Sunday, July 29, 2007
photos!
Alright, so I've finally gotten all my photos uploaded to flickr. I think it works best if you click on a set and then switch from the thumbnail view to the detail view so you can see the titles and stuff. Just FYI :) I'm still figuring out this whole flickr thing myself. Watch the castles one as a slideshow, though... I made the order all cool and everything.
Cheat-sheet of people mentioned most often
Cheat-sheet of people mentioned most often, for you poor confused people following along at home:
Monika and Jurgen: Monika is Oma's niece. We're staying at their house. They speak very little English.
Heiko and Angelika and Mareike: Heiko is Monika's son, Angelika is his wife. They're both 30-ish and speak very good English and speak it mostly with me. Mareike is their 1 year old daughter (this makes her my second cousin once removed). She only speaks baby.
Bianca and Norman: Bianca is Monika's daughter, Norman is her husband. Bianca is 27. Bianca has better English than she thinks and is great to talk with. Norman doesn't have very much English, but he tries to communicate with me.
Sarah and Chris: Sarah is Oma's great niece, I think. She's 21. Chris is her boyfriend. Sarah understands English but doesn't speak it much. She'll speak slow German with me, too. I've only met Chris once, but he spoke a bit of English at least.
Julia and Daniel: Julia is Sarah's older sister, 6 months older than me. Daniel is her husband. They live in Stuttgart (everyone else I listed lives here in Engelsbrand). They speak very good English, too, and were surprised when I'd say things in German.
Roswitha and Heinz: Sarah and Julia's parents. Heinz is Oma's nephew and Monika's brother. I think they live here in Engelsbrand. Heinz has some English, but Roswitha not very much.
Tante Lisa: Oma's sister, lives across the back yard from Monika and Jurgen. Monika & Heinz (& several other people)'s mother. Only speaks dialect.
Lily: Lived down the hall from me at Smith! She spent the past year in Bremen teaching English on a fellowship program.
Monika and Jurgen: Monika is Oma's niece. We're staying at their house. They speak very little English.
Heiko and Angelika and Mareike: Heiko is Monika's son, Angelika is his wife. They're both 30-ish and speak very good English and speak it mostly with me. Mareike is their 1 year old daughter (this makes her my second cousin once removed). She only speaks baby.
Bianca and Norman: Bianca is Monika's daughter, Norman is her husband. Bianca is 27. Bianca has better English than she thinks and is great to talk with. Norman doesn't have very much English, but he tries to communicate with me.
Sarah and Chris: Sarah is Oma's great niece, I think. She's 21. Chris is her boyfriend. Sarah understands English but doesn't speak it much. She'll speak slow German with me, too. I've only met Chris once, but he spoke a bit of English at least.
Julia and Daniel: Julia is Sarah's older sister, 6 months older than me. Daniel is her husband. They live in Stuttgart (everyone else I listed lives here in Engelsbrand). They speak very good English, too, and were surprised when I'd say things in German.
Roswitha and Heinz: Sarah and Julia's parents. Heinz is Oma's nephew and Monika's brother. I think they live here in Engelsbrand. Heinz has some English, but Roswitha not very much.
Tante Lisa: Oma's sister, lives across the back yard from Monika and Jurgen. Monika & Heinz (& several other people)'s mother. Only speaks dialect.
Lily: Lived down the hall from me at Smith! She spent the past year in Bremen teaching English on a fellowship program.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
7/21-7/25: summing up
Okay, so now that I'm over a week out from what I'm writing about, I should record the rest of my Germany trip before I forget everything from the last few days.
