Hey everyone, my name is Alex and it has been 10 weeks since my last blog post.
Since we last spoke (or rather, since I last wrote and since you were last bored enough to read it), I have spent almost as much time outside of Germany as I have in it. I’ve visited friends in Manchester, England, taken a spontaneous trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, visited friends in Stuttgart for a few weekends, started my Masters in European Studies – Governance and Regulation at the University of Bonn, signed up for a gym membership (which I tooootally use every day @mom), toured the United Nations Campus in Bonn, had my best friend for a three week visit in my new home, went to my first European soccer game (Dortmund), met up with friends in the Netherlands, learned how to ride a manual dirt bike and how to open a beer using another beer (pretty damn proud of that tbh), spent a weekend actively carb loading on beer and fries and waffles in Belgium, hit up a Chippendales show (bc life wasn’t exciting enough already), hit up the beautiful local Christmas markets that opened up this week, (potentially) failed my EU Law exam, picked up my German visa which will let me stay here for two whole years, and drank a whoooooooole lot… of water. To cope with the hangovers from drinking a whole lot of alcohol. Clearly, it’s been a pretty insane 70 days since I wrote my last post. But it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. In fact, the idea that I packed up all my crap and moved to Germany four whole months ago is honestly unbelievable to me. But it’s been an incredible four months, and I already feel like Bonn is home to me. So why the sudden desire to write after having been so simultaneously busy and lazy these last few months? Easy. I have to write a research paper this weekend and I’ve already cleaned my apartment, so this is my last-ditch procrastination effort. It’s going well, if you ask me. In general, life is pretty amazing right now. I wake up every day in one of my favorite places on the planet and that thought alone is enough to bring a smile to my totally-not-a-morning-person face. I spend my weekdays cramming more information into my brain than I ever thought possible whether it be EU Law or Political Economics of European Integration or Inter-Institutional Bargaining, and my weekends are spent with my awesome roommate or wonderful neighbors or amazing classmates… and usually a bottle of wine or two. Each. My program has introduced me to three amazing women who will probably come up in my posts over the next year so as a quick intro: Dessi is from Bulgaria. We share a deeply rooted love of wine, she’s sassy as hell, and her sense of humor and quick wit are a force to be reckoned with. Amira is German and absolutely brilliant. Our tempers run about the same length before we lose our minds so our venting sessions are legendary, and she gives some kickass advice through a beautiful mix of sarcasm and honesty. Luisa is a lawyer from Colombia and every bit of the tiny and fierce, badass Latina you’re imagining in your head. In all honesty, I have no idea what I would do without these three girls, especially considering how hard this program is trying to kick our collective asses. For those of you who have asked about the structure of the program in the past, I can finally give you a decent idea of how it works now that I’ve been in it for awhile. Let’s see… Structure wise, it’s kind of insane. I’m getting a masters in one year instead of two, which means I essentially paid (way less than I would have in the States) to be mentally abused for 11 months. It’s awesome. I think pretty much everything (except economics) that we study is fascinating – bc I am an absolute nerd – and I couldn’t be happier with the knowledge I’ve acquired already (through awesome experiences like spending countless hours of banging my head into a wall trying to memorize which Article of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union talks about preliminary ruling procedure). We basically have anywhere from 30 to 40h of lectures over the course of a week and a half to learn from a professor/specialist flown in from anywhere from the Netherlands to Ghana, followed by a week-ish of time off intended for very necessary study time (which may or may not involve running out of food in your apartment but not having time to go to the store for food and eating an entire Lindt chocolate advent calendar for sustenance/Thanksgiving dinner alone at your dining room table while your ass becomes one with your chair and you reminisce on what life was like before you voluntarily put yourself through this hell), followed by 2h of exam time that makes you wish you were never born, fooooollowed by binge drinking. Gotta cope somehow, right? Luckily if you don’t pass the first exam, you have another chance to take it a month or so later, and if you don’t pass that one, you fail out of the program. Super chill. My life will be a blur of exams and essays for the next nine months, the last two of which will be me experiencing death by master’s thesis… But let’s not think about that right now. In terms of content, we’re all over the place. We study EU law, economics, integration, public policy, fiscal federalism, the list goes on. In terms of difficulty… let’s just say my Econ professor uses the word “obviously” an awful lot while lecturing on the political economy of European integration for a girl with a background in languages and linguistics to whom what he is saying is decidedly not obvious. Like, if you asked me at any point during my bachelor’s while I was working three jobs and taking a full class schedule how I thought I would do that semester, I would probably have answered with confidence that I anticipated all A’s. If you asked me last week when I called my mom losing my mind about my EU Law exam if I thought there was a chance I would actually pass the test… I would have told you no. Still would, btw. Won’t get my results back for another week or so, and my group and I (the girls and two of our friends/classmates Colin and Jean-Vladimir) have agreed to meet up for a drink or twelve depending on how we did. If we passed: drink. If we failed: drink more. Ah, another thing. I get a lot of people asking me if I’ll move back to the States after my program is over, and the short answer is… no. Are you freaking kidding me? I’ve wanted to move to Germany since I visited for the first time in like 2012. This is the dream, people. I am living the dream. I mean like, I’m broke as hell and constantly wonder why I thought going back to school was a good idea, but like other than that this is the DREAM, folks. I will stay here till they kick me out. Jokes aside, I’ll probably stay in Bonn after graduating in September 2019 and look for jobs with a non-profit organization or the UN or wherever else wants a smartass, trilingual American chick to work for them. The point is, I’m not going anywhere if I have any say in the matter. But for now, I should probably work on that research paper I mentioned, considering half my classmates have already written it and I haven’t even decided on a topic. So until next time folx, and hopefully sooner rather than later. XOXOX
0 Comments
Me: Does the bus to Durham leave from this platform?
