YES!

50,348 words, and about 14,000 of them written today, but I am done! The ending is really bad, but that is all right, I guess I am an official novelist now. And I had about thirty minutes to spare before I left for the weekend.

so much ultimate

Ok, just because I seem to play frisbee every weekend, does not mean that this will become a strictly Frisbee blog, but I do have to blog about what i have done over the past two weekends, right?

So, last weekend I played Ultimate Frisbee in Leipzig with mother tongue, yay! The weekend actually started on Wednesday when the trains decided to strike on Thursday and Friday, and I found out later that only 15% of the trains in the east were running those two days, great. So I jumped on a train Wednesday night to Berlin and spent the next few days hanging out, running errands and relaxing in the city, of course it was great. Due to my previous post, I made tacos for dinner on Thursday for Russ and a work friend of his. And they were delicious, we even had guacamole! The two of us headed out to Leipzig around 7pm on Friday.

We got to the city, and through some confusion, went out to dinner to a great place called Volkshaus, or the Folk house. The food was wonderful, and Ben, another Fulbrighter met us there. We talked and ate until the place closed down around 2am, and then thought it would be a good idea to go to the bar across the street. We finally got to the sleeping hall around 4am and then continued to stay awake while drinking Glühwein and throwing a frisbee around. Because of the small amount of sleep and other elements, the next day was not the most pleasant day. The team was fun, per norm, but we did not do very well, which is not the norm. We actually ended up losing all our games during the weekend, but some of the best teams in Germany were also at the tournament, and we really are only a pick-up team. I have become used to losing, and have found that no matter how Mother Tongue does, the fun part of the tournament is the hanging out with one another.

The most interesting thing that happened was after a few of us left the party. There were four of us, and on our way to dinner, Katy (who was with me, yay!), Ben (the other Fulbrighter) and I found a bar called The Old Rebel, literally. It was a bar that was full of confederate flags and cowboy things. So on the way back to the sleeping gym, four of us wanted to see if it was still open. It was, so then we decided to go in. The boys got beer and we sat and looked around for about 20 minutes, and during that time we all were kinda freaked out with all the stuff that was on the walls, and even somewhat of the people who were working there.

The week passed, and I will write more about that later, but if I want to write about Frisbee stuff all together. So this weekend was Winterflug in Berlin. It was a tournament full of really good teams. I had heard about this tournament in September, and was invited to play on a team that didn't make it on the list. Then another team picked me up, who was first on the waiting list, and also didn't get onto the actual list. This was two weeks ago I officially found out. Thankfully, my lovely friend, April, pointed out the women's team from Mainz, she said they were a fun team to play with, competitive but still spirited. I found the contact info for the women's team and sent an add for myself, asking if they needed any pick-up players. It was about two days later I heard back from a different woman who would be the captain for the weekend, and said they were in need of 1 or 2 players, and I was very welcome to come play!

My journey started on Friday and I didn't really have plans when I got in. Luckily, my friend, Julia, took refuge on me, and I crashed her friend's birthday celebration, meaning her and her friend where at her boyfriend's apartment cooking pizza and heating up Glühwein and they were more than happy to have me over. We danced and sang and ate pizza, and it was so fun being with just ladies. Then Rob came back in, and we went out for a birthday drink!

I met my team on Saturday, and melded with them right away, which was great. It took a while to learn all the names and then match them with the faces, and who plays what, and so on. We lost our first three games on Saturday. The third game ended up being 13-14 the other team, and it all came down to the last point. That team went onto third place, the first team we played took second, and the second team we played took fourth, awesome. But we did end up winning our next three games and took 9th place, which is all right by me, at least winning a few games.

After our games, we went out to dinner, there were nine of us ladies, and then one guy. We walked around for about 20 minutes looking for a place to eat, and finally finding a place that had a lot to offer food wise, but the food wasn't great, oh well. The party was great fun, I danced with my team for about an hour, it was really warm, Russ came to the party, Nadine from Dresden was there, and of course Rob and Julia.

We only played two games on Sunday, won them both, got a floor burn on my hip that is pretty bad and also dislocated my shoulder in the last game. Here is the story: it was probably only a few minutes into the game, and one of my players threw me a disc in the endzone, thrown pretty well, and wasn't hard to get. I had to jump and reach for it, but no big deal. Somewhere in there, I threw my left shoulder out. After catching the disc, I end up on the ground and can't really move because there is so much pain. Luckily, there is a doctor in the gym, he comes over and starts moving me off the field, and then the shoulder popped back into the socket, good! It wasn't too bad after that, iced it and it only hurt a little. I have been informed that I need to see a doctor about it which is what I will be doing this week.

And I may be heading to another tournament this next weekend, but just to cheer. Four students from Greifswald will be playing, so that should be fun!

Yup, I live in Germany, so I always feel obligated to go out of my way and not eat at an American chain, but right now I am just craving some Taco Bell. It is plain and simple. Do I want it because I can't have it? Possibly, but really, I just enjoy Taco Bell.

A not so great evening turned good

There are things that I wish I did every day, but just don't, one of them is just to blog, just to keep things interesting. Another is to take pictures every day, but I don't do that either. And the third is to email my parents a few times a week, which I also haven't done. The last mentioned thing resulted in me writing an approximately five page long email to them, which they may or may not read all the way through. No, they probably will, my mom will probably print it out to read, which I would also do with an email beast like that.