Friday 7/21:
On Friday, Oma and I drove out to Freudenstadt, which is a rather touristy area way in the Black Forest to poke around the shops. The actual driving included such highlights as driving through a wicked hail storm and, on the way back, almost killing me speeding off to the shoulder to go pee in the woods. The shops were cute and kitschy as expected and we acquired some lovely souveniers and gifts and the like. Friday evening I had two options: go see Shrek 3 in the theater with Angelika or go see Bianca and Norman make fireworks for their friend's wedding. I chose the latter, and Oma tagged along. The fireworks were pretty cool, and I always like getting to hang out with Bianca and Norman. I rode with Norman in the car full of explosives, and Oma rode with Bianca. After the show, Norman decided he was taking me for a nighttime drive around Pforzheim to see how the city looks at night. First we drove kind of around it on the mountains to see all the lights and then through it, him pointing out all sorts of things. He even tried to get me ice cream at 1130pm, but they wouldn't give it to me, even though I was a visiting American. Alas. When we all got back to Monika&Jurgen's house, Oma and I kind of had a fight about spending my last weekend having no fun listening to very fast German about things that would be boring even if I could understand with random new family members.
Saturday 7/22:
I set my alarm for 9:30 to be ready to go to France (but only see the inside of someone's house all day), but Oma woke me an hour early because France was cancelled. Rejoicing, except for the hour early bit (and the feeling guilty 'cause it was cancelled 'cause someone was sick). We went with Jurgen to the jewelry museum in Stuttgart for the morning. It was really cool to see how everything is made and to understand most of the German I read on the exhibits (they were in German and English, but I read the German side first). It was an unexpectedly good morning.
Lunchtime took a sharp downturn, though. Anyway, to make a long and boring story short, I eventually got fed something vaguely satisfactory elsewhere and we went back to the house to meet Oma's nephew, Stephan.
He shows up, Oma drags me away from updating my photos, I go and sit in the recliner ready to be very bored for the rest of the day. But, I am saved! Monika peeks around the corner from the kitchen going pssssst and waving me over. She asks if I want to go shopping with her, which is, of course, a resounding yes. So we chat a bit in German and head out to the store. Brilliant escape. Everyone has figured by now that I am kind of sick of having my Oma glued to my side 23 hours a day, as much as I do love her. I got everything I had wanted at the store and disappeared downstairs to clean my room and start to pack when we returned. I hid until Monika called to me and said it was time to go over to find out what surprise Bianca and Norman had in store for me. All I knew is that they had a surprise for me, and I was perfectly content to be surprised, so I didn't ask any questions. We drove to Pforzheim, parked, walked to a store and entered, and I was completely oblivious still. It only half registered that we were walking into a book store as we went up the escalator. We stop at a counter and Norman's talking to the clerk and I'm still off in my own little world and then all of a sudden I have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in my arms and I'm bouncing and flailing and hugging people and squeaking and all. Best. Surprise. Ever. Norman and I had talked oh so briefly on Friday night about how I would've been at the release parties if I'd been in America, and I hadn't even been sure we'd really understood each other. It was a two minute conversation, max. But! They are the best, and I now own the British version of book seven. \o/
Then I'm dropped off with Angelika and Heiko to go to a street fair in Schoemberg. Unfortunately it started pouring as we drove there and the weather didn't really improve, so we had some food and met up with Angelika's friends but didn't stay very long. I get shuffled back to Bianca (everybody wanted me on Saturday evening, I'd been so pissed when I'd not been allowed to go anywhere because of France and "getting back too late") to go to a concert of some of her friends/coworkers. Little tiny concert, and very cool. Also cool to just get to hang out with Bianca and her friends for the evening. Got her to explain the German school system to me, which still kind of confuses me, and had several really good conversations in our mix of German and English. I kept trying to talk to everyone in German and they kept trying to talk to me in English... very funny. But I managed to tell several little stories mostly in German (wine loosens my tongue, apparently) that people found appropriately amusing. It was a really great night. Bianca and I plotted and schemed for me to fake sick on Sunday so I wouldn't have to have a boring day of new family members then, either, knowing it wouldn't really happen but taking comfort in the scheming. I read the first chapter of Harry Potter and freaked out and put it away and went to bed.
