13 Things That Make Me Feel Like the Crypt Keeper

I graduated a couple of months ago. I immediately began working full-time at my job (an English major with a full-time job in her field right out of college…suck it haters) and found myself settling into a routine that made me feel older and older.

Now, my roommate (who’s the same age as me) and I have come up with a list of things that make us feel older than our driver licenses tell us we are.

1. I got a full-time desk job.
2. I set up up a retirement plan (401K).
3. I have to schedule my grocery trips days in advance because I’m too busy.
4. I need to schedule repairs on my house and every time I do, I have to decide if it’s worth taking time off work or living with whatever’s broken.
5. I see my best friend, who I live with, more during our lunch breaks than at home.
6. When I spend time with friends, it often includes things like doing taxes together or having them help me set up a 401K.
7. I get really interested in podcasts now.
8. A trip to Lowe’s for a new light fixture is something I’ll be excited about for days.
9. I use “I have to get up in the morning” as a real, bonafide reason not to do things during the week.
10. I use my weekends to furiously clean, do laundry, grocery shop, and sleep.
11. In a similar vein, I don’t like to drink on Saturday night because I have too many things to get done on Sunday morning to be hungover.
12. When my roommate and I searched for a new place to live, a yard was the top priority.
13. I drink my coffee black now because I don’t have the time, money, or metabolism to deal with adding sugar and milk.

Bonus: A couple things that still make me feel like a child:

1. The thought of having children is completely terrifying.
2. I don’t know how major house functions work. (Had to call my dad the other day to inquire about what a water shut off valve was and where I might find it. He nailed it.)

Sometimes Things Happen

Sometimes things happen that cannot be easily explained. You don’t have a box in which to put this particular slice of life.

You wonder why it happened. You can wonder all you want, for days, weeks, months, yet you’ll never find an answer because there isn’t one. And then you can ask yourself other questions in an attempt to feed your craving for an answer. “Did I create this experience? Did I make it happen?”

The answer is of course no. There are many times in your life in which you experience things that are out of your control. And that’s the goal, yeah? To take away control? Funny how sometimes a person will crave the control they lack so badly.

And when the experience is over and you’ve found no box to place it in, what do you do? This is always uncomfortable. You find yourself needing to both think about it constantly and forget it completely. What a strange sensation. Should you modify your behavior? Should you staunchly reserve the right to continue your behavior exactly as is? I suppose there’s no reasonable answer to this.

Is there an official moment when you declare “This situation is over. We don’t have to think or talk about it anymore,”? I think people would claim no such date exists, but I think otherwise. I think there will come a day when an unspoken agreement comes between the community and me that we will no longer be talking about this thing that happened, where any more discussion would be deemed too much.

I like that idea, that in a way there is a box in which I can put it. Not a box of reason, but of time. There will come a day when I say my penance has been done. I have talked of it, thought of it, dreamed of it enough. My mind can be at peace now.

Life is funny in many ways. Generally not ha-ha funny, but the other kind. The kind that makes you say “Huh…I didn’t see that coming.” Life is neither bad nor good at its base. It simply is.

 

[This post was originally written in the summer of 2015. It is only being posted now.]
This was originally something that felt too personal to share. Funny, since it reveals almost nothing, but to me. It felt personal and raw, yet it comes across as reserved and noncommittal to me now.

The answer to my question above is not as I had hoped. As of yet, I have found no limit to the thoughts. Discussions have lessened, though. And yes, I do think of it less now. But it hasn’t gone away. The nagging feeling of what could have been. What was so close to being. That has stayed. Perhaps 6 months is not enough time. Or perhaps this is a thought that I will carry with me forever.

Onwards and Upwards

So here I am. I’m happy, I’m kind of healthy (I’m actually becoming a professional sick person), and I’ve got a job. The dust has settled. It’s been about two months since I’ve returned so it’s time to regale you …

ein kleines Update

This is mostly for me to look back at later as a reminder of how I feel right in this moment.

I leave in exactly one week.

We all knew this would end at some point and here we are.

I feel so at home here. It took a while for that to be true. I’ve liked it here the whole time but it didn’t quite feel like home. But about two months ago it finally clicked. I have a family here (it feels wrong to call them only host family), I have a best friend here that is always up to whatever shenanigans I have in mind and can usually one-up me (to Addie: EW), I know the streets, I know the bike paths, I have my favorite bars and my not favorite bars, I have my favorite club for once every several months (Barrachoooo), I’ve cultivated my obsession with H&M, I can converse in broken but mostly understandable German, I can understand a lot more German than I can speak, I know every food Sophia doesn’t like, I can usually make her laugh, she can usually make me laugh…

This year has been far beyond what I expected it to be. Instead of it being a year of my life, it has been my life. That doesn’t quite make sense but I don’t know how to explain it better. It’s not a cutout from my regular life, a year I spent abroad. It has just become my life.

