished when he moved in, but he had seen fit to equip his more fully. He had an actual bedframe (plus mattress), desk, shelves, and short clothesrack which he had assembled. The couch came “from upstairs.” We walked to the bakery, nom-ed on a couple baked goods. And walked forever until we got to Dutzenteich Park. Wukie walks fast. And it’s hard to tell just how fast he goes! I think it’s because he has minimal upper body movement, which is deceptive.

Frisbee in the park. Walked around the structure which was supposed to be Hitler’s attempts at luring the olympics to Nürnberg. Then we walked to a huge open concert-like space, where a live orchestra and an opra singer were practicing. She was wearing jeans. Bamf. It was wicked awesome. Then the orchestra played the can can. HAHAHAHA. We left to go to Wukie’s apartment, and walked through a neighborhood that just blew my mind. Epicly. I was thinking it was a mix between Germany, America, and Rome. Don’t ask. So after walking soooo much, we all went up to Wukie’s apt, and sat down to rest. Wukie didn’t sit down. Odd. And five minutes later, he was like alright, let’s go! And nobody moved. It’s like, dude, take a BREAK! AND a chill pill!!!

Well anyways, we eventually got underway, and walked through downtown. Stopped somewhere for a beer.

I’m boring myself with this. But I’ll keep on keeping on, just cuz that’s what I’m supposed to be doing here. Plus there’s a chance that you might NOT be bored.

This place served red beer. Amber, I think. And since it was in a clay bierstein, I had to take them at their word, because it was dark to my eyes. Whoever thought of first serving beer in a glass or other transparent vessel was BRILLIANT! I like being able to see my beer. If I have to choke down the swill, I want to be able to appreciate it visually as well! By golly. This place was right next to the place which did the tours of the undergrounds of Nürnberg! So we stopped in and asked about tour times. But then we decided that of the three things that we still wanted to do today, seeing the castle, touring the underground, and going to the lederhosen shop, we definitely wanted to see the castle. So, we elected to do that first. Blah blah, walk around the castle, blah blah, decided that the twins REALLY wanted to buy Lederhosen, blah blah, we go there. I find a bench to sit on and rest my feet, and relax, and almost fall asleep, thanks to that half liter of beer I had consumed. They looked adorable when they tried on their lederhosen and plaid shirts... Though Ben’s arms were too long. He has the same problem Erik does, where in order to get a shirt that fits the arm length, it is usually too large around the torso. Or with a shirt that fits the torso, it is way too short in the arms. Komisch. Even Justin got another shirt to go with his lederhosen that he already bought, so I decided that I should do a little shopping too. I didn’t buy anything yet. That will come, in time, and definitely before I leave. But I have decided that I kinda want a plaid one. I like plaid. And here in Germany you see it EVERYWHERE!! I like that part, lol. Makes me fit in. :D By the time we were done there, it was too late to go to the underground tours. Awwww. Rats.

Schäufele!!!! YUMMY!!!!!

Then we split up, Bridget and I to go to my apartment, where I called Erik. The boys went to Wukie’s apartment to drop off their wares, and so Corey could actually pick up his luggage so he could make himself presentable upon waking up in the morning, since he had to go to the airport to pick up his girlfriend and her parents on Sunday. Well, it took the boys quite some time to get there, all except for Wukie, and they hung out for a few minutes. We finally go to leave, and Corey’s standing in my kitchen and asks “So, whose Snickers are those?” Erik had left nearly a full bag of snickers here, and I put them on the kitchen table thinking my roommate would eat them. “Oh, they’re Erik’s, and I don’t like them, so they’re fair game.” Upon saying this, all three boys swarmed the Snickers. It was quite hilarious, especially since Ben was outside and almost to the stairs when I said this, and came running back inside! Lol. So we take the tram to where we changed lines and waited for the next 9 for about 15 minutes, just so we could get off at the next stop. We honestly could’ve walked that distance in the same time. So we’re standing there, on the phone with Wukie, who now tells us that the place we are eating at is right around that area where we waited for forever. OOPS. And that he might not be able to hold down this 6 person table all by himself much longer. Double oops. So we man up and walk the rest of the way. This place is called Schäufelewirtschaft, and all it serves is Schäufele. Super yummy. I walked past it weeks earlier when I went a couple weeks ago to check out the hotel mom dad and Karin will be staying in this upcoming week-and-a-half. They serve a red beer, too! Some of us got the red beer, and a couple got the dunkel. Well, the dunkel looked slightly red, which made the red look a little like wheat. Halfway through, Nathan gets a text from a couch surfer he’d been in contact with about hanging out tonight, and runs outside, and comes back in with Marlena (at least I think that’s what her name was), a girl from France who’s in town visiting her relatives. Cool! We were headed out, when the hostess lady comes over and we all pay, and then she asks where we’re headed. To another bar! She says that’s nice, and proceeds to tell us about some tragedy that happened in some other night club or bar where a kid shot some people, and I may have heard something about a bomb, but I can’t be sure. She finished the story. Then she’s like, “have fun!!” yeah, okay.