Sunday 7/23:
Unfortunately I woke up actually sick on Sunday. The thing I'd finally been fed for lunch on Saturday was mostly made of cheese, and that's what I'm blaming for the foul mood my stomach was in. Thankfully Peter (another nephew of Oma's?) was late picking us up, so I had some time to try and coax my stomach into behaving. The day didn't turn out to be a total bust, either. Peter's younger two daughters (Stefanie, 12 and Julia, 13) were very excited to talk to me and show me their giant koi fishes and rabbits and rooms and tell me about their school and make doughnuts and play soccer and keep me from being too bored by the adults (and vice versa) for quite a while. The older daughter (Katarina, 20) was as uninterested/shy as I probably would've been at 20. My brain totally overloaded after a bit from the loads of very fast German, but I understood quite a bit before then. Clearly I should've been allowed to drink more wine while I was in Germany, as every time I did I understood much more. Its like it freed up big chunks of language in my brain that had been lost.
We all (minus Katarina, who had to work) piled into the car to head back to Engelsbrand so they could visit with the rest of the family. Everyone was over Bianca and Norman's, and I spent most of the time looking at Norman's photos and setting up a folder of ones I wanted to steal, and also pestering Paoli the cat.
Monday 7/24:
Monday morning Angelika took me into Pforzheim to do some last minute shopping. I got a German cd and picked up some gifts for people and played with Mareike while Angelika did her shopping. Back at the house I wrote (in German) and decorated thank you notes and fucked around some more with photos. Then we went to Angelika's for dinner (maultaschen... homemade dumpling thingums. and then crepes a la Bianca.) where everybody was gathering to say goodbye. Sad! Awkward goodbyes were exchanged. I left thank you cards in strategic locations for people to find once I'd left. Then packing and reading Harry Potter a bit and bed early.
Tuesday 7/25:
Up at 4:30 to catch my flight, ugh. Heinz and Roswitha and Bianca took me to the airport. Bianca cried when I left through security. Cute. I miss them. Read almost all of Deathly Hallows on the plane. Flightly was blissfully uneventful, even with the lady next to me who wanted to chat for an hour and a half when all I wanted to do was read.
Friday 7/21:
On Friday, Oma and I drove out to Freudenstadt, which is a rather touristy area way in the Black Forest to poke around the shops. The actual driving included such highlights as driving through a wicked hail storm and, on the way back, almost killing me speeding off to the shoulder to go pee in the woods. The shops were cute and kitschy as expected and we acquired some lovely souveniers and gifts and the like. Friday evening I had two options: go see Shrek 3 in the theater with Angelika or go see Bianca and Norman make fireworks for their friend's wedding. I chose the latter, and Oma tagged along. The fireworks were pretty cool, and I always like getting to hang out with Bianca and Norman. I rode with Norman in the car full of explosives, and Oma rode with Bianca. After the show, Norman decided he was taking me for a nighttime drive around Pforzheim to see how the city looks at night. First we drove kind of around it on the mountains to see all the lights and then through it, him pointing out all sorts of things. He even tried to get me ice cream at 1130pm, but they wouldn't give it to me, even though I was a visiting American. Alas. When we all got back to Monika&Jurgen's house, Oma and I kind of had a fight about spending my last weekend having no fun listening to very fast German about things that would be boring even if I could understand with random new family members.
Saturday 7/22:
I set my alarm for 9:30 to be ready to go to France (but only see the inside of someone's house all day), but Oma woke me an hour early because France was cancelled. Rejoicing, except for the hour early bit (and the feeling guilty 'cause it was cancelled 'cause someone was sick). We went with Jurgen to the jewelry museum in Stuttgart for the morning. It was really cool to see how everything is made and to understand most of the German I read on the exhibits (they were in German and English, but I read the German side first). It was an unexpectedly good morning.
Lunchtime took a sharp downturn, though. Anyway, to make a long and boring story short, I eventually got fed something vaguely satisfactory elsewhere and we went back to the house to meet Oma's nephew, Stephan.