British employee: You mean the ‘coach’ to Durham? No, I meant the bus, you insufferable fool. This is why we started the Revolutionary War. Semantics. But to be honest, the sassy bus driver didn’t bother me so much bc my best friend of eleven years was waiting for me at the bus station upon my arrival with fresh fish and chips and a huge smile on her face. For those of you who don’t know, I’ll give you the abridged version: Becka and I met at the ripe, ugly age of 13 when I moved in across the street from her family in Stafford, Virginia. It took all of five seconds for us to become best friends and we spent pretty much the entirety of 8th grade together until her family moved to Illinois before freshman year (her dad was Air Force and mine was a Marine). Two years later she was back, but junior year was hectic for us and seeing each other was tough, which made my moving back to California senior year even harder. Finally, when we went to college and finally could have lived closer to each other if we chose the appropriate schools, we did not even kind of do that. Somehow it ended up that she moved from Virginia to the west coast to go to school at WSU, and I left California for the east coast to go to WVU. Seriously. We literally switched sides of the country. Bc the universe has something against us being even remotely geographically convenient for each other. Whatever, we clearly have a pretty functional system seeing as we’re still so close so I’ll take what I can get. Something that has not changed, is the childlike excitement I get whenever I know I’m about to see Becks. I think it’s bc we were so young when we became friends so that feeling comes back and I revert to a funny lookin’ prepubescent jumpin’ up and down waiting for my bus to pull into the station. Upon arrival, we took the bus from Durham proper (a cute little town about 15 minutes from Newcastle by train) to the outskirts of town, where Becka and her boyfriend Alex (yeah I know, another Alex - but I'm "OG Alex" so it's cool) share a duplex. It wasn’t until I arrived at her house that I realized how goddamn old we've gotten. I’ve known this girl since we were funny lookin’ adolescents and here she is giving me a tour of her home in freakin’ England where she lives with her fantastic boyfriend (who I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet till this week) in a big kid house that they’ve made into a home together. She’s so adulty, mind you, that I got to sleep in the GUEST ROOM with my own BATHROOM. WHEN DID WE GET SO OLD?! Now to be fair, Alex and their landlord actually installed the shower head to make it a functional full bathroom on the evening I came into Durham, so that’s a new development (which took approximately 6 hours, frustration towards a Chinese woman named Shirley whose help was desperately needed yet impossible to access, a trip to the store, a few beers, a few expletives, and some moral support from Becks and I downstairs), but the point stands. She is officially an adulty adult. Like, when she comes to me, we’ll be cuddling in my bed and everybody shares a bathroom and there’s no cooking/cocktail-mixing/tidy/loving boyfriend around like there is at her place – seriously he’s an amazing cook/mixologist and a super neat person bc how could he not be, we share a name. Becks and I used the time the boys took to work on the shower to play our ever-familiar game of catch-up. We’re more or less up to date on each other’s lives bc we chat on the phone once every other week or so for a few hours at a time, but somehow we always have plenty to say (especially me bc as we all know, I don’t know how to shut the hell up). We laughed at the fact that we’re both about to start another year of school in a new place after 11 years of friendship. It feels like we’re doing the same thing we did when we met but this time we’re in Europe – she’s getting her Masters in Hydrogeology from the University of Newcastle - and we’ll be graduating within a month of each other. We agreed that it would be pretty great if we could figure out a time travel situation and visit our prepubescent butts and tell ourselves that everything will work out even better than we ever could have imagined, but I guess we figured it out eventually without the help from our future selves. The next day, we headed into Durham proper for breakfast before a tour of Durham Castle. We went into Durham Café for some of their fresh scones and a meat pie – and the scones in particular were delicious – but we ran into some trouble when our meat pie(s) came out. See, we’d very clearly only ordered one, seeing as we’d intended to share it like we’d done with the scone, but the manager had misunderstood us and brought us one each. Paying twice the price for food we weren’t hungry for and hadn’t ordered didn’t seem ideal, so after a bit of quick discussion, we called a server over and asked her to take one back as we’d only ordered one. She did not look excited and went to inform her manager of the mix-up. The lovely woman took it upon herself to come over and inform us that we had indeed ordered two meat pies (we most definitely did not) and that it was our fault they’d wasted the food. So for those of you who are like me and have worked in the service industry in the States, this is sooooo not how that conversation goes. First off, we were nothing but polite when articulating the problem, and were told in a solidly aggressive way that this was our fault anyway. Now in the States, even if it were our fault (which it wasn’t), the server would have simply apologized and taken it back, bc of our “the customer is always right” culture. Clearly that didn’t apply here, so after an awkward exchange and some contemplation of differing cultural norms, we resolved to ask Alex (who is British) if we were somehow in the wrong. Apparently no, this lady was just particularly rude. Meh. I will say that as wait staff does not work for tips in Europe, they tend to be less inclined to dote or be particularly attentive or apologetic if something goes wrong. We did enjoy our food though, so we paid and made our way to Durham Castle, for which Becks had organized a tour bc she loves history and learning things and I also like to know things about stuff bc we are nerds so it was no surprise when it was the two of us and about 12 senior citizens walking around enjoying the tour. Our secret was out. We are grandmas. Secret aside, the tour was actually super interesting and really enjoyable and I learned that STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY CAN LIVE IN THE CASTLE AND THEY WEAR ROBES TO DINNER AND HAVE FEASTS AND PART OF HARRY POTTER WAS FILMED THERE AND I ESSENTIALLY HAVE BEEN ROBBED OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME A WIZARD AND IT IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE. I did, however, get a picture of the Harry Potter film setting though, so I have now walked where amazing wizards have walked and that’s like almost as cool, right? No? Ok. After breakfast and our tour, we headed to Newcastle to check out Becks’ new campus and take a tour of the city so that she could get her bearings. My dad used to take me to his college classes with him when I was a kid so I promised Becks that I would behave just as well as I did then (I lied though bc I was like a really good kid and now I’m kind of an *sshole adult). The campus itself and the city center were both absolutely gorgeous – Becks is going to have a great year out there. Granted, it was so unbelievably windy that it was like walking around in a wind tunnel 24/7, which was not ideal (especially later when it meant that our train was cancelled, and we had to find our way back to the bus station bc somehow buses are safer than trains in friggen’ hurricane force winds??). Whatever. We came home to Alex getting ready to make stuffed mushrooms - which were absolutely delicious - before playing a few rounds of cards and getting ready to pass out after our day of walking 20,000 and 18,000 steps respectively (she’s like 5 inches shorter than me so she needs more steps to go the same distance). The next day was deemed a “chill day” and I could not have been more excited. The strep throat was still beating me up a little and I hadn’t stopped moving since I’d gotten sick and I was legitimately psyched not to have to change out of comfy clothes all day. Becks was worried I would be bored but I was seriously pumped to do nothing but hang out and chat and play cards and talk all day. It was fab. About halfway through the day, we decided to take a long walk down the nearby river just to get out of the house, so we went upstairs to get ready, and naturally by the time we came back down, it was raining. A lot. Welcome to England. We decided instead to take a much shorter walk to the nearby pub for a few beers and chats, which we enjoyed immensely aside from the part where we were the only two girls in a pub full of old, white men… but what can you do. We spent the rest of the evening providing moral support while Alex cooked a fantastic Thai curry before watching a movie and getting ready for bed bc we’d have to be up early the next morning to make my bus and her train to get into Manchester and Newcastle respectively. Just like when we were in middle school, we left the house while my hair was still wet (I never could make myself wake up early enough to let it dry before I left), Becks looked gorgeous and put together, I looked less that, and we chatted about our new schools and programs and how our time together flew by faster than we even thought possible. As per usual, we had a quick goodbye that involved yet another form of transportation taking her away from me as I stand in the street looking like a lost puppy (last time it was a trolley in the Czech Republic, this time it was a taxi in England). But at least this time we know there’s no way we won’t see each other soon bc despite the fact that we’re in two entirely different countries, it’s still easier (and cheaper) to get to each other than it ever was before. How neat is that? So for now I’ve got another hour of nap time before I have to switch buses in Leeds and eventually make my way to Saskia’s place in Manchester, and as such, this is where I leave you folx for today. PS. Being in a foreign country where they speak your first language but you still barely understand what they say makes you feel incredibly unintelligent. I don’t know about you, but I am having quite the day. I flew back to Germany from Spain on Saturday afternoon with what I thought was just a particularly aggressive cold, until I woke up on Monday unable to talk bc of how bad my throat was hurting. Fab, right? So, to the doctor I went. Mind you, I had already booked my ticket to England for the next day (today), so when the doc said the bloodwork showed I had strep, I was not excited. I called Sassy and Becks to discuss the new plan seeing as I wasn’t trying to give anyone my plague, but they both said they were still good with me coming in, so I'm crossing my fingers I don’t get them sick and feel like a horrible person.