I’ve felt really daunted the past month when imagining coming home and I still do. I’m excited to see friends and family; that hasn’t changed. But I don’t have much interest in picking up my life again. I enjoy having an international group of friends. Not just Americans, not just Germans, but a United Nations of sorts. I like traveling to different countries. True, I didn’t get to that many. But I did go.

Germans are funny creatures. (I mean that in the nicest and least offensive way possible, just fyi.) Culturally, very similar to Americans in certain ways and so different in others. This has been great and a pinch in the butt at times. So it goes.

It feels like when I left New York, except worse. As I had hoped, I’ve been able to go back to Buffalo more or less every year since I left. This obviously isn’t possible with Germany. I have possibilities to come back and live for a bit later (get a Master’s perhaps), but that’s the future. Right now there are no guarantees. So while I don’t feel like saying, “Goodbye,” how can I not at least have the possibility in my mind that this is, truly, goodbye? And then I’m scared the memories will fade, the connections will loosen, and ten years down the road I’ll think fondly but distantly at “that one year I spent in Germany.” This is my deepest, darkest fear at the moment because this isn’t something I ever want to think of as distant.

My heart is breaking a little bit each day but I’m going to enjoy my week here. There will be cake, lots of glühwein, and a fair amount of Zwick’l in my near future. It’s not even noon here but a Zwick’l sounds pretty good…

To future me, if you’re reading this more than six months after you get back home, text/call/skype Karin and Addie. Right now. And don’t ever let yourself forget the feeling of home you had here. Because, even if briefly, Bayreuth was your home, was the place you felt most comfortable in the world and I’m just not willing to lose that feeling completely.

Update: Turns out this is the three year anniversary of my blog! This is the first time I’ve ever had a three year anniversary for something. I’ll be honest, I’d rather have it with…say…a person, but a blog is nice, too!

I’ve been here a YEAR! (well, almost)

You heard that right, folks. In a few days I’ll hit the one year mark of being in Germany. I haven’t posted anything lately because I’ve been a little busy living my life. A lot has happened in the last couple months and most of it can be categorized as either really, really awesome or kind of terrible. That’s a weird combination of feelings to have going on. Alas, this shall be a happy post so all the crappy stuff can stay with me.

In the last few months I:

1. Made an AWESOME group of lady friends! They have made all the good times really, really good times and all the not good ones…well much better than they otherwise would have been. We’re a super loud mixture of American, Peruvian, and Indian. If you’re within a three mile radius you’ll know. Our days usually include inappropriate conversations, wine, more wine, food, and obnoxiously loud laughter.
   
   
2. Went to Oktoberfest! Hellllllll yeah that was awesome. There was lots of beer (shocker), lots of dirndls and leiderhosen (including my super pretty dirndl that I’d been anxiously waiting to wear for months), lots of drunk Americans, and so. much. noise. It was one gigantic party and even though the alcohol content of the group as a whole was very large, there weren’t many problems associated with that. People were just having fun.
   

   This was the Oktoberfest Family. We started out as five random groups of two that sat together at a table. We soon bonded. A lot.

                          

3. Went to Usedom! This was a summer trip with the host fam. It’s an island in the northeast that borders Poland. Verrrrry pretty and the town kind of reminded me of Anna Maria.
   
4. Went to London! Whoaaaaa I knowwww, crazzzyyyyyy. My life is so freaking awesome. (I’m being a little sarcastic because people tend to forget how easy it is to make your life look cool on the Internet which cuts out a lot of other “real life” stuff. But like I said, only a little sarcastic because my life really is great.) Annnnyway, London was freaking awesome. It was so beautiful and I really loved having everything in English for a few days. I didn’t realize how much I had missed that. Oh and the weather? Couldn’t have been better. Sunny with a high of 70 every day.
   

   Harry Potter Studio Tour is wassup

   

5.  Went to Prague! Wowwww I knowwwww. Cool, right? These are not in chronological order by the way. Prague has a really interesting, mostly sad history. It was awesome to be able to see the sights and even party it up one night.

I think that sums up the last few months pretty well. Lots of cool things have happened. Lots of life lived. I’ll be in Germany until December because gosh I just couldn’t leave yet. Oh, oh! I also have a birthday coming up. The big 2-3. I think I’ll start saving for retirement now that I’m getting so old.

How Not To Be a Shitty Roommate

I made a thing. I had some time so I made a thing and I now present it to you.