He shows up, Oma drags me away from updating my photos, I go and sit in the recliner ready to be very bored for the rest of the day. But, I am saved! Monika peeks around the corner from the kitchen going pssssst and waving me over. She asks if I want to go shopping with her, which is, of course, a resounding yes. So we chat a bit in German and head out to the store. Brilliant escape. Everyone has figured by now that I am kind of sick of having my Oma glued to my side 23 hours a day, as much as I do love her. I got everything I had wanted at the store and disappeared downstairs to clean my room and start to pack when we returned. I hid until Monika called to me and said it was time to go over to find out what surprise Bianca and Norman had in store for me. All I knew is that they had a surprise for me, and I was perfectly content to be surprised, so I didn't ask any questions. We drove to Pforzheim, parked, walked to a store and entered, and I was completely oblivious still. It only half registered that we were walking into a book store as we went up the escalator. We stop at a counter and Norman's talking to the clerk and I'm still off in my own little world and then all of a sudden I have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in my arms and I'm bouncing and flailing and hugging people and squeaking and all. Best. Surprise. Ever. Norman and I had talked oh so briefly on Friday night about how I would've been at the release parties if I'd been in America, and I hadn't even been sure we'd really understood each other. It was a two minute conversation, max. But! They are the best, and I now own the British version of book seven. \o/
Then I'm dropped off with Angelika and Heiko to go to a street fair in Schoemberg. Unfortunately it started pouring as we drove there and the weather didn't really improve, so we had some food and met up with Angelika's friends but didn't stay very long. I get shuffled back to Bianca (everybody wanted me on Saturday evening, I'd been so pissed when I'd not been allowed to go anywhere because of France and "getting back too late") to go to a concert of some of her friends/coworkers. Little tiny concert, and very cool. Also cool to just get to hang out with Bianca and her friends for the evening. Got her to explain the German school system to me, which still kind of confuses me, and had several really good conversations in our mix of German and English. I kept trying to talk to everyone in German and they kept trying to talk to me in English... very funny. But I managed to tell several little stories mostly in German (wine loosens my tongue, apparently) that people found appropriately amusing. It was a really great night. Bianca and I plotted and schemed for me to fake sick on Sunday so I wouldn't have to have a boring day of new family members then, either, knowing it wouldn't really happen but taking comfort in the scheming. I read the first chapter of Harry Potter and freaked out and put it away and went to bed.
Sunday 7/23:
Unfortunately I woke up actually sick on Sunday. The thing I'd finally been fed for lunch on Saturday was mostly made of cheese, and that's what I'm blaming for the foul mood my stomach was in. Thankfully Peter (another nephew of Oma's?) was late picking us up, so I had some time to try and coax my stomach into behaving. The day didn't turn out to be a total bust, either. Peter's younger two daughters (Stefanie, 12 and Julia, 13) were very excited to talk to me and show me their giant koi fishes and rabbits and rooms and tell me about their school and make doughnuts and play soccer and keep me from being too bored by the adults (and vice versa) for quite a while. The older daughter (Katarina, 20) was as uninterested/shy as I probably would've been at 20. My brain totally overloaded after a bit from the loads of very fast German, but I understood quite a bit before then. Clearly I should've been allowed to drink more wine while I was in Germany, as every time I did I understood much more. Its like it freed up big chunks of language in my brain that had been lost.
We all (minus Katarina, who had to work) piled into the car to head back to Engelsbrand so they could visit with the rest of the family. Everyone was over Bianca and Norman's, and I spent most of the time looking at Norman's photos and setting up a folder of ones I wanted to steal, and also pestering Paoli the cat.
Monday 7/24:
Monday morning Angelika took me into Pforzheim to do some last minute shopping. I got a German cd and picked up some gifts for people and played with Mareike while Angelika did her shopping. Back at the house I wrote (in German) and decorated thank you notes and fucked around some more with photos. Then we went to Angelika's for dinner (maultaschen... homemade dumpling thingums. and then crepes a la Bianca.) where everybody was gathering to say goodbye. Sad! Awkward goodbyes were exchanged. I left thank you cards in strategic locations for people to find once I'd left. Then packing and reading Harry Potter a bit and bed early.
