Ouch!

I got stung by a bee today! While out jogging with Elena today one got me right on my side on my rib cage. it hurts! boo hoo! Its somewhat ironic, just yesturday a friend here was telling me that he was out the other day with friends and two of them got stung within a matter of hours and that he had read a newspaper article that there is a huge overpopulation of bees in Münster this year and as a result they are extra aggressive. But I was like, Nah... there aren't so many, they haven't bothered me! So I guess I got what was comming to me for doubting the ferocity of those little guys. there are really a lot, probably ten or so come in and out of my room each day, I just have been ignoring them or gently shooing them out the window. Anyway, I think I'll survive, it didn't even leave the stinger in there and it doesn't seem too swollen yet, it just hurts! And I didn't have any ice so I had to sit around with a frozen piece of fish on my side for a while. hopefully I don't smell too bad....

Other than bee stings things in Münster are generally comming to a close. I hate all this saying goodbye to people, especially the people that I won't ever see again and won't keep in touch with. Its just so awkward to be like... well, have a safe trip home... and yeah, have a nice life. Some people I will keep in touch with I hope. Elena of course since she'll be at William and Mary and we already have plans to go to VA beach together. And other people I will e-mail with and hopefully encounter in furtur travels, its always good to know people all over the world! Tonight is our last floor party, most people leave this weekend so it will be pretty quiet and empty next week. But thats good for writing papers, plus, more refridgerator space for me! Later today Elena and I are going on a bike ride and over to dinner with Herr Kushneros, the head of the German Americn society. He's a somewhat creepy old man... but I think we'll get through it. Tomorrow I MUST begin the actual writing phase of my paper. The researching and thinking through prosses cannot go on any longer, its time to get it over with so that I have time to pack and go to Dusseldorf to next weekend with Elena before she flys out of the airport there. Its all so short and yet so long. Aah!

Ok... outlining time. ciao.

Watch out for bees!!!!!

S-M-R-T, I mean... S-M-A-R-T

I'm so wound up right now!  Yesturday I finished everything I needed to do to get my participation credit in one of my seminars... and then the last session was cancelled!  I e-mailed it all to her so it doesn't matter anyway, and it was certainly nice to have the afternoon off.  The weather is great this week!  Maybe I can even sit in the sun a bit so that my pasty white skin doesn't burn and die when I get to spain.  Anyway... I also have gotten my two Scheins for my lecture classes!  woo!  (A schein in the little piece of paper they give you to get credit for the class).  And I will probably be able to get Scheins for two of my seminars before I leave.  So all that's left to be done is writing my Kafka paper, which I will try to finish here but might end up e-mailing her from the US so I won't be getting that Schein for a little bit. 

OH man, I went and talked to the prof yesturday about my paper topic and there were about 15 people waiting outside her door so she brought in all three from the Kafka class at once and the two other girls were SO DUMB!  seriously, they were also going to ask about their paper topic but obviously hadn't thought about it too much.  The first girl's ingenious idea was... umm, something about the Metaphorphesis... maybe, like, if it's really a metamorphosis, because, like, he's kinda like a bug before hand, and, yeah....    So clearly the professor shot that down in two seconds, and then the other girl had talked to her once already and had proposed that SAME IDEA the last time and been shot down, so now she had some vague idea that was exactly something that we did in class, also about The Metamorphosis.  Seriously, I know they all had to read that in high school... would it kill them to maybe read something else Kafka wrote?  Or think about a topic for more than five minutes?  They have a whole freaking two months to write this paper.  Of course, at least one of the girls told me she is going to Italy with her boyfriend next week and not planning on doing anythingn till she gets back.  Good thing the german school system provides to much time for independant research.  Needless to say, when I proposed my well thought out and researched topic that has nothing to do with the Metamorphosis she was like, That sounds great!  even though I was nervous to talk to her in german and I'm sure wasn't very articulate.  I realize now how extreamly low her standards are... she seems to think that because my german isn't great that I can't think or something.  So I'm pretty sure that even if my grammar is not perfect that I can still impress her will a well thought out and interesting paper.  I CAN DO IT!!!