Things I’ve Been Doing Lately

Whoooooooooops. It’s been over a month since I shared my life on here. I’ve sat down and told myself to write several times, yet no words came that I wanted to share. Things have happened, life has progressed, but it seems my muse has left me for a little while.

Since I feel that my poor blog deserves better than my neglegence, I’ll give you a list of what I’ve been doing for the past week or so.

In the past nine days I have:

• Spent time in Bonn (I learned that Beethoven was born in Bonn AND it’s the city where Haribo was created…who knew?)
• Stayed at a dairy farm for a few days (Cows, cats, and more cats!)
• Went to Berlin for two days/one night (Saw a ton and left with the feeling that I must go back and see MORE.)
• Read a lot (Merry and Pippin just got reunited with their Company in The Two Towers and Saruman has lost control of Isenguard. Exciting time for the Company.)
• Thought A LOT abut writing a blog post
• Didn’t actually write a blog post until right now
• Thought how fun it is to be PMSing (It had to be said because…wow.)

This isn’t really the blog post I wanted to create but at this point I just want to write something new. I was trying to think of a funny story that’s happened in the past month but my mind is failing me and as I said before, I’ve misplaced my muse and can’t seem to find her anywhere. Hopefully she’ll come back soon and I can get a real blog post up.

So France Was A Thing That Happened

Over Easter weekend, a friend and I strolled the cobbled lanes, perused the finer things, basked in the sun of a warm spring day, and nibbled on buttered croissants. Where did we do this? What kind of stupid question is that. Paris, obviously! My friend Lauren and I spent a few days in the City of Love, taking in the sites and experiencing as much as possible without wearing ourselves out too much.

I was trying to think of a way to recap all of the highlights and not write 2500 words so I decided to do one of my favorite things ever and make a list.

So behold, my list of things that happened in Paris:

1. Took a bike tour around the city. The best gelato I’ve ever had was consumed and I saw where Kanye lives when he visits. (Right above the gelato place. Respect.)
2. Took a boat ride along the Seine River. Wine was had.
3. Took a walking tour through the city. Learned about kings who loved to party and how really kind of pathetic/sad Marie Antoinette’s life was. Give a girl a break.
4. Saw two guys ask for money on the subway and then strip off their clothes and do a poll dance. Their briefs were subway maps.
5. Went to Shakespeare and Co. bookstore which is where Ernest Hemingway (and many, many) others have lived and written some of their best work.
6. Laid on the lawn at the Eiffell Tower and took a siesta.
7. Ate Chipotle. It was delicious as always.
8. Went to the Louvre. Only spent a couple hours in there which is terrible because there’s just so much to see. Loved every second of it even though it was about 700 degrees inside.
9. Looked out the window from the Louvre at all the chumps who were waiting in line to get in because they didn’t know you could spend three extra euros and skip the line. heh heh heh
10. Strolled the length of the Champs-Élysées. Looked at all the things we couldn’t afford to buy.
11. Climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.
12. Visited the Père Lachaise Cemetery. There are hundreds of graves and most of them are intricate and beautiful. I found Oscar Wilde and Chopin’s graves.
13. Walked around in Notre Dame. It’s beautiful…shocker. I lit a candle inside.
14. Learned how to navigate via Paris’ subway system. Shout out to Lauren for being better at it than me. Shout out to me for not totally sucking.
15. Saw Divergent. Now this one may fall under “You were in PARIS and you chose to go to a movie???” BUT we were both really tired from the day. Lauren was a little sick so trying to keep going after a long day of walking isn’t really the best idea anyway. We both wanted to see the movie really badly and we found it in English in a theatre five minutes from our hostel. I call that nothing but a win. P.S. We got student discounts so it was even a little better.
16. Walked the Latin Quarter after I visited Shakespeare and Co. (Yeah…these are in no particular order. I’m just writing them as I think of them.) The Latin Quarter used to be known as where all the artists and intellectuals lived. Now it’s more of a tourist hub, but it’s still cool. Very lively, people everywhere. Music, shops, restaurants, more shops, MORE RESTAURANTS.
17. Tried to speak French here and there. Failed miserably, but the locals seemed to appreciate the effort.

I know we did more but these are the biggies (read: everything I can think of at this particular moment). Paris was truly an amazing and beautiful city and I’d love to visit again someday.

Since coming home, my days have been a rather precarious mixture of radiant sun and homogeneous grey. I’ve now been in Germany just over six months and this feels like a major turning point in more ways than one. I’m trying to figure out just what my place is here and for the time being I’m not entirely sure. Plenty to look forward to of course. My sister, brother in law, and nephew will be here in 59 days and I just found out I’ll hopefully be seeing an Orlando friend even sooner than that!

