I Naur Celedril

In Another Life

2012-01-26T04:07:00.001-06:00

"Here, you ride my bike. I'll run beside."
"No thanks, we'd have to adjust the seat and stuff," I said, looking down at the icy road. "I'll run beside."
"No," Lukas said, "That won't work. You can just ride on the back."
"Is that really smart, with the hills and the ice?"
"I mean, we might fall, but it's not a problem."
And before I knew it I was balancing on the metal bit on the back of the bike, trying to keep my legs in as tight as I could without hitting the pedals or the wheels, and my face was buried in Lukas' backpack so deep I could just barely see the swirling snow in my peripheral vision, only tell we were going up or downhill from the gravity and the sounds of the changing gears.

We didn't fall. We got into the building and met the others, and started picking out skis. And ski boots, and ski poles, and shovels, and probes, and skins. And then they taught my how to stuff the skins in the boots, tie the boots together and throw them around my neck, and I shoved the probe and shovel and poles along my right wrist and balanced the skis over my left shoulder, and found I could actually walk that way, all the way down the hillside and across town to the bus stop leading home.

Catching a reflection of myself in a passing building, I think I only looked ridiculous because I recognized myself.

Contentment doesn't cut it

2012-01-15T13:41:00.002-06:00

There needs to be a word for that magical moment when you realize that you are in one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, that if you were anywhere else you would give almost anything to travel from there to here, that suddenly travelling the world seems a little less appealing.

It's no wonder "borte bra, men hjemme best" is a Norwegian saying...

P.S. The sun is out about 5 minutes longer every day that passes now. Incredible! And although the insulation is still not nearly up to Finnish or even American standards, it turns out that it actually does beat Spain. I didn't have the window closed as tightly as I could have. :) My bad.

And I went to IKEA and now I have something that more closely resembles a home. Sheets, trash can, etc. I even went crazy and bought an extra pillow for my incoming guests. Because I'm nice like that. :)

Not a Life for Puddings

2012-01-12T04:49:00.001-06:00

Outside, the weather is transitioning faster than I can walk from room to room, from rain to hail to snow to stillness, to... wait.. I think the sun might be making a brief appearance!!

The children playing at the school near my bus stop don't even seem to notice. The climbers keep climbing, swingers keep swinging, the boys playing among the trees and weeds at the far side of the playground stay there, the girls sitting in a circle playing clapping games don't miss a beat.

During orientation, one of the speakers warned us that living in Bergen was "not a life for puddings."

These kids aren't going to grow up to be no 'puddings'.

P.S. - Want to talk bad insulation? The coat that I've wedged into the sill to keep the draft out actually has SNOW/hail on it. As in, with the wind here, it came in through the gap.

First Week

2012-01-11T15:18:00.002-06:00

Room is 90% clean and 50% decorated. Whew, was that exhausting! The books and tissues and cloudberry drinks and gingerbread cookies and little Estonian viking are on the shelves. 65 photos are up decorating the back wall and the cupboard, and when I recover my energy (tomorrow?) I'll put about as many up on the front wall.

I think all I really need from IKEA tomorrow is a set of sheets. I've got a ton of guests coming in but I have this funny idea that I might be able to make do with what I have for them. Stupid? Probably. But I was thinking I could camp on the floor (with sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and improvised pillow in the extra pillowcase) and give them the bed with the normal pillow, the silk sleep sack, and the free blanket I got, maybe the thermal sleep sack as well. Or they could switch with me if they preferred. My room is surprisingly warm given the poor insulation (am I missing something here?) so even though that doesn't sound like much, it could be enough. :S Just trying to avoid buying a blanket or a pillow that I'll just throw away at the end of the semester.

The first week is all about getting the basic stuff done, and I'm almost a week in. I have all the small things done now but the three big things - Class Registration, Police Registration, and things-I-need-to-do-to-get-a-part-time-job-maybe - are not. Today I FINALLY got my Norwegian phone working by going back to the store that sold me the SIM and asking them to fax my registration again. Then I went to the library and figured out printing so I could print the cover letter to meet the police and the MU Study Abroad blog agreement letter. I also tried and failed to pay my first month's rent. Well, I'll get there, a little at a time! :)

Funny/Weird Stuff:

- I've been trying to figure out when I'll get my language test results. First response: "You'll get them before the language classes start." Gee, thanks. Second response: "You'll get the test results once the test is graded." Seriously? Okay then. If this messes me up with my class registration I'll consider that I have full rights to bitch, moan, and complain. Even if it doesn't matter all that much in my case.

- Lots of weird results to my speaking Norwegian. Surprisingly I'm having better luck with it this time than I did in 2008, but I still occasionally get the "I speak in Norwegian, they reply in English" phenomenon. Another time, at a cafe, the guy asked me if I wanted any cream, and I said yes... as I bent in to take it, he whispered, as if it were a secret, "So, you understand Norwegian?" But by and large, the most popular response is, "Så flink du er å snakke norsk!" For similar linguistic reasons as with the Spanish construction "Saber + Infinitive = to know (how) to," this sounds subtly but definitively off to me. "How clever you are to speak Norwegian!" As if I cleverly figured out that they were Norwegian and that the correct approach was speaking their language to them, the answer to some tricky puzzle.

Koselig

2012-01-11T04:36:00.001-06:00

Koselig - Cozy, Snug, etc

I am very cozy and lucky in my new dorm here. The room is a great size, at first I complained about the bathroom because it was cold, but now I realize heated floors and amazing hot water pressure can make up for that, the kitchen is nice with every appliance I could ask for there and waiting to be used (and used it shall be).

My roommates have all been super nice and they've created an environment that I quite like and which is perfect for learning Norwegian. A radio plays constantly in the kitchen with Norwegian news, audio books, classical music, etc randomly flipping back and forth. The kitchen has a common bookshelf filled with Norwegian comic books like Pondus. And even in the bathroom there's a selection of magazines in Norwegian, natural science and linguistics ones. And everyone has been willing to talk to me in Norwegian even if my language skills leave a lot to be desired.

Best of all, there's tons of common property and things that have been left in my room, so I have to buy surprisingly little. I arrived in my room to find an ethernet cord and a lamp, and in the kitchen I can use the frying pans, pots, cutting boards, plates, bowls, glasses, and silverware. :)

Things are great here!

Bergen - First Impressions

2012-01-06T02:08:00.001-06:00

I moved in last night to what could be the most beautiful city in the world. By day, the brief sunlight lay golden on buildings and rocks and pines, and lit up the mountaintop snow. The downtown seemed full of lovely buildings, parks, and water-features. In the long winter twilight, everything is a pastel grey-violet, and from my window I see white houses up the mountainside, and the surprisingly modern skyline of the city to my left, reflected in the harbours in front and behind... and beyond that, more mountains again. At night the city stays bright and the hills look lit-up like christmas lights.

This is it, Communications Law!

2011-12-13T21:23:00.000-06:00

Google. The Crib Sheet the Professor gave us. Four practice tests for Comm Law, and four answer sheets of uncertain trustworthiness. A single black pen.
It's going to be a long night.

Something like Karma

2011-12-13T21:06:00.000-06:00

I have this basic, fuzzy idea of karma that I try to let guide my life. It's like this - If I am good at a class, I'll do everything I can to help the others. And for every class like that, there's a class or two where I'm the one mooching off the more experienced/more proactive/smarter students. If someone comes to my country, I'll go out of my way to help them out, make them feel welcome. And for every time someone bothers to come to Missouri, I couchsurf in some foreign city. Maybe I'm just really, really lucky, but so far the formula is working out great for me! :) It's easy to be kind, helpful, and generous when you yourself are drowning in good friends and good fortune!

Busy Busy Busy

2011-12-10T15:09:00.000-06:00

This is the hardest semester I've ever had for finals week. I'm relieved now that Kevin and I had to cancel our road trip.

I've got journalism projects, however interesting, I have tons of little and less little things to do for Understanding Audiences, I actually have to study for two exams (History of Spanish and Communications Law), and a paper to do for my Spanish literature class. I've still got a little bit of tutoring and a handful of social commitments. Also, I need to pack everything up and get it to the lake house.

O.o

Max, Finals, New Boots, Snow, and Interview

2011-12-05T22:42:00.001-06:00

1.) Max Heiliger from Germany visited me during the last week. We met while I was studying in Bonn, and now he's studying up in Kalamazoo Michigan. He came down to Missouri on - believe it or not - a real American train! I had to find the Amtrak station in St. Louis for the first time in my life, and it didn't even kill me. Despite a few misadventures (and even those were sort of fun), we had good times at the lake, city museum, zoo, etc!

2.) Now that Max is back in Kalamazoo, I need to buckle down and work. Between this week and next, I have to do my multimedia project, finish at least one last good story for the Missourian, work one more G.A. shift, do a research paper for my spanish literature class, write the Understanding Audiences paper and get ready for that project, and study hard for my Spanish Linguistics and Communications Law finals... as well as continue to do tutoring, and packing up everything and getting it to the lake house.

3.) I am very close to finished with all my study abroad shopping. The only things I need now are really rain pants and maybe a few more pairs of sock liners. At the City Museum, Max and I visited the vintage clothing shop upstairs and I bought 5 ugly sweaters, all 100% wool, for $20!! So what if I wouldn't be seen dead in them (though some are better than others) - they're 100% wool and $4 each! :D I also managed to stop by REI for some sock liners and the purchase I was most worried about - mountaineering boots.

I went in and checked out the boot section and was pleased to see a great selection. Among the winter boots, I actually saw most of the pairs I knew about - the adorable ones Zahra uses and some big cute ones with puffs of 'fur' coming out of the top were tempting at first glance, but no good for long walking, hiking, etc. Then I saw several of the ones Liisa and I had discussed such as the Caribou pair and others that were even more of a hiking boot/winter boot hybrid.

Confused, I snagged a representative and explained that I really needed winter boots that could take crampons, etc - I only had the budget and space in my suitcase for one pair. He first showed me the most hiking-boot-esque of the winter boots, but then advised me that he would go with a real mountaineering boot instead. He thought as long as they were waterproof and I wore thick socks, the warmth shouldn't be a problem - and then I would have all the support and crampon ability.

Then, he looked down at my feet and said he was a little bit worried about my size. I told him that yeah, I normally wear a 5 or a 6. He said that could be a problem, since a lot of hiking boots start at size 7... none of them are made in size 5. This is a problem I was well aware of, but anyway I asked him to see what he had in size 6. Of the eight or so pairs of mountaineering boots on display, apparently two of them came in size 6, and one of them came in size 6 1/2 and was on clearance.

The clearance shoes were tempting, but you don't mess around with boots, and these things tend to run large anyway, so it was sort of out of the question. Of the two pairs remaining, one was leather and one was just a gore-tex blend - but the guy actually recommended the gore-tex blend one, AND it was cuter, AND it was cheaper. I tried it on, and it was a little bit but not terrible. The representative checked the fit and he said it was okay too. Actually it felt close to perfect on my left foot, but just at the border of being too loose on my right.

So, I tried on a pair of liners underneath the first pair of wool socks, and tadaa! Perfect fit! :D

The boots ran $210, which was almost exactly what I expected to pay... and really I'm just happy that I found a pair in my size that fulfill both of my needs at once! :)

4.) Driving home from St. Louis today, I ran into a bit of... snow? It really threw me off and confused me. I can't decide if it's just been too long since I saw snow, or if it was actually very tiny hail or something. Basically it suddenly seemed foggy up ahead, and when I reached 'up ahead' it looked like tiny tiny quantities of fine white powder were swirling over the highway in front of me. There was some gradient movement on the wind, and yet nothing was hitting my windshield. Cool, though, I guess it's the first snow of the year, in a year that may be filled with a LOT for me! :)

5.) I got interviewed today by an acquaintance who works in broadcast. Just a little piece about Study Abroad - apparently this is a record year for MU students going abroad. It was kind of fun and I got to show off a few of the pictures on my wall, etc. :) On the other hand, I thought he was asking me the wrong questions. I'm a student who studied abroad - ask me about my motivations, the lessons I learned, the challenges, the cool stories... well, he did, a little, but he asked just as many questions about what I thought about it being a record year and why I thought more people were going abroad. I didn't really know what to say about that except, "Well, I think our International Office here is excellent, blah blah blah."

Kathy Mattea!

2011-11-27T14:28:00.000-06:00

I saw a Kathy Mattea concert down in Florida. Second time, after seeing her in St. Louis several years ago. I love her - especially the stuff she's done recently about the Appalaichans and coal. She doesn't write many songs, but collects and performs them really well.

Two of my favorites are You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive and L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
'You will never leave Harlan alive'

When my granddad's dad walked down Catron's Mountain
And he asked Tillie Helton to be his bride
He said, won't you walk with me out of the mouth of this holler?
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinkin'
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

Well no one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
'Til a man from the Northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills
He said, I'll pay you for your minerals
But he never left Harlan alive

Well granny, she sold out cheap and they moved out west of Pineville
To a farm where big Richland River winds
( From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/brad-paisley-lyrics/you_ll-never-leave-harlan-alive-lyrics.html )
I bet they danced them a jig and laughed and sang a new song
Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive?

But the times, they got hard and tobacco wasn't selling
And ole granddad knew what he'd do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
Sent the money back to granny but he never left Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinkin'
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
'You'll never leave Harlan alive'

When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down upon his knee
He said, "Boy, you go to school and learn your letters
Don't you be a dirty miner like me"

I was born and raised in the mouth of the Hazard Hollow
Coal cars rambled past my door
Now they're standin' in a rusty row all empty
And the L & N
Don't stop here anymore

I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
Now he goes downtown with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow

I was born and raised in the mouth of the Hazard Hollow
Coal cars rambled past my door
Now they're standin' in a rusty row all empty
And the L & N
Don't stop here anymore

Last night I dreamed I went down to the coal yard
To draw my pay like I always did before
But them ol' kudzu vines were comin' through the window
And the leaves and grass were growin' through the floor

I was born and raised in the mouth of the Hazard Hollow
Coal cars rambled past my door
Now they're standin' in a rusty row all empty
And the L & N
Don't stop here anymore

Bad Day

2011-11-27T14:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday my phone went for a quick dip in the ocean. It sorta survived, actually - I think it would have been okay if it had been fresh water. But it corroded overnight (surprise) and that's that. Luckily the phone was very cheap, unluckily, I now have to be without a phone until I can get it replaced.

Flew into Columbia this morning. After the blue gulf of Mexico and eighty-degree sunny days, the totally grey sky, the grey branches, the grey streets and the 30 degree temperatures were not very welcoming. I drove to my residence hall and it was locked up tight. No sign explaining it, but I found another building saying the campus wasn't going to be open until 1. So I had two hours to kill.

I went to Walmart and bought some hot food, then went into the back to try to buy a phone. They were sold out of all the cheap ones - apparently everyone breaks their phones during holiday season. The cheapest replacement I could buy was $40 - it should have been $15. I decided to go and try the other Walmarts.

On the way out I sat on a bench near the entrance and thought I could quickly eat the food I bought. I luckily had a fork in my backpack and right before I opened the container, people were yelling at me. Apparently I was setting off the alarm by sitting too close to it. So why was there a bench there!?!?!

I assumed the alarm was just a door-open-too-long thing, but then the greeter checked my purchases to see if they were setting it off, and asked me to walk through with just my backpack. The shoplifter alarm went off. Of course I didn't have anything, but it was hard to prove since I had my entire flight backpack on with all sorts of rubbish in it. Luckily the guy trusted me and let me go after checking the new hard drive I had bought at best buy and looking in the bag a little bit.

I went out and ate in the backseat of my car, then got back behind the wheel. My plan was to see if AT&T was open, then try the other Walmarts. I put AT&T into my GPS, but it took me to an older, defunct location and I couldn't remember where it was now, and I couldn't call anyone to ask. As I was putting Walmart in to find the other locations, a man started honking at me. When we came to the light I rolled down my window and he told me that one of my tires was really low on air!!

Embarrassing fact - In four years of having a car, I have never once put air in the tires. Did my parents do it for me when I was at home and they borrowed the car? Did the garage do it when I stopped in for oil changes, etc? Honestly I'm not sure how I've avoided that necessity. But now I was panicking. I told GPS to take me to the next auto shop. It drove me a few blocks into the bad part of town (Columbia is small enough that if you take a wrong turn, you might be in the bad part of town). There was no garage there, but there was a gas station across the street.

I went in and asked the clerk where I could go to put air in my tires, apologetically. She told me I could do it at right there at the gas station (I'd thought so, but when I pulled in and looked around, I hadn't seen the air pump right away). She made change for me so I could use the machine. The tire did look pretty bad, but I set it right again. One crisis averted. As I said, I was in a dodgy part of town, so people kept coming up to me to ask me for money, or if they could help me with the pump. I couldn't tell if they were just trying to be nice or what, so I just cheerily said "I've got it, thanks!"

I'd had enough adventure so I drove to my friend Tina's house. Most people were still gone for the holidays, but Tina had written that she'd likely return to Columbia after Thanksgiving. And, since Tina calls her car "the Impala", and I know what an impala is, her car is one of the few of my friends cars that I can recognize. It was in the driveway, so I knocked and she let me in. She was awesome and let me call my parents on her phone to let them know I'd arrived, as well as letting me stay until my dorm opened and feeding me delicious cobbler.

