The last couple days have been really hard, for whatever combination of reasons. I've been here for more than two weeks, I had a weekend away and came back "home" but I'm still not home, I've not had enough sleep or time to myself, I'm hungry every 45 minutes, my body sucks, I miss my friends and my cats and my mom and my routine and my bed, not speaking the language is getting more and more frustrating, whatever.
Tuesday 7/18:
Tuesday morning I had to wake up at 5 because Heiko was picking us up at 530 to drive three hours to go see castles in Bavaria. It was a very, very busy day. I can't really talk about how beautiful everything was. It was just so much.
I was very sleepy most of the drive there, but excited. And the landscape was beautiful. The Bavarian Alps are seriously the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Like a freaking painting, can't be real. But they are. Anyway, first we saw Hohenschwangau (and our tours were in English!), which is the smaller of the two, built as a family retreat rather than a place to entertain. Still really fancy. I took lots of photos through the windows and of the outside, but you're not allowed to photograph the interior.
Then we walked a little way and were going to take a horse carriage up the mountain to Neuschwanstein, which I was really excited about, but the line was too long. Sad me. Also, I was tired and hot and a 45 minute walk up a mountain didn't sound like fun. We saw a bus station, though, and took the bus up the mountain, which was not nearly as exciting as the horse carriages, but much more exciting than walking the whole way in the hot. OMG, Neuschwanstein is so freaking overwhelmingly beautiful. There is just too much to look at; you can't take it all in. I got more excellent photos out the windows. These royal people sure knew how to do it.. if you're crazy and rich, you get to take up the spot with the best view for yourself. There were a zmillion stairs in the castle and I messed up my knee climbing them, which sucked a lot. It's nothing major, just that crappy thing that my knees do sometimes with lots of stairs, but it made the rest of the day kind of less fun (sleep and some magical goop fixed it, though). So we walk down the zmillion stairs, go through the gift shop, get apple strudels in the cafe because I was about ready to chew my arm off because we'd eaten breakfast ages before (oh, and speaking of arms, mine has been wicked sore because H forgot I was injured and hit me in it, jokingly. yeow! way to make me crankypants. I am so ready to be done being injured, but hello, 3 more months.). The path leading away from the castle is practically straight down it's so steep. Maybe not quite, but I was sore and tired and hot and so freaking cranky it was all I could do not to sit down and throw a fit. Thankfully it got much less steep after five minutes, but by the bottom my knee was a mess and I was limping and not so happy.
THEN we drove a little way and went on this crazy ski lift train thing up a HUMONGUS mountain, which was a little scary but actually really freaking cool. Thinking about it was way more scary than doing it. (Come on, train car thing suspended 2000m in the air by a string? Scary.) Anyway, the view was AMAZING (apparently we've entered the capslock portion of this entry). More photo taking. At the top we watched some crazy people hop off with flying death machines (hang gliders and the like). Apparently Jurgen and Bianca have done this, too. Crazy people, I say. Rode the little train lift thing back down and Heiko made more plans.
Next we drove for a while and I dozed off and woke up to getting rest stop food for dinner which was pretty decent for rest stop food, and then we drove some more to Ulm. There we visited a very old church which may or may not have the tallest church tower. It used to, but my German isn't good enough to understand all of the signs completely. It was pretty cool, except for the part where churches, especially old ones, often kind of creep me out.
Then was, finally, driving 2 hrs home and falling into bed. Except with some watching the news and random things in German for a bit first.
Wednesday 7/19:
I woke up in kind of a cranky mood again and tried to fight it all day. Thankfully I got to wake up slowly and read some in the morning. In the afternoon, Angelika came with Sarah and Bianca in tow and we went to Stuttgart to meet up with Julia and go sight-seeing and shopping. We took the train from J's apartment into the city center and went up the tower on the train station with the Mercedes thingum on top and looked out at the city, and then went and poked around in shops for a while. Nothing super exciting, but it was cool to get to hang out with all of them. It was the first day I noticed really what Lily was saying over the weekend about people having different personalities in different languages... I am not able to be myself here, really, because I am normally full of sarcastic and stupid funny things to say and they wouldn't come across to people who don't speak fluent english and I certainly can't say them in german. So I'm mostly very quiet. And I think those of you who know me well know I'm not actually very quiet.
Thursday 7/20:
Today I am once again in a cranky mood. It sucks. I'm ready to be done being cranky now, please. I just want to have some time really by myself (life is hard here for solitary creatures). Am trying very, very hard to continue to maintain a holiday attitude. It comes and goes. Oma brought me a fancy baked good this morning, which was really awesome. Today I got to see the house my Opa grew up in, and the town his mother lived in. That was pretty cool. And then I had some time to sit by the computer and futz around with my photos (still uploading...) for a while and I was really hungry but I knew Monika would be home and making dinner soon and then we were going to a fancy ice cream place. But then dinner was potatoes and cheese and all I could eat of that was plain boiled potatoes (I totally can't have cheese for dinner and then ice cream, I'll die of lactose-ness, even with pills) and I was so upset. And I felt really bad for being ungrateful and whatever, but man, I hate plain potatoes. And I was so upset I didn't understand anything anybody was saying in German at all, and I felt kind of like a petulant little kid or bratty teenager or something, staring off into space, but I was trying really hard to just suck it up and calm down. Also, I hate my body and it's non-lactose-digesting-ness. Except that it's actually been really very good with this whole being on vacation eating weird food thing--the only stomach upset I've had was that first day after landing. Anyway. Then Sarah and Chris and Roswitha and Heinz came over and we all went to the fancy ice cream place which had wicked good ice cream, and everyone talked a lot and I understood a little and Sarah and Chris talked to me a little in the car on the way back.
Yeah. Today is one of those days where I want a bath, a glass of wine, and something to read. And maybe some snuggling. Especially if there are kitties and purring. I keep having little fantasies about how things aren't going to suck when I get home, and trying not to think about having surgery and job hunting, especially in combination. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be less cranky and insane. *crosses fingers*
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