Zehn Seegeln zogen zehn Cent Zucker zum Zoo
Well I spent another Fourth of July in Germany, and this time I didn’t get to have a big celebration. Instead I had to go to bed early to wake up for my 6am shift at work. My weekend was, however, wonderful!
On Friday after work I got picked up by a guy named Patrick with 2 other girls and headed to Tübingen so I could visit Cassie for the night. They have a cool website here called mitfahrgelegenhiet (which essential means carpool system) and I signed up on the website and found a ride for 8 Euros. To take the train I would have paid 17,50 so I felt it was good deal. I though it might also be cool to talk with some Germans, but Germans aren’t the most welcoming people. That is something I’ve noticed here. It’s not that they are mean or rude; they just don’t ask you a lot of questions about yourself and let you have your own space. Needless to say, it was a very quiet trip and I had to fight to stay awake for the whole 2.5 hours it took to get there (I was too embarrassed to fall asleep).
When I got there Cassie met me at the train station and we went back to her room. She lives in the same type of place I do, except that her building is more dorm like and all foreigners. She lives on a floor with about 7 other people, they have 3 bathrooms that get cleaned twice a week, a large kitchen that was completely disgusting and an area to dry their clothes (Germans generally don’t use dryers). She was very comfortable in her building and seemed know everyone on all the floors. The first thing she did was feed me. A few people from her building made cookies for each floor and Cassie had made some pasta salad (Carol Ballert style) and I was extremely happy. Then she had to leave to work on a presentation for her class so I called Christina and we met up. She brought me around Tübingen and we tried to find me some new jeans for a little bit, but had no luck. Then she took me to her apartment (just like Cassies, but a little bigger AND it had the most amazing kitchen ever and it was just re-done like a year or two ago). She is studying biology and is finished her first year. They finish high school a year later in Germany and for her first year of University Christina went somewhere else and studied math, but didn’t like it so she is now at Tübingen studying bio. (why does everyone studied math, grossss). It was really great to see her and catch up with her. She ended up staying for dinner. Cassie made eggplant parmesan, basically the most delicious meal ever. I was in heaven. She likes to cook and cooks with her neighbor a lot, so he joined us. He is also American, but we spent most of the night speaking German because Christina was there (even though she knows English much better than I know German). Cassie also bought be some red wine so we all shared that. She basically spoiled the crap out of my also letting me use her skype for a long time. It was great and I had a blast. Later that night we went to a philosophy club party. The party was very interesting. It was in a school building and was crowded. A lot of the party took place outside, aside from the hilarious dance room (Germans are the funniest dancers ever, their favorite song was jump on it) and the two areas where they sold the beer. It was fun, but I had worked at 6am that morning so Cassie and I headed back around 1 and got some sleep.
Saturday I got to sleep in and sleep in I did. I didn’t role out of bed until close to 10 (a few hours after Cassie). It was amazing, I have slept in that long since I got to Heidelberg. Cassie and I spent the day walking around Tübingen and taking pictures. We went up to the castle and then walked a path through the hills. We went grocery shopping so Cassie could make potatoe salad for their 4th of July party and then I got myself a delicious Döner. We spent the rest of the day playing with the pictures that we took and making her food for their party. I left at 9pm and went straight to bed when I got home. It was really nice to see her and just talk with people and be able to be myself without the whole language barrier thing. She is visiting me this weekend for Friday night and I am very excited!!
Work has been going great, I have the weekend off but I have to work 6 days in a row at 6am… that is killer. I spent Monday and Tuesday working in the kitchen with Boris. He is one of my favorite people to work with because he likes to talk to me, where as most people seem to just do their own thing or talk to each other. I mean everyone is nice, but like I said, Germans don’t really ask a lot of questions about you. Tuesday, however, was quite the experience. We had a bird fly into the breakfast room. I never thought I was scared of birds, but I learned real fast that I am TERRIFIED of them! It kept flying around and we had no idea how to get rid of it. We grabbed Lisa, the girl working reception, and the three of us try to scare it out by whipping table cloths in its direction. It was not working because the bird would start to fly and the three of us would scream and dive on the ground. It was pretty hilarious. We spent a good 30 minutes trying to get that bird to leave and had to get the neighbor to actually do it. It took him 3 minutes… yeah we suck. Anyway then we had so many guests for the first 1.5 hours of breakfast! I was constantly clearing and resetting and Boris had to constantly wash dishes and prepare more food. Although it was chaotic, it was nice and the morning flew by. Boris and I have also been teaching each other tongue twisters. He is working on perfecting “Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?” Does anyone actually know the answer to that? Anyway he taught me “Zehn Seegeln zogen, zehn cent Zucket zum Zoo.” (Ten seaguls flew 10 cent sugars to the Zoo). I am a pro at it, and he is jealous because he can’t say the English one. If you have any good tongue twisters let me know!
Last night I went to my church and prayed the rosary with a group of people. They were all old people and I was nervous that they would talk to me in German so I sat in the back… yeah I’m sups lame. Anyway it was really cool. They have a beautiful Mary statue that they surrounded with flowers and candles and we prayed. They did things a bit different than what I am used to. The Hail Mary had an extra section after “Blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus” and I couldn’t tell what they were saying… and they did say the mysteries so I had to remember them on my own (I suck at that). Also they switched the two part recitation. The first, third and fifth decades the leader would say the first half of the prayers and we would say the second, but for the second and fourth decades we said the first half and she said the second. At the end we sang a Marian hymn and they said some prayers that I didn’t know. I know the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and I understood the “Oh My Jesus”, the Creed, and the Glory Be… but anything else they said I didn’t really understand. Overall, however, I knew what was going on and it was a really neat experience. I’m going to try and go every Tuesday.
I worked reception this morning and the girl scheduled to work with me didn’t show up… yupp I was ALONE for FOUR HOURS! Luckily the girls working breakfast were only a phone call away if I needed help and my boss came in early to make sure I was okay. I haven’t worked the front desk in over a week and I have never worked at opening before so I started the day feeling pretty incompetent. But when Meldem finally showed up (she wrote down the wrong time) she kept making comments about how I know more than she does (she has only been here since April so she is reletively new, but she is German so she has me beat by a long shot) anyway so I was feeling more confident. I answer the phone about 4 times today and I was able to succesfully help each person! Most of them asked for Herr Hö
lle, my boss, but one asked about a reservation. This things are all so simple in English so I feel silly being excited about accomplishing them, but I am very proud of myself for today 
Cassie comes Friday, Heidelberg has fireworks over the Castle Saturday night, and I fly to London to see Kara for 3 days on Tuesday. So much to look forward to, I am so blessed J Time just flies by.
I miss you and I love you
Love,
Your Favorite Spartan
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