A Little Bit of Guilt

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

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?

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

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

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

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

"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

 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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under moonlight and fresh spring leaves


<3

Registration

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

468 neue Benachrichtigungen

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

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...

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

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

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

Biannual Shopping Event

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. :)

February in Florida

February so far is my favourite month in Florida. That's convenient, because it's my least favourite month back home in Missouri. It makes a good point for being a snowbird, I have to say. Already gone with January are the horrible, horrible days where you had to wear a jacket on the boat and deal with the dreaded sea-fog. We're back to sunny blue skies and the water in the intercoastal sparkling grey and filled with dolphins. There were five of them at once when I looked out yesterday.

I'm down to less than a week to go before Germany. I'm doing some laundry, some packing. I'm about to step out for some last minute purchases - like a new pair of street shoes and a little external hard drive. Tomorrow lunch with grandma, learning to drive a manual car... Wednesday writing club and a luncheon afterwards... Thursday meeting Kris and Kai for Thai food... Friday off to Sarasota with Mary... Saturday my 21st birthday/going away part with the family.... Sunday my flight leaves for Deutschland. There's other stuff going on, too. A Skype conversation until the early hours of the morning. I have no time for any choices, but I'm just going with it for now.

Returning to Cologne

It's Valentine's Day, February 14th, and in exactly 2 weeks (February 28th, naturally) I'm off. There's a sweet symmetry in those dates, and an even sweeter one when I think about where I'm entering Germany.

Cologne is the first place I ever saw outside of the United States. I was 14 years old and fascinated by foreign languages on the wind, train departure/arrival boards with clacking, moving type, and the unthinkable prospect of naked adults in the hotel steamroom. Despite my eager best intentions, the trip was a mess. We came during a cold snap, without proper clothing, we didn't understand the public transportation, none of us spoke a word of German (or any other language), and my mom was so prepared to hate German food that in fact we never tried any. We ate at Cologne's Hardrock Cafe (a.k.a. the American Embassy) every single night of our stay.

I never thought of coming back. Certainly not as a college student, preparing to spend six months in the country perfecting my German. I couldn't have imagined that I'd have a good friend, a native of Cologne, waiting for me when I got off the plane. To me, the city is a strange place only half remembered - a city of cold wind and grey and intelligibility. And of course, the Cathedral looms - the first Cathedral I had ever seen - such a huge, strong building, with such a heavy and frightening darkness about it. Afterwards, no other cathedral has been able to affect me the same way. The Notre Dame only a week later was already something of a disappointment.

When I think of Cologne, I only think of cold mornings, mystery, and confusion - wandering around in the shadow of that huge cathedral, the gargoyles and statues above the doors staring at me silently, the pigeons, as coal black as the cathedral itself, flying up past its towers. It will be good to go back. To see if it's real, and anything like I remember.

Raising the Bar on the Bare Minimum

Studying abroad makes you More Confident, the brochures promise. More Worldly. More Flexible. More Adventurous. More Marketable. More Better, if I may be so bold. I'm even happy to add a few - how about More Organized? The consensus is that it pretty much leaves you better prepared for the world. There are a lot of reasons. You learn more about the world both for obvious reasons (you're living in another part of it), and for less direct reasons (you realize it's actually useful to know more about the world.) You're more marketable because companies feel more global when they hire you. But the main thing, I think, is that when you study abroad, you simply have to get better. Whatever little weaknesses you're used to sweeping under the rug and covering up with your strengths just aren't going to fly anymore. Being in another country just makes everything a little bit harder. In other words, it raises the bar on the bare minimum.

I had a friend who was afraid of giving presentations in class. He goes to Spain, and, guess what? Not only does he have to give the presentation, he has to give it in Spanish, in front of native speakers. Wasn't easy, but he did it. And he comes home and suddenly it seems a lot more manageable to present something he's learned in his native language, in his native language.

