too lazy to write

the wheels on the bus...

it's been one crazy week. even the weather has been strange. and it's only wednesday...

i spent most of yesterday running around paris with a group of 9th graders. good times. paris was...paris?? i mean, i don't know. it was my first time there, but i didn't really see much--at least i don't feel like i did. trying to keep track of which kids had run into some shop to buy postcards or which ones had stopped to take a picture (or 20) and hadn't caught up to us again yet was a fairly consuming endeavor and didn't leave much room for soaking in paris. plus, just having to interact with a bunch of kids in german--as something of an authority figure and not just socially--was a bit of a change--and not a particularly welcome one, really. the eiffel tower was a trip, though. it was just funny to watch people trying to take pictures. some people are incredibly creative.

so after a day of hardcore sightseeing sandwiched between two nights on a bus...i came home and slept all day. from 11:30 to 5:30ish, at least. and i'd slept some on the bus, too, that sort of in and out of almost sleep that happens on planes and trains and buses and isn't particularly restful but is still the envy of those who can't seem to sleep at all. actually, i was surprised that i was able to sleep as long as i did today. i mean, yeah, i had a couple of nights worth of sleep to catch up on, but that's not exactly different from my normal life. but sleep i did. and dreamed, too. strange, heavy, watery dreams that made me wish that i wanted to wake up.

i did get up in time to enjoy a few hours of daylight, though. i even dragged my sleepy ass outside and all the way to kuenzelsau to see a movie. by myself!! (another first for me this week.) everything is illuminated. i'm pretty sure it's out on dvd in the US by now, but it's just made it's way to hohenlohe. they were playing cat power in the theater, too, which was kind of random and cool and very un-kuenzelsau.

and now i'm going back to sleep. g'night.

going postal

had another fight with the guy at the post office. what an ass. when am i going home again!??!?

but...i'm going to be in paris tomorrow!! at least if someone hates me there, it's because i don't speak french and not because i need a 1 euro stamp. this time i got five 20 cent stamps. very useful, thank you. where the hell am i supposed to put 5 STAMPS on a postcard!!?!? i had to resort to the stamp vending machine... man, and people wonder why machines are taking over the world. because they can actually DO their jobs?? and they don't give you attitude about it!?!

"I wrote down a dream...

folded the note
slipped it in the pocket of my tattered coat

I wrote down a dream
in invisible ink
It never was mine I'm beginning to think..."
-OtR

This day has been surreal. I went to bed well after the sun was up and got up a few hours later, because I had a busy day ahead of me. And a busy Saturday in Hohenlohe is worth getting up for, no matter how tired you are.

I spent the afternoon in Schwaebisch Hall at the town's 850th anniversary celebration. First of all, 850 years. That's like, what, at least 3 times longer than the US has been a country?? I still can't really wrap my mind around how OLD things are in Europe. Or the concept of time in general, but we don't need to get into that...

It was cool and rained the whole time, but was enjoyable in spite of the weather. I heard an American guy who's been living in Schwaebisch Hall for some 20 years speaking German, and was like, oh my gosh, does my accent sound that bad?? The response of the person I was with? "Well, he's lived here a lot longer than you." Ouch. Seriously, I wonder why I bother sometimes.

When I went to catch the bus home, though, there was this group of kids waiting at the bus stop, and I was like, hey, I know them... some of them, at least. They were kids from my school, so I'm thinking maybe they decided to do something as a class on the weekend or something, and I start looking around for a teacher. Found him. One of the ones I don't know at all but really like. We chat briefly. He asks how much longer I'm in Germany, etc. Then he asked why I'd decided to study German in the first place... Good question. I tell him what happened. He tells me I speak German really well. I respond with a wry laugh. I mean, see previous language-related comment.
.......................................................................