I have to give a presentation in two hours!! eek!  good thing I'm so pumped up and confident.  Its not a really big deal, its a group presentation about the reading for today, and today is the last class so I'm pretty sure no one is going to pay much attention.  But I know I'm going to horribly mispronounce things and sound dumb.  But thats ok.... they're all dumb too.  :-P  And after this class... no more classes!  YAY!  it feels weird to be finishing a semester right now... its hard to enjoy it when there is so much to think about.. getting back to the US and then getting to UR and everything.  Plus school starts again for me in, what, like three weeks or something.  Oh well, I'm still excited to go home, its just a lot to deal with all at once, but you know what?  I CAN DO IT!!!!

I love the Java Jive and it loves me....

Hello beautiful people.  I don't atually have much to write about today but I had to take a break from my studies so here I am!  Today I found a great little coffe shop in Münster.  I was in search of somewhere other that my room to study in and no University buildings are open on Sundays so I decided to check out this place that Heike told me about and it was indeed quite nice.  I got lots of work done and sat there for a long long time.  I should possibly not go there too often as I ended up drinking TWO lattes and eating a cookie.... but it was yummy!  and they actually played good music!  Which can be tough to find here in germany.  They even played a Guster song, and Jack Johnson AND Jason Mraz, three of my favorites that are rarely heard in germany.  Friday night I went to Grand Cafe with Elena for a sort of goodbye gathering for some of the other internationals, mostly the Brits.  I was reminded once again of the really really horrible music they play in clubs here.  The Jackson Five, Grease, Tom Jones, the Jitterbug... the list goes on.  Anyway, it was fun enough though I don't regret not having gone there more this semester even though the British students went every weekend.  We had much more fun last night having a little BBQ by the lake with Heike and Silke, and we were right by a playground so we got to play and take cute pictures together :)  I can't believe they're both leaving next weekend!  Then Elena leaves the weekend after that and I leave for Spain.  Most everyone on my hall is leaving this weekend too, I feel bad for the one German girl, she's so sweet and seemed so sad that everyone is going and won't be back next year!  Sigh, what a short semester it has been.  But there's still a lot to do in the next two weeks and I gotta go get crackin' on my paper! 

Aufwiedersehen!

Lust auf Urlaub?

I'm going to Spain!  Costa del Sol!   specifically the city of Malaga on the southern coast of spain.  I read up about it a little, sounds nice, hot and it has a beach :)  and I already found a great and super friendly youth hostel that said they can squeeze me in for a few nights for just around €20 a night!  woo hoo! 

I also finished one of my smaller assignments today!  woo hoo again!  that just leaves one more short paper and then the big Kafka one, and a whole two weeks to get it done and pack my room.  no sweat.  I'll save the sweating for the beach ;)

Adios!

Tropical day dreaming

Ok, so, tell me if I'm crazy but I think I might do something a little spontaneous... I got an e-mail today from Germanwings airline about a promotion they are having this weekend.  You can book a flight for some time in august to a suprise destination and the price is guarenteed to be between €40-€80 round trip.  The booking has to be made between after 8 tonight and before midnight on Monday.  You can choose either a suprise beach or a suprise city.  The possible suprise beach destinations flying out from Köln are: Thessaloniki, Barcelona, Lissabon, Nizza, Athen, Palma, Ibiza, Split, Faro oder Malaga.  As you know I have a free week or so before my flight home when no one will be left in Münster... so.... I think I might do this!  Am I crazy or is this the greatest idea ever?  because just the thought of going to any one of those very sunny warm and beachy destinations is making me feel giddy right now!  Just to have three or four days all by myself on warm sunny beach in Greece, Spain, Italy... wherever.... eeeeeeeeee! 

I swear that I'm getting work done, really I am.  I have it all planned out so that the paper and other things will be finished and my room will be packed in time to leave for an exotic local... I just read about that promotion and for a moment there all thoughts of anything german flew right out of my head and were replaced by palm trees, fruity drinks, and a gorgeos tan!  I know that I was thinking about going to sothern germany, seeing some castles, lederhosen, mountains, all that good stuff... but..........but........Ibiza!  Athens!  Nice!  For less than €80 round trip?! I think I'm going to have to go to a computer tonight and buy a ticket, if I do I would find out next week sometime where it's to.