Since being back here, life is much quieter, which I dislike, but really fun things come up as well. Like Saturday: the Catholic fraternity invited us, other Catholic kids and friends, to join them on a hike and then lunch. I went unprepared, the hike lasted three hours, and I had no scarf and was wearing my cute Asics. However, I don't have real hiking shoes and it was fine. The shoes are still a little dirty, but that is the great thing about leather, they clean pretty easily. There only about 10 of us all together who went on the hike, and I only knew two people who were going. It was fun to meet people, and it was a perfect November day for it. After the long hike, a roasting pig on a spit was waiting for us! There were more of the brothers there as well. The problem was that once we got there, we stopped walking and it got pretty cold. Most of the time spent there was in front of the fire just keeping warm. The food was great! And most of the people there were really nice, but I was quiet almost the whole time I was there. I was cold and wanted to go home after I had eaten. The problem was that my bike was locked up with Jonathon's, because we came together. And he didn't want to leave right away. Which meant we stayed until about 7pm when the remaining guys decided to finally pack up.

I was quite miserable for about three hours, sitting in front of the fire, not talking. But once we were back in Greifswald, and the bikes were unlocked from each other, I relaxed a lot, and was also able to take my coat off. As silly as it sounds, taking my coat off made a huge difference, just being able to relax. So the evening ended great, had my first Glühwein, hot spiced wine, and joked around with the guys for the next few hours. It made me really glad that I had stayed in the end.

Finishing good books

Whenever I finish a good book, I put it down, am silent for a while and think about the ending and how all the characters got there. And then it makes me want to cry because such a beautiful book has come to end. I just finished East of Eden, which was my first Steinbeck book, and supposed to be his best work. It was a difficult book to really get into, it was interesting all the way through, but there was nothing pulling at the story line. Reading good books makes me want to join a book club, so that I can discuss about symbolism and meaning behind books like this. It is also good to read "classics" especially now that I am out of school, because it forces me to think about what is going on underneath the obvious, and now I have to challenge myself to think critically.

Finishing the book today was wonderful, it helped make my night great. It was a quiet friday night, but I finished the novel, wrote some more on my novel, talked with a cute waiter, and then chatted with Ryan once I got back home. And I also got two pieces of mail, one was my train card, yay! I have been waiting on that for about 2 1/2 months, and also a halloween card from Bethany. The rest of the weekend should be pretty good, something with the catholics tomorrow, and then trying to get people together for frisbee on Sunday.

Oh! I went to my first Frisbee training here in Greifswald, and it was wonderful. There were about 20 people there, more girls than guys, and it was people who really wanted to be there. Of course by the end of the year, if we still have 10 of those people left, that is great, because then we will have more new people then. We are already talking about tournaments to go to, they have already made a yahoo group. I have always wanted to captain a team, and this just kinda fell into my lap.

A Few Things I have Learned

After spending three days in Berlin and talking with a Brit the whole time, I thought I would share a few things I have learned. It is a bit unfair, but the rest of the world knows American slang much better than America knows the slang of the world. This is not because we just refuse to learn about other cultures, it is because American culture has become part of other cultures, maybe that is a problem, but I didn't start it, and I can't really fix it. Here is what would happen, we would be having a perfectly normal conversation, Russ would throw in some term I had never heard, generally out of context I would figure it out, but sometimes I had no idea.

• To lampoon someone is to make fun of them
• if you were to go into a supermarket in London and ask for a zucchini and an egg plant, they would have no idea what you were talking about. Instead you should ask for a courgette and an aubergine (which is more common, apparently)
• this one made me laugh for approximately two minutes: carriageway=highway, I think, but I was imagining a horse drawn buggy in the Lake district
• and the funniest one, I said that short hair suits me, because I am a spunky girl. Russ started giggling like a 12 year old boy. The word spunk refers to semen, oh dear.
  

There are more, but I can't remember them all, those were just the notable ones. I also turned into something of a wine-o, sharing in the drinking of three bottles and also going to a Weinerei. This place was great, you pay 1euro to use the glass, then you drink which ever kind of wine you would like to try, and then pay however much you thought the wine was worth. I had three glasses, and somehow we stayed at the place for about three hours. Then, after leaving that place around 2.30am, we walked by another bar, and Russ says they serve the best Mojitos there, so we walk in, and after coercing the bartender to serve us (because they were closing down), we go to a kebab house. We say good night, and the guy at the place says good morning. Berlin is so much fun. Sunday morning was me getting up for church (woo, three in a half hours of sleep), and then doing the Berlin thing and going to brunch. Berlin brunch= eating and talking, and then eating and talking some more. Then you have to talk a bit before you can eat more. We outlasted two groups of people at the table next to us.

Happy November

Wow, two months down, eight to go, then no idea. Right now, if I can get a job in the city (Chicago), I have an amazing apartment with a great roommate. When I am not living in the moment, I am always thinking about what I will be doing with my life. That scares me too much, so I just focus on the near future, like next year. There is a big part of me that wants to move out to Seattle, but over the past few weeks, the idea of staying in Chicago isn't as bad as I thought. I got homesick while driving up to Berlin yesterday, I was listening to the Boxer, which is a favorite song of Heather, and thinking of really living away from the girls in the city, and away from my family, it seems harder than before.

It is november, which means that it is National Novel Writing Month. The V-girls (hmm, I kinda love that name for us) were all going to do it, and I had no desire to write a crappy novel, but now I am excited to do it. I started this morning, right now the words are coming easily, but in a week or two, it will become a chore. After I decided to sign up for it, I persuaded four other people to do it as well, so I have a pretty strong support group and already getting encouragement from them.

Today I am in Berlin. I always used to love Frankfurt, and I do, for sure, but the more time I spend here, the more I love it. Right now it is gray outside, but I am inside a super trendy restaurant that offers free WiFi, and I love it. I also have great people to visit when I am here, and so far make me feel incredibly welcome. We'll see how it goes in a few months when I drop in for the night when I am on my way to somewhere else.