So my earlier post about how I haven't started the anticipatory grieving yet... I was wrong. The next morning I had one of my conversation classes with a group of students who are about to graduate. They'd just had their last English class. Ever. (We have the next couple of week off, and then they have oral exams, and then they're done with school.) So we were talking about that a little bit. About this being an end and a beginning. About it not seeming real. About their plans for the future--or lack thereof. And I felt weirdly nostalgic. Maybe not nostalgic. Maybe just painfully aware of how far away high school seems and how different EVERYTHING was then. In good ways and in not so good ways. I feel like I've lived several lifetimes between then and now. And maybe in some ways I have. But it's a little weird for me to see these "kids" at this particular stage in life and to hear their thoughts about the whole thing...

packing?

it's official. i've packed my first bag of stuff for going home. i'm sending stuff home with my dad, because there's not a chance in hell i'd be able to get all of my stuff home on my own. how did this happen? when i came over here, i had one large suitcase and a medium-sized travel bag. ridiculous.

and yes, i know, i don't actually leave for another two months, but a lot of things have happened in the past couple of weeks that just make me think i'm ready to go home--at least for a little while!! school has been great. i've done lots of traveling. it's not that life is particularly difficult at the moment or anything. i'm just kind of ready to be done. or really it's just that i'm ready to be done living here. the disappearing kitchen utensils, the spider situation, random comments that have been made. i've just kind of reached my limit. there are definitely some things i will not miss about this place...

and definitely some things i will. but i don't have to start missing them yet. i've still got time... =) the anticipatory grieving phase hasn't begun yet--unless you count dreams, which i don't.

if you're wondering why i'm thinking about all of this already when it's only may, and i don't fly home until july, well, it's just that i have about 6 weeks left 'til i'm done teaching, and of those, the next two or three weeks are going to be chaotic and full of travels. (we have another of these delightful little school holidays that i don't really understand but definitely appreciate!!) after that i only have 3 weeks of school left... followed by a week or two of some traveling and then i'm out of here... crazy. so yeah, that's why. don't worry, i didn't all of a sudden get organized and on top of things =)

my life as a weekend backpacker

"we ain't goin' to the town. we're going to the city. gonna trek this shit around. make this place a heart to be a part of. we ain't goin to the town, we're going to the city..." a little interpol action for those of you who are sick of my singer-songwriter quotes =)

i have a month's worth of stories to catch up on. again. how does this happen? where does the time go? i feel like i've done nothing but travel for the past couple of months, which is, of course, to some extent true... after the spain/france/london adventure, there was a week of school and then another long weekend, which, thanks to some brilliant maneuvering on the part of the powers that be, turned out to be an even longer weekend for me, so i got to spend a few days visiting a friend near nice. which was really just amazing. in some ways it was a lot like california...only cleaner and prettier and more...french. adorably so. plus my friend there is literally THE nicest person on the planet, which is just amazing. so yeah.

then i was sick, and there was a weekend at home... which reminded me of the importance of traveling on weekends!!! how the hell did i survive winter here?!?! ...oh wait.

then last weekend I met up with steph again. this time in cinque terre in italy. so far, i've met exactly one german who's ever heard of cinque terre. everyone else just looks at me strangely and says they've never heard of the place, which is weird because germans LOVE to go on vacation--it's seriously like the national pasttime. (i'd never seen people take vacationing so seriously before. it's ridiculous. i love it.) AND people here are always raving to me about italy. so you'd think... but no. and every american i know who's been to italy, has been there--which, now that i'm thinking about it, might be why the germans DON'T go there... =)

so i found a mitfahrgelegenheit as far as milan, and i was going to take the train from there. first of all, this is the first MFG i've had, where the driver didn't really speak german, so that was kind of fun(ny). he was italian and working in germany but had also spent some time near ann arbor and lived in tons of other cool places, so we had a nice chat on the way down there. we even went to dinner at this crazy little (italian, of course!) restaurant before he took me to the train station--because he wanted to "show me the real milan." heck, yes! ..i mean, if you insist, right??!

we were going to get into milan pretty late, so after days of fruitless searching on the internet, i gave up on finding a hostel or hotel, and decided to crash at the train station. i was only going to be there for a few hours anyway, so no big deal, right?