It hasn't been the best day. XD But Tina helped a lot!!

Netbook Decision

2011-11-27T14:06:00.000-06:00

So I kicked out the lights on my old netbook awhile ago. Bestbuy said it would cost them $200 to repair - and I only paid about $250-300 for it initially. I could get a screen online for about $60, but I wasn't sure if I could find a friend to install it for me and I didn't trust myself. If I found the screen myself, Bestbuy would repair it for $50, so I was looking at probably about $110.

This was months ago, and for months, I did nothing. My options were - A.) Repair it, B.) Not have a mobile device anymore, C.) Move to a smart phone or tablet, D.) Buy a new netbook.

The problem with A was that repairing it was a full half the value, for a device that was more than a year old. If I repaired it, and the next day the motherboard went out, I would not be happy.

The problem with B was that I didn't want to take my Macbook traveling or out on rainy days, and it was annoying to have no more convenient way to check email or take notes, especially with my lifestyle.

The problem with C was that note-taking was one of my principal needs for my netbook - mobile devices are tempting and I might still get a cheap one in the next 2-3 years as a third device (or maybe its time for a smartphone?), but the only one I could see replacing my netbook, imperfectly, is the iPad which is quite expensive.

The problem with D was that it was the most expensive of the options.

Over the weekend and during black friday I shopped tablets and netbooks. I came to the conclusion that I loved my current Toshiba netbook, the most recent version of which was on sale during black friday for $250, and the other options wouldn't really suit. I decided to repair it.

But then I went home and got on Amazon and started worrying that I would get the wrong kind of screen. Or that there would be some problem with it. Or that they would mess it up repairing it. And I looked at the current laptop and how dirty and worn it was on all the edges and wondered how much longer it would really be healthy inside. And I found a very gently used one on Amazon for $200 even.

So I ordered it and sent it to my house in Florida.

I guess I should be lucky that $200 is the most I've ever lost to sheer stupidity/clumsiness. :( But it's worth $200 to keep my Mac out of harms way!

Prize Money

2011-11-18T23:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I won the MU Study Abroad Photo Contest with this picture:

It was the only one of the three photos I submitted to make it to the Finalist level, in the category of Cross Cultural Moments. The other categories were Landscapes, Portraits, and Educational Moments. Educational Moments and Cross Cultural Moments were sort of tricky ones, I thought. This one for example could with some imagination go into any of the four categories. But, I threw it in Cross Cultural because I thought there might be less entries to that one or something. :) Out of roughly 150 pictures, they picked 5 finalists in each of the four categories.

At the contest I tried to prepare myself for the possibility of not winning. Sure enough they started off with the Cross Cultural winner, and it wasn't me. So I knew I had either won everything, or nothing... and I won! Yay! :D Apparently they just loved the composition, the colors, and the sense of distance and adventure.

The prize was a HUGE framed version of the picture, and $200. I've already spent the money. XD

I went down to the Alpine Shop and bought the following:

For winter:
- 4 pairs of merino wool socks
- A pair of thin, thermal glove liners
- A pair of waterproof down mittens
- A pair of long underwear bottoms

After my conversation with Liisa, I determined that a balaclava was more or less optional, that my old silk scarves and new wool hat should work fine, that my polyester long underwear would suffice and that I could have her old Nepalese gaiters. That really left only mittens as a necessary warmth item. And, indeed, the mittens were at $80 the most expensive item I bought by far. I needed both warm and waterproof, and the ones I got were actually the cheapest ones that met that requirement. But, my hand-me-down wool socks are a poor fit (enormous, actually), and I found some in my size that were being sold pretty cheaply as for kids, so I got a few pairs. And, with long underwear on sale, I rounded out my 'collection' to two tops and two bottoms, which should just suffice.

For camping/travel:
- A second waterproof compression sack for clothing
- A super absorbant pocket towel
- An ultra-light travel kettle/pot
- A very tiny camp bowl, mug, and spork

I loved the compression sack I got for my sleeping bag, so I decided to get a second one. Camping in Scandinavia, keeping my clothes dry no matter what (plus able to fit in my backpack) is going to be really important. Plus, I can use it on ordinary trips for packing. I'm thinking for example of packing my down pillow this time since there's no Ana or Esther to borrow from in Bergen - this will make that doable. The pocket towel is something I've wanted for quite awhile, and it was surprisingly cheap - $12. Meanwhile the kettle, bowl, mug, and spork came all together in a tiny, very lightweight kit, all nestled together. I had been considering getting this little pack-flat bowl, but this was only twice the price for several items. If I get a camp stove, this will set me up to make tiny meals out and about. If I don't, the kettle will still be useful for traveling, example we don't necessarily have communal cookware in Bergen, if I bring this I will be able to make soup, hot water, ramen, etc.

------------------------------------

After my previous shopping excursion to REI, where I picked up a winter sleeping bag, compression sack, sleeping pad, thermal liner, hiking backpack, and waterproof cover... plus the wool hat I got last week... I am now about 60% equipped for Norway. All that remains is the coat my mom is getting me for Christmas <3, (a good waterproof shell with fleece liner), a pair of waterproof pants, and a pair of boots. I love my hiking booties, but I need something a bit warmer with room for wool socks, and, if I can get it without paying an arm and a leg extra, mountaineering capabilities (I'd like to get something I can put crampons on). Alpine Shop had some surprisingly warm boots but nothing for mountaineering, so I'm thinking that after break, when I go to get Max from St. Louis, I'll check out REI's selection.

Norwegian Prices

2011-11-16T23:58:00.001-06:00

How much are Norwegian prices going to eat my soul, really?

Today I found this great website, Numbeo, that lets me compare cost of living in different cities. I pulled up Kansas City, Tampa, Bergen, Pamplona, Cologne, and Helsinki (closest to Columbia/St. Louis, Tampa, Bergen, Pamplona, Bonn, and Turku as I could get.. and those are the cities I have spent the most time in, oddly enough!)

What I found pretty much confirmed my feelings, but at least it wasn't way worse than I had expected. Groceries are pretty much evenly 2x as much as in America. (Germany and Spain are roughly 1.5x, on average, except for the most basic raw staples which are usually a little bit cheaper than in the States.) Meat, though, at least pretty, processed chicken breast, is a full 4x as expensive. 1kg of chicken breast is $5 in the US, $8 in Spain, $13 in Germany and Finland, and, wait for it... $20 in Norway.

Ouch. But, I'll be okay. I've learned to shop smart, look for sales, and utilize local deals - shrimp for example is not quite as many times more expensive in Norway than in the US, plus it tastes way better in Norway!

Restaurants, now. In the US, you can get a cheap meal for $10, and that's after taxes and tips have been added on top. In Germany, Finland, and Spain, that's bumped up to about $14, which is still not terrible. In Norway, you won't get a combo meal at McDonalds for that. At every range, Norwegian restaurant prices are a full 2x the American price. Meaning that eating in, and packing lunches, will be my main strategy for dealing with hyperinflation. :)

Alcohol? Forget-about-it. Crazy nights out on the town will be my second sacrifice, this time in exchange for fun outdoorsy outings, which are also distinctly not-free.

The last problematic thing in Norway is transportation. In Germany I had free transportation, and the local busses in Columbia and Pamplona run about $1.50 each way. In Norway? Try $4.50 each way. Why do you think I put Alrek residence hall, one of the only decently priced ones within (hopefully) walking distance of the campus, as my top priority? $9 per day just to get to and from school is the kind of thing that can take you down, and fast. If the walks are getting unmanageable, I'll also seriously considering a bike. I loved doing so in Bonn, and even if I have to pay twice as much, it could pay for itself very fast with fares like that.

So, I didn't find any 'good' news, per se. But it's sort of relieving just to see some hard numbers and not just 'ungodly expensive' again and again until you start to imagine $30 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. And I can handle it, I'm sure. I just won't travel quite as much as in Germany, won't eat out quite as much as in Spain - I'll hunker down a bit and be glad I can cook, be glad I'm small enough not to need a lot to eat, and be glad I like to walk.

Who knows, I might even turn into the stereotypical starving student who lines her dresser drawers with oatmeal and lives exclusively on ramen noodles.

My Semi-Daily Life

2011-11-14T15:48:00.000-06:00

Planning out the last few weeks day by day.
Getting over my phobia of calling strangers bit by bit.
Enjoying the weather on rare beautiful days.
Trying to keep all of my promises.
Missing most/all of my extracurricular meetings.
Enjoying my friends for this semester-in-between.
Looking forward to holidays at home.
Buying woolen hats and stocking and pants and jackets.
Buying waterproof bags and stuff-sacks and clothing.
Buying a good backpack and a winter sleeping bag and pad that fit inside it.
Feeling guilty that I haven't put up a Footprint Magazine post in awhile.
Alternatively volunteering at and attending study abroad orientations.
Having story after story idea turn out to be a dead end.
Shopping for hot deals on transatlantic flights.
Getting called out of a cozy movie night to report a huge fire.
Getting excited for New Years in Finland.
Trying with great futility to use up all of my meal points.
Cancelling my Reslife contract and applying for Reslife.
Preparing for a semester in Norway.
Trying to pass Communications Law, Understanding Audiences, and Reporting.
Trying to ace History of Spanish and Spanish Literature.
Watching whole weeks slip passed me in the blink of an eye.

People My Height or Shorter

2011-11-14T11:46:00.002-06:00

Mae West

Jada Pinkett Smith

Margaret Mead

Annie Oakley

Judy Garland

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Edith Piaf

Jean-Jacques-Etienne Lucas

Honorable Mention:

Edvard Grieg - 5'1''

Money for Travel

2011-11-13T17:50:00.000-06:00

I get asked a lot where I get all my traveling money. The truth is rather complicated - a combination of luckiness, hard work, austerity at home, and a low-budget travel style. And maybe that doesn't suit you. Maybe you don't get the scholarships I get, maybe you have more expenses than I do at home, maybe you put fancy clothes at a higher priority than I do, or maybe you think hostels are icky and wouldn't touch couch class with a ten foot pole. For whatever reason, maybe you can't travel as much as I do. But you can still travel. You can still go somewhere, do something. And if you really think you can't, look at your habits. I realize the following example doesn't apply to everyone, but it applies to a lot of the people say, at my University, who always tell me how much they envy me and wish they could travel as much as I do.

Coffee.

A lot of people make Starbucks their default study location, or swing by the campus cafe on their way to early-morning lecture. I guess they see a nice, hot coffee as a luxury they can afford. But it's totally unnecessary and way overpriced. You can just drink water for free, or, for pennies, you can make the coffee at home yourself (and yes, even the fancy flavors). But, it's just pocket change, right?

A normal latte or cappuccino or whatever at a cafe where I live cost an average of about $3. A Cafe-au-lait, for example, is $2.45 for a small and $3.00 for a large, while a Cafe Caramel is $3.25 for a small, $3.80 for a large.

$3 a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year, is $1,092.

Let's say you would spend the 92$ on the supplies to make your coffee at home, so that's $1000 saved, in one year, from dropping one small habit.

I'm positive I could swing a modest European trip for that amount. Certainly, it would pay for half of a grand one, since it more than covers airfare, and that's the main cost for a budget traveller.

Example: I've seen tickets to London and Paris for around $600. You could get a solid week in hostels/cheap hotels for $200-250 more, and spend the last $150-200 on decent food... or you could save money by couch-surfing, eating cheap, etc, and have PLENTY for day-trips, museums, etc.

A week in Europe or a year of brand name coffee - for me, the choice is easy. But it's one each person has to make for themselves.

Guest

2011-11-12T13:51:00.000-06:00

It's been a year since I saw Colleen. We met in Spain, when Sara brought her along to the Basque country and I met the two of them for a U2 concert in San Sebastian. She was a really nice girl, and the three of us got along well together - first at the concert, then in Madrid for Sara's 21st birthday (a night to remember), and finally in a rain drenched but still spectacular, and genuinely spooky, Halloween weekend in Galicia.

Today she's coming to visit me in Columbia! I'm excited to have her, but not sure what I can offer. I love living in Columbia, and when, for example, my sister comes, it seems sufficient to show her all of my favorite places, have her meet my friends, etc. But a guest like this is another matter. In good weather, we can go hiking in nearby parks and enjoy the campus atmosphere. Bad weather makes it a little harder. But I'll think of something.

For now, I just need to clean my room. And feel bad that I haven't gotten around to printing many Spain pictures yet, so Colleen and my adventures together are embarrassingly undocumented on my walls....

Unclear Future

2011-11-12T13:38:00.000-06:00

A certain photo, a certain gesture, a certain comment, and suddenly I see one of my friends in a new light, older, more mature, part of the adult world. It's beautiful, it's terrifying, it's tragic, it's natural, it's definitely disorienting. I start realizing where all the different types of people come from, starting with all the people I know well and think are unique, new, not like the archetypes that came before us.

The only one I can't see this with is myself. Despite uncertainties and margin of error, I start to get a vague feeling about the future of some of the others, but never about myself. I'm not worried about it, but I'm so uncertain about the way my own life will go. I can't see my own future and I can't see my own face changing, growing older.

How much of this, I wonder, is normal... and how much of it is my baby face, or the degree of uncertainty I've deliberately programmed into my own lifestyle?

11:11:11

2011-11-11T11:22:00.000-06:00

Sitting in Communications Law class, the professor paused the lecture to acknowledge 11/11/11 11:11, and, 11 seconds in, told us all to make a wish.

I couldn't even think of one. I have everything I could ever ask for - great family, great friends, and great opportunities.

I'll take the time to say a big thank you to all the wonderful people in my life, and to the world itself, instead!

Next Semester

2011-11-09T10:18:00.000-06:00

Tentative plans for the coming semester -

I'll leave for Finland right after Christmas, see Liisa, party it up for new years, go dog-sledding (!!!), ice swimming, learn to cross-country ski, and melt tin to predict the future. :D A great way to start the year!

Then it's on to Norway, where, who knows really? I'm definitely going to join the outdoor adventures club and cross my fingers that I'm qualified to do many of their activities with them. They offer tons of glacier walking, horseback riding, rock climbing, skiing, snowshoeing, just everything you can think of... but even if I'm not good enough for all of those they even offer nice little evening jaunts like a little hike up the mountain for a bonfire. I don't need to travel nearly as much as I have in the past. I feel very little need to go to other countries (a very few possible exceptions if a great opportunity presents itself, but unlikely), I've seen Oslo, and I've seen Trondheim. So Stavanger is really the only city in Norway that I feel like I need to see, and it's not terribly far. I do really really want to see Northern Norway at some point - whether that's for a winter weekend with Erasmus students, hoping for a glimpse of the northern lights, or on the hurtiggruten without a cabin in beautiful late-spring light...

On the way home, I've promised that I'll go to the Faroe Islands at last. A week there, probably... (any less and it's not worth the journey), and, if I have it my way, I'll do another week or so in Iceland.

Then I have to hurry home for an internship.

Uncertainty

2011-11-07T22:22:00.001-06:00

Sky white as milk and water droplets gathering like stubble on the statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Quad. Yep, it's November again, as always the hardest month to get through. This one's not bad so far, except for a little bit of nonsense I feel like I should be too old for by now. Not knowing what to believe or who to trust. Looking at a bunch of doors left just barely cracked, wondering which to open, which to close and which to slam shut.

Studying on the Bus

2011-11-03T23:03:00.000-06:00

In Germany, when I had a big reading to do, I used to go outside and catch the bus. Ride it on the long circuit across the river and back again. Hahaha I wonder if I'll ever be in the position to do something like that again. Could use it about now.

Scatter

2011-11-03T22:51:00.001-06:00

Incidentally, I remember all those times I would work hard to try to seem international and special.

Now I can't keep all the strangeness out of even the most basic of my life stories, even when I want to, unless I watch myself really close and leave a lot out.

Everywhere you look, I'm starting to scatter.

You can see it in a look at my desk, my resume, my list of Facebook friends, my bookshelf, my medicine cabinet, my spice drawer, my mailbox, my heart.

Lack of Investment

2011-11-03T22:47:00.000-06:00

A Totoro pillow on the bed. A framed picture of my Freshman dorm-mates. A chocolate tin from Switzerland, a Moomin tin from Finland. Some dried-out roses from Tina in an ordinary drinking cup. My Tanuki toothpick holder. A Chinese scarf-tablecloth that was a gift from one of my cultural-ambassador partners. Norwegian fridge magnets and a round, wooden one that says Ljubljana.

My beautiful old-fashioned map poster is up on the wall above my bed, but I've only bothered to pin it for the 7 places I've actually lived. I have a framed picture of Prague above my desk, matching the one In has at home in Korea. Otherwise I just have a bunch of smaller, random photos from all over pinned here and there and everywhere. And I guess you could count my row of movies and the little, standing Family Scrapbook perched on top of those.

It's really not much, for a home. Any less and it would look downright barren and unwelcoming. But I've never really given this room the chance to be a home. One semester. It's hardly enough time to bother with unpacking. And I'm not that sensitive to things like that, anyway. A small part of me yearns for the day I can put down roots and spread out and start building something - but most of me doesn't care if that day is a long, long way away.

Most of me wants to be able to put my laptop and my camera and my passport in a backpack, and run out of the door without a backwards look. Alright, so in a perfect world I also have a big enough suitcase to throw in a rice cooker, and all of my camping gear. Maybe even some basic clothing. And maybe a little, dry, safe, warm corner back 'home' to hide my books and my movies for a later date.