So, this morning, I woke up at 5AM to catch a bus to the airport for my 8AM flight. Naturally, I couldn’t find the correct bus station, so I called my roommate around 5.45 (she’s a morning person, don’t worry) and she sent me in the right direction. On arrival at the airport, Ryanair had me check my bag for FIFTY EUROS bc it was like 1 inch bigger than regulations allowed – fantastic – and shortly after, announced that we had a flight delay. This is not a surprise, bc my flights are always delayed, bc the universe doesn’t want me to get cocky. I get it, it’s cool. Our flight went smoothly, but we arrived in Manchester half an hour later than anticipated. Why is this a problem? I did a thing I almost never do and booked my bus ticket in advance (Becks lives a few hours outside of Manchester and I’m headed to her first). Why did I book in advance when I can’t even remember the last time I did that? Bc I’m sick and my brain is fuzzy, leave me alone. I deplaned around the time that I should have been almost to the bus station, and I didn’t get through customs and pick up my bag from baggage claim until the time my bus was scheduled to leave. Mind you, there was still a twenty-minute train ride and ten-minute walk between me and my bus. I trekked to the Manchester Airport train station, which is INCREDIBLY inconveniently placed as an agonizingly, unnecessarily (and potentially currently exaggeratedly) long walk away from the airport proper, already having accepted that I’d missed my bus and would have to pay to get another ticket to Becka in Durham. In following with how the rest of the morning had been going, there was a massive line to buy train tickets. So I waited, knowing the only other bus to Durham for the day wasn’t for another five hours and I had all the time in the world. It wasn’t until I bought my ticket that I had the revelation. Now I don’t know if you know this, but there is a one-hour time difference between Germany and England (as in Germany is an hour ahead). Another bit of noteworthy information is that USUALLY, my phone updates the clock to the new time zone automatically after being restarted upon landing at my destination. As such, I assumed my magical phone clock was up to date bc big brother is everywhere and the little FBI agent in my phone was helping me out. I assumed wrong. So like I said, I bought my ticket. Oddly enough, it said I was taking the 9.30 train to Manchester Picadilly. 9.30? How could that be, when it’s 10.25? I checked the clock on the wall. 9.25. I texted Saskia to see what time it is in England. She says 9.25. And then it hits me. My phone is wrong, and I can STILL CATCH MY DAMN BUS. It was quite a moment for me, considering the rough morning I’d had, and I booked it to the bus station (all while dragging my poor rolling bag across the cobblestone and gravel streets of Manchester) to make it with 5 minutes to spare. Side note: this bag is like freakin’ Flat Stanley, it’s been all over the damn world, and I have this growing (and legitimate) fear that it’s just going to explode and all my shit will literally be in the street, rather than just metaphorically. But anyway, as of right this moment, I’m on a bus-change in Leeds that was supposed to last 45 minutes and will instead be at least two hours, bc of course it will. No complaints here though, I’m just happy I caught my damn bus bc ya girl is too poor to buy another ticket. So why the over-exaggerated, excruciatingly detailed account of the unfortunate series of events that was my morning? The lesson is this, folks: sometimes you just gotta go with it. This morning was a rough one in pretty much every fathomable way, in addition to the fact that my throat feels like Rocky Balboa has been using it as a punching bag and all I can eat is hot tea and soft croissants (talk about an extreme diet). My point is, there was nothing I could have done about anything that happened today. I couldn’t have convinced them not to charge me for my bag (though maybe I should have tried), I couldn’t have prevented the flight delay (bc fixing planes isn’t really in my bag of tricks), I couldn’t have made the customs line shorter or the train ticket line go faster, and I can’t make my connecting bus get here any faster than it’s already going to (trust me, I’ve tried). I could have spent the morning stressed and irritated and upset, but to what end? There was nothing I could have done to change any of the factors at play. Everything was actively out of my control. And don’t get me wrong, my family and friends will be the first to tell you that if I can do something to improve a situation or make things go the way I want them to, I will. Like I said before, if life gives you lemons but you’re craving orange juice, figure out a way to make it happen. But there is a balance – you must understand that there are some things that are simply out of your control. And sometimes, a lot of those things happen in the first 5 hours of your day. And that’s okay. But you gotta go with it, bc worrying about every minor inconvenience that comes your way isn’t going to get you anywhere. The Germans have a phrase for this, whose closest translation would probably be something along the lines of “when it rains, it pours” but theirs is a little simpler. It goes “wenn, dann richtig” or “when, then really”. The English translation doesn’t exactly make it sound like the most insightful thing anybody ever came up with, but I swear it loses something in translation. I’ve had a lot of friends tell me in the past that I’m one of the most optimistic and slow to anger people they know. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know if I’ve always been like that or if my travels have made me more relaxed (a strong case could be made for Spain and Southeast Asia as being two of the regions with the biggest impact on my ability to chill the hell out bc before moving to Spain I was aggressively compartmentalized and ambitious and before traveling Southeast Asia I still cared - at least a little - about having some form of a plan or schedule or structure). So maybe if you’re a little high strung or easily frustrated, the best advice I could give you is to move to Spain or backpack Southeast Asia for a few months… but in the event that you’re not interested in uprooting your entire life or if for whatever reason that’s not an option for you (strange considering how totally easy and accessible both of those places are to most of you in the States), I would use the following as general rules:
Life is to short to worry about the flight delay or the change of plans or the missed opportunity. Work with what you’ve got and take everything as it comes. There’s not enough time to be upset when there’s so much world to see and memories to make and moments to take in and enjoy. In closing, I would like to express my apologies for turning my hectic morning into a soapbox soliloquy… but I had a bus delay and a whole lot to say (surprise). What can you do. So until next time folx, XOXOX In the human brain, neurons communicate with each other by sending electrical signals from one neuron to another across a small space called a synapse. Chemicals work in the synapses to transmit the electrical pulses between neurons. Neurons communicate with each other in a predictable pattern that repeats itself from neuron to neuron. In essence, brain development is largely a wiring process, where connections between neurons are made and refined. Now consider for a moment, the connections that are made when you learn a new language. For example, because English is my first language and I learned Spanish by making connections to English, I can switch between the two languages with relative ease. Seeing as how I learned German in the same way (by making connections to my preexisting English vocabulary), I switch between my first and third languages with little to no difficulty as well. The problem is, I spent the last week and a half with three Germans… in Spain. So, when I had to translate something, it was between Spanish and German. No English involved. Now for those of you who don’t know, sometimes I have trouble with words. And walking. And pretty much all basic motor functions. But I digress. The point is, every time I had to switch between my second and third languages or translate from one to the other, I think I lost a brain cell – and I’m not sure I had all that many to begin with. Bc by the time the last day of the trip came around I was resorting to hand signals and overexaggerated sighs as my primary forms of communication. My brain hurts, y’all.