Another friend leaned on her parents more than she should have. Awkward phone call about a discrepency in her utility bill? Problems getting in the classes she wanted? She'd just call up mommy and daddy. Suddenly she found herself in Spain, hundreds of miles away from them - and even if they'd tried to help, they didn't speak a word of Spanish. She was on her own. Wasn't easy, but she did it. And she comes home and realizes, hey, I am capable.

And where have I grown? That's easy. Organization. I've always been a mess, but my good memory managed to get me through the first 20 years of my life. I'd tried but never been able to make or keep a date book or packing list. Abroad, through, there was enough stress in my life without worrying about remembering when that project was due or which weekend I was going surfing in France. I had to start writing things down. Wasn't easy, but I did it. And I surprised even myself when I had the presence of mind to email myself a list of every item I'd shipped ahead to Germany for the second semester.

Back home, you might have to 'deal' with your fears and weaknesses, 'compensate' for them. That'll take you a long way, but it won't take you all the way. Sometimes you have to push yourself just a little bit farther in order to conquer the problem once and for all, and study abroad is an excellent way to do that.

Worrying about Tomorrow

Maybe it's because my friend Tina is awesome. Maybe it's because of my new Flip Video. Maybe it's because at writing club someone gave me an old book called The Travel Writer's Handbook, which I've read three times in the last week. Maybe it's because I have my energy fully back and ready to take off again.... (/random)

Maybe it's because I realized I'm fully halfway through college, (and that's considering that I'm dragging it out an extra year), and that the easy fun times won't last forever. Maybe it's because I've made it a goal to post once a day on my travel blog, and that's bringing me face to face with realities such as targeting audiences and marketability.... (/serious)

Maybe it's because in a very narrow way I can start considering myself published and legitimate - I just won a small but nice sum in a state-level study abroad photography contest, had a tiny picture published in the newspaper of Turku, Finland, and, best of all, wrote my first post on the MU Study Abroad Blog. The blog may be even less lucrative than the photo contest, but hey, it's a paid travel writing gig. I applied, I was chosen, I'm going to a good job and I'll have something (not much, but something) to point at when someone wants to see something I've done... (/yeeps!!)

But I'm suddenly approaching this in a new, more serious, more realistic way. And sometimes it scares me... okay, scratch that. It scares me a lot, period. But sometimes I think I can do it, and sometimes I want to just go straight into teaching instead. So then I close my eyes for a moment, remember that I'm still in University (not too early to try a few things, but too early to say I can't do it :P), that I'm doing a lot of the right things (my degrees all work well, I'm working on my languages, I'm getting in experience traveling, writing, and taking pictures, I'm networking (could do better at this though), I've marked off next summer for an internship of some sort, and I've got tentative ideas about what I could do in the first year or two out of college.)

It's so easy to jump off to either extreme - decide that there's plenty of time and everything will work out fine and go back to sleep, or to freak out and decide I can't do it and run away. Of course it's scary now. Any sort of career or even paying taxes or utilities is scary to me now. Things are scary until you start doing them. I'll advance and the shadows will shrink. What I need to do is stay balanced between the two things - keep the dreams on my mind, so that I can keep moving in the right direction towards reality.

Cringes

I have to stop reading this girl's blog.

Under "10 things I have learned the hard way in Barcelona"

"4. Catalan is nothing like Spanish. I can’t understand the television in catalan, I can’t read signs and I especially can’t understand when an old man on the metro starts a conversation with me in Catalan. Simply say that you don’t speak Catalan. Or they will keep speaking, like this old man did, for the entire metro ride."

"8. This is weird but I realized today that dogs speak/listen in Spanish here. So does this mean that if my dog, Shanti, met a Spanish dog, they would communicate differently? Do their barks have accents?"

The first one just makes me sad for the poor old man. And different languages = different languages. Catalan is actually pretty similar to Spanish considering that it's a DIFFERENT language. The second one just hurts. I thought that was a joke.