I'm in limbo here, for this one semester. A piece of familiarity between two semesters. Its hard to make plans. I can't run for president of any clubs or sign on for a year-long job. In fact I just cancelled my reslife contract for next year, which I was only allowed to do because studying abroad is a 'school approved activity'.

In the shower, I have one bottle of cheap shampoo, one bottle of shaving cream, and one razor. I've switched the razor out twice now and it looks like I'll have to change out the shampoo once this semester as well. Pity.

My cupboards barer than its ever been. I have a meal plan and what's the point of hoarding? This is a good thing, I think. I have two bags of rice that it looks like I won't finish. Too much Ssamjang. And mostly a tiny mountain of stuff from the lake house that was due to expire and which I was instructed to "use up or throw out." I've restricted the lot of it to one small set of shelves. Set space for three micro-curries. Can't buy another one until I eat one of the ones I've already got.

I haven't really bothered getting to know my roommates, and they haven't really bothered getting to know me. That's fine. It really is. We don't fight, that's the important thing. In fact, we barely see each other at all. Fine. From what I know of them based on their decorations and the bits of conversations that slip through the cracks under doors, I have nothing against them but they're not exactly prime bestie material. I'm sure they feel the same way about me.

29 Credits in One Semester

2011-11-01T07:55:00.000-06:00

My transcript finally came in. And it credits me with one hell of a semester in Germany. Other than a C- in Latin American Literature, the exam I majorly screwed up on, I got B+ or better in all of my courses. Not that it even matters, because all I had to do was clear the C- threshold in order to have all the courses listed on my Mizzou transcript as 'pass'. Pretty cool.

I'm especially shocked and secretly pleased by my 1.0 (A+/more or less 100%) in, of all things, Culture Studies Spain and Morocco. I paid attention to the first month of that class, when we were talking about Al-Andalus, but once we got into the more modern, war-torn relationship between Spain and Morocco, I started dozing off. And um, you can't do that in a class taught in a foreign language. :) The latter 2/3 of my 'notes' are mostly scribbles with an occasional reminder that something called "Rifkrieg" is important and I should look it up. I finally did so the night before the exam, and spent a few hours reading all the cross-referenced Wikipedia pages. Until 7 p.m. the night before, I wasn't even sure I wanted to take the exam, I was that sure I was going to fail. But my friends asked what I had to lose, and the truth was, nothing. And then I went in to the exam room and destroyed it. Still, a German 1? Yikes!

But the grades weren't the interesting part of the transcript. What was interesting was the credit hours. 58 ECTS. The normal semester course-load is 30. In American/Mizzou terms, it comes down to this - I received 29 transfer credits - a full academic year's worth - in one semester abroad. Good stuff, too. Two upper level Spanish classes, two upper level German classes, an upper level Humanities, an upper level Social Sciences, and three upper level miscellaneous foreign language. Everything transferred better than I'd dared hope!

But it's just funny, thinking back. I knew I was taking more courses than average - and to be fair, only 8 during the normal semester and 1 during the orientation program. But I was hardly consumed by the coursework. I had time for cooking and random parties and movie-nights, for exploring NRW inch-by-inch, for editing and sorting photographs and keeping up the MU Study Abroad Blog. I spent every Wednesday volunteering in an elementary school. And of course, I travelled almost every weekend, near and far.

It shouldn't even be possible. It helped that I took one credit-heavy class during the pre-semester orientation program, but still. The only reason I got away with it is that international students don't register like normal students. Nothing in the computer to stop me. I had 3 classes from the international office, 3 from the Romance department, and 3 from Ansgar, almost as jokes. At no time did anyone notice that I was taking all of these classes at once, apparently.

One semester. Eighteen countries. Twenty-nine credits. Dozens of new friends and uncountable memories.

Yeah, I'm pleased as punch.

Search Terms

2011-10-20T17:20:00.000-05:00

Things people searched to reach the MU Study Abroad Blog:

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Study Abroad Transcripts

2011-10-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

My application to the University of Bergen required me to choose my classes already. It's flexible and I can change things later (hopefully), but still its a little yikes-y. I just checked everything I might want to take and submitted the form, basically. If they get mad I'll claim I don't understand. After all, it wasn't an especially impressive translation. I expected better from the Norwegians. The housing information told me "White Goods" were included.

Anyway, this, while I still don't have my transcript from last semester in Bonn. This actually matters, because there is a small but real chance I failed one of my classes (everything riding on one exam, and fatally misunderstanding that exam, for the fail)... and I am basically totally unsure of how my credits are going to transfer. And whichever ones didn't transfer well, need to be obtained in Bergen.

Most of the other schools seem to have gotten their grades in. Chicago did a few days ago and they are NOT happy. A lot of C's, apparently. Makes me pleased as punch to be from Missouri where when we're abroad, everything is pass-fail. Fingers crossed. But everything pretty much translated well and easily from Spain, so there's some optimistic precedent to look back at.

Fresh as a Missouri Morning

2011-10-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

I do not like this commercial.

You might think I would, since it mentions Missouri, and that's rare enough and is usually sufficient to earn a measure of my satisfaction.

However, the advertisement is annoying as hell and it's just not true!

There are a lot of reasons I love Missouri but 'fresh mornings' are not one of them. In summer mornings are muggy and gross. Year round morning means orange haze on the horizon's low hills that make me think of city fog. Give me a Missouri afternoon or evening or middle of the night over morning anytime.

Gear Shopping

2011-10-16T15:58:00.001-05:00

I just spent $450 at the REI sporting goods store in St. Louis. That's a lot of money, especially when I'm trying to save up for Norway next semester. But this stuff is for Norway, and for post-Norway as well! I took the time to think about each purchase and I think I ended up with some good stuff. This is what I got -

A.) A lifetime membership to REI stores - the savings for this already paid for themselves three times over today.

B.) A sleeping bag - one that's rated 20F/-6.5C for 'comfort' all the way down to -26F/-32C for 'survival'. It's down, compresses very small and was also one of the lighter ones available - definitely in the 'backpacking' category. There were surprisingly much warmer ones, but this was a good mixture I thought between quite warm/very light and not insanely expensive.

Also - A self-inflating 1.5 inch sleeping pad, a waterproof compression sack, and a liner that adds 14F/8C to the comfort rating of the sleeping bag.

C.) A backpack - a barely, barely big enough one, but it's lightweight, it fits great, and it was on clearance and I had a coupon for additional $$ of a clearances item.... so it was 1/4-1/3 the price I expected to pay for the backpack. With some creativity I figured out a way to tie my sleeping back onto the outside, leaving enough room inside for some clothing, etc. It's not overly spacious but it should just do, its a huge upgrade over what I've used in the past anyway.

Also - A waterproof cover big enough to fit over the bag even when I have the sleeping bag tied onto the outside.

So yeah, lots of money but also lots of nice things I'm sure to be using for a long time! :)

Nervousness

2011-10-14T00:58:00.005-05:00

I have no regrets about Spain.
Initially I thought, I might go to Portugal, or North Africa, or at least Southern Spain with its old Muslim palaces etc. Andorra for a certainty. More of the Camino. Burgos.
I didn't do any of that.
But I have no regrets.
* - Okay, teeny tiny regret about Andorra. Only because the plans were all laid and cancelled at the last minute due to events outside of my control. It's hard to come so close!

I have no regrets about Germany.
Initially I thought, I might go to Denmark, or Lithuania... go up high in the Swiss Alps, see Neuschwanstein. Maybe go back to Spain for Las Fallas or the Running of the Bulls.
I didn't do any of that.
But I have no regrets.
* - Okay, teeny tiny regret about the Alps. But only because I went all the way there and the situation screwed me out of my prize. If I'd simply not gotten the chance to go, I don't even think I would regret this.

Before leaving, there were infinite possibilities. It was easy to get stressed trying hopelessly to plan ahead. Worrying about getting this or that done. But in the end, once I arrived, all my lists of possibilities were was a quiet reminder of... possibilities.

And my life filled up in amazing ways. New friends, new experiences.

My days were so rich with both the quiet, every-day life in another country things, and the huge, once-in-a-lifetime moments.

The things I did, that I didn't expect, far outweighed what I 'missed out on'.

Canyoning in the Pyrenees, mushroom hunting in the Selva de Irati, multiple visits to lovely Koblenz, learning Basque, Germany's Wattenmeer, climbing Ben Nevis, biking to the grocery store every week in Germany, multi-culti foie-gras sushi in Alsace-Lorraine, the car train, heading off alone to Asturias and Foz de Lumbier, Venice (enough said), living in an old communist building in Krakow, scary roads in the lake district and peak district of England, Spissky Hrad in Slovakia, Lake Bled in Slovenia, Halloween in a little Galician town, Gianfranco's 'Spanish' and duets with Jaime, the 'horrible' rainy great glen way, the lovely sunny day in Inverness at the end, Budapest's hot baths, the huge paellas at UNAV, getting lost looking for the old abbey ruins near Bonn, existentialism in Alicante, climbing Arthur's Seat at night, the fire dancers in Madrid, Opus Dei and Basque style Christmases, just walking magical Pamplona and bits of the Camino, the Rhine River Castle Cruise, Spanish parties, German parties, Going to France (just for lunch!), Prague in sunshine and in rain, (and the guy peeing on the stairs in our 100 person-per-room, 7 euro-a-night hostel!), the Irish priest in the little border town who drank beer for breakfast, the terrible night in Mannheim, walking across Liechtenstein, Luxembourg (enough said), Heaven-and-Earth plate at the oldest restaurant in Bonn, Finding that flea market in Hungary, Kinder-Schokolade Crepes, Vappu and Easter in Finland, Tomatina, the wild horses stopping our car in eastern Navarra, Staying with Bostjan and family in Slovenia, leaning into the wind in Pikatua, perfect weather in the Hebrides Islands, The Prado, Crossing the Slovakian border, Surfing in Biarritz, the Industrial Parks of NRW, finding out months later what that obelisk in Amaiur-Maya was all about, walking on water with the swans in Keukenhof, the candy-smell of the air there, the absolute freedom of my weekend in Belgium... I could go on forever with those unexpected, wonderful events!!!

... And yet, here I am again. I'm looking at Norway. I'm so excited I can't contain myself. I'm hyper and nervous and twittering and putzing around and all I can think about is a big, happy, wonderful, exciting, amazing - void. A hasn't happened yet. An uncertain future.

And that's hard! It's hard to obsess about something that's still so unclear! I want to plan, to have something concrete to be excited about! I should know by now that the real wonders unfold once you arrive, the possibilities you never expected, the friends you couldn't have imagined, the adventures you fell into serendipitously. I should know, I should, but it's not helping me now.

Instead I'm making lists again. Checking prices and schedules and more. Making lists of possibilities that excite and amaze in one moment, and then in the next moment make me pathetically nervous, grasping, greedy... a sense that if I don't check off everything on the list, I'll go home sad, crying, unfulfilled.

Rubbish!

Why can't I learn better?

Autumn in Missouri

2011-10-07T10:07:00.000-05:00

Next to Rollins, there's a beautiful tree with black branches and golden leaves, more beautiful by far than any of the homecoming decorations. Besides the medical building, the birches are nestled into their bed of grey-green grasses that wave spirit-like in the wind. On the MKT, the trees just beyond the cliffs are brilliantly yellow and arch overhead like an impossibly high and weightless roof. Bees and summer still cling to the colorful flowers around Lowry and Jesse hall. Over grindstone trail, vultures swarmed dark beneath a pale moon that matched the clouds in a blue sky. From the top of the cliffs, the woods seemed delightfully painted and rusted over. Orange, yellow, red, brown...

I love my campus, I love my state, I love autumn...

It's nice to be home for this. <3

Europeans and Hobbies

2011-10-05T02:05:00.000-05:00

So it's Mikko's birthday today, he's a friend of Liisa's who I met in Finland. I went to write Happy Birthday on his wall and I saw all of his fancy-dancing pictures on his profile as well. And I thought, wow, Liisa and all of her friends are always so busy! Mikko dances, and Joel does dog sled racing, and Liisa has rock-climbing... any one of those is more interesting than the hobbies most of my friends in the states have. And thinking about other European friends that I have, to a lesser extent, they also have pretty well defined and serious hobbies. (But the Finns most of all, for some reason, or maybe its just coincidence.) I mean I tend to think of all of those as hobbies that you have to take somewhat seriously, get better at, etc. When I try to think of hobbies for my friends here, I come up with more categories... Nash is interested in politics and psychology... Tabi is interested in metaphysical stuff... Tina is interested in environmental issues... etc. Well of course I know they have other interests and so do the Finns, I mean Liisa also used to horse-back ride, and she is getting interested in wine tasting, she likes languages and she loves traveling, scouts, etc... but hmmm, this is so random (also it's 2 in the morning, I just finished a long paper, and I'm drinking cheap free wine in the hotel room). but yeah, I just have this feeling that they're taking their hobbies more seriously. I mean if you think to yourself, "rock climbing is my hobby," you might take it more seriously. And if you really want to do something badass like dog-sledding or figure-dancing (I don't even know the names for it, lol, thats how bad I am) then you need to practice and take it seriously. Anyway, it's just my sleep-deprived, Facebook stalking thought of the day!

Mark Twain on Travel

2011-10-03T09:32:00.002-05:00

“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”

~ Mark Twain

The World According to Me

2011-10-02T22:53:00.003-05:00

Blue is for countries I've been to...
Green is for countries where I have a close friend...
Yellow is for countries where I have (or have had) a friend...
Grey is for countries that, for whatever reason, I feel some connection to (once planned to visit, strong desire to visit, learned a lot about in a class or for a project, etc)...

I find it somewhat interesting.

Obviously I've neglected Africa pretty badly, which is only partially my fault - there are comparatively few African students who study abroad, and who I would come into contact with.

I've had many friends from a variety of Middle Eastern and Latin American countries, but few close friends... Pretty much only Layla from Iran, Lucia from Chile, and Jorge from Mexico.

Since I've been to most of Europe, the map doesn't really reflect my friendships there - but rest assured, most European countries fit into multiple of the above categories!

I have a lot of close friends in Asia! It's up there with Europe in that regard, and that's why Asia is my priority after I finish studies in North America and Europe. :)

I like this map for where I've been way more than the ones who do it by country. For example, I haven't been to Alaska, but those maps make it look like I have... And if I'd been to St. Petersburg, it would make it look like I'd conquered the breadth of Russia!

No, this is a more accurate picture, complete with the revelation that I'm missing most of Mexico, most of the American West, Southern Spain, most of France, and large expanses of Scandinavia.

Plus, it's actually more clear than the other map when it comes to small Carribbean Islands I've visited and such... also in terms of where in America, Japan, etc I have travelled.

Here's a friend map I quite like... maybe because its design hides the embarrassing lack of African friends? :P It makes Siberia look lonely as hell, but then, it sort of is! :) I think this map makes it obvious that I've lived in a few places in the States (thus both random dots all over the country, and major centers where I have 100+ friends), participated in a lot of Erasmus type programs (remarkably even scattering throughout Europe) that also include a lot of Asians (especially the coast of Asia is perfectly peppered!) A problem with this map is that a lot of my friends aren't home right now. I have several Indian friends, but none of them are in India right now... Zahra from Mumbai is actually in London at the moment. And actually at least one of the South American dots is my American friend Ben, who's studying in Chile!

Weekend

2011-09-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

I spent time with mom and dad, I cleaned out my storage bay, I sorted through a lot of old stuff, I finally watched Erin Brockovich, and I went for a cool hike with dad in Ha Ha Tonka (he showed me two secret caves he had found!)

On the other hand I did a pretty bad job of studying for my exam tomorrow or doing any other school or Reporting work. >.> That'll just make tomorrow that much more fun I guess.

Family and Happy

2011-09-25T22:29:00.002-05:00

Life's sort of perfect right now, and I wish it could just stay this way a little while... :)

Three Problems

2011-09-19T22:58:00.002-05:00

I have some major problems.

Mostly having way too much stuff, not being able to stay organized in various ways, and wasting massive amounts of time in front of my computer despite being otherwise very productive.

These things are catching up with me.

I'm trying my hardest to get better, though.... at least on the first two.

Whoa!

2011-09-17T03:44:00.000-05:00

Nash and I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. He kept hearing rumors about Hoochfest, the legendary Journalism party, being that night - but we were pretty sure we had debunked it after talking to several people who were very involved in previous years. Then we went and shopped at the Indian store, picked up Tabi and ran to Plaza for dinner.

Going home, I found a text message from Clint, who I lived with Freshman year and basically haven't seen since then. He wanted me to go to a bar for some music. I ended up going because I felt like I did have some energy left after all, it was Friday night, and I felt bad for not texting him back last week about making Gimbap together.

The bar was sorta okay, we met up with Nate (also from Freshman year) and this other guy, Steven, who not only lived with us Freshman year but happened to go to High School and Middle School with me, all those years ago. Despite all the contact, I would say we've always been friendly, but never friends.

After the bar, we went to a club for just a few minutes, then, ignoring more Hoochfest rumors, we headed to Nate and Steven's place.

And for four hours straight, we argued about 1.) What life's most fundamental question is, 2.) Whether or not God exists, 3.) Whether or not it would help or even change the world situation if we could definitively prove whether or not God existed and share this information with the world, 4.) Gay marriage.... etc etc etc.