At the English Pub

We found a cat running around!! Corey, feeling
separation anxiety from his cats hat home, was super
worried about it, and even called the number on its tags.

We get to the altstadt, then walk over to an irish bar, which was overflowing, and we all stand there like, No way are we going in there. So we go to the English Pub a few blocks over. And as soon as we walk in, we hear a million voices speaking in English with British accents. It was lovely! All day, the twins had been lauding Gutmann beer, so of course when we saw it on the menu, we all wanted to try it. But I saw the Murphy’s Irish Red, and decided to continue the trend for the day, which was apparently “Drink Red Beer!!” so that’s what I ordered. Bridget was right behind me and ordered the Gutmann wheat beer, and apparently the tap was out after they drew it for her. Oops! Sorry boys. So we all sat down and asked Marlena to teach us some French. She asked us what we wanted to know. We were all quiet, thinking about it, and one of the boys blurts out “Where’s the nearest bar?” And we all had a bear of a time trying to repeat the French mess that came out of her mouth. It was hilarious! The boys played darts there, because they had a real dart board! Not the plastic cheap darts that can be found everywhere. Or rather, CAN’T be found everywhere, since darts is kind of a rare species here. But THIS was the first real dart board with which contact was made. Wukie at one point walked Marlena to the bus stop. And we eventually all walked home. I don’t know why. Why couldn’t we use the NightLine? Shrug.

Corey got up and left at around 9 in the morning. I told him to wake me so that I could see him off or something like that. It turned into me blinking at him, grunting, then shutting the door after him. Followed by diving into my pillow for another three hours. Yes, this weekend was a fun one. :D

And just this evening, the entire engineering department went out for a night on the town!! (read: dinner at a biergarten.) The drinks were on Siemens. How nice! It was all delicious. I ordered a salad. My first outright vegetables since I can’t remember. And don’t worry... I googled ecoli+germany today and didn’t get any recent articles, so I think it’s over. And I was in luck, since I ended up sitting next to two people who weren’t native to the Nürnberg area, so I could understand them completely! Yaaaay.

The Missing Blog Post

Well. Sorry. But it seems I forgot to write a blog after our women's team lost the world cup championship game. I don't know what happened, but I realize that I managed to write something on my school's blog, so I will copy and paste it here. Seriously, seriously, don't know what happened. Weird. Anyways! Here is the missing post!

Posted on 6/19 (I know, right?!):
Well, as it turns out, there was construction on the road to the Women’s World Cup. (corney, but my post previous to this was "Road to the Women's World Cup, so it makes sense! Quit laughing!!!) We played Japan at 8:45 PM local time Sunday night. It was a good game! Really, it was! Though, the japanese team was so very polished with all their passes, and it seemed that if a pass of ours got intercepted (which happened a lot), all the progress we’d just made would be erased in a heartbeat. They are very excellent ball handlers, (Should that be ball footlers?) so they would play keep-away with our ladies all the way down the field, until one of ours hulked up and went into a berserker rage and took away possession on grounds of pure adrenaline. That’s how the game went the entire time, back and forth, back and forth. We had some very close shots on goal, and should’ve scored three goals in regulation instead of just one. As fate, fortune, and luck (the dumb kind) would have it, the game went to PKs, whereupon we just simply fell apart, and Japan won. Which they earned, and even needed, but I still would have liked for us to win. Oh well.

On to more boring topics!

Morning light is a glorious thing. Soft and gentle. And refreshing. I’ve always marveled at the huge difference there is between dawn and dusk. At first, you’d think the two would be the same, no? Same angle to the earth and all… But you can tell that, as the sun is falling, the sunshine is clearly exhausted. Mornings are fresh and lovely. I like to enjoy them. If I can ever wake up early enough.

Garbage trucks are an alarm clock’s best friend.