i generally try to avoid mentioning these kinds of things to grown-ups, because they get all weird about it and stare at me like i'm crazy. which i may very well be, but NOT because i occasionally have to crash in train stations or airports!! it's when i travel--or talk about my travels--that i realize how young i am... and i'm not that young!! it's just that everyone i work with is... you know, grown-up. they're all adults. they're married or at least pretty setttled in grown-up relationships. they have jobs--god help them!! they drive sensible cars and go to bed at 10 o'clock. they do, you know, grown-up things. like planning their vacations months in advance and buying five different travel guides for each region of the country they're visiting and talking to thirty other people who have vacationed there before to make sure they're doing it right and have all their bases covered... i, on the other hand...??! am still in student mode in a lot of ways. "sleep is for losers" is pretty much my motto. i have no money whatsoever. i travel when and how i can. and i'm more or less at the mercy of the deutsche bahn and the local buses when it comes to getting anywhere. so yeah. how grown-up can i be?? it's a little like being 14 and having to have your mom pick you up outside the theater or the mall. only worse, because when you're 14, everyone's like... "awww, poor little pre-teens. i remember when i was that age and had to be driven everywhere, too." but when you're 25, it's just pathetic. fortunately, here the theater is near a bus stop, and they don't really have malls--not that i would hang out at them anyway, but even if i did, my mom can't exactly just come pick me up, seeing as she doesn't live here...

anyway. train station. milan. my new italian friend was a little concerned about me sleeping at the train station. (he was an adult, what can i say?) so he took me in and helped me find the waiting room and made sure it was open all night--which is just cool, by the way. of course, it then also doubles as something of a homeless shelter, but it was fine. i walked in, and there was this room--the size of a small country--full of huge wooden benches and road-weary travelers sprawled out on the benches or slumped over their bags. it was the most comical thing i've seen in a long time. i mean, there were probably about a hundred people crashing at this train station. and benches for all of them. i told you it was a huge room. i wish i had a picture, but a) my camera was buried at the bottom of my backpack, and b) it's just kind of creepy to take pictures of sleeping people. but yeah. hilarious. and needless to say, i didn't sleep much.

took the first train in the morning to cinque terre and spent the morning wandering through the streets of riomaggiore and catching up on steph's adventures over coffee. good times. there's this hike that takes you through all the villages, so we did that in the afternoon and into the evening. other than noticing, once again, how ridiculously out of shape i am, it was utterly amazing. i mean just gorgeous. like, damn...

we hadn't really decided ahead of time whether we were going to stay in cinque terre for the whole weekend or go to florence, and although we could have easily stayed another five years in cinque terre, we decided to move on. you pass through pisa on the way to florence, so of course, we HAD to stop and see the leaning tower of pisa, which is, p.s. THE biggest disappointment. i guess i thought it would be bigger somehow. but we did get some yummy gelato though, which made up for the whatever the tower lacked.

then on to florence. we had to literally run to make our train, which was just funny with the backpacks and all. i mean, steph's probably weighs more than she does, so i don't how she can move with that thing, let alone run. mine was just a normal backpack, but still. we hadn't booked a place to stay or anything in florence, so we ended up wandering around for a while, before we found a place, then we headed out to explore a bit and perhaps get something to eat. it was also imperative that we find a tele-taxi, because it was mother's day, and being in another country is no excuse for not calling--nevermind that my mom didn't even answer the phone. but i tried. we walked past this cute restaurant and decided to eat there, even though we weren't hungry and ended up going out for drinks with our waiters after they closed. i don't think i've had that much to drink since my birthday... we had a good time =)

we spent the next day wandering around florence, and then i had to meet up with my MFG for the return trip. cool kids in a VW bus who listen to ben harper. i heartily approve of that. unfortunately, due to the whole VW bus thing, it just took us a ridiculously long time to get where we needed to go, you know trying to get through the mountains and all, so... instead of having to spend a few hours at a train station again, i ended up not making my train and ending up, oh about an hour and half late to school... ouch. (we only missed the train by about 25 minutes, and i jumped on the next train, literally about two minutes after i got to the station, but because i live so in the middle of nowhere, i have to make about 50 connections, which means lots of standing around waiting for trains, and the general incompetence of some DB employees, helpful as they may try to be, doesn't improve the situation...)

yeah...i don't know how the real backpackers do it, jumping from city to city, being on the go all the time. i'd go nuts. but i do like my long weekends, and seeing as i only have a few of them left--i go home in less than two months!!!--i feel like i have to take advantage of them... so, more adventures to come!!!

