why i hate math

i should be sleeping. like, really. but oh well.

countries visited in the past week and a half: 3
cost of a tall coffee at starbucks in london: £1.79
amount by which i overdrew my checking account: $5.27
minutes wasted waiting at the creepiest train station on the planet in cerbere, france: 307
hours slept since sunday: 6
number of spiders i've had to "relocate" from my bedroom since my return: 3

common denominator?? anyone??

so after having like 3 conversations about the various linguistic functions of the word "like" in american english, i feel like i should demonstratively overuse it, you know, like, to make a point.
.......

sporadic internet access has made the blogging of recent adventures in the life of this wide-eyed wanderer a bit difficult, so this is the part where i try to sort the chaos that was my life a week ago from the chaos that it is now...

so THE greatest thing about my life at the moment is that southern germany has an ABSURD (that was for you, mel) number of religious holidays. thank god for the catholics, right?? we had a week off at the beginning of lent. we just had a week and half off for easter, and we get another two and half weeks off around pentecost. i love it.

granted, it makes little sense academically--as a teacher you spend the first week after the break trying to remind the students of whatever you'd been doing in class in the weeks before the break. then you spend a couple weeks actually introducing new material. then the week before the next holiday, the kids are already mentally on vacation, so that's basically more time lost... but as a student, can you think of anything better?? i can remember years when easter was later, and we didn't have a single day off of school between president's day and spring break... it was probably just about an 8 or 9 week stretch, but it seemed to drag on forever...

but what does one do with all of this free time, you might ask? weeeeell, if you're me, you spend more of it traveling to and from various destinations than in any of the places actually visited, apparently.

i'll spare you the details of why i decided to travel the way i did--as illogical as it sounds, it DID actually make sense at the time...

the short version:
travel begins on good friday:
bus/train to heidelberg, hang out for afternoon+evening
take night bus to obscure german airport
"sleep" at aforementioned airport
sat. a.m. early flight to girona, spain
sometime saturday: train to perpignan, france, to visit mel
hang out in and around perpignan 'til following friday
friday afternoon: train back to girona
friday night: flight to london, meet up with steph
hang out in london til monday afternoon/evening
monday night: flight back to stuttgart
"sleep" at airport again
tues. morning: early train+bus combination directly to school

yeah, i'm one of those people who tries to wring every last minute out of the free time available. sometimes. and as most of you know, i'm usually super last-minute about my travel plans. BUT this time, I had pretty much everything booked in advance. like, WEEKS in advance--not just hours or minutes!! because deep down, i know that the germans are right: Ordnung muss sein.

but someone should really tell that to the good folks at ryanair and pretty much everyone in spain and france. for alas, even the best-laid plans can blow up in your face. in an attempt to exercise my expertly honed skill of pointing out the painfully obvious: every time i travel, BAD THINGS happen. good things, occasionally great things, even, happen as well. but i know better than to *plan* for good things. if there's one thing i've learned in germany, it's never to expect anything. if you don't expect anything, you'll never be let down. you let the good things surprise you. if someone does or says something nice, it's like, the most amazing thing in the world. (i'm amazed daily.)

ok. sleep first. blog later.