I was walking to work, and I had a revelation. I was waiting for the “okay to walk” signal, when I looked around and asked myself how life would be here if I were 100% fluent in German (as opposed to 0.5%)? Or in other words, how would you like it here if it were an English-speaking city/country? Conclusion: I could love it here! I like this new perspective, it makes things so much more pleasant!

I wonder if people at work are starting to not believe me when I ask them to slow down when they talk. When the thing that I want to say is simple enough, I blaze through the sentences. And I’m starting to pick up on the little speech abbreviations and word mash-ups that these frankisch folk seem to do so often! So at one point, it’s clear as mud, and in the next second, I might find that I have a squeegee to combat said mud. With such a sporadic pattern of clarity, in which I understand completely, I really do wonder if people think I’m jerking their leg. Because I’m really not. Maybe I should fake it, and dumb down my German when I talk. Here’s a common occurance.
Them: lightning fast German Frankisch gibberish
Me: blank stare. Shift weight, shift eyes, and then mumble “…könnten Sie wiederholen, bitte“ (could you please repeat yourself)
Them: blähblähblähblähbläh
Me: Blank stare. Blink. Sigh inwardly. Sputter, “tut mir leid, aber Sie sprechen sehr schnell. Noch mal bitte, langam?“ (I’m sorry, but you talk very fast. Once more please, slowly?)
Them: Könnten… Sie… mir… die… Nummern… geben? (Could you give me the numbers?)
Me: (said somewhat quickly) „Ja klar! Ich habe die Nummern gerade gerechnet. Whelche Nummern wollen Sie genau haben?“ (Yes, of course! I have just calculated the numbers. Exactly which numbers would you like?)
Them: caeoicnaöoweimfwaeofiaewoiaöefiancaweu
[Me: NOoooo! That’s not what I meant! I take it back! I take it baaaaack!!!]

Alarm Clocks and Soccer

THURSDAY: After almost as many nights spent here as in the USA in the past week, I now conclude that it was easier dealing with the jet lag going back home. Simply because by the time I woke up in the morning in the states, it was already daylight in Germany. As opposed to waking up at 6 AM this morning in Germany and wanting to die. Why would I be insane enough to wake up at 6, you ask? To skype with the boy. But he had fallen asleep and seemed near death, so since I probably looked the same, we agreed that it was a bad idea, and both went back to sleep. I made the mistake of setting my alarms for 30 mins and an hour later. That was stupid. As a result, the next time I looked at the clock, it said 9:50. AWESOME.

TUESDAY: At least in the anecdote above, I set my alarms again. Today I was not so lucky. Let me begin by saying that I was in bed, head on pillow, eyes closed at a reasonable hour last night, namely, a little after 10. So when I wake up at 6, eight hours of sleep should be enough to tide me over until the next night, right? WRONG! My alarm goes off at 6, I fuzzily remember that Erik was going to try to stay awake (to skype) until midnight, but that it wasn’t likely he’d be up (due to a late-night tangle with the laundry he had on Sunday night, resulting in a mere four hours of sleep). I open my computer in a daze. Surprisingly, I’m lucid enough to sign out and sign back in to Skype (to “refresh” my contacts list). I lie back onto my [monsterously huge] pillow, and grow even more out of it, and when 6:26 rolls around and still no Erik, I close the computer and bury my face into my pillow. THREE-AND-A-HALF HOURS LATER... I wake up again, and see that it’s 9:47. AWESOME. Although this time, I didn’t shoot out of bed and get ready in a whirlwind. My body was not capable of such involved and complicated maneuvers. I promise you, if anyone had seen me lurch out of bed or try to put my shoes on, they would have thought I was drunk. I got almost 12 hours of sleep! Why was I having so much trouble!?!?

Although, I DID enjoy dreaming about Rothenburg after I fell back to sleep again, even though I was riding around in a self-propelled mining cart on tracks, as the small baby I was carrying was giving me lip, and generally being rude to me.