call me crazy

ok, it's not like i'm paranoid or anything, but--don't you love sentences that start like that?!--someone or something has been moving things in my kitchen... i've been gone a lot on the weekends lately, and i'll come home, and be like...wait a minute...!?!? now, if the food were missing, that i could understand. hunger happens. although, if it's not been eaten by me yet, it's probably not worth eating... or if this were some sort of test--oooh, will she notice that the salt was moved two inches to the left?? but a)no one in this house would be bored enough to do something like that, and b) i mean, no, i probably wouldn't notice. but when the entire stack of pots and pans that i never use mysteriously migrates to the shelf where i keep the two pans i actually do use?? and now "my" dvd player is MIA. i'm sure there's an explanation for that one. but the rotating of the stuff in the kitchen is beyond me...

awwww

my seventh graders actually CHEERED when I walked in this morning! really, how adorable is that?!?! ...i love my job... =) when's the last time you walked into work, and people were *that* happy to see you??

I should enjoy this while it lasts!!

things that are funny

just fundamentally funny.

the airport security guard who turns to you out of nowhere and asks (in german), "do you speak german?" and when you, also in german, tell him yes, responds with, "great, so do i." ...what!?!?!

21 year olds who call you, and when you answer, immediately scold you: "where is your cell phone? i just tried to call you." umm, so?? ...seriously, even my mother knows better.

that i walk past this daily--and no longer do a double take:

uggghh

ok, i promise this will be the last spider post--unless something really drastic happens anyway.

so i'd mentioned before that my worst nightmare is the charlotte's web thing... millions of baby spiders parachuting all over the place--or into my room, really... so in the past two days, i've found several--like at least a dozen--tiny little spiders in my room... tiny is good, right? less scary. not scary at all, actually. especially when compared the ridiculously oversized ones that live outside my window. except that lots of little tiny spiders can really only mean one thing, right? ...yep, MORE little tiny spiders, parachutes and all... *sigh*

though, like i said, they're better than the huge-ass ones outside my window. i don't know what to do about those. i mean, they're outside. they're ALLOWED to be outside!!! but i can't open my window--and it's gorgeous outside! so not fair!! but i mean, they're really big, and there are at least three of them. (i think two of them were trying to mate the other night, but i'm not going to get into that...) and the germans don't do screens, so an open window is really an OPEN window...and an open invitation into my room. not cool.

every time i turn around, i see spiders. it's gotten to the point, where i walk into a room, and the first thing i do is inspect the walls and floors for spiders.

i got home last night a little after midnight, so it was completely dark out--the street lights are turned off at midnight here. though, really, they could turn them off at 9. that's when people around here seem to go to bed. *melodramatic rolling of the eyes* ...so i get home, and the motion sensor light comes on, illuminating the spiders crawling on the side of the house. i shudder. don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit. go inside. turn on every light i possibly can. do the usual sweep of the room. only a couple of ants in the bedroom. nothing in the hallway. one of the little tiny ones in the kitchen. i get it--i think. i can't seem to find it, and it's no longer on the wall. greeeeaaat. i'm looking on the ground, because it's got to be there somewhere... i look up. BIG one about a foot away from my face on the window sill. holy shit. i almost screamed--but had somehow, instinctually i guess, clapped my hand over my mouth in time. it's not that it was THAT big or even that scary. i just wasn't expecting it. i'd already looked--i always look. and thought i was safe. and then there it was. i just don't need this kind of stress in my life!! =)

ugggh. back to the window ones, really quick. so there's this other thing about windows in germany. they have these things that are kind of like mini-blinds--except not at all, and they're on the outside of the window--and you let them down at night to block the light or whatever--though given the aforementioned streetlight situation and my inability to go to bed before midnight...??? well, evidently, i killed one of the big spiders when i let the thing down. so what's worse than a ridiculously large spider LIVING outside of your window? a ridiculously large DEAD spider stuck to the blind things, so that when i let them down at night, it's just all squashed up and DEAD and right there... sweet dreams, right? i rather morbidly thought about taking a picture of it to post for y'all, but i couldn't bring myself to do it, and besides, that's just mean. not to mention gross...

i heart may

the sun is shining. i've gotten my first flip-flop blisters. and when i left school this afternoon, one of my students offered me a popsicle. THIS is how life is supposed to be.

blog...b-log...backlog

lots of catching up to do...