Tuesday 7/25:
Up at 4:30 to catch my flight, ugh. Heinz and Roswitha and Bianca took me to the airport. Bianca cried when I left through security. Cute. I miss them. Read almost all of Deathly Hallows on the plane. Flightly was blissfully uneventful, even with the lady next to me who wanted to chat for an hour and a half when all I wanted to do was read.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
7/22: how my weekend didn't actually suck
I have so many things to say about today. About how going to France got cancelled and how I was so angry and frustrated and all capslock like Harry-from-OotP from being treated like I'm six years old early this afternoon and then Norman and Bianca took me out for a giant surprise that apparently everybody but me knew about, and I was so freaking clueless, and we drove to Pforzheim and park and walk and go into a store and it sort of half registers that it's a book store and we go up the stairs and I'm still completely freaking clueless and we stop at a counter and Norman asks for something in German that he's reserved and THEN HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS IS IN MY ARMS BECAUSE WE'D SO SO SO SO BRIEFLY TALKED ABOUT IT LAST NIGHT AND I WASN'T EVEN SURE HE UNDERSTOOD AND THEY BOUGHT IT FOR ME. !!!!!! BEST. SURPRISE. EVER. And since then I've been out and about having all freaking sorts of awesome-tastic fun having a day from about 3pm on completely without my Oma (who I love, but is a bit much in that way that means 100 times worse than having my mom glued to my side 23 hours a day) just hanging out with various young family members and going to a street fair and a wee concert and drinking wine and meeting people and having really good conversations in English AND German. I am kind of scared to start it because. Well. It's the last one. But. It's hard not to go sit and read the whole freaking thing rightnow but tomorrow I have to get up early for family things that in all probability will not be cancelled. I should really go to sleep. Really. I can bring the book with me tomorrow and read it while they're all yammering on in very fast Swaebisch that I can't understand about things that are boring anyway.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
7/18-7/20: leave us in pieces scattered everywhere
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*
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*
Monday, July 16, 2007
7/14-7/16: I am standing here, aren't I?
Saturday 7/14:
Saturday Lily and I wandered around Bremen some more, looking at pretty things and poking through shops. We saw a street that was saved from destruction during WW2 only because the Nazis considered it a good example of degenerate art. We went to Schnoor, which is this little old section of town that has lots of shops and medieval sized streets (I can't imagine anything other than people on these streets) and very old buildings. Very cool, and I'm not doing it justice, and I didn't take enough photos. Anyway, we spent several hours wandering and had some tasty lunch and looked at a lot of Bremen souvenirs and I tried to buy presents for people, which is proving to be very difficult.
At night we went to a party at Lily's roommate's twin sister's house. It wasn't very far away and we took the tram there with our bottles of various beverages. She's lived all over the place, and the guests spoke a variety of languages. Many spoke English, so I chatted a bit and someone complimented my German, even though I think it's terrible. We all sat on the roof (the ladder was scary with one arm and kind of drunk) and watched the sun set over Bremen (at like 1030 pm) and I listened to Lily have a conversation in German, Spanish and English and lots of people brought out instruments and there was drumming and guitarring and it was excellent. We went back home at something like 2am, in a cab because we were too lazy to walk the whole way.
Sunday 7/15:
Sunday we took the train to the Deutsches Auswandererhaus in Bremerhaven (and they never came for tickets so we didn't have to pay!). It's a museum of German emigration. You basically take the place of an emigrant, and the museum is made to look like a ship (in some parts, several different kinds of ships). When you go in, you get a card with an emigrant listed and the year they emigrated and when you place your card on the designated spots through the museum with earpieces, it tells you a story about whatever part of the boat you're in. After you do the initial "boarding" of the ship, there's a room with a bunch of drawers labeled with folks' names and the years they emigrated. I kind of skipped over all the 1800s ones and went straight for the year my grandparents left. I read a few of the older ones later, but I listened to the stories of all the emigrants who left around the same time as Oma and Opa. It was really cool. Then you continue walking and see more of the insides of various ships from various eras. Man did the trip get a lot easier with the invention of steamships! A week instead of three months! Anyway, it was all really cool to look at, and to listen to the little stories (most of which were excerpts from letters about life on the ships), though I felt a bit rushed because we got there too close to closing time, and I'd lost Lily along the way and was a bit worried about finding her in the maze of rooms. Then there was a wall of maps and graphs showing how many people from which countries went to which countries and when through Bremerhaven. Also, (random), the bathrooms played ocean sounds, and that was really weird. Then there was a room full of American phone books so Germans can look up their last names and find relatives, which was kind of weird. And then there was this little 9 minute movie with people who had emigrated and now live in America (or lived in America and went back to Europe), and their families, talking about it a little. There was this one scene where a little boy learned a song in German for his grandfather's birthday that made me really miss my Opa. He would be so proud of me here now. I'm getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it again. Anyway. I kind of forgot to continue taking pictures shortly into the museum because it was all so interesting. Um, and we missed the last room with the computers for looking up your family and getting more information and I-don't-know-what-else-because-we-missed-it because they closed on us. But I think I have pretty good information about my family, anyway. I feel like there was something else, too, but I forget.