People argue about these things all the time. They don't have easy answers, I guess. And Nate and Steven are roommates and they get along so well partly, I suspect, because they like to debate these things in a civilized, logical, respectful yet passionate manner with one another. They've spent night after sleepless night debating those very points.

And yet - we got somewhere. With Clint and I in the mix, we got somewhere. We actually came to agreements on a number of huge things - the most concrete of which being the gay marriage issue, but also a lot of other more abstract principles.

What a cool night!

Yesterday

2011-09-16T09:35:00.002-05:00

8:00-9:30 - Wake up, eat breakfast, tidy up, walk to lecture
9:30-10:45 - News Reporting Lecture
11-12:15 - History of the Spanish Language
12:30 - 1:45 - Spanish Literature
2:00-3:30 - Eat lunch, mope around, blog about reporting being hard, walk to the Missourian
3:30-5:00 - Newsroom
5:00-6:30 - Footprint magazine meeting
6:30-7:30 - Sustain Mizzou reading group
8:00-11:30 - German Stammtisch

- Looks like I'm going to start contributing to Footprint magazine occasionally. A food fridays features with rice cooker recipes etc... and occasionally covering an event. Tina's in charge of the magazine and I like how its low-key and student managed. I figure it'll be fun.

- We read part of Silent Spring in the reading group. The other three members all found it boring to various degrees, but their reasons sort of puzzled me. One guy said he thought it was boring because he wasn't sure he believed everything said in the book. ??? I'm just not sure I understand this reasoning. I can be bored by something that's absolutely true, even important, like differential calculus. I can also be fascinated by something dubious and trivial, like reports that there are still Thylacine sightings. We talked about how the book would probably be written differently nowadays, or it wouldn't have been as popular. My guess is it would have more of a "so I drove down to a small village to ask the people what happened there" and use a lot of dramatic, first person testimony, etc. Still, I didn't mind it the way it was, either. Maybe I'm just a really big geek... but here the facts were fascinating, presented in capable prose, and I had no problems reading it. Hmm.

- At Stammtisch I talked to a lot of fun people and heard stories of how the sand gets into everything in Afghanistan, including guns which can lead to accidents... and about backpacking through the Swiss Alps and meeting men wearing traditional feather hats and Lederhosen... about five-course meals in Prague that cost under $20. I was feeling like a little snack, and no one else was biting, so as I made my way to the counter to see if they had anything small and cheap on the menu, I passed a recently deserted table with a bunch of untouched cheesy breadsticks sitting there. Needless to say, I grabbed them and ate them, much to the surprise and delight of my Stammtisch companions. "To answer your question," I said with my mouth half full, "This is how I afford to travel so much."

Reporting's Hard

2011-09-15T15:40:00.001-05:00

I remember when making calls to dentists and doctors etc made me nervous.

I just did that now, because I've been needing to and because it allowed me to procrastinate on making calls for my stories, which is much harder.

Why can't I ever have a moment of plateauing, being able to lay on my back and think, "ah, I can do this, it's easy"... without some new and harder challenge ahead of me?

I guess this is the life I choose to live. But sometimes it's exhausting.

I've got 5 stories sorta up in the air right now and all of them are sort of stuck, mostly from people not calling me back. People I need. I'm about to go drag myself to the Missourian and make some more calls and talk to Schneller and try to bring at least one of the stories at least a little closer to finished. I like the stories, but Journalisms not the kinda thing you can lock yourself in and do with a pile of library books. Sometimes I long for that, for the selfishness and self-reliance of academia. Maybe I'm better at that.

And maybe that's why I keep pushing myself at this new thing, because I'm not bad at it either, I think I'm okay, actually, even if it's harder.

But sometimes I feel too scared, too shy, too lazy. And it's cold today. I just want to make popcorn and curl up in a fuzzy robe and I don't care, do Spanish assignments or Anthro assignments or whatever with a book and a computer screen and maybe multitasking with Skype while I'm at it and if I fail, I have only myself to blame, and I won't fail, because I have all night and only myself to depend on.

This is so different. I need to dig out my autumn jacket and put on my boots and go out into the world facing cold and editor (admittedly very nice) and sources in all states of friendliness and willingness and real life and expectations.

... Alright. I'm going.

Goodbye, Summer!

2011-09-15T09:05:00.001-05:00

Its already pretty chilly outside. Yesterday was rainy, windy, and in the low fifties. It'll improve again by this weekend, but summer is definitely over, and autumn is coming fast and colder than average, I believe. It's okay in a sense. I love fall - it's my favorite season. But this was the coldest summer I've ever had, after the warmest winter. Ironic considering how the year's been for my home state of Missouri!

I regret nothing. The last 14 months have probably been the best in my life. I was always afraid of saying that in the past tense, but really, they were so good that I'm sort of okay with it. 18 countries, crazy adventures, unbridled freedom like I may never have again, things that were so incredibly beautiful they made me cry, learning so much every long day that my dreams went around in circles in the short nights. Yes, it was wonderful - no regrets.

Still, I haven't had quite enough baking in the after-dark heat, or had time to enjoy the sense of freedom that comes from bare arms and shoulders. I've been on the boat a lot, since my dad goes out on it every day at the lake, and I've gone swimming at least the bare minimum of times in these last weeks... but it still wasn't anything like those summers I remember, with days and days spent in the water and eating frozen pizzas in swimsuits. How much of that, I wonder, would I lose anyway as adulthood creeps towards me?

From Bonn, Germany

2011-09-14T21:39:00.001-05:00

Since I did a list like this for Pamplona, I thought it was only fair to make one for Bonn as well!

Bonn has excellent connections to, well, most of Europe, but this list concentrates on what's closer.

Afternoon Activities:
- Go over to Königswinter and climb up Drachenfels! You'll actually pass two castles before the end - the real Drachenfels at the top of the mountain is really old (and it shows), while halfway up is the much newer and prettier Drachenburg Schloss. The hike is half the fun, but if you're feeling lazy, you can opt to take the little inclined train up. On nice days, sometimes mules are also available for rental.
- Get a little lost looking for Kloster Heisterbach, a ruined monastery not far from Drachenfels.
- Bike down the Rhine for great views of Drachenfels, and visit the tragic and legendary Rolandsbogen.
- Relax in the Hofgarten in front of the University, Alter Zoll by the Rhine, the grass in the middle of Poppelsdorfer Allee, or any other nice park in Bonn.
- Eat the super cheap (1 euro) crepes that are sold near the University and the Cathedral. The best one is the Kinder Schokolade kind, almost too rich, which I have never seen offered outside of Bonn.
- Walk up to Kreuzbergkirche, a little church that's all but forgotten now but which features an impressive Baroque staircase and was once visited by many pilgrims. The view from up there is nice as well.
- Take the bus to Waldau, where you can take a little hike through a protected forest area as well as see two types of native deer and wild boars - the babies are really cute in the springtime!
- Do as the tourists do and go visit the house of Beethoven, and then go to the Beethoven symphony house to hear a performance.
- Visit one of Bonn's wonderful museums such as the very good and free Haus der Geschichte post-WWII history museum.
- Go down to the southernmost part of Bonn, Bad Godesberg, and walk up to the castle there.

Day Trips:

In Nordrhein-Westfalen:

Aachen - To the far west of Nordrhein-Westfalen is the city of Aachen, once the seat of Charlemagne. Some buildings from his time even remain, along with a lovely coronation hall and Northern Europe's oldest cathedral (a world heritage site). Aachen a nice university city with hot springs and a lot of cute places to sit and eat.

Cologne - The cathedral of Cologne, also a world heritage site, is simply the most amazing cathedral I've ever seen. It was in fact the tallest building in the world for a while, and is still one of the tallest cathedrals (I think only Ulm beats it, and Ulm has one single spire to Cologne's two). The rest of Cologne is also worth a visit for the amazing Karneval celebration, for some nightlife, and for the chocolate museum.

Dusseldorf - Not too far from Cologne, another Rhine-side city. The harbor has some quite interesting looking buildings in it, and the Japanese part of town is fun to visit if you want to see a bunch of anime geeks in costume or try the best Japanese food for miles. I really like the feeling in all the restaurants by the banks of the Rhine.

Wuppertal - Famous for being really boring, but Wuppertal has its moments, and a pretty cool suspended train. I also thought the free botanical garden was worth a quick visit. You can throw it in with Dusseldorf or Cologne easily.

Bad Münstereifel - A rare place in Nordrhein-Westfalen, this is one of those cute German towns with the half-timber buildings and the old city walls. Its in the Eifel region, which means lovely, gentle hills all around.

Münster - This small city in the north of the state has a beautiful cathedral, (don't fall for the decoy 'cathedral' in the square... that's just an ordinary church) a few blocks of buildings that look like they belong much farther north in Germany, and a cool open-air museum where you can see old wooden buildings and mills, try your hand at spinning wool or playing a turn-organ.

Duisburg - Part of the old Ruhr-gebiet industrial area, there's a very interesting and unique park here called the Landscape Park Duisburg. It's basically a huge old factory converted to a park - pieces have become rock-climbing areas, children's playgrounds, observation towers, a movie theatre, and a scuba diving pool. Especially cool when its lit up on weekend nights.

Essen - Another part of the old Ruhr-gebiet, Essen is home to the Zollverein coal processing plant, a UNESCO world heritage site. You can spend a surprisingly long and interesting time there taking the guided tour (2 hours long!) and wandering around the other parts of the enormous complex.

In Rheinland Pfalz:

Koblenz - Not far south of Bonn is Koblenz, which marks one end of the Upper Rhine River Valley. Koblenz has an old palace, a handful of churches and plazas... blah blah blah... AND two sites you can't miss: The Deutsches Eck, which marks the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel with the flags and shields of each German state and a huge statue towering above it all (climb up and you will feel like you are at the prow of the ship Germany)... and Ehrenbreitstein, a simply enormous fortress across the river with an unbelievable view over the river and the hills.

The Upper Rhine River Valley - The stretch of river between Mainz and Koblenz is so full of castles that you'll get whiplash trying to photograph them all on a drive down. Better take a day-cruise and get on and off a few times on the way. This is fully half of the legendary Germany you've all read about - the rest of it is in Munich with the Lederhosen, Octoberfest, and Neuschwanstein castle.

Mainz - This is at the other end of the Upper Rhine River Valley from Koblenz, and its a pleasant city with a town-feeling. Mainz was a big deal in the middle ages. The printing press was invented here and you can check out the Gutenberg museum. There are also several important churches, and I liked all the cool fountains everywhere.

Trier - The oldest city in Germany, Trier sports some great Roman ruins I never expected to see so far north, like the magnificent emperor's baths and an amphitheater... as well as the "Black Gate" that is the city's icon. Some very German segments as well.

In The Netherlands:

Heerlen - If you're itching to get to the Netherlands, fast, Heerlen is the first stop across the border. It doesn't have a lot to offer a tourist except what's quintessentially and uniquely Dutch - like Stroopwaffels, yummy fries, and other things I won't mention here.

Maastricht - This is the only major city in the Netherlands that I consider a possible day trip from Bonn (I've heard of package tours that will take you to Amsterdam and a few other towns and back in a single day, but that's just silly as far as I'm concerned. You have like 35 minutes in Zaanse Schans, what's the point?). Maastricht now has lovely dutch architecture, and more of the above mentioned waffles, fries, etc.

From Pamplona, Spain

2011-09-14T17:15:00.002-05:00

Here is a list of things I did and places I visited from Pamplona, Spain during my semester there... maybe it will help someone. :)

Priority is given to places that are in Navarre or even Pamplona itself, and to places that don't require private transportation. You could easily make many of these a weekend trip or combine several of them for a full weekend trip. Pamplona is also within pretty easy reach of Barcelona, Madrid, etc, but this list was created to focus on closer destinations. :)

Afternoon Activities:
- Walk around Pamplona itself! It's a lovely city with a lot of different areas. Go up on the old city walls, follow one of the rivers all the way through, go out towards Huarte for a great view of the mountains rising behind the cathedral, go to Arre to see La Trinidad de Arre, an old mill and bridge over a little waterfall.
- Take a little hike... From Pamplona it's a nice good walk to several other towns. Zizur Menor and Mayor are especially close and one day I followed the Ulzama river to Sorauren and back. There's also the Aqueduct of Noain in the other direction. Feel free to cheat with busses or even cars as appropriate, but the walk can be half the fun!
- Take the bus to Puente de la Reina. It's a very small, sweet old town with an impressive bridge giving it its name.
- Go Pintxos hopping and try whatever strikes your fancy - but make sure that includes the Foie at Gaucho!
- Explore every inch of the maze-like Ciutadela park
- Try to catch some Basque cultural events such as Pelota (handball) or Bertsolaritza (improv poetry competitions)
- Try cooking (or at least eating) Navarrese dishes such as Baztanzopas, Ajoarriero ... and especially Relleno, (bloodless blood sausage made with rice, egg, saffron, and suet... pour tomato sauce over), which is found only within Pamplona city limits!

Day/Weekend Trips:

In Navarre:

- The Camino de Santiago: Do a day on the Camino Santiago, starting in Pamplona and returning by bus. I went south to Puente de la Reina (see afternoon activities), passing the epic Alto del Perdon with its monument to pilgrims, windmills all around, and a great view of Pamplona below.

- Bardenas Reales: Go south to Navarra's badlands for some fantastic desert landscapes... also visit nearby towns such as Tudela and keep your eye out for vinyards, herds of livestock weaving through the canyons, and the cave-houses nearby. You sort of need a car for this one.

- Olite Castle: Not far south of Pamplona, one of my favourite castles ever... really elegant especially in fall when much of it was covered in thick red ivy. There are plenty of busses going here.

- Foces de Lumbier y Arbayun: To the east of Pamplona are these beautiful canyons. Arbayun is perhaps even more stunning especially from the viewpoint, but not as accessible to hike. Lumbier has a very good and accessible trail leading all the way through (and if you're brave, take the the much worse trail to the Devil's Bridge, or hike around in the mountains nearby on other trails.) These trips are much easier to do by car, but I managed it by bus by disembarking at Liedena, hiking along the river to and through the canyon, and bussing back from Lumbier. Pay close attention to the schedules if you do this.

- The Witch Caves of Northern Navarre: In the far north of Navarra, near the border with France, you can visit the witch caves of Zugarramurdi and Urdax. Urdax is a more traditional cave with some nice formations, while Zugarramurdi is sort of creepy with its huge chambers, history as a location for witches' sabbaths, and a clay-red river flowing through. Just over the border you can also hit Ainhoa and Sare, both of which make the list of 100 most beautiful French villages. Much easier to do this one with a car.

- The Baztan Valley: Just south of the Witch Caves (see above), you'll find the Baztan Valley with its many lovely small towns. Elizondo is the biggest and has some charming architecture, I also really enjoyed stopping in tiny Amaiur. You can get to Elizondo by bus, but a car is better since you'll want to explore all the tiny towns and the countryside in between.

- Javier Castle: A nice castle in the Southeast of Navarra - I've heard that its defenses are in great shape and that an interior tour is in order. I only saw the outside but it was nice as well! Difficult by bus but maybe not impossible. There is a pilgrimage from Pamplona to Javier every spring called the Javierada which is a lot of fun! The nearby city of Sanguesa is also worth a stop as it has a lot of famous churches.

- El Embalse de Yesa: A big lake on Navarra's southeastern border (a lot of this is technically just over the border into Aragon). Home to an abandoned bath town, Tiermas, as well as a monastary partway up the mountain behind it. All not far from Javier and Sanguesa and likewise hard to do by bus.

- Arangoiti: This mountain in South-Eastern Navarra seems to be a well kept secret. There's almost nothing about it online, but I saw it on a map and realized there was a road leading all the way to the top! If you can make it past the semi-wild horses that roam around up there, you can see for miles and miles, including great views of the Embalse de Yesa, the Leyre Monastary, and the Foz de Arbayun.

- The Salazar and Roncal Valleys: Further east yet the terrain grows quite mountainous and you come to the Salazar and Roncal Valleys, dotted with lovely small towns and fantastic cliffs and canyons. I especially recommend hiking near Burgui or stopping for lunch, souvenirs, whatever in Ochagavia.

- The Pyrenees: Right on the border with France in the extreme east of Navarra, the Pyrenees start rising in real force! There are great opportunities for skiing, snowshoeing, hiking etc here - I climbed the mountain Petretxema which was challenging but fantastic!

- The Forest of Irati: One of the great beech-and-fir forests in Europe is in eastern Navarra, high in the mountains and often obscured by fog. The place feels magical and I loved hiking there and picking mushrooms in the fall!

In the Basque Country:

- San Sebastian - Pamplona's beach as I liked to think of it, but so much more! It has lovely bright blue, calm water around green islands and hills and a little crescent of a beach, a fun film festival and other cultural events, and the best food in the world. I'm not just making this up - the Pintxo crawling tradition is a must-try! http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2005/mar/13/foodanddrink.shopping2 Easy by bus.

- Bilbao - Maybe the most famous nearby attraction due to the Guggenheim museum. Bilbao has its charming areas, delicious food, and, of course, the Guggenheim museum. Easy by bus.