And this morning, it was once again rough getting up. I tricked myself into getting out of bed by promising myself Rockstar. Little did I know, I didn't really mean it. But at least I got up on time! :D

I was finishing dinner Sunday night when I finally remembered that USA was playing Brazil. OOPS! So I sat down to watch in the 20th minute. My roommate Mary hung around sporadically, rotating studying (for a humongous test she had today, Wednesday) and watching the game. I was having a grand ol' time, yelling at our players to be smart(er), and yelling at Marta and her minions to quit whining and being jerks. Mary had been in her room for about the last 10 minutes in OT, so when I started yelling in exuberance over our super last second goal (!), she ran out to see what the deal was. THAT GAME WAS SO COOL!!! Well, scratch that. For the vast majority of the game, it was frustrating. I was watching in German, so what I think the deal was with that penalty kick was that the refs all simultaneously fainted before the kick, and when they came to, our goalie Hope Solo was celebrating and Brazilians everywhere were whining, so they made up a nonsense call and said Solo left the line. (Anyone, PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong.) Which is RIDICULOUS, she shuffled directly to her left, and NEVER left the line. Even the people at work on Monday were telling me it was bogus, and that in the men's games they allow the goalie to cheat soooo much more than what Solo did at that point. But anyway, in soccer, the ref is Supreme Ruler of All that is Breathing, Green, or Spherical, so when Marta (grrrr, smolder smolder smolder) made that goal, I wasn't too pleased. And I was even angrier when, two or so minutes into OT, a Brazilian player, WHO WAS CLEARLY OFFSIDES, passed to Marta who scored. I was supremely upset with soccer. But hey, it's not over til the fat lady sings. And I was urging our ladies on so intensely, eyes riveted to the screen in the final stoppage time, hope rising with every yard that Carli Lloyd and Christie Rapinoe ran closer to the goal, and I couldn't have torn my eyes away if I wanted to, when Rapino hit that beautiful cross (or whatever the soccer-literate call a kick across the field) to the far post, and BANG-BANG. Header into the net by Wambach. Just like that, and we were tied! And THAT'S when things were exciting. Goals happen so rarely in soccer, that goals are practically precious. And all the waiting and pent-up emotion and appreciation for how tough it is to score all collide and all the fans lose their collective minds. THAT'S why we americans find soccer fans all over the world to be crazy fanatics. And we can't stand all the waiting in between goals, and we just wanna see somebody MAULED!! Well, not really. But I know for Erik, that's probably why he'll never truly like the sport. All the running running running running and nothing to show because the game ended 0-0, and that's alright, because both teams did a MARVELOUS job setting plays up and getting situated, and it was a beautiful overall attack and it was a good try. Yeah, but who wins?! Well, that mentality aside, I think the thrill of finally making that goal, or seeing an excellent goalie in action (my position, at one point in my brief career as a fall recreational league soccer player) is enough to keep me interested. In soccer, that is.

Which is why I'm completely pumped for our game against France here in a couple minutes. I've also got it good, because the games here in Germany are broadcast on normal programming, so I am available to watch it. I've got it even BETTER in the sense that since I'm in the same country where it's taking place, so all the games happen at reasonable hours for me, as opposed to the games at the men's world cup last year, which took place during work, and I'd have to keep the gametracker thing up on my computer. And I could read a sentence ever two minutes about what happened. So enthralling. Wooo. But HERE, I can watch it! On TV! After work! YAAY!

And here I leave you. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Baaaaack in the USA!! (for the weekend)

I AM SAFE! It’s wild to think that, a mere 22.5 hours ago I was still sitting on the back porch at the farm, eating food (leftover from 4^th of July feast (on the 3^rd)) visiting with family (also leftover from the 4^th of July).  And now I sit back in my apartment in Nürnberg. Dude.

THEY INCLUDED TWIX IN THE LUNCH PACK!!!
SOOOOO HAPPY!!!

Friday’s traveling was rather uneventful. I was everywhere that I needed to be, at the appropriate time. I took the fast train to Frankfurt because A) I didn’t need an extra hour of public transportation added to the entire day of traveling I had ahead of me, and B) I like sleeping in. On the 8 hour flight to Washington Dulles airport (in D.C.), I sat next to Roy, an electrical engineer who was travelling on a business trip. He was pleasant. It was a very weird sensation, returning to the U.S. but I was super ecstatic! We were ALL funneled down into a customs area. When I got my first glimpse of the crowd that was gathered there, I was overwhelmed with love for my fellow countryman. 45 minutes later, I was overwhelmed with hatred for U.S. airline security policies. For some reason, IT TOOK FOREVER!!!!! But then I survived, and left all those peons in the dust. But I was still in a pleasant mood, because hey, I was comin’ home!! At the gate, since it was a regional flight I was to take next, there were three slated to depart from this same gate all within 10 minutes of each other. WELL, the Jacksonville flight was having trouble getting their stuff together; 15 after their slated departure time, they STILL didn’t have a crew!! Apparently they eventually found the B-team, which would have to suffice, and they were sent on their way. Then the guy (Indian fellow) called for the next flight to board to Peetsburgh. And THEN it was Day-ton’s turn. Our stewardess was extremely fun, witty, and engaging. She blamed her gregariousness on it being her last flight. “Turn your cell phones to OFF Off off, or else Rambo’s coming for you!” And later on in the spiel, she said “Do not tamper with the smoke detector in the bathroom, or else who’s coming for you?” and we all answered “Rambo!” She liked us! I sat next to a man (never got his name) who worked for BWI Group (?) as an industrial engineer. Said he travels maybe an average of 18 months a year! Eek! But he was super easy to talk to, and the entire hour-and-a-half flight from D.C. to Dayton, I didn’t read a single page of my book, or listen to a single song on the iPod. And I’m okay with that! :)