A long rant about how hard it is to travel (which includes lots of mistakes that, yes, could happen to anyone - but the fact that they ALL happened to you should say something about your fact checking ability) includes: "We then get off the plane, find the bus and realize that we booked the opposite tickets for the bus. We booked from Brussels to Charleroi on Friday and Charleroi to Brussels on Sunday. Luckily, the lady at the ticket counter was nice. However, standing in the line that was 30 minutes didn’t make us too happy. Standing in the line gave me a little bit of culture shock, simply because everyone around us was speaking French and German and Flemish, all three languages that I am not familiar with at all. It was definitely intimidating considering we had no way to communicate at all." You made a pretty major mistake booking the ticket. They're nice enough to change it for you for free, but it didn't make you too happy to wait in line so they could do so? And you get culture shock because people around you are speaking other languages, and you 'can't communicate'? You're in Belgium. I guarantee you anyone you're going to want to talk to speaks English.

She does have some good posts and observations too. That, and the fact that she's in a very similar situation to the one I was in last semester, and because I'm too lazy to remove her from my feed, are why I keep reading. But the cringes are just too many and close together.

Snow and Sea Fog

There's snow today in 49 states - can you guess which is the odd one out?

Mizzou has shut down several days in a row, due to 'upcoming predicted disastrous and historic weather events' - A.K.A. a blizzard that dumped TWO FEET of snow on Missouri (more on states to the north and the west). They shut down the main highways. Tabi said that the local roads are empty, too, except those few people who can walk to critical jobs, and the apparently unstoppable UPS trucks. Tina made a video about what it meant to be one of Mizzou's 'situationally critical' employees - namely that the R.A.'s are shoveling snow and staffing the dining halls.

But they can't complain. Because you know what? In Florida we have SEA FOG. That's right. This morning it was so thick, I couldn't see Winn-Dixie from the library. Temperatures on the beach sometimes drop overnight to the icy 40's.

A Pamplona Video

"Scandinavia too cool for iPhone"

"Most famously Apple refused to fix a phone that exploded in weather that wasn’t even cold by Norwegian standards. Finnish consumer authorities commented that a mobile phone sold in Finland must be able stand the local conditions unless the seller explicitly stated that the phone can’t be used during the winter."

http://helsinkippusa.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/scandinavia-is-too-cool-for-iphone/

Tee-hee.

Playlist

I'm trying to burn this playlist to a CD to listen to in the car. I'm failing miserably, no idea why. :(

Stay the Night - James Blunt
21 Guns - Green Day
Bloody Sunday - U2
It's My Life/Confessions - Glee Cast
Suerte - Shakira
Wherever, Whenever - Shakira
Waka Waka - Shakira

Take Me Back to the Islands - Idlewild
American English - Idlewild
In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction - Idlewild
Live in a Hiding Place - Idlewild
Love Steals us from Loneliness - Idlewild
A Modern Way of Letting Go - Idlewild
No Emotion - Idlewild
You Held the World in your Arms Tonight - Idlewild

I'm Gonna Be/500 Miles - Proclaimers
There's a Touch - Proclaimers
Driftwood - Travis
Writing to Reach You - Travis
Haru yo, Koi

Nostalgia Continues

Dot and the Kangaroo, Dot and the Koala, Once Upon a Forest, Fern Gully, and especially Seabert... so many of the 80's shows, and the shows I grew up watching, were all hippy save the world stuff. :) Amazing how anyone in my generation grew up to stop caring about the environment.

Watching the first episode of Seabert now, and a couple things come to mind. First, that it's actually a bit complex and interesting that Tommy initially likes his Uncle Smoky... too bad he turns out to be an evil poacher. :( They could have developed this conflict more, but it's kind of interesting that it's at least there.

Second - I love how Tommy just goes playing in Greenland all by himself, with his jacket unbuttoned. That's... safe.