So there you have it. My life at the moment. I’ll leave you with some Paris pictures:

Please, try not to be TOO impressed with my picture taking capabilities.

Springtime in Deutschland

Spring is here and better than ever. Last week the flowers started to pop up in unexpected places. They seemingly came overnight and it was enough to put a very broad smile on my face. Now the trees are starting their shy comeback to the world of the living. The birds are singing sweet hymns and everything is just awake.

This weather is so conducive to my feelings about footwear which is nice. I like to be barefoot as much as possible and wearing TOMS the rest of the time. That doesn’t really jive with cold temps. My naked feet are quite happy that winter has said its last goodbyes. Socks=get out of my life.

I got to spend last week with my mom and uncle which really put the cherry on top of my springtime sundae. (Dear sweet Jesus, I just said springtime sundae.) Of course, they didn’t get to enjoy much of the high-of-65 weather that we’re having this week (that started on their last day) but it was sunny for the duration of their visit and just having them here with me was really surreal and exciting and AHH MY LIFE IS GREAT.

Though of course the real world is ever present and I still have dumb things to do like taxes and homework and other such nonsense, I’m feeling very light these days. I’m in love with a lot of things right now that I would happily list for you but won’t because this post would quickly become novel length.

Next week my cousin will be here to finish up her latest whirlwind European adventure, then I’ll have a week of normalcy, and then I’m off to Paris for four days with a good au pair friend of mine. My semester at UCF is also ending in the next few weeks and my semester at Uni Bayreuth is starting on the 14th soooooo this month is going to be a crazy mixture of amazing and stressful and MORE AMAZING and lots of other stuff too, probably.

Sorry for the lack in posting. Life has been beautifully hectic and I don’t see that changing until maybe sometime next month. But hopefully I’ll take better care to update my blog/online journal of random thoughts more often. Note the naked feet in the picture below.

Carnival in Cologne

From Saturday-Monday I was Carnival-ing in Bonn and Cologne. In case you’re like me and Carnival is all new to you, it’s a few days of parties, parades, and general merriment before Ash Wednesday kicking off Lent. Cologne hosts the biggest Carnival celebration in Germany. And I was all up in it.

On Saturday, we hit up a small, local parade. It lasted about 20 minutes and was great fun. Sunday we went to a bigger Bonn parade. For any of my Bradentonians, it was quite similar in size to the Desoto Parade, around 1.5 hours. Monday we went to the mother of all Carnivals in Cologne. It was a five hour parade and wow…

Below are some facts and observations I made throughout my Carnival celebrations:

1. EVERYONE dresses up. Not just kids and college students.
2. No beads. Candy, little toys, and flowers (if you’re lucky) are where it’s at.
3. Showing some cleavage makes getting flowers easier. Red lip stick doesn’t hurt either. Don’t ask me how I know that.
4. Beer is always appropriate. 3:00 PM, 10:00 PM, 9:30 AM, every time is a good time for a brewski.
5. If you’re a real pro, you’ll have a cup hanging from your neck so you can go hands free with your beer.
6. You should be learning the songs that go along with Carnival from a young age. I missed the memo. They’re still fun, though.
7. Be prepared at any moment to lock arms with the people on either side of you (stranger or no) and dance.
8. Also be prepared at any moment to yell “Alaaf!” three times in a row. *Note: This changes depending on the region you’re in. DON’T screw it up.
9. Clowns are always in style. Pirates too. (I was a pirate. I like to conform.)
10. Riding the train into Cologne on the day of the big parade is really a fun sight to see.
11. Getting back to the train at the end of the day is almost an equally fun sight to see. Much less excitement. Many more looks of exhaustion and drunkenness with a smidgen of regret thrown in here and there.
12. Even when not actually at a parade, Carnival time is party time. Be prepared to socialize. A lot. Social anxiety be damned.
13. Different parts of Germany celebrate Carnival differently and some don’t celebrate it at all. It’s actually really crazy how strikingly different the cultures are in different regions here.
14. You can get really pretty painted hard boiled eggs and they are delicious.
15. Standing for five hours is not nearly as tiring as you would think when you’re having fun, eating candy (gotta keep that blood sugar up!), and drinking a moderate amount of beer. Have I mentioned beer enough in this post? I sure hope so.

So that is what I experienced condensed into a very small nutshell. There are of course about 3,000 other things that happened but I think for those 3,000 things you kind of just had to be there.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

My good friend, the Cologne Cathedral.

Saw this BEUT at the second parade. It had multiple Confederate flags and was surrounded by cowboys and Native Americans. I fear that flag will follow me wherever I go in life.