Potential brain damage aside, it was a pretty fantastic trip. I headed to Trier the day before our flight out to meet up with Max, who I met while traveling in Singapore this past year – I know, it’s insane how you can serendipitously meet someone in a foreign country and end up booking a trip with them to a different foreign country just a few months later. After a fabulously cooked dinner by his parents of grilled duck and salad with plum dressing (it was amazing), and my own personal tour of Trier – which, fun fact, is the oldest city in Germany - lead by Max and his friends, we were ready to take on our flight the next morning. Max drove us to the airport, which meant we had to park the car somewhere, but as most of you know, it’s not cheap to park your car at the airport for any length of time, let alone 10 days. So rather than utilize the airport parking option, Max did what any normal person would do and parked INCREDIBLY FAR AWAY from the airport in an area where signs with “tow warnings” were EVERYWHERE, and we hoped for the best. I spent the plane ride over listening to my favorite Spanish music and almost visibly buzzing with excitement. I’d switched seats with Max bc it looked like I had lucked out and been given an exit seat (he’s got almost a foot on me so he could use the space) but instead he ended up in the row right in front of the exit row next to a very large couple with no sense of personal space. I thought it was pretty funny. Max didn’t seem to enjoy it so much… What can you do. Our plan was originally to grab our rental car and then head over to pick up one of Max’s old coworkers who’d planned to come with us from a neighboring airport, but she’d cancelled that morning on account of a pretty rough flu situation. So instead, we headed to my all-time favorite grocery store found only in Spain (Mercadona) to grab food for the next few days. Honestly, I would have been happy just to have gone to Mercadona and flown back to Germany. Shopping there brought back so many memories of living in Spain during my college exchange semester and I’m fairly certain I didn’t stop smiling the entire time we were in there. We grabbed enough food for a few meals (and tried to ignore how hungry we were while shopping bc we all know how dangerous that can be) and headed to our flat for dinner, a walk through town, and some seriously competitive card games which I won. Not that it matters… but I did. Oh, before I forget to mention it, and before you all go wondering where the hell a Masters fellow got the money for a casual trip to Spain… our plane tickets cost $45 round trip and Max’s family owns the flat (which is a 10 minute walk from the beach and has massive floor to ceiling windows with an incredible view of the harbor bc of course it does), so we stayed for free. I know… I hate me too. The next morning, we walked to the local bakery to pick up some bread for breakfast (the Germans pretty much exclusively eat fresh bread with cheese and meat for breakfast, no exceptions) and decided that the weather was too beautiful for it not to be a beach day. So what did we do? We biked to the beach. Why did we do that? I do not know, bc the town of Roses is particularly hilly and I am a particularly unskilled cyclist. And it’s not that I’d rather take a car! No, no. I would rather walk. 10/10 times, I would rather walk. Max essentially biked circles around me while I tried to pretend I wasn’t actively dying and having what could be considered by most medical professionals to be an asthma attack (even though I don’t actually have asthma). After my close run in with self-imposed death due to lack of fitness, the next few days were spent at the beach (to which we walked and did not bike), making fun of Max for his inability to properly cut avocados and his desire to make the perfect guacamole, incredibly serious card game battles which resulted in appropriately emotional wins and losses, a long walk to a castle above the sea that after several dozen steps I found out I could have DRIVEN TO (like come on I get that old school defense strategies call for castles built on top of hills but new school non-gym-membership-having me calls for less stairs and more escalators), making fun of Max even more bc I read an entire book in the time it took him to read like 60 pages, and a high stakes game of mini golf which I am not proud to say I lost by 7 points. I would like to point out, however, that maybe I wouldn’t have lost if Max hadn’t been watching so intently making sure I didn’t cheat (which he also did during card games, bc he is a true German stickler). Our first five days flew by, and before we knew it we were on our way back to the airport to pick up Max’s college friend Marc and his girlfriend Lea (my new unofficial twin). As we picked them up in Girona, which is a notably beautiful town in northern Spain, we decided to spend the afternoon wandering the city while Max took a phone interview in the car and almost sweat to death in the heat bc he refused to open the car window for fear of it being too noisy for his interviewers to hear him. Miraculously he did not die of heatstroke, and we all made our way back to Roses for card games and pizza and (obviously) sangria, bc idk if you know this but by law you should drink at least one bottle of sangria per day when in Spain. Per person. Common knowledge. The next day was spent entirely at the beach alternating between sleeping, trying to drown each other, and paddle ball (we made it up to a volley of 90 and I am v v proud of that fact). Max cooked us dinner when we got back so that we could roll out and grab drinks, which is around the time that Lea learned that I can drink almost as much as most grown men and our tolerances were not quite on the same level. We “split” a jar of sangria and by that I mean I drank about ¾ of it bc who needs a liver anyway amirite? The next day we headed to Barcelona bc the forecast in Roses called for rainstorms and we intended on avoiding them. Luckily all of us had already been to Barca at one point or another, so rather than hitting up the usual tourist spots, we hit up the Boqueria market for snacks and wandered the streets stopping to shop or take a moment in the shade whenever we felt so inclined. Now remember, we went to Barca bc we wanted to avoid the thunderstorms, yeah? So picture this: three Germans and an American sprinting through the streets of Barcelona wearing everything ranging from newly-bought Zara scarves wrapped around their upper bodies’ looking like nuns to an empty Zara bag atop their head looking like a crazy person while shouting expletives and trying not to slip on the cobblestone and attempting to make it from the department store we were stuck in to the pizzeria a few blocks away. Why the outfit modifications, you ask? Ah yes, we got caught in the middle of a massive, surprise storm with no rain jackets in a store that for some reason did not sell umbrellas. Wtf is that about? Mind you, none of our “rain gear” was effective as a repellant against the staggeringly powerful rainstorm beating down on us, but we sure as hell tried our best, and I have no doubt that we were quite a sight to see. In the next few days we visited a delicious tapas bar and the Salvador Dali museum in Figueras, played countless rounds of a game nicknamed “Asshole”, ate way too many donuts (they are especially delicious in Spain, I swear), spent our afternoons on the beach attempting what might be considered more of a seizure than a “flip” off the jetty into the ocean, laughed as Marc spoke strictly German – with his strong Trier accent, eh – with Spanish employees who had absolutely no idea what he was saying, played another round of mini golf in which Max and I kicked Marc and Lea’s butts (despite Lea’s previous assurances that she was an amazing mini golfer), gave Max crap for his astronomical lack of patience, and cooked some fabulous meals after lugging all our groceries up the massive hill to our flat. There was no shortage of humor and no lack of stimulating conversation, in fact I think there were a few times where Lea and I had each other laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe. All in all, it was a wonderful trip. Full of ups and downs and beer and sangria and a constant desire to enjoy every moment of being back in one of my favorite places in the whole wide world. So great, in fact, that I’m fairly certain I asked about 8 times in our last 24h if we could just not leave… but I’m back in Germany, so obviously nobody listened to me. Today has been a bit of a blur bc I picked up a very aggressive cold and right now just about everything hurts, but I don’t have time to be sick bc I leave to visit two of my best friends (Becka and Saskia) in England on Tuesday and I’m not trying to bring this plague-like sickness across the pond. So for now, I think it’s about time I rolled over and passed out bc everything hurts and I’m dying. This, my dear readers, is where I leave you for today. Until next time folx, XOXOX Oh! Before I forget, here are today's fun facts: Fun fact: Spanish seagulls sound like dying dinosaurs as they fly through the sky and it is truly horrifying. Funner fact: It is incredibly stressful to be the designated navigator when Spain has more roundabouts than it does people and you’re trying to give directions in your third language. Funnest fact: Max’s car was still there, if you were wondering. Not even a ticket, the lucky bastard. Potentially less fun fact but still important