Nostalgia

I'm converting our last VHS tapes to DVD. The great majority are home videos, but I'm also converting a few of Melissa and my favourite shows - the stuff we had in the car for long rides. :)

I'm now working on The Grinch Grinches the Grinch from a very old tape with a dozen things on it, that my grandma gave us. The plot is - the Cat and the Hat makes the Grinch mad by blocking the road for his picnic. The Grinch responds by making inventions that screw up people's senses - creating dark and weird music and changing people's voices, etc. The Cat and the Hat reminds the Grinch of his mother, and the Grinch feels bad and makes things normal again. But he still steals Christmas later on... :)

The show reminds me of something I've thought about a few times - that cartoons used to have difficult words etc in them. Kids learned new words, or just got used to the idea that they wouldn't understand every word they came across. I thought it made things more interesting, and I don't remember anyone getting confused or upset about it. For example, in this episode, they use these words; acoustic, psychopathic, deplore, uncouth, acoustical, implausible, and more.

I also found a lot of things back then to be unintentionally frightening. For example, they just showed an advertisement for this electronic Simon Says game. It shows graffiti-people coming off a way in a dark alley to challenge a little boy to Simon Says. They play furiously, while the voice over says, "and if you lose, you get the razzz..." 'the razz' causes the loser to turn into a graffiti person and get trapped back on the wall with a scared look on his face. Let me tell you this - I had no desire to buy this game - the chance that it might actually imprison me in a wall as a chalk drawing was more than a little frightening. The same went for all the foods that they would advertise by showing the kids transforming when they ate them... :S I didn't want to be 'crunchitized' or turned into one of those silvery Capri Sun characters.

On the same DVD, I have the pilot episode for the planned (never made) Little Golden Book Land series, and trio of 5 minute cartoons from the 1950's - The Clockmaker's Dog, the First Flying Fish, and Happy Valley.

German Logic

I've rested. The Spanish has had time to settle. It's time to move on to Part II - it's time to learn German.

Right, so I've actually been learning German for awhile. 3 years in High School, leaving right as things started to pick up... then, in University, a semester here and a semester there. Perhaps more importantly, German was always second or third or even fourth place. Spanish was my major and Norwegian my secret hobby, and there was always some flavour of the month as well - Italian before Italy, Finnish before Finland, Catalan when I found a class for it. I never gave German my undivided attention. It's had to get by with bits and pieces.

So I'm hopeful about how my German will improve over the next months. I have a foundation laid, but I get confused by prefixes, I'm uncertain about my vocabulary, I largely ignore genders, and it just doesn't come as naturally to me as some other languages. But yesterday I started studying using the awesome flashcard website Vokker, and I can already see how the situation might change. There is a logic to German, even if it's a new sort of logic.

The word Zapfen, for example, is always masculine, whether it refers to retinal cones or pine cones, spigots or icicles.

Three Things

- Our Avon lady was selling Flip Video cameras for half the normal price. Mom got me one for a last sort of 21st birthday-holiday present. :)

- I had some income for the first time in a while last night. One of Melissa's coworkers called me to babysit her overnight shift (5 pm - 3 am). It was a lot of hours and they were easy at that. She said she'll call me a few more times before I leave, too. :)

- I'm getting lazy. I've recovered from last semester but haven't put myself to any real use yet. Just cooking and trying to write on my travel blog daily and sometimes thinking about studying a little German maybe.

This is what I mean

A girl from my University is studying this semester in Barcelona. I happened upon her wordpress and left a friendly little message, saying that she had a nice blog, that I spent the last semester in Spain and she should feel free to contact me with any questions etc. No response. Mkay. In her blog post today, some misspelled Spanish. Mkay.

And more of this nonsense:

"The longer I am in Barcelona, the more I realize how cool their life is. No one has a worry in the world- they’re simply enjoying life and what it has to offer."

Really?? No one has any worries in Spain? I'm sure there's no economic troubles, disease, death, betrayal, stress, etc in other countries. Worries are an exclusively American thing. I'll try to remember that next time I have any problems. If I moved to Spain they'd all be fixed for sure.

"Spaniards respect each other and believe in having a worldly view. I bet a lot of Spaniards could tell American students a lot more about the United States than they know, which is a serious problem."