After the museum closed on us we took the train back to Bremen (for free again!) and went out for some dinner along the river. Very pretty. We had German Mexican food. It was really strange to read the menu with random Spanish words and explanations in German. I kind of thought my brain was going to explode. The food was pretty good, if weird to be eating Mexican food German style. We walked home after eating and chatted with roommate+gf for a little bit and read some ridiculous magazines.
Monday 7/16:
I wrote most of this on a very fast train, having made my transfer in Hannover with only a little difficulty with the whole lots of baggage and one arm thing (and having screwed up my knitting again on the last train... must get Angelika to fix it for me). My German was passable enough to tell someone the seat next to me was, indeed, free, buy a snack, understand someone who thought I'd be a good person on the platform to ask whether the train there or the next one was the one to Karlsruhe (which I could only be helpful about because that's where I'm going) and tell her it was the next one, and get someone to help me lift my bag onto the luggage rack. \o/ Go me! I still feel like an idiot in German, though. I wish either people wouldn't speak so quickly or I'd understand more quickly! Clearly I need more practice.
Anyway. I have no idea what's in store when I get back to Engelsbrand at 4 something, but I am kind of sad to not be sleeping in a room by myself (I slept SO WELL at Lily's). But yes. Now I'm going to go read for the rest of my train ride.
Okay. Back in Engelsbrand now.
I had a whole conversation with Monika in German when everyone else wandered off. \o/ Then we three went walking to Bianca's house, which is beautiful and ginormous and old. I met her little kitty... Man do I miss my kitties. He purred at me, which was excellent. Best sound ever. Walked s'more around Engelsbrand and saw the oldest house, but I didn't have my camera with me. Encountered another purry kitty. Must be the day for it. And now I have to shower and go to bed because we are leaving for Neuschwanstein Castle at 530am, because Heiko doesn't believe in sleep. Oh, and apparently this weekend we are going to France for the day. Right. Tschuss!
Saturday Lily and I wandered around Bremen some more, looking at pretty things and poking through shops. We saw a street that was saved from destruction during WW2 only because the Nazis considered it a good example of degenerate art. We went to Schnoor, which is this little old section of town that has lots of shops and medieval sized streets (I can't imagine anything other than people on these streets) and very old buildings. Very cool, and I'm not doing it justice, and I didn't take enough photos. Anyway, we spent several hours wandering and had some tasty lunch and looked at a lot of Bremen souvenirs and I tried to buy presents for people, which is proving to be very difficult.
At night we went to a party at Lily's roommate's twin sister's house. It wasn't very far away and we took the tram there with our bottles of various beverages. She's lived all over the place, and the guests spoke a variety of languages. Many spoke English, so I chatted a bit and someone complimented my German, even though I think it's terrible. We all sat on the roof (the ladder was scary with one arm and kind of drunk) and watched the sun set over Bremen (at like 1030 pm) and I listened to Lily have a conversation in German, Spanish and English and lots of people brought out instruments and there was drumming and guitarring and it was excellent. We went back home at something like 2am, in a cab because we were too lazy to walk the whole way.