Mel and Grace were waiting to ambush me when I walked out of the gate. “Ambush” is too strong of a word, so perhaps they could’ve been waiting for me like this:

Grace and Mel (L, R)

And Grace was NOT as calm as that picture would lead you to believe. I was attacked several times. Goodness gracious. :) Seeing as I didn’t sleep too much on the marathon flight, I was resorting to hyperactivity to keep myself awake, and I must confess, we left quite a message on one of our AWOL roommate’s voicemails. Hahahahaha. :D They were kind enough to drive me home to pick up Miss Daisy! If there’s definitely one thing I miss about being in Germany, it’s being in control of my own transport (i.e., driving). And if there’s definitely a second thing I miss, it’s SKYLINE!!! Which is where we head to next. And I was satisfied.

Saturday morning, Wedding morning. All is well, except for being disoriented when my alarm clock on my iPod goes off at 8:30, except I forgot to change the time zone of the iPod, so it actually went off at 2:30. Oops. Erik shows up at the Tux at 9:25, demanding to know why I wasn’t ready at 9, when he CLEARLY picked 9:30 over 9. So I said, had he picked the earlier time, I would have been ready earlier! Silly boy. Time was spent collecting all the little things I had left behind me in the whirlwind I created during the one day pack-and-leave frenzy back in March.

We two, in our finery

I, Danielle, Emily Cost (hee hee hee! :D),
Megan, and that man (eek!) is Bobby Cost

Emily’s wedding: lovely, beautiful, and catholic. And as we sat down, I remembered that I had forgotten to tell Erik that she was catholic and that we’d have to sit through a mass in addition to the ceremony. Needless to say, we were BOTH surprised when the entire ordeal ceremony only took an hour! From the church, we went to a Wendy’s that was on the way to the reception hall, and got vanilla frostys.... mmmmmmmmmm :D We get to the reception hall, and the DJ starts playing music until the bride and groom get there. I remembered that I had neglected to Erik that there would be a lot of country music at this reception. Or at least more than he would prefer (which is zero). Haha, oops. There were a lot of people there who I hadn’t seen since high school! Okay, maybe not “a lot,” but a couple. Jeannette and her family told me they had placed bets on whether I would be wearing a dress or slacks. Kristen told me that she wanted me to get tipsy so she could hear me say that I liked hugs. It was fun!! Food was eaten, disgusting American beer was drank, and pictures were taken. :D I was very happy to be there and sharing in the celebration!! In no time, it was 6 PM and the party was over. Sadness. So I drove Erik back to his car on Moerline, and headed to the Farm to visit the Fam! Uncle Jack and Aunt Penny were grilling ribs and whatnot. Everyone finally got alltogether at the Farm, and the sun set at a reasonable hour. (not this 9:45 nonsense as in Germany) I exhausted my reserves of energy at 10 PM, and went to bed halfway through the fireworks.

And slept for a solid 10 hours. I think. George was a pleasant roommate this time. Either that or I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, thus rendering his pleas for attention ineffective. Hmm, I’m thinking it was the latter. Food started getting to the house around 2, and people started getting there around 3. Erik’s dad (who works at Sam Adams downtown) brought a small cooler of beers from the plant. Among them was Sam Adams East-West Kölsch! Umlaut and everything! Before you ask, OF COURSE I had one! And for a split second after you take a sip, it does indeed have that bland, angry tang that is characteristic of the Kölsch Bier of Köln!! Not my favorite, but it was genuine nonetheless! I also had a regular Sam Adams, as well as Hardcore, a hard cider (get it? Haaaa...). So I was feeling good by the time we got around to playing Bocce ball after dinner.