- Vitoria - Actually the main capital of the Basque country, but it seems sort of neglected compared to the two above! It's definitely worth a visit through for its lovely twisty alleys, the escalators that go up some of the streets, the proliferation of artistic murals, the beautiful main plaza, and most uniquely a cathedral that you can visit, with a borrowed hard-hat, while its under construction! Easy by bus.

- The Basque Coastal Train - You can hop on this in San Sebastian and go all the way to Bilbao, and stop at any little town in between. I especially recommend Zumaia for the awesome Flysch geology along the coastline. You can also take this in the other direction into Hendaye, France.

- Gaztelugatxe - One of the top attractions of the Basque country - an island with a hermitage along a rough part of the Basque coastline. There's a causeway going out to it that you can walk on, which looks like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Causeway_to_the_Ermita_de_San_Juan,_Biskaia,_Spain_02-2005.jpg In the summer, there are some ways to get there by public transit. In the winter, not so much, although theoretically you could bus to a nearby town and then hike the rest of the way.

- Other Basque Towns - If I had had more time, I would have loved to visit a bunch of other places in the Basque Country. Briefly, consider going to Guernica (famous for the Picasso painting and also formerly a major seat of Basque power, with a huge tree symbolizing the rights of the Basque people) and Durango (here not a car or a Mexican state but a nice Basque town... I visited for the Basque book fair.)

In Aragon:

- Zaragoza - The capital of Aragon with some very impressive architecture, including TWO cathedrals. It was about the furthest north that the Moors had significant power, so there's a lot of blending of architectural styles and also the Aljaferia Islamic palace. Also great for shopping and for visiting one of the big festivals here. There are plenty of busses going here from Pamplona.

- Canyons of Huesca - This is probably really pushing the envelope as a day trip, but definitely worth a weekend. You can go canyoning (like kayaking... with only a wetsuit) in the narrow, twisty canyons around here like the world is just your natural waterpark. There's also some good hiking, some very old cave paintings, and an absolutely stunning little town, Alquezar.

In Castille:

Burgos - I didn't make it here myself, and I'm sad about it. Although a little far, its quite accessible and is worth visiting for a number of reasons. This is pretty much the epicenter of where the modern Spanish language is said to originate, and its famous for an amazing cathedral and monastery, a towering old city gate, and a new museum of Human Evolution that's supposed to be one of the best museums in Spain.

Things You Can Make in a Rice Cooker

2011-09-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

It's pretty much my belief that you can make anything in a rice cooker that you can make over the stove... the only frontier I haven't crossed is trying to make any sort of 'dutch oven' adaptation to bake in it, although I've heard that its pretty easy to use it like a breadmaker. Keep in mind that what I have is a small, 10$ rice cooker from Walgreens with a nonstick interior and a little glass lid, and one single button that switches it from cook to keep warm.

Easy:

- Plain Rice
- Rice Pilafs
- Risottos
- Pasta
- Soups
- Stews
- Oatmeal
- Boiled Eggs
- Ramen Noodles
- Steamed Veggies/Fish

A Little Trickier:

- Scrambled Eggs
- Fried Eggs
- Sauteed Meat/Veggies
- Stir Fries
- Fried Rice
- Popcorn

Note: In order to make some of these items, you will need to tape the temperature switch on the rice cooker down to let it get a little hotter than normal. Some fancy rice cookers have an option to override the temperature switch anyway, but the little ones like I have are designed to shut off when all the water has evaporated from the rice, so they don't get hot enough for some of these things unless you mess with the switch. I have never had problems doing this, but I never leave the rice cooker unattended when it's at hotter-than-rice temperatures, and keep in mind that you void the warranty if you do this.

Music from Junior Year Abroad

2011-09-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

I spent all morning downloading music on iTunes... you know, now that I actually have a computer that can play music! :)

I'm overwhelmed again at the power of music to bring back feelings and nostalgia.

From my last year, abroad...

Shakira's Suerte/Wherever Whenever reminds me of the early days in Pamplona
Her Loca Loca Loca and Waka Waka remind me of the party scene, especially dancing with Indre and her friends that one night!
I Could Not Ask for More by Sara Evans was my peace during the worst days
And 21 Guns by Green Day cuts the deepest into my mentality in those days
Stay the Night reminds me of the final days, a sort of wearied acceptance, Spanish Christmas candies and packing
Firework by Katy Perry was INSANELY popular during my break in Florida, I was so full of a sort of renewed hope then...
Just my Imagination reminds me of the blissful craziness of traveling every weekend in Bonn, living the dream!
Wir Feiern die Ganze Nacht reminds me of the party in Heidelberg, and Nadine
Firma Illegal reminds me of driving through the mountains of Slovenia

Back in Missouri

2011-09-09T12:52:00.000-05:00

It's good to be back in Missouri, back in the sound of the cicadas and the hot-wet-blanket humidity of summer nights and the impossibly vast blue skies of autumn. The leaves are already changing for the year... and from here everything seems well with the world.

Norway

2011-09-08T23:20:00.000-05:00

So, it looks like I'm going to Norway. For the last year I've been steeling myself against the possibility of something going wrong... but in the last week I've been talking to advisors and parents and such, and things have come together surprisingly easily. The last person who has the potential to mess things up is the Study Abroad Advisor herself, who I see tomorrow. But things look good. :) :) :)

Bad Bad Spanish

2011-09-01T01:09:00.000-05:00

I found this article online while looking for the text of a short story in Spanish. Owwwwww... There are really no words to describe how bad it is. It's as if a teacher took all the mistakes a foreigner can make in Spanish and spent hours trying to make an essay that combined it all as densely as possible. My first thought was auto-translator, but I think even an auto translator wouldn't be as consistently terrible. :(

" El artículo de <>, cuál fue escrito por Marco Denevi, fue muy interesante. El hablé acerca de el fin de la raza de los hombres porque de las máquinas. Técnicamente, el apocalipsis fue el fin libro bíblico de la Revelación. En este cuento, el escritor dijo que el Apocalipsis occuro a el fin del siglo XXXII (17). Qué es muy interesante es que esta centura es en el pasado, cercano el principio de la edad de mecanico. Cuándo la raza de humanas empezó para inventar cosas porque fue muy difícil para vivir sin estas objectas, la raza también empezó ser perezoso. Con el invención de la coche, la lavadora, la computadora, la microonda, y otras máquinas, nosotros tenimos hacer menos y menos cada día y estas máquinas he hacido más y más.

En el cuento, nosotros aprietimos un botón y las máquinas hacen todas cosas y nuestro vidas terminó. Yo creo que las máquinas no tenían un motivo para morir, pero que nuestro conducta perezosa fue el fin de nosotros. La raza de humanas pensó que las máquinas fueran bueno porque ellos <> (Denevi 76). Las máquinas no quisieron a crear arte y esta fue muy triste para nosotros porque las creaciones de humanas fue desaparezar ( como mesas, sillas, rosas, y discos con musica de Beethoven). La problema grande que yo tengo con las máquinas es que toda la arte de personas famosas no ya existen. Los vinos de Burdeos, las catedrales góticas, la Piedad de Miguel Angel, las ruines del Foro Tranjano no existen en esta cuento porque la raza de humanas fue perezoso.

Qué yo creo es interesante en la cuenta también es que el final oracion en <> tenia una verbo que fue conjugue en nosotros. Pienso que las máquinas escribo la cuenta para informar esta generación de personas así que nosotros no hacemos este error. Pienso que nosotros necesitamos hacer mas para asegurar que vamos a existir para los próximos 10 siglos. Porque de las máquinas en el cuento, la raza de humana no existe, pero necesitamos máquinas para vivir hoy. En esta es la problema."

First Story! And Comments!

2011-08-31T09:55:00.000-05:00

My first ever story has just been published. And thanks to the internet, I can actually tell that people are reading it! :D As of 8 a.m. there are already three comments!

(name removed) August 31, 2011 | 1:33 a.m.

I really like the lighting on Level 8. The blue film matches the window art and gives off a nice vibe that matches that of the "Keys to the City" sculpture at City Hall.

The option of changing the films for special occasions is a great idea that could add to the downtown (city) vibe.

(name removed) August 31, 2011 | 4:28 a.m.

To make sure I understand the proposed solution correctly, nothing is being done to reduce the energy usage of the garage, they are just using films to reduce the lighting? If so, then why was the EEC and the sustainability office involved at all?

(name removed) August 31, 2011 | 6:13 a.m.

One assumes that the purpose of the garage remains as a place to park motor vehicles and not to function primarily as a "light show."

The first one is a great, happy comment that should make the people in my story happy, and it also makes me happy! They did exactly what I'd hoped by reading the story and giving feedback.

The second one asks a good question, and honestly I think I'd answered it a little bit better in my last draft of the story before the editor helped me with it. So I guess maybe that change wasn't perfect... at least not for this reader.

The third one is a little funny... heheh...

I'm just really happy basically!

Tenacity

2011-08-30T18:40:00.000-05:00

I want to make one of those motivational posters about this guy.

The word: Tenacity

This is my pet spider. He was living in my car's left side mirror when we got to the Lake House at the end of the summer. Since then, he's come with us to St. Louis and to Springfield and two and from Columbia twice. As of last night he's still living with me here at school. No, I haven't named him. I don't want to get too attached. If he's smart he'll move on to a more supportive and normal spider environment. Or he might starve in the Mizzou parking lot, or get picked off by a bird like my German pet spider in Bonn. He seems to be pretty able to handle my driving, though. When I get on the highway, he crawls up behind the mirror, then he climbs out again when I park for awhile. His web is really strong and if he's caught out on the line while I'm driving around, he hangs on for dear life.

He's awesome.

Macbook Pro

2011-08-28T01:53:00.002-05:00

This is my first blog post with my new MacBook Pro.

I resisted for so long, for so many reasons.

But now, I love it. ^^

I don't know what kind of witchcraft this is, but on the automatic homepage on Safari, this apple website, the first/more recent news article is about the use of MacBook Pros... in the University of Missouri Journalism School! And this is the main excerpt:

The Mac is now a universal presence in the curriculum, which aims to give Missouri School of Journalism students the skills and tools they need to produce work at the same level as any professional journalist. Students use MacBook Pro for everything from recording classroom lectures to newsgathering, writing, and editing for class projects and for the school’s newspaper, TV station, and affiliated online news service.

"The Mac is now a universal presence."

Yep, because I, the last holdout, have one now. :P Or so it seems...

Things are starting to get busy...

2011-08-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

What I did today

8:00 - 9:30 Wake up, call Adobe customer support, eat breakfast, get dressed, walk across campus
9:30 - 10:45 News Reporting Lecture
10:55 Grab a Library Cookie (!!!) in between classes
11:00 - 12:15 History of the Spanish Language Class
12:15-12:30 Final Macbook Shopping
12:30 - 1:45 Spanish Literature Class
1:45 - 2:15 Walk home, change clothes, call dad, walk to my car, drive to the Missourian
2:15 - 3:30 At the Missourian talking to my editor and making phone calls
3:30 - 4:30 Buying groceries and getting customer support at Best Buy
4:30 - 6:00 More story reasearch, interview someone for garage story, cook and eat dinner
6:30 - 9:00 Environment and Energy Commission meeting and questions
9:00 - 10:00 Check out the parking garage again, drive home, talk to mom for awhile, eat, write this blog post.

I'll be up a minimum of two more hours doing assignments and putting this story into a semi-coherent form for my editor tomorrow morning. And I need to squeeze a shower in somewhere.

It has begun.

Two Possibilities

2011-08-22T23:13:00.000-05:00

"If it is friendly, I will make friends with it - and if it is not friendly I will fight with it.

Either course would be a good, manly occupation, something Pwyll understood and knew how to do."

- The Prince of Annwn, Evangeline Walton

In the dust, it's more seductive

2011-08-22T23:11:00.002-05:00

“One of the cul-de-sacs that a travel writer has to continually watch out for is the pervasive assumption that poor people are intrinsically nicer than rich ones. It looks silly in print but on the ground, in the dust, it’s more seductive. A fond belief that poverty is synonymous with dignity, that kindness, politeness and humor as shown by the less privileged is somehow quantitatively more valuable because they come tempered by hardship. And there’s the balancing assumption that all those things that come from rich people are consequently worth less because they’re bought and paid for with such ease, that their happiness is less real because it’s sullied with money and possessions. What we end up with is a cartoon version of the Sermon on the Mount. An unhealthy belief that poverty is of itself ennobling because riches are demeaning.”
A.A. Gill, AA Gill is Away (2003)

Home, Sweet Home

2011-08-22T10:17:00.000-05:00

It's been wonderful to see Tina and Tabi again. Of my 7 closest friends at Mizzou (I'm excluding friends that only stayed one semester), only those two are here with me this fall. In a way that was hard to face, since when I left I had all seven around me. I was worried that I would miss the other five, and, well, I do. But after packing up and moving to brand new locations twice last year, starting with nothing, I suddenly feel silly for not realizing how good it would feel to have those two, how many more 2 is than 0. I've already been to a party with Tina where we mostly just chilled with the mosquitoes on the porch and talked, and I played scrabble with her and two mutual friends I've met in the last few days (one at that party, one at international orientation). Through the international orientation I've met several new people, and the same goes for the journalism orientation yesterday. And Tabi and I had a nice lunch yesterday and a nice time just sitting around at her place, we're planning a few trips to Rolla during the semester where I'll be able to see both Laura and Kate. And as far as my dear friends abroad go - Allan and I are going to start trying to have an email conversation, even if we fail at meeting up on Skype as often as we'd like, and Zahra and I are going to try to keep a weekly Skype appointment. I want to try to do the same (the latter) with my sister Melissa. And Uni and I chat sometimes, and Liisa and I have as always our email exchange. No, I won't die of loneliness, not just yet. :)

It's strange to be back on campus. People keep asking me how it feels to return from so much time away, but I'm still having trouble putting it into words. I'm still in the process of feeling it out. More than I expected, although I'd predicted it out loud, as soon as I landed here I felt like yes, this is the real life, the other was a dream. But a week later I still have some strange feelings like just having woken from a dream. Every time I go to a different part of campus, it seems funny to see it again, still existing. And the changes freak me out, like the new student center and the new meal plans and the new tobacco free campus. I walked past Peace Park the other day and thought, yes, thats the rock that I sat on with Jorge when we kissed for the first time, yes, that's the pond where the two Laura's and I met one day to throw bread crumbs into the stream on a Jewish holiday, yes that's the tree I climbed during Roots and Blues with Allan and Amy and Esther... this whole place is marked with memories and the trail of a life I feel like I'm picking up again. I feel a strange sort of disconnect with both my memories of here, because they're far away in time, and my memories of Europe, because they're far away in place.

My initial complaints aside, I've settled into my dorm. I use the Brita pitcher for water and I'm already mostly used to the fridge (which doesn't drone ALL the time). I have a sunset view out my window. As soon as I get some groceries I'm going to make a snack, (maybe gimbap?) for my roommates so that we can meet each other properly.

I returned to the dining halls, which were smaller than I remembered somehow. And the portions are definitely smaller, that can't be my imagination! I know at the buffet style you can go back and back again, but when lines are long thats a pain, and now we cant even have trays. Although it seems a little bit deceptive for them to argue that all they want is to cut 'waste' when really they want to spend less money on feeding us, I understand some of the initiatives... but this? I'm a tiny girl, and I had to go back three times before I had enough of the shrimp/zucchini/biscuit/fries meal to feel full. The first time I asked for extra shrimp, and I got 6 (and they're small shrimp). When I went back, I got 4. 4. I could have gone back again, I still wasn't feeling that full, but it was starting to get embarassing so I just went and ate ice cream instead. Now, back in the tray days we would often go to two or three different food stops, so smaller portions made more sense... but now that I can only carry one plate I want at least 1/2 a meal on it! And Eva J's, my favourite dining hall, has been turned into a non-all-you-can-eat. On the one hand, its still Asian food, and I'm not going to knock it until I've tried the new offerings. On the other hand, Kung-pao-chicken (probably my favourite CDS meal) isnt on the menu, so I hope its been moved to another dining hall. And when you can't go back for free more, those portion sizes better be reasonable... because the dining halls are to expensive for this crap.

On that note, one surprise for me is how expensive everything is. I'd grossly exaggerated the price differences in my head. In Germany and Spain restaurants can be comparable once taxes and service charges are added to the American bill. Groceries are a bit cheaper here, but the thing is that abroad I have no connection to brand names at all and feel perfectly fine buying the cheapest versions... here the generics sometimes (like with Town House Crackers) taste inferior to me, forcing me to buy the slightly more expensive ones, and again things nearly even out. There's no equivalent here of the 70 euro cent ice cream cone or the 1 euro crepe. And the 90 euro cent main course in the German dining halls? Forget about it. My wallet's feeling a little disillusioned...

BUT. Free water, cold and delicious. Free ketchup, as many fistfuls as I care to grab. Commonly smiling and joking service people. Free bathrooms. My language, my turf. Microcurries. The endless flourescent expanse of Walmart. My books and my movies. Yes, it's good to be home.