to remember: Over the course of the trip, Max refused to tell me what direction we needed to walk in through any given part of town with his words, and instead resorted exclusively to not so subtly shoving me in the general direction we should be going. Unfortunately, seeing as he's a liiiiittle bit larger than me, my shoving him back was less effective than I would have liked and did not make him consider changing his methods. PS. As usual, today's title, "Gönnungsmodus", is a new German word I learned this past week. It is essentially the closest German slang term to "Treat yourself". I figured this word was pretty relevant to my last 10 days considering we were all in a perpetual state of treating ourselves (and it could be argued that I live my entire life that way). I spent the last 7 years thinking you just couldn't find cottage cheese in Germany. Turns out, I just had the incorrect translation for it and have been unknowingly staring at it like a damn idiot in grocery stores all over this country for years. Shut up, I never even once claimed to be intelligent. Speaking of cottage cheese - quite the segue, I know - you know the "Best by" date printed on the top of any given grocery item to let you know the date by which you should have consumed said item? Well, fun fact, in German it's called the "Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum." Yup, that's one word. 24 letters. Almost the entire English alphabet. One. Word. Can someone PLEASE remind me why I decided that THIS was the language I wanted to learn? Bc at the moment, I have no idea. I mean, the fresh bakery pretzels are almost worth it in and of themselves... but I digress. Now if you'll bear with me on this weird psychological tangent for a moment... the idea of the "Best by" date perforates most aspects of our lives, particularly as women - somehow men are perceived as always having more "time" bc gender bias runs rampant but that's a post for another time. There is an age by which we are supposed to finish our schooling, find a job, find a partner, have kids, and even retire. We all have a "Best by" date hovering over our heads like a proverbial hourglass from the moment we're born. You don't learn to walk by the time you're 1? Too late. Couldn't read yet when you were 7? Pathetic. Didn't graduate college by the time you were 22? How sad for you. No career by the time you're 23? Wow. No life partner by 25? Depressing. You're already 30 with no kids? Enjoy being barren. You're life isn't perfect by 40? Guess you're screwed. No retirement by 55? Sucks for you. These are the numbers by which we live our lives. And in all honesty, they're complete bullshit. There is no rule that dictates when or how your life should happen. There should be no proverbial "Best by" date creeping over your shoulder making you question your every move and doubt yourself at every turn. I am 23 years old. According to the checklist provided by society, I'm doing alright. Graduated college at 21. Big kid job by 22 (which I quit). Traveled to 25 countries by 23. Sounds great on paper. But what if I don't want anything to do with the stuff that's expected of me at 25? Or 30? Or even 40? My life is my own and I have no intention of leading it with the goal of pleasing anyone but myself. The proverbial hourglass and its societal expectations can screw off. I woke up in Germany this morning. Today is going to be a good day. And to be honest, that's all I really care about. Do I have some vague semblance of a plan on how I want my life to turn out? Sure. Am I fully aware that plans almost NEVER come to fruition bc life has a tendency to get in the way? Absolutely. But am I someone who will accept anything less than what I know I deserve? No. So when life gives me lemons.... Fuck that. I want orange juice. So I'll make it myself. Well folks, I've done it. I found my new home. And by home, I don't mean my beautiful apartment in Bonn's city center with my super sweet roommate - I mean the coffee shop I walked by and fell in love with today. I have decided to live here now. It is precious and I will be informing the owners of my residency momentarily. But enough about my newfound love, let's get down to business.
In the last two (short) weeks, I've visited with old friends (namely Joël, my particularly smart-assy Dutch friend), wandered through (and gotten lost in) the streets and alleyways of my new home countless times, found my new favorite cafe (where I sit and write right at this moment), picked out the cheapest grocery stores with the best quality, rediscovered my favorite German beers, cycled the 20 minutes to my university to check out the campus, remembered how seriously Germans take their crosswalks (they will NOT go if that thing is red and they WILL judge you aggressively if you decide the rules of the pedestrian world don't apply to you), bought all that just-moved-in stuff like mirrors and laundry baskets and trash cans and an extra clothes rack bc my closet is small and I have aaaaall the clothes, gotten to know (and drink in excess with) my awesome neighbors, spent some serious alone time while my roommate took a 10 day trip to Estonia, raided the local Ikea, explored nearby Cologne, found a flower stand where they sell gorgeous sunflowers for 1 euro a pop, and started re-figuring out what it means to not be living at home again. And then there's the less exciting stuff like the German bank account I opened today (into which I put all $7 I possess) and the phone plan I hope to purchase in the next few days and my impending registration appointment with the city of Bonn to start the visa application process.. but that's way less fun to talk about bc it sounds adulty and most adulty things are pretty gross. So anyway, I woke up this morning in an incredible mood. Why? Bc that's the only way I know how to wake up when I'm living in one of my favorite places in the world. That's why. Every day is a new adventure, but the adventures are not limited to Germany. Like for example, yesterday I bought myself a $28 round trip ticket to visit two of my best friends living in Northern England. Yup, you read that right. $28. Round trip. How do you say no to that? If you're me... you don't. In short, I love it here. I love the pretzels and the beer, I love the language and the culture, I love their weird screen-less windows that open in super cool ways. I love the grocery stores and the bakeries. I love the gorgeous churches I pass by on my way to the Rhine river for my evening walk. I love the view from my balcony in the morning after I've fought with my coffee machine (it hates me). I love that my new city has a comfortable, small-town vibe, and that I live upstairs from my adorable 14 month old neighbor and her awesome parents. I love that my new roommate has already invited me to everything from her birthday party to her hometown. In fact, I haven't even found anything that I don't like yet. Like I said, I love it here. Now as for the title, let me explain: for those of you who have had the unprecedented joy of having followed this blog since the very beginning when I moved to Spain during my second year in college (in freaking 2015 holy crap that was a billion years ago), you know that I used to title my posts with one of the new words or phrases I'd either learned recently or grown particularly fond of while living abroad. I can't promise I'll be consistent (bc consistency is overrated), but I'm going to do my best to do that again with this year's posts. Today's phrase is in the form of a question: Fühlst du dich wohl? If you type it into a translator you'll get an awkward "Are you feeling well?" translation, but that's not really so much the sentiment behind it. It's the first thing Wiebke (my roommate) asked me when I moved into my new apartment and set my bags down in my bedroom. According to Sassy - bc I like to check my facts - it's more of a mix between "Are you happy?" and "Are you comfortable?" aaaand "Do you feel safe?" if you catch my drift. Realistically, it's a pretty loaded question after having just uprooted your life and traveled across the world for 40h only to find out that the airline from hell lost your bag (don't worry they found it after a week of me having no underwear or socks which was rad) and you're about to start a whole new chapter in your life. But it was also the perfect question. Because I could honestly say, despite the jet lag and the idea of starting all over in a brand new place again and missing my family (and my underwear) and desperately needing a shower... Hell yeah. It was a big question, when you consider the context, but I couldn't have been more sure of my answer. I am back in my happy place (although I also just moved away from my other happy place so how's that for internal conflict). So for now, this is where I leave you folx. I have another few weeks to settle in before visiting a few friends in other parts of Europe and I am going to enjoy them thoroughly before I have to start using my brain again for the first time in like two years trying not to fail out of my masters program. Until next time y'all - XOXOX Well folks, I've done it. I found my new home. And by home, I don't mean my beautiful apartment in Bonn's city center with my super sweet roommate - I mean the coffee shop I walked by and fell in love with today. I have decided to live here now. It is precious and I will be informing the owners of my residency momentarily. But enough about my newfound love, let's get down to business.
