Why one is never too old for Halloween

Thursday I went to my favorite city in Germany, Frankfurt. Unfortunately, the day before, Andrea got yucky sick and went home. It was really strange since we had been eating and sharing all the same food, and we had been on the same public transportation. So I did Frankfurt a bit solo, which was not nearly as fun since I have already done the tourist-y things in the city. After getting Andrea on her train, I headed to meet up with Joe for lunch. Wayne also met up with us, and showed us the wonder of eating outside from a chicken vendor. We all got half of a grilled chicken and fries, yum! Lunch was fun in general, as it should be with two fun gentlemen like that. After getting the keys to Wayne's and Joe's place, Wayne took me back to his place. The day was filled with nothing. I watched Sideways, good film, and also went grocery shopping. April would be making Mac 'n cheese for dinner. I got all the way to the store (which is about a 15 minute walk) and realized that I forgot the grocery list back at the apartment. Shoot! But I did know most of the ingredients, and it was fun attempting to find cheddar cheese. I had to go to three different specialty stores before I found it.

After dinner and chatting with April, Wayne got home, and we headed off to Frisbee training that was underneath the lights, which was so cool. It has been a really long time since I went to an actual practice, and I knew a least half of people there, maybe more. After practice, we went to the Irish pub for a drink, where our waiter harassed a few of us for ordering hot chocolate. We weren't really sure if he was joking around or not (sometimes I wish the waiters were working for tips).

Friday was a very lounge-filled day, I slept in, ate some mac 'n cheese for lunch, watched TV, then finally headed over to Joe's, because I wasn't sure if Katy and Aine were coming into town that night. I found out later they were not going to be, and I was kinda bummed at first, but it was nice to stay in for the evening. I did some more grocery shopping, watched Gilmore girls in German, and read from my current book.

Saturday was wonderful! After Katy and Aine finally arrived, we headed back to Wayne and April's, where they supplied us with fun costumes, we had a tiger, a pirate, a doctor, and a hula-girl costume. They also gave us cake and tea and fun conversation (per norm). We then met up with Rachel, a Brit who is also an English language assistant where Katy lives. We made dinner, decided on who was going to be what character. We didn't get to the pub until around 10pm, but karaoke wasn't even starting until 11pm. We submitted our first song, "Don't cha" by the pussy cat dolls. Did you know there is a big rap part to the song? Cause we didn't, fun times when that came on, so we just danced. There were a lot of American soldiers at the pub, some were really fun and talked to us during the night, some others weren't so much, they were still fun, but in a different way. I later sang a KT Tunstall song, and then the four of us sang, "Holla back girl" by Gwen Stefani. We danced and sang throughout the whole night, and met a handful of characters. We took a cab home, it was my first time getting my own cab, which was a bit exciting.

This morning was spend with more lounging, returning the costumes to Wayne and April's, and then having a quick dinner together before Aine headed back home. And the second week of my break begins!

Did you know that Munich is pricey?

Left town on Thursday, went to Berlin, left Berlin on Friday, came to Munich, left Munich today, am now in Ruesselsheim. I took the bus to the train station, which sounds completely normal, except that I had 20 minutes from when the bus left my stop to getting onto the train. Well, somehow, it took 20 minutes to get to the train station. Ok, maybe 19, and then I ran and met up with the people I was riding with, and then found out that the train was 10 minutes delayed. I arrived into Berlin, met up with Russ, we had an incredible Vietnamese dinner, followed by wine and good conversation at a bar by his place.

I was kicked out of the apartment by 7.45am, because he or his housemate don't have an extra key. This actually turned out fine because I then took about an hour in half to just relax, and I started figuring out my characters for my book that I will be writing during November. The ride down to Munich went quickly, almost no traffic, but the occasional snow flurry (what?). The driver of the car was able to fit 7 of us comfortably and we talked for about half the trip. After arriving, I thought it would be nice to take a stroll in the English Gardens, but the snow and rain deterred me from staying very long. That night fell asleep around 9.30 because Dan and Andrea were coming the next day, and I was exhausted.