Monday wasn’t much to speak of... Getting stuff together, Kroger-ing for provisions :D, and visiting with family until 4:30 (or so) when Mom Dad and I set off for Dayton airport. An hour-and-a-half later, we were still on the highway, I had already consumed my Big Boy (and vanilla root beer), so I was unoccupied, and starting to get rrreally really anxious that we hadn’t seen an airport yet. So in order to maintain my sanity (and that of my fellow passengers) I stopped talking after a short while. We stopped at a gas station and asked directions, and the guy dad asked turned around and pointed south down the highway in the direction from whence we came. Sigh, of course. But at least we had a definite direction now! 20 minutes later, we see a sign for the airport AND I-70, both at the same time. Incredible. On the way north, we saw NEITHER ONE. We were so confused, but we followed the airport sign just the same. And I made my flight. Chicago O’Hare is HUMONGOUS!!! So was the plane. I was worried, at the gate, that I would have to sit next to the huge group of schoolchildren, but they were at the front of my section in the plane, and I was just one row in front of the crew’s quarters, so I could hear them being real people, occasionally. I like American Airlines! Because the movies and such were much more user friendly than on United Airlines (or whatever airline I was using on my initial flights to and from Germany); I actually got to pick WHEN the movies started! And because they had such a good selection of movies that I actually wanted to see (as well as Tetris! Yeah, you read right, we could play GAMES on this flight!! WIN), I saw three movies and a tv show episode, and didn’t sleep at all. Not my smartest choice. So we touched down (after a moment just after landing, when the momentum of the plane lurched to the left for a second, and my stomach twisted and I pictured us all somersaulting on the runway. Guh) in London.  Another huge airport, but not as open as O’Hare, so it wasn’t as visually impressive. I sat there comatose (but still awake!) for an hour until we boarded this scary-looking jenk little airplane from British Airways. I don’t like chex mix. Landed in Frankfurt. Customs chap asked me where I was going. Last time (in March) the guy asked me what I was doing. Do they ask different questions each time? Regardless, I was taken aback. And also unlike last time, I wasn’t intimidated by  customs, having been through it a GRAND total of four times since March. Also kein Angst hier! Once the luggage FINALLY dropped onto the belt, I wandered for a grand total of 10 seconds until I realized I wasn’t in the main terminal. Took the fast train to Nürnberg. I was so ready to crash, but The Devil Wears Prada was there to comfort me. But only because it was a book, and very well-written. I finally got to Nü-town, finally got to my apartment, finally reached the top of the steps, and the first thing I did was collapse onto my bed. Aahhhh... The rest of yesterday evening is foggy, though I do remember checking Facebook, and being reminded by Karin to call our mother. Oops. This was 15 minutes before I wanted to go to bed. [As I stated before,] It seemed unreal that a mere 22 hours earlier, I was still talking to Uncle Eric, Aunt Diane, and Aunt Amy on the back porch of the Farm. So I called mom. I don’t remember much of the conversation, other than at one point I realized that she was talking an awful lot! How could anyone have so much to say at one point in time? Craziness. But I did, I think, manage to have an okay conversation, and we hung up, and I lost consciousness.

I “officially” woke up today at 6:30 (to the iPod; I missed my first alarm at 6), but napped/sprawled around in bed until 8. I still made it in to work on time! Woot. I was coasting until 10:45, when I started struggling with sleep. Then came lunch, and the fight got harder, so I had COFFEEEEEEE!!! With lots an’ lots of sugar. Nom. And that did the trick. As though it had slapped me, and screamed “YOU ARE IN GERMANY!!! Now wake up and ACT like it!” Or something like that. And I didn’t have a problem with latent jet lag for the remainder of the day! I got home from work (after standing 16 minutes and 41 seconds in a horrendous line at the post office!!), took a shower, and tried not to get distracted as I typed this blog post. Seeing as I got the first part of it done yesterday when I arrived (so THAT’S what I did all evening! Let’s play a game: whoever guesses correctly at what point I stopped writing last night, that person gets a fine prize! Hint: the part I wrote today should be more coherent.), I only had a portion of this to write, so it should not have taken me six hours. Goodness. Whelp, here ‘tis! :D

Bees, Lights, Food, Grammar, Caffeine, Blood, and Spelling. Could I BE more random?!