Ok, I'm really going to finish editing this paper before class now! 

This year summer was a Monday

Yep, I think yesturday was it, one day of nice weather, I even laid out in the sun for a bit.  And today.... rain, cold, miserable, wet, cloudy.   Sigh.  At least it will still be warm when I get to Virginia, and you better believe that I will be driving to Virginia beach at my earliest convienience, and it won't just be to see Eric... I need sun!   I need to get out of here!  Just four more weeks... less than that even, next week is the last week of classes and then I can hopefully write my big paper in the following week and possibly hop a train somewhere fun for a week before I fly back on the 14th.  For anyone interested I will be arriving in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul international airport on Saturday August 14th at 5:55pm.  Everyone is invited to come welcome me home :)  It may be your only chance to see me in MN as I have to be in Richmond by the 21st to check in to my apartment and driving there is going to take a bit and I'll probably stop over in Chicago and/or Cincinnati on the way.  
 
Can you tell that I'm having trouble concentrating on my present tasks?  Yeah.... it'll all get done... somehow.  I just have to write a couple short things- in german... give a presentation- in german- in front of the entire class.  No sweat.  Right.   Maybe I'll just start looking into where I could go from the 7th to the 14th.... I hear there are beaches in Hamburg....

I was just about to write about what a nice hot sunny summery day it is today when I head a crash of thunder and looked out the window to see a full out downpour!  Ahh... Münster...   Anywho.  Not terribly much exciting news to report I've felt entirely sleepy and lazy since getting back, so now I'm here in the computer lab where I can supposedly get some work done.  Yes.  I feel like whining about how I don't want to do school work but I'm sure you all don't want to hear it and will remind me that I've spent the last several months tripping around Europe with hardly a care in the world and probably shouldn't whine about having to write a few papers.  I can hardly believe that I only have two weeks of classes left and then fly home two weeks after that.  I can't wait to be home!  and even to be back and richmond and moving into a new apartment, yay!  I got an e-mail from the Husing office at UR today.  New this year, they are going to provide a cleaning service for apartment bathrooms once a week!  While I think its somewhat silly that we aren't resposible enough to keep them clean ourselves... I'm certainly not complaining.  Although it is a shame a won't be in Marsh Hall anymore because accordign to the list of renovations they have aparently "Provided exterior benches for outdoor enjoyment".  Gotta love those administrators, always looking out for the general joy of the student body! 
 
Ok, I'm going to attempt to get something done now so that I can go to the English theater departments production of "Harvey" tonight.  Can't wait to see germans acting in English!

And, as I am and honest Puck...

Ah... a weekend in London with my parents... what to say first! I suppose I should start with Münster where my parents arrived on Thursday night. It was so nice to see them again! even though I often go all of spring semester without seeing my family, I always miss them. Friday I got to show them around my little town and the little life I've made here, I feel so grown up! We had coffe at Frau Hensels with Elena and she took us on an Auto tour (should have been with bikes, but it was rainging... of course) to a little town nearby with a small chapel with a statue of the Piete that is a ´pilgrimage spot for Catholics. Then we all went out to dinner together. Saturday I drove with my parents to Köln where we saw the cathedral and went to the chocolate museum... which that much chocolate its bound to be a good trip, and we certainly stocked up in the gift shop. Then we flew to Gatwick airport in London where I managed to navigate us by train and underground to out hotel despite my mothers qualms about public transportation. London is very very BIG. And more spread out as far as sites go than the other cities I've been in. We stayed in a really fancy hotel where my mom was part of a Project Management conference. At first they put us in this super fancy sweet... and then realized that the girl at the desk has misread our name, but we still got to stay in it for one night and we definitely ate the entire complementary fruit basket and bottle of wine :)