Meeting up with Andrea and Dan was quite joyful, per norm. We headed back to were were were staying, figured out that we would visit the Potato Museum and then see more museums because it was night of the long Museum. The Potato Museum did not meet our expectations, but was still pretty cool, a few rooms filled with information about potatoes. Then during the night of the long museums, which we payed 15euros and then got entrance into any museum until 2am. We went to the art museums and up the Olympic Tower, saw Munich at night.

I woke up earlier than Dan and Andrea on Sunday to go to church. It was a walk from the train station, and ended up being on the 5th floor of a building in the middle of the street. The service was nice, it was nice to have service in English. The priest was really nice, and asked what I was doing in Munich, invited me back, and gave me a year calendar. He also introduced me to the other Yankee at the service. We ended up going out for lunch afterwards. Then Dan and Andrea met up with me, and we went off to the German museums, where I learned about caves and science and other fun things like that. We ended up only having 2 hours there, which is enough for me. That night we stayed in and talked with one of the guys in the house. And then Andrea and went out for drink, decided that the restaurant we were at was too expensive, so we left and then bought a bottle of wine from the gas station (don't judge).

Monday was GRE day for Dan and Andrea. I walked around, found the theater we would later be visiting, found the used english Book store, and ate a cute little bakery. After the GRE, we went to the state opera where we saw a beautiful ballet. Our seats weren't the best, but we did get student prices, which always makes our wallets happy. Andrea is now a full ballet fan, and we both want to become ballerinas.

Dan went home today, Andrea and I did some touristy things, we saw the Glockenspiel, which is not nearly as cool as you expect it to be, but the tour guide next to us making fun of it made it more enjoyable, we went to breakfast with Patrick (the guy that I met at church) and then lunch with Robin (we stayed at his place, he was in Mallorca). And now we are here with Katy, which is really nice, because it is less expensive and also more relaxing.

Quote of the night: I am trying to convince Andrea to read the book I just read.
Andrea: I like short stories, I don't have to commit to them. Wow, this next one is 30 pages, it isn't that short.
me: Then commit (pointing at my book).
Andrea: No! I just want a one night stand!

Beaches, Towers, Rivers and Ruins

Katy left yesterday and I am already looking forward to seeing her again, well, her and a whole bunch of other people. Here is what our adventures held for us over the last few days:

I woke up a little earlier than Katy did on Friday so I could ride my bike 4.5km to pick up the package my parents sent. It was a pleasant, sunny, but also quite windy day. 4.5km, no big deal, I have done that before. It turned out to be longer than I was expecting, and once I got to the post office and proudly presented my package slip, the worker who helped me, looked at me and said, "well that is nice, but your package isn't here." It was actually dropped off at the post office which is very near where I live. Yes, this does make sense, but I followed the address which was on the front of the post card. Once I made it to the post office, I found out I had to pay taxes on it, which was frustrating. And the women there said the debit card machine may not work. In the end it did, which was good, since I had a total of 5 euros on me.

Once I got back and opened my package, which was filled with winter apparel and other fun goodies my parents packed inside, it was go time. Meaning shower, breakfast and get our stuff ready to go because we were going to Rostock! Our train left around 2pm, and were taking the bus (my first time here in Greifswald!). While we were rushing out the door and I realized that we didn't pack our sleeping bags, whatever, we could deal with that. We made it to the train station with time to spare, bought our ticket and waited patiently for the train. Unfortunately, that train was never going to come. The German train system is on strike right now. This isn't as bad as it sounds, but it isn't good. They are mostly striking with the local trains, and not even all of them, and generally only on Fridays. Unfortunately, it was a Friday and we happened to be lucky enough to have our ride canceled. We only had to wait about 40 minutes for the next train to take us to Stralsund. The problem then came with our connection. Our connecting train only train only ran every two hours, which meant we had to wait an extra 1.5 hours in Stralsund. This actually turned out to be really nice because it was a sunny day, we decided to hike the 221 steps up the tallest church tower and get a great view of the surrounding area.