I take it back!! I take it all back!!! Everything I said about the Deutsche Bahn!!! The DB is amazing. It's wonderful. So well-organized. So efficient... in comparison to the trains in Spain and France, that is. Oh the drama here...

...WELL, I started writing that a couple weeks ago, and since then, I've had a few more unpleasant encounters with the Deutsche Bahn, so I don't take it back. Not a single word. For those of you who were still masochistic enough to at least *think* about traveling with me, here are a few more reasons not to...

so when i had to go pick up my bag that the airline had lost--yes, i had to go pick it up myself...long story--i had to take a train from perpignan to girona. or, to be more accurate, i ended up having to take 3 trains, but you know. after getting the call from the airline, i stopped by the train station to see what time i could leave. the next train was leaving at 1:45...but happened to be delayed an hour and half--or rather, it was basically just cancelled/replaced by the next regularly scheduled train at 3:15. no problem. i wouldn't have been really likely to make the first train anyway. so 3:15 it is. except that when i get to the train station...cancelled again. no explanation. no apology. just no. riiiiight. next train: 5:06 or something like that. fine. it'll have to do. and it does. there was, of course, lots of drama with languages and train timetables and trying to work around hourly bus schedules and bizarre spanish taxi drivers. but i make it to the airport, get my bag back. everything's there, it's all good. i make it back to the train station in girona literally two minutes before the last train to france is leaving, and of course, i have no idea, if there'll even be a connecting train to perpignan once i get into france at cerbere... but such is life--or at least my life anyway.

i'm not exactly keen on sleeping at--or rather, outside of--train stations, but you know... there are worse places to do it than southern france in mid-april, right?? so you'd think... but... if you could SEE the train station at cerbere... the place looks worse than your average abandoned... i don't even know what. prison? asylum? public restroom? i don't know, but it's gritty, dirty, covered with a layer of gray i don't even know what, and you'd NEVER know you were just a couple of kilometers from the ocean. that's for sure. my point? NOT exactly the kind of place you want to spend the night.

which is why i was EXTRAORDINARILY relieved when i saw that there was one last train stopping in perpignan... but i had to wait an hour and a half at the creepy train station first--good times. so i finally get on the train--it's now almost midnight. the train ride is about half an hour, and since i didn't have an itinerary or anything or really know how many stops there were, and they don't really announce those things on the trains in france, i was a bit paranoid about missing my stop. then, as it got closer to the time i was supposed to get off the train, i got up and moved to an exit. then it occurred to me, that i might actually be the only person getting off in perpignan--it was a night train to nice, and it seemed like everyone i had chatted with at the train station was going there--and i had visions of me standing there, for some reason unable to get the door open, no one knowing i needed to get off the train and being trapped there... i don't know. it was late. i was tired. i wanted to go home. it happens. so i wander through the train til i find someone else waiting to get off the train. cool. at least i'm not the only one. then i look at my clock. it's about time for us to be arriving in perpignan. but we don't. five minutes go by. ten. fifteen. i'm getting nervous. suddenly the train speeds up and seems to be rocking a lot more than is necessary. i was literally thrown against the side of the train. oh my god, am i going to die?!!? of all the ways to go... it's now almost half an hour after the time we were supposed to get to perpignan. again. no explanation, no apology. nothing. finally, we get there and i do manage to open the door. all by myself. and make it back to mel's--this time WITH my bag--in one piece.


then there's the flight to england. mysteriously delayed. about an hour. no apparent reason. other delayed flights were at least listed as "delayed"... not mine. we didn't even start boarding until well after we were supposed to have left. typical.

i was already going to be getting to london pretty late. and poor steph had arrived earlier in the day--from california, jetlag and all, and now has to wait up even longer for me... not MY bloody fault, but still kind of sucks.

london, of course, was fabulous. as was hanging out with steph in general. good times. not to mention that just being in an english-speaking country--especially after the french/spanish/catalan chaos--was a beautiful thing...

the return flight was...surprisingly uneventful. i flew with germanwings from london to stuttgart, and as i was boarding the plane, i noticed the Baden-Württemberg logo/motto thing on the plane:


and i found myself smiling: i'm going home.

how weird is that?? ... "that IS weird." =)