Back in the Dorms

2011-08-20T02:21:00.000-05:00

I'm about to spend my first night in my new building here in Columbia. It's Suite Style this time, which is new for me and so far I have mixed feelings about it. My suitemates seem nice, but four is just an awkward number to share a bathroom. A bathroom for one, like I had in South? Obviously ideal. A bathroom for a whole floor, cleaned daily by janitors, like I had in Laws? Different, but easy to get used to. In Germany I technically shared the bathroom with eight, but there were four rooms after they split showers from toilets and boys facilities from girls facilities. In Spain, I had to share with Jaime and Gianfranco, but Gianfranco was a guy and didn't use a lot of time or a lot of products, and Jaime and I had different shower schedules and she kept stuff in her room I think. I walked in the bathroom here and there's stuff everywhere. I don't know if I can just throw my stuff in the mix, there dont seem to be defined areas, there are two shelves in the shower which have been taken and another girl has taken one of the corners... if I use a second corner things are going to get really crowded. Later someone had locked the entire bathroom (within there are seperate lockable stalls for toilet and shower, and the sink outside) because they were using the toilet. Is that how it's supposed to work? I don't know anything. And tonight when I got in there was a hair straightener on the counter, plugged in and very hot. Probably has been there since the girls went out earlier. Is it that hard to unplug it? Isn't that a fire hazard? And with the cord it was stretched across half the counter space. No, do not like the bathroom situation. At least my room is nice and dark. :) An improvement over what I had in Laws and South. The noise, though, will take some getting used to. Especially my fridge... it never stops humming. Has it always been that bad? Its an adjustment to all be in one room again, I LOVED having a separate kitchen abroad. Now my sleeping room and my studying room and my eating room are all the same, and will smell like each other. But its a nice dorm, everything's in good condition and the location is not bad, better than Laws/South. I'm sure I'll get used to the drone of the fridge once again...

Fullness to Decay

2011-07-14T16:23:00.001-05:00

"But there was no doubt that within the coach something very great was seated; greatness that was passing, hidden, within reach of the common hands that for the first and last time found themselves so close to the majesty of England, the enduring symbol of the state that inquisitive archeaologists would identify in their excavations at the ruins of time, when London was no more than a street covered with grass, and when the people who were strolling ist streets that Wednesday morning were scarcely a heap of bones with a few wedding rings, turned over in their own dust and the fillings of innumerable decayed teeth."

- Mrs. Dalloway

"I realized that a single sentence could contain a cycle of civilization from fullness to decay."

Languages and Peanut Butter Crunch

2011-07-11T13:39:00.000-05:00

I used to joke about mixing up languages but I'm having a pretty strong and pretty real attack of it right now. Last night I had dinner with In and Justyna, speaking German the whole time. I came home and had to write a few emails in Spanish. I'm pretty sure they all ended up in the target language, I don't even think I actually /typed/ any words in German, but as I was writing, thinking ahead a few words (because that's what it takes, more actively and more noticeably, with a second language) I realized that my mind kept jumping ahead, thinking of the German words, and then crossing them out and finding the Spanish equivalents. It wasn't a big deal as my German and Spanish are about on the same level (Spanish probably better), so I didn't get stuck in the trap of 'oh dear, I don't know how to say _____ after planning this paragraph around it'. Still, it was weird. Spanish and German usually have a very firm wall between them in my mind. I'm not used to mixing them up like with German-Norwegian, for example. But I had some pretty legit Deutschspañol going on in the Hintergrund of my mind. And huh, you know, I really did not mean to write Hintergrund, just then. It just suddenly seems so natural in English. Yes, I can think of Background in .001 seconds flat, but Hintergrund suddenly doesn't seem to stick out very much anymore. I'm not convinced we don't use it at least in certain, obscure applications in English, as a loan word. Maybe Freudian psychology or something.

Had my Norwegian exam and I feel pretty good about it. I know I did terrible on several sections of grammar, particularly writing dates out (which I might have gotten a decent score on if he's big on partial credit, if he strikes out the whole line for a small mistake, I bombed it for sure) and comparatives/superlatives (ironic because this was one of the first things I learned in Norwegian, at least in the most basic sense). I must not have been there when they talked about these, maybe that was last semester? But still the trouble only amounted to 1/4-1/3 of the grammar section, which was only 1/4 of the whole exam. I owned listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and the free-writing section.

Then I headed to the organic bio supermarket that I finally discovered at the bus station. Yes, it's overpriced, but sometimes its worth it. Like when I suddenly have a craving for milk, and going there over the normal store saves me 20 minutes of transport time, only costs about 30 cents more, and as a bonus I get my milk non-ultra-high-temperature-pasteurized, but all American like, and beautifully refrigerated. I might even care a little more about organic milk than organic other products, what with all the funky feminine hormones floating around. Worth 30 cents, anyway. This one time. I came home and I ate half the liter of milk over peanut butter crunch, brought from home back in February, that's still tolerably fresh. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the overdose of preservatives in that puppy have fully negated any feel-good live-good benefits I got from my organic milk. But I needed the grounding, the little taste of home, to gather the strength for the last push through finals...

Photo Fun in Landschaftspark Duisburg

2011-07-10T16:28:00.000-05:00

Today was my last fun for a WHOLE WEEK. Can you imagine? I'm actually being expected to do something not fun. A few exams, a handful of projects, and a LOT of goodbyes.

But today was fun. :) I went to Duisburg, the world's largest inland port and one of the big cities of the industrial Ruhrgebiet. There's an enormous former factory there that's been converted into a sort of park. I love the concept and I knew I had to see it during my time here, and I finally made it this afternoon.


I found these funny looking holes in one section of the factory. They were begging for some fun photos.

Productive Day!

2011-07-05T14:18:00.000-05:00

Feeling good.

Today was super productive - got up at a reasonable hour, wrote a blog post for MU Study Abroad, showered, cleaned (threw away a huge garbage bag of papers and stuff), ate lunch, recycled, went to class, talked to the professor about the credits, went to the dentist, called my mom, searched for a couchsurfing host in Poland, accepted a couchsurfer for tomorrow, figured out how to borrow a DVD-playing laptop for my Referat and a one-language dictionary for the DSH, went and bought a new suitcase, studied German vocabulary in the Hofgarten for awhile, and now I'm back home fully intending to get a tiny bit more cleaning done, and finish my Protocol for Latin American Literature.

I'm feeling good because I pretty much have everything planned between now and going home - two weeks of exams and saying goodbye to friends/Bonn, moving out, two weeks in East Europe with In, quick visits to Cynthia and Damaris, and a week in Scotland with Allan and Lucia, here I come! I finally know what I'm going to do for all of my classes, and it's not too bad. I'm actually only taking two exams through the main University that actually scare me - the Norwegian ones don't really matter for my grade, and I'll pass the DSH class even if I fail the exam. Even in the classes that scare me I've got certain safeguards in place - it's much better for me if I pass, but it shouldn't show up as an F at Mizzou if I don't. So things are pretty good there.

I decided to go for Option #2 in my Bag Delimma. Tina helped steer me away from buying my shiny backpack now (it deserves a bigger budget and more time than I can give it now), and my quick trip to Heidelberg and Frankfurt confirmed for the thousandth time that I do not want to take another real trip with just my overloaded backpack. So, a roller it was. I ended up paying 40 euros for it, not quite the 20 euro pipe dream, but although there was a bag that was 30, it felt a lot cheaper and, while smaller overall, it was actually too big to be 'cabin luggage' because it was thick in one area. Even this one is 22 cm thick, whereas the official limit is 20 cm, but I practiced cramming it in the size-checker and it will go as long as I don't overpack it/put anything really in the front pockets. It's well under the dimensions in the other directions, though. It feels so small, light, and new! :D I love it!

(Major Geek P.S. - It's this lovely dark blue colour. My BIG suitcase here is a lovely burgundy. If only I had a nice forest green backpack, my bags would be colour-coded to Link's Tunics in Ocarina of Time!! :D :D And yes, seriously, that's what I thought when I saw my two suitcases together.)

It's funny how I feel so good when I have a productive day, I feel so much less stressed out once I actually start tackling the to-do list. Why do I let so many days go by where I just hide from the problems, instead? This is something I really need to work on, and remembering how good and fresh I feel on days like this should help with that.

I Need a New Bag

2011-07-01T02:50:00.000-05:00

The backpack I have now, yeah, I bought it for 30$ practically on the way to Japan. I had been thinking about getting a 'real' backpack, but in the end the low price tag convinced me. And the backpacks been good in that it has a lot of space in it, and as long as I pack it lightly (in Japan no problem, I put all the heavy things in the roller) it's pretty fine. But I never intended it to become a permanent part of my travel gear - it sticks straight out, is terrible for my back and shoulders when heavy (Scotland and Belgium are great examples of suffering), and it's unwieldy on public transportation. The best I can say for it is that it makes a handy seat, and its exactly the right size to be a carry-on for Ryan-air etc.

But I'm thinking about the upcoming Eastern Europe trip, and about a possible change. Here are the options:

1.) Do Nothing

I've struggled through vacations with this backpack before, what's another one? And In will have her roller, meaning that we'll be working our days around leaving stuff in the hostel anyway.

Pros: Don't have to find or pay for a new bag right now
Cons: I'll have to pack really light, and pray that the backpack has another trip in it (it's developing a few little holes, but it'll be okay... I think

2.) Get a Cheap Roller

I've seen some cheap rollers for as little as 20 euros that should serve.

Pros: I'd match In, which is always good, my shoulders would feel free and happy, and I could bring a lot more stuff, maybe even eliminating the need to do laundry at some point.
Cons: I have a roller back home, so this would basically be a one-use thing.

3.) Get the real Backpack, at last

Pros: I'd look cool, I'm going to get one sometime in the next year anyway
Cons: I can probably get one cheaper in the U.S., I'm not sure I have the time to do it right, if In has her roller there's not that much of a point to me being extra-mobile.

Star Wars Virginity

2011-06-30T07:40:00.001-05:00

Tonight's the night. I'm going to lose my Star Wars Virginity.

That's right, I've never seen Star Wars. I, who lived on the internet in Middle School and still spend a sizeable amount of time in the geek-o-sphere, have never seen what amounts to one of its most sacred pillars.

I never planned not to see Star Wars. I mean, it didn't appeal to me as much as Lord of the Rings, but I never made a promise not to see it or anything like that. It simply... never happened. It's become so weird it's that it's become a part of my identity, a conversational asset. People I've been friends with for years have freaked out multiple times when it's come up (they keep mentally blocking it out, I guess it's just that hard to believe.)

And I'll miss my little joke about it: "No, I haven't seen Star Wars, but I know all about it, just like scientists know about Black Holes" - I've seen the way everything reacts to it, the void has a clear outline, but is a void nonetheless. Until tonight. O.O

A Little Bit of Guilt

2011-06-30T06:04:00.000-05:00

Too much travel has made this semester seem disjointed, and my connection to Bonn less clear than it was with Pamplona. Sometimes I'm standing on a corner and suddenly things are familiar - its a corner I haven't stood on since the time of first arriving, say, when things were new and the air was colder and the Karneval Spirit was going around. It seems as distant as my months in Pamplona and as distant as Mizzou. I saw a lot of Bonn in those early days, and when Spring erupted I had more happy days here - wandering through Rheinaue and riding my bike down Poppelsdorfer Allee. But while Bonn has been nice enough and certainly convenient and comfortable, I don't have a love affair with it like I did with Pamplona.

Today I wandered around town for a long while, looking at all the different shops, taking an ice cream cone, sitting beneath the Star Gate. I do like Bonn, and it was a pleasant walk. But there was nothing that was tearing me up inside when I thought about leaving it. And here I was just thinking that I love Couchsurfing because it allows you to make a cool relationship that stops just short of getting weepy at the end of it. I open my heart up for too much separation with my style of living. Still, when I think that I'm leaving Bonn soon, I don't feel nostalgic especially. I feel nervous remembering that I have some food still to eat up, exams still ahead, packing to do, arrangements to make. I feel guilt that I don't know every corner of the city as I knew Pamplona, that I didn't try all that hard to make friends here... maybe because I already had German friends scattered around the world, maybe because it was simply so much easier here - I mean, I do have some friends, even new ones: Max, for example, Ansgar and the other Norwegian students, my roommates, etc.

But mostly it's silly. I HAVE spent some quality time in Bonn. I have loved the green spaces and long, summery-spring and the crepe stands and the gelato parlours. I've thought every day about how lucky I was to go to classes in an old palace. I walked down Poppelsdorfer Allee instead of taking the bus several times, so that I could take in the atmosphere. I've hiked to Kloster Heisterbach and Drachenfels and Bad Godesberg. I've given Nordrhein-Westfalen more time than almost anyone else on my program. And I /do/ like Bonn, I really do. And I've loved my semester in Germany every bit as much as my Semester in Spain, different as they have been. I guess my time here has just been too broken up, and I feel guilt that I haven't loved Bonn as much as Pamplona.

And a lot of this is probably simple stress at the end of a semester (and, possibly, my entire study abroad career). In a month and a half, back home again, I'll probably have nothing but rosy thoughts left. :)

What I Learned Today

2011-06-28T16:41:00.000-05:00

Today I learned from In that in Korea it's considered very awkward/rude/inappropriate to lay down in front of a member of the opposite sex. Like, unless you are really good friends. Or in some special circumstance like a foreign hostel (and when sleeping it's not quite as bad). And it's worse for a girl in front of a boy.

And I learned that there's a frozen yogurt place in Bonn and that the Indian restaurant on Clement-August Strasse IS open sometimes after-all.

I learned from my roommates that in Palestine vigilante revenge killings are still normal, that Persian and Arabic share an alphabet but interpret it quite differently, that in Iran they say 'merci' for thank you, generally, and that the word for frog in Farsi uses the weird 'q' letter twice, and the sound for a croak of a frog uses it, too.

And I didn't learn a thing in my classes. Five hours of class and all we did was watch two movies, one was a hot mess of sparse German narration, mostly Guarani dialogue without subtitles, and a bit of French and Portuguese thrown in for good measure. The other was probably a good movie but we had to stop it and leave right before it got to the point (about illegal immigration in Spain). Pretty much par for the course here, though. The International Office classes may be rediculously easy, but I understand the system and I can point to what I've learned. The other classes are just... weird. Too abstract. Too theoretical. Too many weird movies.

What Have You Done Lately?

2011-06-28T16:25:00.001-05:00

So Lucia asked what I'd been up to lately, said we hadn't spoken since I went to the Netherlands or then-abouts.

Well.

I went to the Black Forest and picture-perfect Alsace-Lorraine for Easter
I went to Finland for May Day (that's Vappu to you!) and slept in a bird tower in the forest
Dad visited me and we went to Drachenfels and Rhine in Flames
Liisa visited me and we hit up Maastricht and took a castle cruise on the Rhine
I toured the grubby Ruhr-gebiet, Wuppertal, Dusseldorf, and some of the rural area around Münster
I went to Belgium, couchsurfed in Ghent and saw Oostende, Brugge, Brussels, Antwerp and Mechelen
I went to Niedersachsen, celebrated Abitur, saw Bremen and went for a walk on water in Cuxhaven
I flew to Venice for 20 euros and spent hours hopping from island to island
I swam in Lago di Garda and played in Verona and took the best train ride of my life to Innsbruck, Austria
I loved Liechtenstein, small as it was, then had a miserable time in Switzerland and a worse time getting home
I went to Berlin for a week and saw clubs and palaces and the Reichstag and the Stasi Headquarters and a concentration camp and the remains of 'the wall' and three major museums

And you know, just sort of lived in Germany. Went to classes and did my thing.

In other words, not much. How about you?

That Time

2011-06-28T16:07:00.000-05:00

Three weeks to go. It's still awhile, but not that long, really. Two more weekends, and I'm spending this one to visit Nadine in Heidelberg and Esther in Frankfurt. But it's That Time, when I have to start wrapping things up. To try to use up the honey and the cocoa powder.To start trying to keep things tidier, looking ahead to pack.To start studying for exams and working on projects.To do laundry, wondering if I will do it once more, or twice more again. To make my exit strategy (and I'm going to go out with a bang) To make sure I have the presents and the photos I need. To make a plan to see each of my friends at least once more. To find a home for my bike and my rice cooker. To start saying a slow goodbye to Bonn.

Sunday

2011-06-26T13:32:00.001-05:00

Beautiful weather. But it's too late and I lack the energy to climb any hills, and I have a hard time wandering around without a goal. Xenia and In are both studying, and I should be too, but it seems a crime to stay in when its so nice, and I'm terrible at studying outdoors. Thinking about trying anyway. Normally the wind and the flies and all the little things get on my nerves, but it probably can't be any worse than my wohnheim.

Got home yesterday from the 'okay' trip to Berlin. I should be in Dresden today but I can't be too sad it didn't work out - the extra time has felt good. I did my laundry (a HUGE load of it, and accidentally bought a dryer when I meant to buy a washer, and someone else stole my paid-for-dryer (no one ever uses the dryers here) before my clothes were clean. I bought a very few groceries (crawdads, garlic bread, a few packets of ramen), and gave my shelves a good cleaning. Surprisingly after being gone for two weeks the potatoes from the very beginning of the semester were STILL good, as were the lemons from a few weeks ago, etc. BUT, I found moths and their nasty larvae and eggs in my rice, so I made one last batch (washing very well, and confirming that the rice was very thoroughly infested with little baby moths) and then tossed the rest along with the crisp-breads and the Smacks breakfast cereal. Then I checked the cocoa and the spices and the seaweed, which were all fine, and the sesame seeds, which were a little infested but I just poured it all out into a shallow bowl and picked the little bits of web out. I warned all of my roommates to be on the lookout for nasty little creepy crawlies as well, but so far everyone else seems to be safe. I wiped down my cabinets and washed the outsides of the spice jars etc just because I felt vaguely dirty. I sort of feel sick about how much food I just threw out, but you don't want to mess around with these moth infestations, especially when you live with 7 roommates.