Our train to Rostock was running, but 15 minutes late, we were fine with that, as long as it was running. Once we boarded the train, we had a nice and relaxing ride to the city. Shaun, a fellow English Language Assistant was going to meet and host us for the night. He lives on the outskirts of the city, and needed to take the S-bahn to meet us at the train station. These trains were running earlier in the day, and then around quiting time, decided to strike. This meant that Shaun was about 45 minutes late in meeting us. The rest of the night, things ran smoothly. We had dinner, went to a local student hang out, and then to a student club. The music at the club was always good when we weren't dancing and always poor when we were dancing. Once we got back to the room for the night, we had to decide how we were going to sleep. Shaun offered his bed, while he slept on the floor with his sleeping bag. I took the floor and slept with a thin fleece blanket and my coat. My pillow was a pair of pants and I slept at about two hour increments.

Saturday was another glorious da light lunch, we headed back and caught the train home. No problems with transportation this time. During lunch, Shaun asked this, "So if the pope is the highest up you can go, who does he confess to?" Which of course made me laugh, and I informed him that while the Catholic church does have a hierarchy, the pope can, in fact, confess to any other priest. But I do see his confusion. The thing Katy really wanted to do was to see the Baltic sea, and we finally did that. We took the train to a part of town called, Warnemünde. It was beautiful. There were beaches and ferries and seagulls and lots of people out enjoying the last of the nice weather. We didn't do anything spectacular, the view was enough for us. After a reasoning.

After the no sleep and making dinner on Saturday, Katy and I were beat and decided to stay in, which was great since I fell asleep at 10.30pm, the earliest I have been to bed in a long time. But we had church to be up for on Sunday. The weather stayed great, and walked and were late to church. Afterwards, we had dinner with about eight other students. They made lasagna and we had pudding with cherries for dessert, delicious. The last thing we decided to do was walk along the river to the beach. This is about an hour in half walk, but we didn't care, and we actually had four other German students join us, which was somewhat of a surprise. When we finally got to the beach, there was some complaining about how it isn't a nice beach, but one of the guys just said, We walked here to come to the beach, and we are going to the beach! Of course, I loved it, because I love the beach. We christened my new Frisbee and piqued some Ultimate interest while doing that.

There are also ruins of a monastery right around there, and since I hadn't seen them yet, and Katy hadn't either, that was our last stop. They were founded in 1199 and then pieces of the monastery were used when building other buildings in town. It still makes me wonder how they built such strong buildings hundreds of years ago, so that they are still somewhat standing, and today we build something, and it has to be taken down after 20 years or so.

So Katy left yesterday morning, and I spent the whole day laying around and relaxing, which I completely justified since we were busy the entire last week. Now I am figuring out my schedule for Fall Break, which is coming up soon, as in, leaving Thursday afternoon to start my adventures!

Things are more fun when you are entertaining

During the last week I:

• went to the German Sauna championships. This means I watched people sit in a sauna that was 110 C for as long as they could, very survivor style, "outlast." Early in September I carpooled down to Cologne, and the driver called me up on Friday to tell me about this exciting event. Hey, once in a lifetime, right?
  
• Stayed after church on Sunday, and ended up staying almost three hours talking with the students there, yay!
• picked Katy up from the train station!
• Went shopping with Katy, she got cute new shoes that are my size and we also picked up a whole bunch of food. That night (Monday) we made some chicken currey, the entire kitchen was a mess, but the food turned out great! She then made a cake, which was also good. My flatmates saw that we had a cake, and asked if it was one of our birthdays, and looked really worried that they missed mine. But once we told them it was not a birthday and that they could have a slice, they were quite excited.
  
• We attempted to find the karaoke bar, but there was none to be had on Tuesday night, but we did go to H&M and I finally got my jean mini skirt that I have been searching for. Am I too old for this article of clothing? Not when paired with tights and boots, which means I need to buy some tights and boots. But we did then go to two different bars, one was chic with a happy hour, and the other was intellectual with a whole bunch of people playing board games.
  