I woke up to my alarm, then heard an angry buzzing. It sounded like a huge fly drunkenly attacking the window trying to get out. Then I fell back asleep for about half an hour, came drowsily back into consciousness, and the buzzing sounded like a stream of water coming from the faucet in the bathroom and heavily landing on drain. And I exclaimed, "gosh, why is there SO much WATER?!" then I realized where I was and what was actually making the noise. I went to the window, and it was a bee! Failing miserably in trying to fly through the window. It was extremely single-minded in executing its "full steam ahead" attack plan against the window panes. It was slightly comical, lol. I rescued him, at any rate.

I like it when they leave the lights off at work. Especially in the morning, when all the blinds are most of the way drawn (to reduce glare on the computer monitors), because if the lights are on, it seems like winter: too artificially bright for the time of day and a little bit claustrophobic. Whenever I'm in a setting where the inside lights are the main source of illumination during the day (such as while it's super cloudy or stormy or wintery outside), it takes me back to elementary school. Don't know why. But I can guess that it's because we had inside recess in these cases, so I especially hated the über-illuminated classroom walls at that point in time. Just a thought.

Once again, I bought a pastry to eat at Frühstückspause, and what happens? They FEED us at work! At least this time I could leave the pastry off until lunchtime, since I packed my lunch. Brilliant plan? Yes, but only if I ever GOT hungry enough for lunch, which didn’t happen at all. You see, I decided to not let all these tenured engineers trample me on the way to the food this time, and I finally got the weißwurst instead of the leberkäse. Two weißwurst, plus one Butterbrezen (soft pretzel with butter in the middle . . . a butter sandwich!!! Better than Mayonnaise sammiches, but not much . . . haha!), plus one orange lemonade = full belly. I would have preferred the leberkäse, anyways!

Speaking of Weißwurst. Apparently one is not supposed to consume the skin. I ate half of one wurst, then looked around, and the others were peeling the skin off of the wurst before eating it! Oops.

Willner came to me once with the document whose English translation I corrected. He had a few questions, one of which brought up the subject of ending a sentence with a preposition. Ohh boy. He thought it was okay, and I very adamantly told him that it was grammatically wrong to do that. He was confused, because he thought it was right. Since it goes against everything that was said by every literature teacher I’ve ever had, I said no. It is wrong. And he looked down at the paper and said, “Okay. I go home now…” He was laughing as well, so I didn’t worry too much. :D

The coffee must have been strong today. Herr Bengl usually gets coffee, and I got a whiff of it. Whoo boy. That was enough caffeine for me to drive away the post-lunch drowsiness! Jeepers.

Had a bloody nose at work again, but this time the girl who sits in the corner (and who before yesterday I hadn't seen at work in about a month-and-a-half... NO clue why) came into the bathroom when I was in there, and we spoke for the first time. lol! and when she left, she asked something about them happening often, and I said the nosebleeds happen a lot, and she said whaaaaat, and left. I checked my nose, and the bleeding had stopped! And the girl re-entered the bathroom with an ice pack, and I was like Thanks, but it's done already. Good thing, too, since I wouldn't have had a clue about what to do with the ice pack.

Ashamed Admission of the Day: I never really knew how to really spell the capital of Kentucky. I was devastated to learn today that it's spelled Frankfort. Despair.

Special Report: Silver-throated Tenors and Moments of Inertia

Wow. What a response I received regarding precious memories and the tunes that go with them! If only the discussion could have been in the comments section... While I really enjoy seeing all the perspectives of the Koenig clan, I can't help but wonder what the remainder of the populace (read: my friends who have stuck with this blog thus far) thinks about this subject, and if they have any similar experiences.

Unca Ken's warning about memory/tune cross-pollination is valid, and Carrie's vehement exclamation of "NO CLAIRE!!! DON'T DO IT!" will be seriously considered, but I must also acknowledge the opposing argument. Well, it's not really "opposing" anything... it seems to be an unspoken agreement among my people that the integrity of the Boat Record/Tape/CD MUST BE MAINTAINED AT ALL COSTS. Carrie and Unca Ken (my interpretation) took this to mean that application rights of this music should not be abused by listening to it when more than 20 yards away from a Body of Water*, or if more than 20 yards away from a Automobile that is heading straight to or from said Body of Water. [*Body of Water: Primarily A) The Kentucky River, or B) Dale Hollow Lake; Secondarily Any body of water on which a nautical vessle is harbored, for the purpose of rest, relaxation, and the consumption of Tiddly Pinkity Hanky Tanks] Cousins Kelby and Russell seemed to support to this rule, and suggested that I add this acoustic scrapbook to my library of music, just as long as I enjoy it as "it was always intended to be heard," as an album, start to finish, in its entirity. Russell put it best when he said "I must agree with my older brother on the notion of all or none. This is to spare yourself the disappointment of coming to the end until the end is supposed to come. That would be like listening to Freebird and then turning it off just as the guitar solo begins. Or to put it another way, hearing a lively "Old Dan Tucker" without rounding it out with a mild "Mandy Lee I Love You 'Deed I Do"."