In the last two (short) weeks, I've visited with old friends (namely Joël, my particularly smart-assy Dutch friend), wandered through (and gotten lost in) the streets and alleyways of my new home countless times, found my new favorite cafe (where I sit and write right at this moment), picked out the cheapest grocery stores with the best quality, rediscovered my favorite German beers, cycled the 20 minutes to my university to check out the campus, remembered how seriously Germans take their crosswalks (they will NOT go if that thing is red and they WILL judge you aggressively if you decide the rules of the pedestrian world don't apply to you), bought all that just-moved-in stuff like mirrors and laundry baskets and trash cans and an extra clothes rack bc my closet is small and I have aaaaall the clothes, gotten to know (and drink in excess with) my awesome neighbors, spent some serious alone time while my roommate took a 10 day trip to Estonia, raided the local Ikea, explored nearby Cologne, found a flower stand where they sell gorgeous sunflowers for 1 euro a pop, and started re-figuring out what it means to not be living at home again. And then there's the less exciting stuff like the German bank account I opened today (into which I put all $7 I possess) and the phone plan I hope to purchase in the next few days and my impending registration appointment with the city of Bonn to start the visa application process.. but that's way less fun to talk about bc it sounds adulty and most adulty things are pretty gross. So anyway, I woke up this morning in an incredible mood. Why? Bc that's the only way I know how to wake up when I'm living in one of my favorite places in the world. That's why. Every day is a new adventure, but the adventures are not limited to Germany. Like for example, yesterday I bought myself a $28 round trip ticket to visit two of my best friends living in Northern England. Yup, you read that right. $28. Round trip. How do you say no to that? If you're me... you don't. In short, I love it here. I love the pretzels and the beer, I love the language and the culture, I love their weird screen-less windows that open in super cool ways. I love the grocery stores and the bakeries. I love the gorgeous churches I pass by on my way to the Rhine river for my evening walk. I love the view from my balcony in the morning after I've fought with my coffee machine (it hates me). I love my new city's small-town feel and my adorable 14 month old neighbor and her awesome parents. In fact, I have yet to find anything I don't love. Like I said, I love it here. Now as for the title, let me explain: for those of you who have had the unprecedented joy of having followed this blog since the very beginning when I moved to Spain during my second year in college (in freaking 2015 holy crap that was a billion years ago), you know that I used to title my posts with one of the new words or phrases I'd either learned recently or grown particularly fond of while living abroad. I can't promise I'll be consistent (bc consistency is overrated), but I'm going to do my best to do that again with this year's posts. Today's phrase is in the form of a question: Fühlst du dich wohl? If you type it into a translator you'll get an awkward "Are you feeling well?" translation, but that's not really so much the sentiment behind it. It's the first thing Wiebke (my roommate) asked me when I moved into my new apartment and set my bags down in my bedroom. According to Sassy - bc I like to check my facts - it's more of a mix between "Are you happy?" and "Are you comfortable?" aaaand "Do you feel safe?" if you catch my drift. Realistically, it's a pretty loaded question after having just uprooted your life and traveled across the world for 40h only to find out that the airline from hell lost your bag (don't worry they found it after a week of me having no underwear or socks which was rad) and you're about to start a whole new chapter in your life. But it was also the perfect question. Because I could honestly say, despite the jet lag and the idea of starting all over in a brand new place again and missing my family (and my underwear) and desperately needing a shower... Hell yeah. It was a big question, when you consider the context, but I couldn't have been more sure of my answer. I am back in my happy place (although I also just moved away from my other happy place so how's that for internal conflict). So for now, this is where I leave you folx. I have another few weeks to settle in before visiting a few friends in other parts of Europe and I am going to enjoy them thoroughly before I have to start using my brain again for the first time in like two years trying not to fail out of my masters program. Until next time y'all - XOXOX I would like to preface this post by supplying you with the knowledge that I am tired. So bear with me here, folks.
Merriam Webster defines a dichotomy as: a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities; something with seemingly contradictory qualities. Why am I starting this post with a vocabulary lesson? Because if you understand the essence of a dichotomy, then you understand me. At any given time, I am fighting an internal battle between Heimweh (homesickness) and Fernweh (ache for travel). Whiiiich is why I have both of those words tattooed to my body. And it’s pretty much the worst. Essentially, I have an unhealthy, burning desire to be wherever I’m not. I can’t stand to be away from my family for too long any more than I can bear to be in one place and not traveling for extended periods of time before I feel like I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind if I don’t hop on a plane. So what do I do? I go to college on the other side of the country but move home for a year after graduation bc I hate missing out on watching my sisters grow up. I travel for seven months around the world but cut my trip short bc if I don’t get at least a few months with my favorite humans on planet earth before leaving again, I’ll go crazy. It’s about balance. And I don’t know that I’ve mastered it yet, but I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got. I like to think I’m doing alright. I got my family-time fix for the time being and while it is never enough time, at least I had another perfect summer with my people. I am perpetually in a state of “Can’t wait to go, but never want to leave.” Not great. But right at this moment, I’m in a state of boredom. Airports are great bc it’s 6pm in Iceland and I’m 7h into a 19h layover about to take a nap on a cafeteria bench and nobody gives a damn. But I, Alexandra Janecek, am officially a resident of the Keflavik International Airport. I live here now. I am becoming one with Reykjavik’s tiny, itty bitty, little, small airport. I’ve walked the length of my terminal countless times (all 3 minutes of it), refilled my reusable water bottles as a preventative measure (my budget airline isn’t into giving free food or water), eaten an obscene number of protein bars, called friends, and started a blog post in just the first 7 hours! Imagine what I’ll do with the next 12! Now for those of you asking yourselves, ‘Why doesn’t she just go into the city, what an idiot….’ Well, you’re not wrong on the idiot front, but my reasoning for not going into Reykjavik proper is this: I have 19h here, about 9 of which are during the average course of a day, and a round trip bus into the city would cost me approximately $60. Plus food (which is expensive as hell here in Iceland), plus whatever dumb things I find in the city to spend money on. SO, here I am in the airport coming in hot on hour 8 in this godforsaken place bc $60 is almost two weeks of groceries and ya girl is real poor. Oh, also fun fact I have been to Iceland before so pls don’t yell at me for missing the joys of this beautiful country bc I was here for several days like 5 years ago and loved every minute of it and would love to go back for a period longer than like 8h but until that time SHUT UP. Now for those of you who are somehow as of yet unaware…. I’m moving to Germany. One day, I would like to say that I move(d) to Germany, but that would imply that I survived this 40h journey from hell. I say hell like there aren’t an abundance of outlets and free WiFi and beautiful Icelandic people to look at. But I digress. This time tomorrow I should be in my new apartment getting to know my roommate and fighting the urge to pass out due to jetlag. She’ll leave for Estonia the following day, which means I’ll go from living with four other people and two dogs… to being completely and utterly alone for two weeks. YAY. Honestly I’m not too worried about it considering the myriad of things I need to get done between now and when my masters starts. Things like finding a phone plan and opening a bank account and applying for a residence permit are at the top of the list, followed by (and probably procrastinated while) doing things like touring my new city, visiting neighboring Cologne twenty minutes to the North, and doing some serious grocery shopping. You know when you first move into a new place and you have to buy all the basics like spices and toiletries (bc you can’t bring those with you when you move across the world) and things like that? So, the cost of those first few shopping trips is like physically painful? Yeah, I’m pumped. At least my shopping struggles are lessened now that I recently found out that I DON’T HAVE CELIAC. Apparently, I tested as a false positive and when I was re-tested last week, they confirmed that I do not in fact have a gluten allergy. So, like, that’s great bc I’m moving to the land of beer and bread, but also…. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? I TRAVELED FOR SEVEN MONTHS AVOIDING GLUTEN AT ALL COSTS AND MISSING OUT ON SO MANY YUMMY FOODS JUST SO YOU COULD COME BACK AND TELL ME I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO SUFFER LIKE THAT? FORREAL???????? It’s fine. Like, I’m fine. Honestly this is some of the best news I’ve gotten in ages and I am HERE FOR IT but like damn science why you gotta play me like that? My present anger at the modern world of medicine aside, I’m doing pretty damn well. There is a certain calm that settles over me when I embark on a new adventure. After all the stress leading up to leaving and the packing and the goodbye’s and the crying and the worrying, stepping onto that plane is like wiping the slate clean. I feel centered. I’m back in my element and I know that life is going to happen how it’s supposed to and all I can do is enjoy the ride. I have wanted this ever since I started learning German, and I can’t even process yet the fact that it’s actually happening. Dreams do come true, kids! Once again, there is no return ticket. There is, however, more of a plan than I usually have – at least for the next year while I study to earn my next degree. But after that, who knows? Cross your fingers that I get some badass diplomacy job bc I can use all the help I can get… Regardless, I couldn’t be more excited. I don’t think it will really hit me until I actually walk into my apartment, at which point I will probably faint as a combined result of exhaustion, emotions, and carrying my massive duffel bags through the 108*C heat of Germany in the summer. Joy. For now, however, I think this is where I leave you – I found myself a fabulously uncomfortable cafeteria bench for my impending nap (this one even has cushions – lucky me!) and I am getting more and more tired by the minute. So hopefully the next time I write to you will be from my balcony while I drink my morning coffee and make you hate me slowly as I tell you about how much I love my new life in Germany. Until next time folx, XOXOX PS. WOW Air is pretty much the worst, but if you’re trying to get to Europe on the cheap… it may be the answer for ya. Just be sure to bring reusable water bottles. And food. Bc they will not feed or water you. Bc they hate you. PPS. Already planning out trips for both my sisters and my parents and Ky to come visit me so I’ll keep you updated on that front. I miss my humans. And my dog. Actually mostly the dog. Hello again, old friends. I know it's been awhile, and that is entirely my fault. In the last three months, I've written a grand total of ONE (1) post, which is nothing short of pathetic for a girl who calls herself a travel blogger. I've even been traveling! I just suck. I hope you can forgive me, especially considering my content should increase exponentially in the next few weeks as I make the move from California to Germany (again).