• My mentor teacher invited us on Wednesday to see the cranes. I guess when all the cranes fly south for the winter, they stop at the island of Hiddensee. Unfortunately, my camera's battery ran out, which I now know how to keep it from doing. But it was quite the sight. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of birds flying in, and their landing was so graceful. I could really learn a thing or two from them.
  
• And today was field trip day with the 11th grade class! We took the bus to a city that is near Rostock and did a high ropes course. It kinda freaked me out, because there was no safety for the carabiners, we weren't wearing helmets, and the guys who were running the course were casually walking around checking on us. However, it was fun to spend time with Katy on a course like that. It was hard not to be in counselor mode, trying to get the students who were scared to just do it. Most of the elements weren't too challenging, but maybe I have just told myself so many times that I am going to do it, because if I don't, then the campers get really scared.
  
• After we were finished with climbing, two other teachers, Katy and I went and looked out at the sea because we were right next to the beach. It is pretty amazing to think that somewhere out there is Sweden. Then we made chocolate chip cookies and brought them to the "Grill Evening" for the Lutheran, Catholic, and non-denom group. It was wonderful! I met new people and talked with the students I have already met.
  

Tomorrow we are going to Rostock. Katy is leaving on Monday, which is sad. But I start my fall break on Friday, which is great, and I found out yesterday that I essentially have a two week break, instead of a one week break, sweet!

Doin Stuff

The entire month of September was spent figuring out life, and while this is still happening, I finally have something concrete to do. On Tuesday, Carsta and I figured out a schedule. It isn't done, I only have ten hours right now, and we need to get 2 more in, so I am still in the process of asking teachers if I can come. I would really love to help out with the 5th and 6th graders, but they already have enough people helping (but they don't know my energy!). On Thursday, I half taught four classes. Some of the times I didn't exactly know what I was doing, but winging it has generally been a strong point of mine. For an eighth grade class, I had them do a small debate with one another, and then talked about dating with a 10th grade class, they were quite unresponsive.

Then I was done, and it was good to relax, but when I relax, I don't just relax, I become a sloth. Since I still don't really know anyone here, and don't really know how I go about meeting people, life is slow. Usually I can be quite the social butterfly (as seen with my tendancies to meet everyone at Frisbee tournaments), but this is such a different situation than I have ever been in. I did do something constructive today, I went running, and it felt so good. I haven't gone running in months, it was me, my ipod, and paths I just took. I am one step closer to my lifetime goal of running a marathon.

And now I am going to buy new bedding and an alarm clock!

Sun in Berlin was good this time

Over the past week, I have traveled every single day, and now I am done, for a while at least. Yesterday I had the opportunity to travel to Berlin. Over the weekend, I found out that two of my teammates were going to concert and they kinda invited me/invited myself, and they were both really into me coming. The band we went to see is called The New Pornographers, as Joe says, "pure rock heaven." During the car ride back to Frankfurt, I listened to a bit of what they have to offer, and it was pretty remarkable.

I took the train into Berlin, and Russ was a bit late picking me up, and then there was some confusion on when Joe's train was getting in. In the end, we were in a cab and both of the guys tasted some of the pastries I had purchased in Greifswald (it was so good that I wanted to share). After dropping off our stuff we went to the gig. The concert was in a basement bar, low ceilings, smoky, no food offered, but a really cool place. The opening act was pretty good, just one guy with a guitar. He is the kind of guy who is average attractive, and then once he starts singing, he becomes extremely attractive, and then we found out he was British! The place filled up pretty quickly and the band came on stage.

At first, we were squished in the middle and I couldn't really see anything. Since I don't know the band, I don't know the songs. The best way for me to enjoy the show was then to push my way forward and take pictures on Joe's camera. I spent most of the show right in front dancing and making photos, it was great! I brought Joe up to the front, since he is the actual fan, I think between that, getting a whole bunch of photos, and then also getting one of the set lists signed by the band, I became pretty cool.

We weren't able to get food before the show, so we took a useless cab ride to a pizza place. We sat and ate and drank and ended up talking about religion. Then we went to a bar and met up with another Mother Tongue player, Rob, which was also great. Four Frisbee players hanging out in Berlin? Awesome.