Sunday 7/15:
Sunday we took the train to the Deutsches Auswandererhaus in Bremerhaven (and they never came for tickets so we didn't have to pay!). It's a museum of German emigration. You basically take the place of an emigrant, and the museum is made to look like a ship (in some parts, several different kinds of ships). When you go in, you get a card with an emigrant listed and the year they emigrated and when you place your card on the designated spots through the museum with earpieces, it tells you a story about whatever part of the boat you're in. After you do the initial "boarding" of the ship, there's a room with a bunch of drawers labeled with folks' names and the years they emigrated. I kind of skipped over all the 1800s ones and went straight for the year my grandparents left. I read a few of the older ones later, but I listened to the stories of all the emigrants who left around the same time as Oma and Opa. It was really cool. Then you continue walking and see more of the insides of various ships from various eras. Man did the trip get a lot easier with the invention of steamships! A week instead of three months! Anyway, it was all really cool to look at, and to listen to the little stories (most of which were excerpts from letters about life on the ships), though I felt a bit rushed because we got there too close to closing time, and I'd lost Lily along the way and was a bit worried about finding her in the maze of rooms. Then there was a wall of maps and graphs showing how many people from which countries went to which countries and when through Bremerhaven. Also, (random), the bathrooms played ocean sounds, and that was really weird. Then there was a room full of American phone books so Germans can look up their last names and find relatives, which was kind of weird. And then there was this little 9 minute movie with people who had emigrated and now live in America (or lived in America and went back to Europe), and their families, talking about it a little. There was this one scene where a little boy learned a song in German for his grandfather's birthday that made me really miss my Opa. He would be so proud of me here now. I'm getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it again. Anyway. I kind of forgot to continue taking pictures shortly into the museum because it was all so interesting. Um, and we missed the last room with the computers for looking up your family and getting more information and I-don't-know-what-else-because-we-missed-it because they closed on us. But I think I have pretty good information about my family, anyway. I feel like there was something else, too, but I forget.
After the museum closed on us we took the train back to Bremen (for free again!) and went out for some dinner along the river. Very pretty. We had German Mexican food. It was really strange to read the menu with random Spanish words and explanations in German. I kind of thought my brain was going to explode. The food was pretty good, if weird to be eating Mexican food German style. We walked home after eating and chatted with roommate+gf for a little bit and read some ridiculous magazines.
Monday 7/16:
I wrote most of this on a very fast train, having made my transfer in Hannover with only a little difficulty with the whole lots of baggage and one arm thing (and having screwed up my knitting again on the last train... must get Angelika to fix it for me). My German was passable enough to tell someone the seat next to me was, indeed, free, buy a snack, understand someone who thought I'd be a good person on the platform to ask whether the train there or the next one was the one to Karlsruhe (which I could only be helpful about because that's where I'm going) and tell her it was the next one, and get someone to help me lift my bag onto the luggage rack. \o/ Go me! I still feel like an idiot in German, though. I wish either people wouldn't speak so quickly or I'd understand more quickly! Clearly I need more practice.
Anyway. I have no idea what's in store when I get back to Engelsbrand at 4 something, but I am kind of sad to not be sleeping in a room by myself (I slept SO WELL at Lily's). But yes. Now I'm going to go read for the rest of my train ride.
Okay. Back in Engelsbrand now.
I had a whole conversation with Monika in German when everyone else wandered off. \o/ Then we three went walking to Bianca's house, which is beautiful and ginormous and old. I met her little kitty... Man do I miss my kitties. He purred at me, which was excellent. Best sound ever. Walked s'more around Engelsbrand and saw the oldest house, but I didn't have my camera with me. Encountered another purry kitty. Must be the day for it. And now I have to shower and go to bed because we are leaving for Neuschwanstein Castle at 530am, because Heiko doesn't believe in sleep. Oh, and apparently this weekend we are going to France for the day. Right. Tschuss!
Saturday, July 14, 2007
7/11-7/13: in slow motion the blast is beautiful
Wednesday 7/11:
Wednesday was a day of mostly relaxing, thank god.. After reading a bit in the morning, Oma and I drove to Oeschelbronn, which is where she grew up. Got to see the house she was born in and where she worked and all. Then we visited with her cousin. Lots of fast talking that I didn't understand. V v boring. Went back to Engelsbrand, had dinner with Monika, Jurgen and Sarah, chatted for a while. Heiko and Angelika came over to make sure everything was all set for my trip to Bremen and set me up with a small rolling bag to take along. Lots more reading. Ahhhhhh.