For those of you who don't already know, I have accepted a place in the 2019 Masters cohort for European Studies - Governance and Regulation at the University of Bonn. It makes me sound much smarter than I am, I swear. In fact, I am 100% positive that I'm going to be painfully out of my league the moment I step into my first day of classes. Whatever, fake it till you make it, right? The program begins October 8th, but I fly out August 7th to settle into my apartment, visit some of my favorite people, and get my life together a little bit before I am inevitably inundated with exams and papers and work and whatever else I can fit in between. While I'm a little nervous to jump back into scholastic life (considering it will have been two and a half years since I graduated with my bachelors by the time this Masters starts), I couldn't be more excited. Not only do I get to receive my Masters in something I'm passionate about, I get to do it in one of my favorite countries in the world. Mind you, I've wanted to move to Germany since I started learning German seven years ago. So this is like a pipe-dream-come-true sort of situation for me and I spend all my time bouncing between disbelief that it's actually happening, indescribable excitement for my future in Europe, and a burning desire not to leave because so many of my favorite people are on this side of the world and I am the biggest idiot for leaving them again. If you can recall, I found out that I had been accepted to this program when I landed in the Philippines and spent the next hour crying on the phone with my friends and family till I realized it was 3AM and I didn't have a hostel booked for the night. I am a walking contradiction in that somehow I be a US citizen applying for a masters in Germany from the WiFi-less tropical wonderland that is Southeast Asia, but I can't book a bed to sleep in more than a day in advance. Trust me, I don't get it either. So, listen. This has been one of the best summers of my adult life, if not the best. I have spent all my time with either mine or Ky's family (my second family), and what time I haven't spent with them has been with my family in Texas. There hasn't been a second of peace or a single pause or dull moment. In fact, let me give you a (very) quick recap of the events since my return from Southeast Asia just to give you an idea of what a packed summer it's been.. Since coming home I've gone snowboarding, watched my best friend graduate college, camped on the beach (family tradition), spent two weeks with my grandparents in Texas, hit up the Del Mar Fair, went on countless coffee dates with my sisters, scuba dived with my mama, gone horseback riding, had reunions with some of my oldest friends (Becerzzz, Andy, Hailey and Maria, Steph), attended almost a dozen concerts, rock climbed with no harness, had violent (and theraputic) family water balloon fights, watched the 4th of July fireworks with both of my families (Bearce and Janecek), toured colleges all over NorCal for my baby sister, hiked Big Sur (kind of), went to my second Gay Pride Parade (this time in San Diego rather than Amsterdam), spent lots of time in the gym with mom, went whale watching and parasailing, played Shotzee (like Yahtzee but with shots so obviously way better), and fell more in love with my life than I ever have. There were no lulls, no times when we said no when we could have said yes, no shortage of laughs, and certainly no lack of love. It has been the fastest three months of my life but I can't think of a single thing that I would change about this summer... except maybe to extend it. As for what's to come... where do I even start? On August 7th, I fly from LAX to Reykjavik, Iceland to enjoy a lovely 19h layover - over the course of which I will most certainly go back to the Blue Lagoon bc I haven't been to Iceland since I was like 17 - before a second flight to Dusseldorf, Germany. From there, I'll lug my massive duffel bags from hell to the train that will take me to my new town - Bonn - where my new roommate, Wiebke, has offered to pick me up and bring me to our apartment. Side note: Wiebke is adorable. We haven't even met yet and she's already invited me to her birthday celebration with her friends, to a concert, and to her parents house for the weekend in Hanover. Like, what? There are people that are that sweet and welcoming??? I found her (and my fab new apartment) online when she posted an ad looking for a roommate for the year while her long-term boyfriend travels the world. The situation is kind of perfect in terms of the fact that we both love to travel and read and have no shortage of things to talk about. Amazingly enough, her boyfriend reads a ton and plays piano just like me, and she offered to keep the books and the piano in my room rather than putting them in storage (my high school piano teacher will be very happy to hear about this). I literally could not be more excited. I've chosen a one-year intensive program, so essentially I'm going to spend the next year getting my ass handed to me, but I sure do love a challenge. My hope is to get a part-time graduate position with an NGO or the UN so that I can... you know... have money to buy food... (thinking about setting up a GoFundMe and attaching the link to my blog idk man I'm desperate) and aside from that I think my time will be divided between the gym around the corner from my new place, the closest bar (sorry grandma) and quick trips to Manchester where Sassy and Becka are BOTH living - how incredibly convenient amirite?? My plan is to apply for a work visa upon completion of my studies and, according to my mother, "never come back." But I do want to come back!! ....... to visit. Still working on getting the Bearce and Janecek families to uproot their lives and move to Germany so that we don't have to be so damn far apart. I mean them coming to me makes waaay more sense than me staying in the States, right? I'll keep you posted on that front. As of now I'm not getting a lot of traction with my argument. In fact, Cindy and Steve offered to get me a FREAKIN' HUSKY PUPPY if I stayed in SoCal. SeRiOuSLy?? A HuSKy PUPPY?!?!? Cruel and unusual punishment, man. I freakin' love huskies. We have a lot in common seeing as how they shed their hair almost as much as I do, and we're both cute as hell. Anyway I already bought my ticket to Germany (what a surprise right I'm still two weeks out and I already have a ticket whaaaaat) or else I think I may have taken them up on their offer. But I digress. Between now and when my Masters actually starts, I have to get a residence permit/visa, open a bank account, pick a new phone plan, register for school, do a whole bunch of summer reading (which probably won't happen, not gonna lie to ya), and get my brain back into school mode. Honestly it's been so long since I was in anything other than vacation mode I'm really not sure I'm capable of productivity anymore seeing as how I quit my job almost a full year ago and haven't done anything but travel ever since... I know, you all hate me and I am the worst, I got it, shut up. I do want to say, though, to the friends I did not get to see and visit with or maybe just didn't see enough in my short time back in the States: please know that I love you, and I miss you, and I promise I'll see you next time. This was an absolute whirlwind of a summer but no matter how far away I may be, if you need me, I'm always just a Whatsapp call or text away. **Btw if you haven't downloaded Whatsapp yet that'll be the best way to message me aside from Facebook. But as for right now, I am on a plane (SHOCKER) back to Texas to visit with my grandparents one more time before heading to Europe. I'm traveling with my mom and sisters this time and I'm not gonna lie it's freakin' strange traveling with other people considering I'm almost always alone (aside from those three straight months with Ky) and even more strange that I'll still have phone service when I land bc I stayed in the same country for once. In the meantime, I'd love to know what you want to hear about in the coming year - do you want to know about the structure of my program? The differences in the daily life of Germans vs Americans? The best kinds of German beers (I can't drink 'em any more but I sure as hell used to)? The best time to COME VISIT ME BECAUSE YOU MISS ME? Y'all tell me. I know I still haven't written my "Traveling on a Budget" how-to, and I promise I'll get to it ASAP, but to be completely honest with you I can't see it happening before I leave bc I plan to spend every waking moment with my favorite humans on the planet before I have to leave them all again. I know I say "have to" as if this wasn't a choice, but I can't even begin to articulate to you the duality of my life in that half of my heart is with my people and the other half of my heart is all over the world. It sucks. I suck. This is dumb. But it's going to be one hell of a year, and I can't wait to take you all along for the ride. For now I think I need a nap if I'm going to be expected to be a contributing member to the team so th-th-th-that's all folx. Until next time, XOXOX So listen, I know this is a travel blog and I spend 99.9% of my time attempting to entertain you by making light of the myriad of misadventures that befall me over the course of my travels, but today is a different kind of post. In fact, today I'm making a complete 180*.