Our first day in london we headed first to the National Gallery where we saw some of the big name older art work, Michealangelo, DeVinci, Rembrandt, Renior, Van Gohg, etc. We didn't even make it around the whole place, its quite big. Then we saw Buckingham Palace... Fancy Stuff! we just saw it from outside and took pictures of the guards and stuff. We walked through a bit of Hyde park too and then went to the London Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Which might not exactly be traditional english fare but they gave me a huge diet coke with ice and free refills, just like home! so I was pretty happy. and I got a shirt :) Then we walked a bit more and saw Big Ben and parliment and Westminster Abby and we crossed the river and went on this big cool 'London Eye' observation wheel. It looked like a big ferris wheel but each car is a whole room for like ten people and it goes super high and moves really slow so you get a great view of the city. It was nifty.

On Monday Mom went to some of her conference stuff in the morning so it was Dad and my job to go to the half price theater tickets counter in the morning. Which we did and got tickets to a play called Oleanna, which I mostly wanted to see because it was with Julia Styles! But more about that later. First, we went to the Orangery at Kensington palace for lunch and tea where we had fancy food and fancier desserts. Then we walked to the ever fancy Harrods department store. I must say, its not a terribly pleasant place to shop. It's HUGE and PACKED with tourists. The food halls were pretty cool and they haves tons of overpriced designer clothes and what not. My mom and I did manage to find some jewelry for ourselves though :) Then we headed over to China Town near the theater where we had a big huge Chinese meal before the play. Dad and I had decided in the morning to go to a place with ducks hanging in the window, which we did and the duck was indeed tasty. Then... the play. It was quite short and just had two actors, Julia Styles and.... I forget the guys name but he was in Possesion with Gwenyth Paltrow and was the love interest motercycle guy in Erin Brockovitch, and I'm sure that Alexis can tell you who it is ;) It was set on a college campus, in a preffessor's office. The girl goes in to ask him to help her pass his class and ends up filing a complaint against him for being sexist and eliteist. He askes her back twice more and each time she has more grounds for complaint. Its supposed to say something about political correctess on campus. It did make you think, she seemed to be way exaggerating, and yet she was somehow still right, it just didn't feel logical. Anyway, I liked it, I'm not sure that my parents were impressed, it certainly was the big London Musical type piece.

Tuesday... Dad and I slept late while mom was busy being the important person that she is and then we all walked to 'Ye Old Cheshire Cheese' for an English pub lunch. Apparently it was one of Dicken's favorite pubs. Then we went to the Tower of London where we took a fun tour with one of the 'Beefeaters' as the guards are called and leanded about all the beheadings and murders and what not. And we saw the crown jewels and lots and lots of weapons. From there we walked to the Tate Modern Gallery to take in some modern art. My mother was unipressed, but Dad seemed interested and I always enjoy looking at a bit of the bazaar and questionable things called art. True, a plain blue canvas doesn't exacly move me, but niether do fifty painting of the same bible scene, and there was some good and interesting stuff in the Tate gallery too. Pollock, Rothko, Picasso, Warhol, Cezane, etc. At any rate, the moderness of the art gallery was certainly made up for by the play we saw that evening... A Midsumer Nights Dream (hence the blog title). We saw it in an outdoor theater in Regency park which was really cool. It was a really nice venue and its the perfect play to stage outside in a forest setting, it was very very well done.

So, that was the London trip. That with lots of walking and figuring out the Underground and such in between. London felt more to me like the US than the rest of Europe, big and bustling and lots of people workign and living there, not just tourists. And of course the english speaking helps, also there is still always the feeling that they will know you are forigne as soon as you open your mouth. It was a very fun trip and even nicer to do it with my parents to to have them come over here and share some European adventures with me. A bit of me wished I could fly back with them to the US instead of back here... but I think that was mostly the bit of me that doesn't want to write papers! I know I have things to finish up here and there's more fun to be had. No more big trips planned unless I make it to Munich and the town my grandma grew up in. We'll see, right now I have to try to get into academic gear again and delve into this Kafka paper like never before... woo hoo!

yeah. So.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Oh say can you seeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