Thursday 7/12:
Up at 6am to catch the train... oh man. Thursday was like, the longest day ever. I read more than half of HBP on the train from Karlsruhe to Hannover. Lily met me on the platform in Hannover and we continued to Bremen together. \o/ Also, some random nice chick in the seat in front of me helped me get my stuff down from the high shelf. Germans are nice. We got to Bremen and walked to her apartment from the train station, stopping along the way to buy tickets for the Harry Potter movie, dropped off my stuff, went grocery shopping and went to Order of the Phoenix. In German.
After OotP we hung around here for a wee bit and I was really tired and then met up with one of Lily's friends for dinner. Ummm.. I feel like I'm forgetting something else, but. Good vacation from my vacation, yes.
Friday 7/13:
Slept 'til a zillion o clock while Lily went to work briefly. So nice to sleep in a room by myself. Seriously. We went wandering and shopping and looking at stuff most of the day. Germany is the haven of long stripy socks. OMG. I like Bremen. It's very, very different from Engelsbrand, obviously, as it's a city and in the North.
After we came back and ate dinner (I made something with lots of vegetables we'd gotten at the grocery store on Thursday) and drank wine and watched Supernatural on the projector screen in Lily's living room. Yeah. We watched the last 3 episodes of season two. It was little overwhelming in a way that is fantastic. There was much, much flailing.
While thoroughly overwhelmed by larger than life Winchesters, I met some more Germans, friends of Lily's. And listened to some German and understood a little. Previously, I'd almost forgotten I'm in another country, as Lily and I have been babbling quickly about many things in English the whole time. And then it was 2am and time for sleeping.
Wednesday was a day of mostly relaxing, thank god.. After reading a bit in the morning, Oma and I drove to Oeschelbronn, which is where she grew up. Got to see the house she was born in and where she worked and all. Then we visited with her cousin. Lots of fast talking that I didn't understand. V v boring. Went back to Engelsbrand, had dinner with Monika, Jurgen and Sarah, chatted for a while. Heiko and Angelika came over to make sure everything was all set for my trip to Bremen and set me up with a small rolling bag to take along. Lots more reading. Ahhhhhh.
Thursday 7/12:
Up at 6am to catch the train... oh man. Thursday was like, the longest day ever. I read more than half of HBP on the train from Karlsruhe to Hannover. Lily met me on the platform in Hannover and we continued to Bremen together. \o/ Also, some random nice chick in the seat in front of me helped me get my stuff down from the high shelf. Germans are nice. We got to Bremen and walked to her apartment from the train station, stopping along the way to buy tickets for the Harry Potter movie, dropped off my stuff, went grocery shopping and went to Order of the Phoenix. In German.
After OotP we hung around here for a wee bit and I was really tired and then met up with one of Lily's friends for dinner. Ummm.. I feel like I'm forgetting something else, but. Good vacation from my vacation, yes.
Friday 7/13:
Slept 'til a zillion o clock while Lily went to work briefly. So nice to sleep in a room by myself. Seriously. We went wandering and shopping and looking at stuff most of the day. Germany is the haven of long stripy socks. OMG. I like Bremen. It's very, very different from Engelsbrand, obviously, as it's a city and in the North.
After we came back and ate dinner (I made something with lots of vegetables we'd gotten at the grocery store on Thursday) and drank wine and watched Supernatural on the projector screen in Lily's living room. Yeah. We watched the last 3 episodes of season two. It was little overwhelming in a way that is fantastic. There was much, much flailing.
While thoroughly overwhelmed by larger than life Winchesters, I met some more Germans, friends of Lily's. And listened to some German and understood a little. Previously, I'd almost forgotten I'm in another country, as Lily and I have been babbling quickly about many things in English the whole time. And then it was 2am and time for sleeping.
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