If you're thinking about taking a long trip, or a short trip, or a weekend trip or a day trip or a quit-your-job-and-travel-the-world-trip (who even does that???), please let me give you some advice: just don't. Unpack your bag, don't board the flight or get in the car, unpin all those Pinterest pages on where to go and what to eat, and crawl back into your bed to watch Netflix and look at Instagram travel pages while incessantly muttering "I gotta visit that place someday". Don't do this to yourself, people. At this point, you may be a little confused seeing as how if you've ever met me, you know that half of my conversations revolve around the places I've been and, more often, the places I want to go. But I messed up, ya'll. I messed up big time. Let me explain. Travel will ruin your life. Don't laugh, I'm serious. If you (reader) have tattoos, do you have just one? Or did the half of you that wanted another one win out against the logical side of that said you don't need to spend the money? Have you (you again, reader) ever in your entire life even one time just eaten ONE chip? ONE pistachio? If the answer is yes, you're a literal psychopath - please stop reading my post, you're making me uncomfortable. If you're a normal human, the answer is no. Travel is the same way, boys and girls. Except if you ask me, it's worse. When you travel, especially somewhere you've never been before, the whole game changes. Nothing incites a greater sense of childlike wonder than being completely and utterly ignorant of the world around you. You can't read the signs or understand the systems and cultural norms or cross the street without almost dying or communicate on even the most rudimentary level. You can't walk into a grocery store with any more confidence than you had walking into the middle school cafeteria on the first day of classes. You don't know where to go or what to do or what the rules are or if you're about to do irreparable damage to your self esteem by way of accidental cross-cultural embarrassment. You know nothing. Do you know how addicting that feeling is? And moreover, the feeling you get when you actually start to figure it out? When you start to understand the infrastructure and can get from Point A to Point B without asking seven friendly locals and a stray dog for directions, and the menu items start looking familiar, and you know the words for "thank you" and "beer" and you really start to feel like you could belong there, even just for a little while? Right at that moment, it's game over. You lose. You're, for lack of a better phrase, totally screwed. You've fallen deeply and immutably in love with a culture and way of life entirely foreign to your own and you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA when you'll be able to come back. And the only person you can blame is yourself, bc your dumb*ss didn't listen to my advice at the beginning of this post and decided to get on that plane or get in that car or hop on that bus and take your stupid trip. Now you're an addict. And let me tell ya sweetheart, withdrawals are a bitch. It took me a long time to be able to put what it feels like to go through travel withdrawal into words. I love words, but sometimes they fail me - or maybe I fail them - in that I am incapable of digging deep enough into the recesses of my brain to find the best way to articulate my feelings, in any of my three languages. Do you know how hard it is to translate a feeling into words? So hard. But I think I figured it out. Sometimes, I have this feeling like if I can't be somewhere, I'm going to burst into a million pieces. I could be scrolling through the camera reel on my phone or the memory reel in my head or even talking to someone about their adventures in a place I've never been. And it hits me. That inevitable, unstoppable, overwhelming feeling that my life depends on being in that place right at this moment bc if I can't get there right this second I'm going to keel over and die. It's like someone is filling up a balloon dangerously close to popping. It's me. I am the balloon in this scenario. I don't wanna pop, guys. And it is by no means a new feeling. This wave of emotions has hit me more times than I'd like to admit when I'm away from Germany or Spain or home for too long. It hits me when I stay in one place too long or haven't left the country in awhile or when things in my life are tough and I wish I could be somewhere nobody knows me and I could lose myself in the joyous occasion that is experiencing a new place or being back in an old one. Tonight it hit me when I was looking through old pictures of my time in Southeast Asia. More like it punched me in the face, but whatever. And what's ridiculous is I haven't even been home a full month yet. What's even more ridiculous is the fact that I move to Germany in less than two months. I have no reason to feel this feeling right now, but the fact that I am not sitting on the side of the road eating street food and petting a stray dog on the streets of Hanoi is really frustrating me right now. That is not to say that I'm not happy to be home. I am so happy to be home. Like, over the moon happy. I get to spend every day for three months with all my favorite people in the entire world, whether it be with family in California or family (currently) in Texas. It's the best. In fact, they're going to have to force me onto the damn plane to Germany bc despite how excited I am to go, I am already dreading leaving. But that feeling that I have everywhere to be and not even a fraction of the time I need to get there persists. It's always there, in the back of my head, pushing me towards my next adventure. This feeling is the reason why I laugh quietly to myself when people say it's great that I'm traveling while I'm young to "get it out of my system" as if this isn't how I plan on spending the rest of my life. So with all of this in mind, my advice to you is this: just don't go. Unless, of course, you want the experience of a lifetime and a new perspective on who you are and your place in the world and a newfound appreciation for what you have and a really cool looking Instagram feed and a love for new cultures and friends all over the world and more happiness than you can even comprehend and a very, very empty bank account (less desirable but an unavoidable side effect). If that's what you're looking for, then by all means catch that flight or get in that car or hop on that bus. Bc maybe you're like me, and you'll think that it's so much more than worth it. Go. Fall in completely and irrevocably in love with the world. It will be a love that grows with every trip and visit and move and new experience. I can't tell you that it will be a love you will ever fall out of, but I can promise you that it's the kind of love you want to be in. So please, when you ruin your life by traveling the world... don't say I didn't warn you. |
About the AuthorMouth like a sailor, paper cut survivor, avid arguer, harsh critic of people who put clothes on their pets, easily distracte USA, Mexico, Iceland, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Morocco, Malta, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Hungary, England, Poland, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Scotland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Croatia, Greece, Vatican City, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guatemala, Kenya, Lithuania, Sri Lanka, Indonesia
Senegal
Canada
|