I rescued my bike. Two weeks ago the lock got jammed outside of the International Office and I didn't really know who to go to or what to buy to fix it, was wondering if it was even worth the effort with so little time in the semester but I couldn't just abandon it after everything we've been through, so I decided to go get it today, if it was still there, and carry it home at the very least - from there I could ask the dorm bicycle mentor for help, or take it by bus to a bike shop, or... well, I'd have options. It was still there, and I tried the lock again - still stuck. But for some reason I'd decided to bring a solution of 2 parts warm water to 1 part laundry soap along, and I poured it over the lock and tried again. This time, it worked like a charm. ^^ I'm pretty much a bike expert now, between this and wrestling the chain back on after someone wrecked my bike up pretty good trying to steal it from the wohnheim.

It bothers me that my roommates and their friends smoke in the kitchen, that my nextdoor neighbors doorbell is always ringing and ringing and sometimes they're accidentally calling me instead, that there always seems to be some huge dish in the oven all day at 200 degrees, so that if I just want to cook a bit of pizza or bread it's awkward, that the sound of Arabic music throughout the wohnheim can be oppressive at times, that Nezhla's mother has moved in to Hanenah's old room for the remainder of the semester, semi-illegally. A weekend visit, a week, even? Great, I'd be happy for them! But three months is way too long, even if I'm only here for one of them. I don't know how I feel about a grown woman who doesn't speak English or German sharing my shower and bathroom and kitchen with me... it just seems vaguely inappropriate. It bothers me that most of my roommates are here longer than me and therefore have their own fridges and freezers in their room, but still take the best parts of the shared fridge and freezer and are always spilling over their sections into mine. I can't even open the freezer without bulk meat and ice creams falling out on my head, and I have to take 100 things out to get my little bag of peas out of the back, and then place it all gingerly back in.

I was so happy to get home from Berlin yesterday, really felt like coming back to Bonn was coming home, love having my things around me, the privacy of my room, the familiar smells etc. But it occurs to me that I'm starting to feel ready to take things to the next level. I've still got a full year left of dorm living. Two if I work in Reslife my senior year, which I'm strongly considering (it's just such good money, and it's not really that bad, and I'm decently good at it). But I'm starting to see the appeal of an apartment of one's own, just as I could never ever go back to Freshman year and sharing my ROOM.

Sleepy

2011-06-09T00:38:00.002-05:00

I got a whole seven hours of sleep last night, six the night before and PLENTY the two nights before that. So I shouldn't be this exhausted, looking at random blogs and links in an attempt to clear my mind and continuing to bargain with the air for rights to go back to sleep instead of heading to Norwegian German Translation Class.

Two Nostalgias

2011-06-08T06:37:00.002-05:00

"One winter night while the soup was boiling in the fireplace, he missed the heat of
the back of his store, the buzzing of the sun on the dusty almond trees, the
whistle of the train during the lethargy of siesta time, just as in Macondo he
had missed the winter soup in the fireplace, the cries of the coffee vendor, and
the fleeting larks of springtime. Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like
two mirrors, he lost his marvelous sense of unreality and he ended up
recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything
he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on
Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was
a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be
recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth
in the end."

- One Hundred Years of Solitude

Nordrhein Westfalen

2011-05-30T07:14:00.004-05:00

I spent this weekend exploring Nordrhein Westfalen, my home state here in Germany. I did it because it seemed like it would be more relaxing, and it was cheaper, and In's tentative Romantische Strasse plans fell through. I'm so glad I did. We saw Essen and Dusseldorf and Wuppertal and Munster, abandoned coal mines and fields of new green wheat. I think I associate with this part of Germany in a strange way. I'm from Missouri. We've got the Arch and they've got the Cologne Cathedral. Otherwise it's a lot of agriculture and industry that might have passed it's heydey. A surprising amount of nice nature and a few really good universities. The Rhine and the Mississippi.

I find myself defending it with surprising vigor. And then, I'm not sure if there's any connection, I read a month's worth of back issues of my friend Tina's blog. Missouri is part of me. But it's a long long way away now. I don't know how it's going to feel to go home...

Thin Walls

2011-05-30T06:33:00.001-05:00

My Arabic roommates music sounds like it would be great in like... a soundtrack. But hearing it coming through the walls, devoid of context, when I just want some relaxation or concentration... it just stresses me out. >.>

Addendum

2011-05-27T16:36:00.000-05:00

I'm putting the last touches on a blog post about Finland. On the official MU Study Abroad blog I couldn't find a natural way to fit it in, but basically among all my fond memories and lists of things I like about Finland, this shouldn't be forgotten - that Finland ranks so highly in my heart first and foremost because of Liisa. If it wasn't for her, I'd mostly likely have never even been to Finland. And the most important reasons why both of my visits there have been wonderful is also because of her. It's as my mom always says, "It's who you're with, not where you are." Sometimes a place doesn't need a thousand lakes and islands to be beautiful (even if it has them) if you can find there one true friend.

Inspiring?

2011-05-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

In today: "Miranda, I feel like you inspire me so much. Not only to travel and eat a lot, but also just to be free... and brave."

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

The Bird and the Spider

2011-05-20T14:30:00.000-05:00

The spider outside my window was eaten suddenly by a bird, that flew by while my window was open. Quick as a flash, but I remember thinking, "what's he doing here? Is he here for the spider?" And suddenly the spider was there in his mouth, for a single frame... and then both were gone.

Random

2011-05-10T13:07:00.000-05:00

To Do:

- Skype with Liisa about visit
- Email Spanish professors about exams
- Email Ansgar re: auditing
- Book Venice hostel
- Plan game for the kids tomorrow
- Do German homework

An Evening

2011-05-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

Climbing down five flights of stairs down to the courtyard, every floor has its own unique scent. The distinct aromas of middle eastern, Balkan, and German cuisine, among others, mingle. Once outside there's a sort of hazy barbecue smell and the sky is grey like smoke. It's warm and damp and very still. It makes me nostalgic for Missouri summers. But I'm in Germany and soon enough I'll be in Missouri feeling nostalgic about Bonn.

The sky is a little orange. When I told the Askatasuna kids that a green sky meant a coming tornado back home, they exchanged a look and a comment in Basque that I just understood - that in the Pyrenees the sky turns orange just before it snows. Back inside after a slow bike-ride to Lidl that seemed to go outside of time, the leaves are rustling and the spiderweb woven into my window-frame is lighting up at far-off lightning.

It suddenly starts to rain. Gently. Such a subtle phenomenon - invisible, for example, on film - that you wonder how it is exactly that you see it. There is thunder. The air is fresh. The spiderweb starts to unravel in the wind. I'll close the window soon. Not yet.

Reflections on Osama

2011-05-03T18:17:00.001-05:00

From my Facebook Feed:

Go USA! That only took ten years!
...................................................................................................................
Yesterday, the world did not find out that a man was killed. Rather, a monster was slain and the world SHOULD rejoice at the fact. Osama bin Laden had lost every shred of decency, every ounce of humanity that could possibly be contained inside a person. Somewhere, there is a line between human and less-than-human. bin Laden, the physical embodiment of evil that has plagued the world since at least 1998, was so far over this line that it almost disgusts me that people are upset at others for being overcome with joy. It's impossible for me to celebrate the death of another human being. bin Laden was no human. Humans feel remorse, regret, decency. Osama had none of these. So I, for one, choose to celebrate the death of such great evil and hatred, and the renewal of the common phrase "justice for all," and I will do so proudly.

9/11 has now come full circle, and it's about damn time. Mission, motherfucking, accomplished.

Hmmmmm, I would love to discuss this further, but would prefer in person. But I will say a few things.

1) Evil has plagued the world for centuries. I'm not sure what the 1998 bit is about.

2) As evil as he was, he was still human. There are... hundreds, thousands of evil people in this world. That's the reality of humanity, but it doesn't make them inhuman. They can do inhumane things, but they are still people.

3) We cannot and will not ever know if Osama felt remorse or regret over what he has done -- anymore than anyone else can vouch for or verify the thoughts of any human being.

4) I understand completely the emotional response many people had of relief and a feeling of "justice" (whatever that really complex and difficult concept means). I don't, however, understand some of what I saw. Some of what I saw is exactly what we condemn in the Middle East -- the jeering and cheering over the death of their professed "enemies". It didn't sit well with me last night, didn't all today, and probably never will.

5) My comments are not meant to condemn or chastize those who did celebrate, but I think reflection on why we celebrated, and how we celebrated is reasonable. After all, aren't feelings of remorse, regret, and decency human, as you said?

Dude, he is dead... so be it, life carries on. I don't see the point in celebrating the death of anybody. If that "may" turn the world into a better place, cool, but lets not turn that into a party... afterall, who knows... I think my life..., the lives of the people in the US and the lives of the majority of the people in the Planet would have been the same despite Osama is dead or alive. Besides that, I don't think Al-Qaeda is death or anything with his death... in fact, it may become worse. I know a lot of people lost loved ones in 9-11, Irak and Afghanistan, and their desire of "justice"... but at least I will never consider an "eye for an eye" real justice. Death will remain death. That is my humble opinion, peace.See more

Osama was a monster; he ruthlessly murdered thousands of people from different countries, religions, etc. That said, he was a human. He believed that what he was doing was right, and that it would change the world for the better. He saw the... murder of thousands as a religious movement, so he wouldn't feel any kind of remorse or regret. In no way am I justifying his acts, but in order to fully comprehend this, we have to look at his mindset and understand that our views cannot be the only views in the world.
Think of it this way: Osama hated western imperialism, the imposition of our ways upon their world. He probably thought that we should have some kind of remorse or regret about how we go about our lives and how we push our culture onto others, much like we believe that he should feel remorse about the ruthless murder of thousands of people. The push of western civilization by no means is on the same scale as the death of innocent civilians, but it is analogous to some degree.
Personally, I am glad that he is dead, and it gives me some kind of closure, but I believe that his death should bring in a time of remembrance rather than a time of celebration.

There should be candlelight vigils at Ground Zero, the White House/Pentagon, Shanksville PA, rather than parties that, like Alana said, make us look like what we so often criticize about other countries in that region (take for example the jubilant reaction in Afghanistan to the 9/11 attacks and how we hated that with every fiber of our collective being). I do NOT believe that we should be rejoicing about his death, but rather we should use it as a stepping stone to further peace in the Middle East as much as we can (which can involve us backing out of the region altogether).
I believe that there are just better ways to handle and comprehend his death. Furthermore, I don't think it's fair to demonize people who choose not to rejoice (which you're not), just like you don't think it's fair for people to get upset at others for rejoicing. I'm not un-American or unpatriotic for not rejoicing, I just think we should go about his death in a different way.

Finally, I don't agree that 9/11 has come full circle. Yes, the organizer of the attacks is dead, but Al Qaeda still exists, and outside of that, there are still scores of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and elsewhere all the time. The death of bin Laden is going to have significant ramifications in the world, because there are others that believe what he did. Until all the unrest ends over there (probably never), 9/11 and all that it represents will not be full circle. Our mission to kill Osama bin Laden may be accomplished, but there is a far greater mission that needs to be accomplished before our true safety can be assured.See more
Unfortunately I do not have the time to formulate a response that this deserves at the moment so I am just going to leave this hoping that it brings additional light to the topic: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/02/135927693/is-it-wrong-to-celebrate-bin-ladens-death

It's times like these when Margaret Thatcher quotes are appropriate:

"Gentlemen, there is nothing sweeter than success, and you boys have got it!" - Speaking to SAS commandos following their rescue of hostages in the Iranian embassy, 1980

"Ou...r necks have been protected by a military personnel who were more rugged than slave-man boots." - On the liberation of South Georgia from the Argentine military, 1982

"Don't allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it And when you fight -- fight to win."See more

Americans were not just celebrating the death of Osama, but the huge weight that he and 9/11 has put on this country for the past decade. We have been forced into living in fear and our country has forever been change because of September 1...1. I understand that at first glance some of the celebration seems much like what they do in the middle east to celebrate a successful killing of American's, but those are innocent lives they are celebrating the death of. We are celebrating the end of an era of terror that has weighed heavy on our country for the past 10 years and the death of Osama marks the beginning of that end.

I also don't see how the celebrations that happened were much different than the celebrations of the end of WWI and WWII. People ran through the streets, set off fireworks, held parades. It is what you do when a war is over. I know killing ...Osama does not mark the end of the war, but it is the closest thing that we have had to an end in 10 years and probably for 10 more. Finally there is a sense that all the fighting we have been doing for the past decade has not been for naught.
Osama's death hardly marks the "beginning of the end" of terrorism...
no the end our war in the middle east (hopefully) and the culture of fear that our country has been living in for the past 10 years
I personally didn't feel the need to run through the streets and celebrate, but I understand why people did. And the way things are today there has been very little for Americans to be happy about lately so I support the need a release and go a little crazy when something does come along.

But that's ridiculous. Osama dying isn't going to end the war in the middle east, or the culture of fear in our country. The culture of fear in our country has not been exclusively tied to terrorism in the first place. We have created a cul...ture of fear in this country over a lot of things, and I doubt that changes anytime soon.

To me, the scene at Ground Zero of somber reflection and a sort of cathartic release seemed more appropriate than drunken raging on the streets as if our favorite team just won the Superbowl. Remembering the people we lost, and the tragedy of that day. Those two things are very different in my mind. I fully believe Osama needed to die: I'm not sad he was killed. But partying in the streets? I was old enough to know about September 11th just like everyone else; I had family members, a teacher, and a classmate in New York on that day. I understand the emotional aspect of wanting him dead. But I don't understand what I saw as over-the-top, blood-thirsty cheering and jeering. I felt awkward about it all day yesterday, and I'm glad to find out that I was not alone in being embarrassed, or feeling that it was somehow "un-American" to not understand.See more
And along with that, do you really believe that people are no longer going to be terrified of Muslims, or that all of Islam is out to kill all Americans just because he is gone? That's a pipe dream yo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03terror.html
I never said it ends the war, al queda, or terrorism. I am just say that he personally put a lot of pressure on this county with 9/11 and his death in a way is a release of that pressure. It marks an end of an era that has not been good for america and I think many people feel that this can be a turning point for us to go on to a more positive future.

You have officially confused me, because that's exactly what you said...but then you flipped back and forth.

"We are celebrating the end of an era of terror..."

"It is what you do when a war is over."
...
But then you said,

"I know killing Osama does not mark the end of the war, but it is the closest thing that we have had to an end in 10 years and probably for 10 more."

And then you flipped back again,

"No the end our war in the middle east (hopefully) and the culture of fear that our country has been living in for the past 10 years".

Soooo...??
And I'm not saying his death isn't a release of a sort of "pressure" (although it may be short-lived). My issue was the way that release was expressed...
the era of terror being centered around Osama... it is what you do when a war is over in reference to WWI and WWII ceelbrations and then I followed with saying that quote on I know it doesn't end the war...and I said I hoped it marked a begenning of the end of the war in the middle east. Osama has been a huge focus and is a huge milestone which I think won't be surpassed for the rest of our occupation there.

I see. I don't doubt the gravity of his death as a milestone in the "war on terrorism" (while I don't believe it will have such significant implications that al queda will disband). Again, my issue isn't with Osama being killed, or whether ...it was necessary, etc. My issue was with what I perceive as excessive and strange celebration after his death. I think this discussion has divulged into an argument over something I wasn't really debating.

Mizzou burning Osama at the stake (crutch)

toshcommunity.comedycentral.com

MU students raged on the streets of the school's greek town to celebrate the death of Osama with American flags, fireworks, blow horns, booze, toilet paper, a poster of Osama, a crutch used as a stake, and a deathly lighter.... sorry we party Osama

- I feel sorry for them.
- lol I wonder if they finally know where Pakistan and Afghanistan are on the map!
- Just like Steve Colbert said these students weren't even teenagers during 9/11....
  I don't think they realize what it means to kill or to be killed.
- Roya I was in my second year of undegrad. when 9/11 happened and I clearly remember that day because I left the university since I feared that some moron would attack me. Never underestimate someone when they are angry. Anyway, it's been almost 10 years and I still feel the same, this feeling of being considered second class even though I was born here.
- Sigh...although I was very young, (I wasn't even in high school!) when 9/11 happened, but I still remember the fear of dying under the possible American attack, and eventually living through it. Do you know how horrible it was to live minut...e by minute thinking it will be the last minute of your life? Do you know how frightening the noise of American bombs were? I could never understand why me, and my family had to go through all those frightening attacks? What was our fault? But now looking back I know that it changed me and the way I think about war and killing forever. And I am happy that at least I don't rejoice when someone is killed. I am happy it changed me.
  
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  A little historical comparison: This photo was taken directly after the Japanese surrendered to the U.S. thus ending WWII. Americans celebrated and rejoiced at the victory prompting this couple to kiss, giving us this iconic photo.
  4 people like this.
  However, the celebrations arose out the distruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the atomic bomb. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese were killed in an nightmarish, apocoloyptic, wave of fire and radition the world had not previously seen.
  So, was it wrong for Americans to celebrate such massacre? Yes and no. If someone was celebrating the mass death of the Japanese, that would be morally wrong. However, Americans weren't celebrating that. They would in fact go on to spend millions of dollars to help the Japanese rebuild their country in an attempt for forgiveness.
  Americans were celebrating an end of a war, a chapter. Of course the surrender of the Japanese didn't mean an end of war in general or that our responsibilites of WWII were over, but it meant that we could move on.
  