We got to bed pretty late and then woke somewhat early because Joe was leaving at 11am, after tea, cereal and toast, we headed out to Alexanderplatz to have a look around. We decided it would be good fun to go up the TV tower and see the whole of Berlin. The day was beautiful, and it was so interesting seeing the huge city, still going through major construction. Joe then had to leave us, which was sad since we don't know when we will see him again. Hopefully at the latest, next July for Sandblast.

Russ and I then walked down the Brandenburg gate to see what was going on for Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German unity day, when the east and west became one country again). After some confusion as to where the free concert was, we walked over to the Reichstag and sat out on the lawn because it was sunny and warm. We spent the next two hours talking about things that are actually important to us. Even though the conversation was pretty heavy, we also laughed, a lot. We learned we have a lot more in common than I originally thought.

The rest of the afternoon was spent eating a wonderful meal from the Turkish place down the street from Russ and somewhat napping and just relaxing. Lunch was on the balcony. Finally, it was time for me to come back to Greifswald. We said good-bye, but I do have an open invitation to visit again, like when friends come visit, he is more than happy to house us (hint, hint), and of course there will be more ultimate tournaments.

Dreaming of Ultimate

Playing Frisbee with Mother Tongue has got to be similar to drugs. You are up, up, up, and then you go through withdrawal and it is all downhill until you can even start looking forward to the next tournament. This past weekend was my fourth tournament and it was in Erlangen. The weekend actually started on Thursday night when I traveled to Potsdam to meet up with a teammate. Bob cooked lasagna and we had a pleasant evening chatting. The next morning we took the train down to Erlangen, and we had rain to meet us there. It rained the entire day, we both bought umbrellas, got really wet, then finally just got something to eat. That night we met up with some other Tongues, first Russ at the station and then Biscuit and Meike joined at the restaurant. After I said I played at Beachfest last summer, Russ then got excited and said, "I knew I recognized you! You were fastest on the sand!" I guess it is ok to have that as a reputation.

Saturday was great, woke up early, nearly woke up the entire hall with my bouncy-ness. The whole team didn't even meet each other until the second game. It was cloudy in the morning, but the rain held off (because Joe from Chicago gave me his umbrella just in case we would need it at the field, and since we had it, it didn't rain. Had it not been packed, it would have rained). We won all of our games on Saturday, but didn't win the beer race. This was a race for two players on each team, a three legged raced with army crawling and jumping over a table, then drinking a Frisbee with some beer in it, and throwing a frisbee through a hula-hoop. It was good for laughter.

For dinner we went to a typical German Brau house, and the friendly Turkish team met us up there. A team from Istanbul played in the tournament, the funny thing was they were almost all Americans, but did actually have one Turk. Their captain played for Notre Dame, and graduated two years ago. Which means he was at White Smoke (the ND tourney) when Valpo went for their first tournament, and that meant that Valpo played against ND at their tournament, which means I had seen him play ultimate already, but of course didn't know it. Most of Mother Tongue made it to the party, we played "Never, ever have I ever..." and once the music got a little better decided to dance. Sean, from Turkey, turned out to be a great dancer, so we danced together most of the night, things like swing, the cha-cha and waltzing.

Sunday was also wonderful, except for losing one game, which was the championship game. That was kinda a downer, but not too badly. In between games we played the animal sound game, where you pick an animal, do a sound and a motion, and then pass it along. Check out the pictures for the tournament on this one. After saying out good-byes, I went with the Frankfurt crowd back to Frankfurt. On the way home, we drove past the Turkish team, and traffic wasn't the greatest, so we were able to conduct a few conversations with them, they threw Reeses at us, a camera was passed between the cars to take pictures, and email addresses were exchanged. Also, Carsten's car (the car I was in) reached 100,000km! Woo, what an event! Once we were back in Frankfurt, Wayne, April, Joe and I went out for Chinese. We were all sore and tired, but still made dinner last about two hours, maybe a little less.

Like I said, now I am going through withdrawl, luckily I get to see a few of them tomorrow because of the holiday on Wednesday!