Hello beautiful people. I am once again feeling baffled by the nonsensical german university system. I managed to renew my computer pasword to use University computers, but there is some other card I need to be able to use these during night and weekend hours, but everyone I'm supposed to go to seems to have a four hour lunch break around now... bah. Ah well, gives me a bit of time to blog. I had a very enjoyable weekend. Saturday Herr Pushnover, the head of the German American Society, along with a couple other members took some of us American students to a musical in a little town near by. We saw 'Kiss me Kate', auf Duetsche, natürlich. It was in an outdoor theater so luckily the rain stopped just before it started and all was well, just a bit chilly. The musical was actually suprisingly good. I didn't think I would enjoy it as much in german but I didn't have trouble following in and the lead actors were all really great. The costumes, staging, dancing, everything was really professional, and all in this itty bitty town that trains don't even run to! It was a funny show and even more comical for me hearing an american musical translated into German.

Sunday we had our all american 4th of July cook out. The weather was extreamly crappy, but we had a good time anyway at Frau Hensel's garden and afterwords sang the star spangled banner badly and loudly while riding our bikes back to her house. Yay America! Oh how I miss you so....

I'm finally starting work on my final papers. I think I might try to get a participation credit in one class so that I just end up having to write one because that I think I can manage before I go and I really don't want to spend my first month of senior year at UR writing german papers. I'm actually kindo f excited about the one paper I started researching. Its been so long since I did something academic other than struggle to understand german. And I feel compelled to make this a good paper to proove to my teacher that I'm not dumb just because I don't speak German well, which seems to be her opinion. I can't wait to be back at UR taking English classes!

I'm going to see Shreck tonight! in English! :)

Ok, I'm going to go see if these people are done with their rediculously long lunch breaks now. Tschüss!

Grr. Arg. Spidermail is not working so I hope none of you sent me any urgent messages recently. I feel compelled to write a blog just to justify this visit to a computer now... I made a friend! For a few weeks I've been talking to a girl in my translation class and having coffe with her after class. Last week we finally exchanged phone numbers and she invited me to watch a soccer game with her but it was when shannon was coming in. But yesturday I ran into her while biking home and she invited me over later in the evening! So I went over and we chatted and watched Greece win over the Chez republic in soccer. Germans are happy about this because the Greek coach is German. This sunday is the final match between Creece and Portugal. It is also the 4th of July and I just bought food for making shishkababs to grill. mmm. Ok, das ist alles...nicht so wichtig. Eric I'm glad your home ok, I can't believe you actually yelled at that mother. I think you somehow attract obnoxious children because I am only ever stuck on trains with screaming children when you are there it seems. hmm. Or I just think they're cute and don't notice the screaming. Anyway Tschüss!

Thanks for noticin' me....

Could this day possibly be any gloomier? The weather is really not helping me feel less sad about Eric leaving this morning. Its so hard to say goodbye! Its not for that long really, a couple months till we are both back in Virginia. I just miss my Eric and its kinda sad to be alone in my little room again. But on the bright side... I get the bed to myself again! Its probably good though, I need to be doing more work for my classes so that I can actually get something out of them and I need to get myself together and on track. I need a rutine. All this traveling throws me off so much I never get anything done. Its still fun of course and I can't wait to see my parents next week and go to London with them. But I am also looking forward to the week that I have before then to just hang out in Münster with the great people I've made friends with here but hardly ever get to see because I keep leaving. Ooh, and saturday the president of the German American society is taking a few of us to see Kiss me Kate! I'm not sure if its going to be translated or not, but it will be fun either way. On Tuesday Eric and I went to the movie theater and we were going to see Troy auf Deutsch because they didn'T have any english movies playing, but then I saw that they were showing a special sneak preview in English and got tickets to that instead. It turned out I was dumb and looked at the wrong time and we had to wait like two hours BUT it was all worth it because it was the Stepford Wives which I really wanted to see! The theater was packed, its kind of exciting going to a suprise movie, I think most of the guys there were hoping for spiderman though. Anyway, the movie was good, and even Eric said it wasn't as bad as he expected :)

Ok, I better get back as the rain seems to have paused. Ciao.