  So when we saw Americans rejoicing in the streets after the news that Osama bin Laden was dead, I would argue that they were not rejoicing because of the death of a man, but for the same reasons that the couple above were rejoicing and cele...brating. Whether we had capture bin Laden alive or dead, would have still brought about the same feelings. The last ten years have been long, confusing, and turmoilous and now tt singles an end of a chapter, a mission accomplished. We still have much to do and the wars aren't over, but now Americans can focus on moving on and how we are going to go forward in our military missions abroad.

2 Days and 2,000 photos

2011-04-18T15:55:00.000-05:00

I went to Holland for the weekend. I came back with over 2,000 photos.

508 in Amsterdam proper
269 in the famous flower garden of Keukenhof
336 in a random set of inland dunes
154 in Utrecht (under the moonlight)
490 in the restored village of Zaanse Schans
320 in the small town of Weesp

Do you think someone's happy to have her DSLR back? :)

Status Update

2011-04-14T06:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was not exactly my best day since coming to Germany. Bad allergies, fatigue, feeling like everyone was yelling at me about trip planning, not be able to go home between 7-11p.m., a friend flipping out, falling half asleep in class so that I ended up picking a bad project (and one scheduled to present the only day I need to skip in the whole semester >.>) and that's just half the fun. But it's okay, nothing seriously bad happened, I can start putting things back together and I've got some amazing trips coming up this month (probably will be my most expensive month this semester barring post-finals travel). Sometimes I worry I've bitten off more than I can chew. I'm not sure I can pass this German History course as pretty much all I understood on Monday was "I recommend you read these three large and very academic books". But I think I have another week to decide what I'm going to audit vs. take for a grade. And the other stuff might not all be easy but I think it's all doable and it looks like I'm going to get good credit for it all.

Poppelsdorfer Allee

2011-04-06T16:55:00.000-05:00

Under moonlight and fresh spring leaves

<3

Registration

2011-04-06T16:02:00.001-05:00

The credit situation was supposed to be easy here. Ah well, it´s really not too bad. The schedule may look weird, but I think I´m going to get all the German credits and all the Social Sciences credits I need. That leaves only Spanish, but I´m taking a Spanish class this fall that I hadn´t planned on, so it should be okay. There is a class here that may qualify, but it looks like it would transfer as 2.5 credits, and obviously there´s no way to get .5. I´m going to explain the situation to the professor and find out if there is any possibility of getting it bumped from 5 to 6 ECTS if I do some extra work, but I´m not overly hopeful. Basically, it comes down to next Spring. I´m toying with the possibility of going to Latin America instead of Norway. :S I´m very conflicted. I looked at Bergen´s site today and it looks very easy and straightforward to get a Spanish Literature credit there - maybe too good to be true (15 ECTS??? That would be 7.5 American Credits... in other words, all the literature I need.) Basically I just need to get really serious about the course proposal if I do that.

The Spectrum

2011-04-06T13:28:00.000-05:00

Love: My new bike, having my camera back
Like: The beautiful weather today and randomly no allergies this evening
Dislike: Some of my MU advisers. One in particular.
Hate: My credit situation, making hard decisions.

Allergies Abroad

2011-04-05T04:05:00.000-05:00

I've been fortunate enough to never have to deal with allergies abroad. The only time I've ever traveled in Spring was Italy in Spring Break of junior year, and I got home just in time. Well, it's all changing now. And with a vengeance. Normally I have a week or two of sneezing and itching before the bad stuff like asthma sets in. Not this time. We spent all day Saturday wandering the streets of Cologne - I was loving the fresh springtime air and the warm breeze on bare shoulders (btw, my friend In told me that in Korea its acceptable to wear extremely short shorts and skirts, but people frown on bare shoulders or too much revealed chest. Interesting as in Europe, people tend to get conservative about the legs first (see Spain). Anyway, after Cologne we had a party, and towards the end of the party I was NOT feeling good. I went pretty much directly home and tried to go directly to bed (I should mention that I had 12 hours of sleep the night before!)

Well, I couldn't sleep at all. I was miserable. No matter what position I laid in, I just felt asthmatic and congested and terrible. Finally, after trying to sleep for four hours, I got up and scoured my pathetic medicine cabinet, such as it is. Scottish sore throat drops... Spanish flu powder... American Ibuprofen... I took the flu powder since it said it was effective against light to moderate pain (always a sleeping plus) and congestion. I stayed up another half hour chatting with friends, drinking water, and eating chocolate. I started to feel sleepy and relaxed so I tried going to sleep again. It worked great! I slept happily through to 1 and felt fine. Which was really good, since it was Sunday and no chance of seeing a doctor or going into a pharmacy.

I'm confused! I've had nights that bad before, but not very often, and not like this. As far as I remember, there was that one night after I spent the whole day playing with Ragweed (one of the worse nights of my life), and then there are usually a few less than pleasant sleeps in the epicenter of the allergy season. I can't imagine what set me off that badly! Since then it's been rainy, and I've been okay. Sunday and Monday I was sneezing but no asthma and I didn't even take any medicine. This morning I'm /very/ sneezy, but I found my small supply of Benedril so I just took one of those and hopefully I'll be fine today too. I'm not looking forward to figuring out the medical system here, (even though I have shiny Europe wide insurance), but the way things are going I'm sure its inevitable!

Last Two Days in Bonn

2011-04-03T06:36:00.005-05:00

Last Two Days -

- I took a random day trip to the Netherlands... teehee... including some really really delicious Dutch apple pie and waffles.

- Farewell dinner for the intensive month long orientation program! The Chinese food was actually pretty good, and it was nice to see everyone again. Still, I'm really glad the real semester is starting. Some fresh blood will be nice, as will be seeing a little less of the International Office's top officials (they make me feel like I'm in grade school again, occasionally).

- I met another random former Mizzou student who works at Deutsche Welle! After Mizzou, he went to the same small liberal arts college at Stephanie! Weird!

- I bought a bike at the bike fair! It cost me 58 euros including the bike lock. Not the 30 euros I was told was possible, and my friend In had the lowest price in our group with 40 euros. Still, it's not that bad, it actually fits me well (75% of the bikes were too tall for me) and I think the extra 15 euros made a big difference. In's gears have already gone off once. Mine seems to run great, and the guy gave me a card with his phone number in case something goes wrong with it. I think I'll use it a lot! And even by cutting my grocery store commute by 2/3th it's just about worth the price... Anyway, it's shiny and blue and pretty! :)

- Cologne yesterday reaffirmed that we hadn't gone as wrong as we'd thought on our last visit - there was pretty much the cathedral and the chocolate museum. (If we'd only been brave enough to take day trips, though!) However, it also reaffirmed that the cathedral and the chocolate museum are awesome! The chocolate museum was twice the size as in my memory and the samples were still good. It's not even that expensive (5 euros). We spent an embarrassingly long 3 hours there.

- Cologne Cathedral - wow. Sorry, Santiago de Compostela. I adore you, but the Kölner Dom is my first love. It's just so expansive, warm, peaceful inside... so dark and foreboding and massive from the outside.

- Class registration continues (first classes tomorrow). The professors here have all emailed me back giving me the green light to participate! It's been more complicated here than I'd hoped, but I think it'll be okay in the end even if not the golden ideal. I'm taking two classes from the International Office - Preparation for the DSH and Deutsche Medien. The former is pushing it for my ability level and is the top German language class for foreigners offered here. The second is quite a bit easier, but the subject matter fits my major, and hey, a nice little break that keeps me in touch with the other exchange students will be nice. All in all, with these and the introduction course, looks like I'm going to get 9 hours of upper-level German elective. Sweet!

-Then, I'm taking three Spanish classes (possibility of dropping the hardest one though) - Latin American Environmental Discourse, the Discovery and Conquest of the Americas, and Intercultural Studies Spain and Morocco. I'm having trouble getting SPANISH credit for them. But, I also need a few credits in general Social Sciences, which is how they're looking to transfer, so not the end of the world... just the weird thing of taking classes in Spanish in Germany. But hey, they look interesting at least. Finally, I'm going to try to take a Norwegian course. Based on my one email to the Norwegian professor, he wants me to take a literature or translation class. He said Norwegian II is also an option although it might be a little boring for me. I doubt it - I've never had a formal Norwegian class before and little things that I'm not used to having to worry about on MSN convo's are likely to kick my butt. Now, the most important thing... I have Fridays off!! :D :D

- I booked my tickets to Finland. I'll have a good chunk of time there - three full days and some left over. I am skipping two classes. However, I don't have any plans to go further than Finland while I'm here. It was a good place to use them. The flight was 100 euros (with the taxes and fees and everything!) and rounding up I'll probably be spending 200 to get to Liisa's place and back to mine with busses and trains and everything thrown in. Then it's just food and activities, so it's not that insane (and again, it's probably my biggest or second biggest trip here).

- Slovakian dinner last night was tasty - weird potato noodle things with a yogurt cheese sauce and bacon! How could we say no? German apple waffles for dessert, and a game that mixed taboo, pictionary, and charades.

- Looks like I have an elementary school to volunteer at! Wednesday mornings most likely. Good for my resume, my teaching experience, and my German skills. Plus I think I'll enjoy it! :D A win-win.

- Allergies have started. FML.

Blarghhh

2011-03-29T10:26:00.004-06:00

Annoying emails. One from a student whose coming to Bonn to study next semester. He asked for information and I sent an exhaustingly long email about the dorm and food situation here. But now he wants me to answer common sense questions/questions I don't know the answer to, and more. "The single rooms are quieter, right?" And no one answered my questions before I came. >.> The other is from a girl that I hung out with quite a bit for the first 2-3 days here. Since then we've hardly seen each other and when I suggested a coffee awhile ago she kept putting it off and I just forgot about her. Now she wants all my hard-found-out information about my trip to Luxembourg last weekend. Not even a very friendly email. She just wants to know exactly what trains and hostels are cheapest, etc. I feel sort of used.

And yeah, I'm a little sleep deprived, still have a little stress coming down from last weekend, and I'm staring class registration and a customs battle in the face. And the allergies are beginning too...

Afghanistan

2011-03-26T00:29:00.001-06:00

Conversation in the comments section of this photo, uploaded by a friend from the region:

I know this is wrong, but looking back at Taliban, I can't say that was right either. I hate the inconsistency that I always feel within me. I don't have the answer. And it bothers me so much. It bothers me a lot
Roya jan I think we are positioned in an inconsistent situation, I have the same feeling when I see my country and people are occupied by others but at the same time there is no1 among ourselves (afghans) better than foreigners either. (Sage zard beyadare shaghal)

Seven A.M. and Smiling!

2011-03-23T00:14:00.002-06:00

This is the second day in a row that I've jumped out of bed joyfully at 7:00. Sick, I tell you!

Loving Bonn

2011-03-21T13:54:00.002-06:00

Love love love it here. Maybe because this is my second semester abroad, I've totally turned the typical 'emotional reaction chart' on its head. The Honeymoon Phase is supposed to come first, followed by burn-out and homesickness, then looking at things closer to the way they are... blah blah blah. I started out very pragmatic, comparing things to Spain for both better and for worse, concentrating on what needed to get done, etc. But wow, now I'm really falling in love... honeymoon phase for sure!

My Day Today:

- Grammar Class from 9 to 1:00
- Lunch with friends
- Dollar store errands
- Post office errands
- Grocery store
- Planned weekend trip to Luxembourg
- Cooked Korean Sushi
- Took a solo afternoon trip to Bad-Godesberg, ate a picnic and hiked around the castle
- Walked home the long way from the bus station
- Sent my parents a nice long email update
- Nice long shower
- Edited a week's worth of photos
- Reorganized several Facebook albums and added about 100 pictures
- Homework

Days are full and awesome. :D

2011-03-10T09:09:00.002-06:00

Please tell me I'm not just being a sore loser here. I was pretty excited to see the other winners for the photo contest I entered, and was impressed by a lot of them. But this is the one that bumped me down to #2 in my category:

Um, really? Seriously? Big Ben and a Double Decker Bus in London? Not only one of the less adventurous and more stereotypical study abroad locations, it also 'cleverly' combines two of the most stereotypical images of London! I bet a lot of tourists have this same picture minus the slightly cool technique - I know I do.

It's fun to have Big Ben look really clear and with good light, and have the bus zooming by... but it's not THAT cool, and I don't even think it came together with very good composition. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's actually a unique masterpiece worth of first prize. :P But I find it just a sorta cool picture that sums up London. I wouldn't have even submitted it if it were mine. Maybe I'm missing something.

Grey Day

2011-03-05T11:22:00.003-06:00

I've had really brilliant luck with the weather since I came to Germany, but today is one of those grey days where its hard to ever really wake up. Cold fog in the morning, the painfully bright cloudy sky at noon, and then the slow, slow slip into evening and night. I went to the store and got the last things I needed for my room and to survive everything being shut during Karneval. I've cleaned up a bit, caught up on my journal. It's hard to bother doing much else. :)

Roughing it in Bonn

2011-03-01T12:28:00.002-06:00

I thought they'd take way too good care of me here in Bonn, and at first they did. Registration was a breeze, and they gave me books of information, maps, timetables, etc. But somehow it only highlighted the things they didn't help with. There was even a shuttle to my dorm, but once it drove away... I was suddenly completely alone. I managed to get the keys to my room, filled out the damage form, and started to unpack. There were things I realized I needed. To start with, food and a blanket.

In Pamplona, things were closer together. Or were they really? Maybe Bonn only seems big and scary because its new. I tend to overestimate distances at first. Still, in Pamplona residences were built over shops, and the Eroski on the corner was so close I could practically hold my breath getting there from my apartment. Here it was a solid ten minute walk to the first grocery stores. I didn't know yet whether I could use any dishes or cookware, and I'd forgotten to bring a bag with me, so I just bought English Muffins, Olive Oil Butter Spread, Gouda Cheese, Garlic Bread, and a few ready-meals.

I drank tap-water out of my metal water bottle, and ate some potato-vegetable micro-meal with the tiny fork and spoon I keep inside of it. I'll have to go without a blanket, too. At least I have sheets and thermal wear.

February

2011-02-28T20:26:00.000-06:00

Every year, February is the shortest month. Usually it's a mercy. Today it's just cruel.

468 neue Benachrichtigungen

2011-02-27T09:07:00.003-06:00

Today, at the end of a Facebook email: You have 468 neue Benachrichtigungen. Visit Facebook now to see what's happening with your friends.

Why the mixed languages? And how does it know I'm heading to Germany?

New Messages

2011-02-26T22:40:00.001-06:00

I turn on my cell phone to two new messages.

From Aaron: "Greetings from the Verizon store."

From Liisa: "I got you a postcard at Santa's Post Office. We're in Rovaniemi, just passed the Arctic Circle." <3

To Germany... Weakly...

2011-02-26T12:19:00.003-06:00

Want some German, since I'm leaving, like, TOMORROW MORNING? Ich kann kaum schlucken. I can hardly swallow. I feel pretty miserable, sore throat and fatigue. Getting on a plane to a foreign country and having to speak German (of all languages) and deal with strangers etc all on my own is a pretty intimidating thought to face right now. And just now I'd give a lot for an extra week here on the beach.

Sweden and Norway

2011-02-24T11:07:00.004-06:00

For those who wonder...

My favourite ever country names are Sweden and Norway. Not even because I like the countries - take that out of the equation. I also just love the names. Country names like Thailand and Finland amuse me greatly, because it just seems like a rather simplistic construction - where do Thai people belong? In Thai-land. Where do Finns belong? In Fin-land.

But Sweden and Norway are just great. Sweden mostly because it has "Eden" in it. So, it's like Swedish Paradise, but all clever and beautiful, like a well-crafted brand name. The name Norway I've loved ever since I heard it breathed through refrigerated spray on a Disney Epcot ride. Norway, Norroway, the way to the north. Just delicious.

Changes

2011-02-24T07:25:00.002-06:00

This whole break, I've felt a sense of rising readiness. And now things have busted wide open.

Biannual Shopping Event

2011-02-21T17:35:00.003-06:00

I go shopping for relatively major items about twice a year. Last summer, for example, I ended up getting a lot of things I needed and have used a lot since - my SLR (and everything that goes with that), a waterproof camera, waterproof hiking boots, all terrain sandals, two pairs of nicer sandals for going out, a North Face waterproof jacket. This time around wasn't quite as costly, but it still needed to happen.

Barnes and Noble: ($20)
A journal for Germany
A Beginner's German Dictionary (lots of great phrases and grammar alongside vocab)

Peltz: ($50)
A new pair of black street shoes

Best Buy: ($110)
An 8 GB Memory Card for the cameras
A 750 GB Passport External Hard Drive

Sports Authority: ($80)
An Under-Armour Shirt
A pair of Hiking Socks
Ski-Pants

Also, for Christmas/Birthday I got an amazing new suitcase and an extra large silk sleepsack, and a gift certificate to the used clothes store where I bought 12 new tops. The hope is that I'm now good until next fall. :)