I must say that I quite agree. Therefore, I end this quandary by deciding that I will very respectfully put the music in question on the ol' iPod. And only listen to the songs as part of the whole collection. It's really for the best. With that rule in place, I can't see myself ruining a perfectly good work-oriented mood with blissful vacationing thoughts. Fellow Deweys, have no fear! It will indeed be "all or none," and NOT while visions of flat plate orifices are dancing before my eyes.

Weather is Awesome

Sometimes when Willner (bossman) makes a joke about the project being ornery (man, do I have trouble pronouncing that word), I am not amused. This doesn't help me with my "frustrated appearance" though, so maybe I should work on actively smiling/giving a dry laugh whenever Willner smiles after saying something. But sometimes, I see absolutely no humor in the cruel irony of engineering projects.

At one point today, the guys on either side of me were both on the phone. When that happens, I like making believe that they're talking to each other

MAN! Croissants are so deceptive!! "Oh, I'm not greasy, I'm only bread!!" and the next time you turn around, you find that they've peed grease EVERYWHERE!!! BAD pastry, BAD!!

Question for the masses (that means YOU!): If I put the songs from the Boat Tape in regular musical library rotation, will hearing them repeatedly in a non-nautical setting cause me to become jaded to their brilliance? Will some of the happiness I feel when I hear those songs (because hearing those songs is like being on the lake!) be less poignant if I hear them on a regular basis? Should I add them at all? I am in a quandary! Any advise you have to offer on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

Any time I walk into the cafeteria at work and smell sauerkraut, I get insanely happy. (Because it doesn't happen a lot. You think it would, it being Germany and all, but they have real food here, more often than not. Not that sauerkraut and bratwursts aren’t real, but.... you get the point.) But I am reaching the tipping point with the brats... I WANT A MET!!!! Though if you ask anyone who comes from outside the Greater Cincinnati Area, they might say I’ve been eating mets all along! Poor, confused people with no German heritage to set them straight!

There was a noise today during work coming from the construction site outside of the building. I could've sworn it was a couple vuvuzelas.

Ever since we set a date for the saftey meeting (for the testing field), nothing has been done on the orifice project. I spent last week on my other project, calculating (finally) the moments of inertia for that entire motor. At the end of Thursday, I got numbers. So I was happy. But these numbers were somewhere in the neighborhood of several TRILLION. Something tells me that's not right. And I was so confused, because I used all the right formulas! There's no reason it should not work! I left work that day puzzled. I came into work on Monday and realized that I've been writing down the units wrong, so when I converted mm-squared to m-squared, I multiplied by a billion instead of dividing. Whups. But, PROBLEM SOLVED!! Yaaaay! Now, hopefully, I can write up this SOP for the customer on how to find the inertia around whatever axis suits their fancy, and we can get this to them endlich! The initial request for this information was on February 8th. I don't know why they waited until I was here for a month to spring this project on me, even though I had to wait for another guy to help me since I don't have the means to access the necessary information. Sigh, I just don't get it.

This morning, at 9, I see the entire building gathering at the front of the room again. What is it, this time? I ask Sylvia, and she said We're having breakfast, but I see nothing! 9:05, this guy announces that the kitchen had the wrong time, and that breakfast would come at 10 instead. Sigh, okay. So I go back to my desk and drink my hot chocolate and eat my strawberry and quark pastry, which I got because I didn't know they were going to FEED me!

I really REALLY wish that somehow anyone who calls Herr Berr (the guy sitting next to me) could hear what happens during the two seconds before he answers the phone, because sometimes he is super annoyed when the phone rings or when he sees who is calling him and either slams his fists on his desk, or grumbles loud enough for me to hear him, or both. And then he answers, sounding perfectly normal!

Does it grind anyone else’s gears when they’re reading an article and it says “The person spoke on condition of anonymity because BLANK is supposed to be confidential.” IT MAKES ME ANGRY!!! If it was supposed to be CONFIDENTIAL, then WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT IT AT ALL?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!

Okay. I’m done. :D