Spaniards respect each other? What? What is your evidence for such a blanket statement? Are you implying that Americans don't? And the second part is just plain wrong. A small percentage of Spaniards might know a bit more about American politics than the average citizen here, for example, but in four months, I only met four or five Spaniards who had even heard of my home state, and those only because they had personal ties to it in some way or another. I'm not saying they should - just that they don't.

The main idea of the entire post is that Americans are really ignorant compared to the rest of the world. Well, yes and no. I've known tons of up-to-date Americans. I've met loads of ignorant Europeans. This sort of ranting gets us nowhere. The post isn't even well written, imho. The girl's a journalism major. :S

Things I'm Learning

I've learned about Reddit and added it to my free advertising repertoire, next to Stumble and Twitter.

I've learned that a good way to avoid cliches might be to remix cliches with the current theme. (I notice Rick Steves doing this in his stories - changing 'a stone's throw away' to 'a condom shot away' for example.)

I've learned that the niche thing is real. That's the kind of thing you have to learn by doing, I suppose. It's just so much harder to advertise an all-purpose sort of site, and, surprisingly enough, it's harder to think of good material. There are blogs that are just about 'travel' of course, like Everything Everywhere, but that guy really knows what he's doing. Normal people have to pick a region or a type of travel, and some of the more successful blogs choose both. I haven't, yet. My travel blog is multipurpose and that's probably one of it's biggest flaws. But the truth is I don't know what I want my niche to be yet. I've practiced doing blogs with themes - like my study abroad in Spain blog. I can do that. But right now I'm still playing around.

Things I'm Doing

The point is to get started. Once I've gotten started, I rarely write less than 2,000 words. Sounds like an easy lesson to learn, but it's taken me awhile.

I've been researching the 'best travel blogs' and adding them all to my blog reading list. This list is becoming more important to me than the newspaper.

I've 'refurbished' my travel blog and I'm going to keep up with it this time. A post a day, no if ands, or buts. Seriously: http://vandrelysten.wordpress.com/

Scapegoats

How easy it is to jump ship, to go over on the side of the 'rest of the world', to wash our hands of America's problems. How much harder it is to look at the situation in all it's complexity, to realize that a stereotype about America is still a stereotype, to combat ignorance in all its forms - both at home and abroad, about our home, even when American-bashing is a popular pastime that seems to bring the fairly-well-educated from around the world together like nothing else.

Germany Excitement Building...

When I was in Spain, if I tried to think about Germany I just had a big numb, blank spot in my mind. I worried that I wouldn't like it as much as Spain. I was just loving Spain so much that I couldn't see past it.

I can now. I'm pinning things I'd like to see while I'm in Germany in Google Earth right now. Ohhhh yeahhh I'm getting excited...

Small towns and big cities, the Netherlands and Belgium and Luxembourg and Germany, lots of things close by. And I should go see Esther, Damaris, Cynthia, and Nadine.

And farther afield... I've got to visit Lea in Austria. And the two of us talked about a road trip through Slovenia and Croatia. And I wouldn't mind at all hopping up to Denmark if I got a good opportunity. And I need to visit Liisa in Finland again as well. I'm just going to have to get on it the moment I arrive, and stay on it. It's all a matter of cheap flights and what works out, and other than Austria there's nothing that I'll die if I don't get around to. But I also need time to enjoy Bonn, and Liisa, Lea, Cynthia, Esther, Nadine, and Damaris have all talked about visiting me as well! Even Zahra's talking about coming in for awhile so we can go around.

Swallowed, but not Digested

I like this:

"On the outskirts of Konya lies a suburb called Mehram where the ugly tower blocks of the city give way to small groups of stone houses that were once steppe villages. Mehram has been swallowed by the encroaching city, but among the winter apple trees, the mud walls, and the snow-dusted pathways, the trace elements of a rural past, you can sense that Mehram has not yet been digested.”

- A Fez of the Heart, page 192

It's one of those things you almost don't trust yourself not to reuse later, consciously or unconsciously.