theinbetweenismine

just a girl living the expat life

Archives for November 2005

Christmas time

filed under: LDR, this and that

The weekend was perfect to get into that special Christmas mood. We had more snow on Saturday morning and it was freakin’ cold, so I bundled up and took the train to Köln. Surprisingly, Köln didn’t have any snow at all… but the Christmas market had started next to the cathedral and it was beautiful. First I went window shopping for a little bit, looked for some boots [found some real cute ones in chocolate brown, but they had this white lining along the sole which looked just weird and decided not to get them] and then had some Rievkooche [Reibekuchen] on the Christmas market. At 3 p.m. I met with Regine at the train station. We went to Starbucks and had some coffee. We were lucky and got a table with two of these nice big arm chairs and we hung out there for about two hours. It was really good to see her again.
The train was cramped with people on my way back which is not surprising for the first weekend of the Advent season.

On Sunday, I took a walk to the downtown area with my Mom since we had verkaufsoffenen Sonntag and all the stores were open. It was snowing real hard and it was fun to walk around. We made some hot cocoa when we got home and ate some self-baked christmas cookies that my Dad and my cousin had baked that morning :)

Yesterday Sanni came to visit :) I picked her up at the train station at 10:20 a.m. and we walked home and had breakfast first. Then I showed her my room and we spent most of the day inside chatting, laughing, cutting out scrapbooking templates and working on a movie clip [made with the windows movie maker]. We had lots and lots of tea and it was a really fun day. [Thanks again for coming to visit, Sanni!]

On a side note: I HATE the Telekom :( I wonder how many incompetent people can be working in one single spot. I told you that my Dad decided to get a router for our Internet access and it took us three days and consulting three (!) different people from Telekom to figure out which would be the right option to do this. We told them that we had two computers and that we were using a switch port right now to go online and that we wanted to go online with both computers at the same time. The first two people were not able to tell us that we could get their new deal [changing the T DSL service and getting a router for free] but then needed to get a wireless card for one of the computers since the router only came with one cable plug. It took us three days to figure that out and we only did, because I basically knew what we were looking for. Just imagine people who don’t know anything about routers, wireless and such at all… they would be totally lost with service personnel like that :( Oh well, why am I not surprised about this?

The first snow…

filed under: this and that

yes, believe it or not, we had the first snow last night. It’s unbelievable. We hadn’t had snow in November for many years (as far as I can remember… and when I was in Germany ;)), so it pretty much came as a surprise this morning when I looked out the window. It was really windy last night and I woke up several times because it was raining so hard, but obviously there were also some soundless snow flakes trickling down. It definitely feels like winter now and it’s right on time, I guess, one week before December.

The good news… I’ll be online wireless again soon :) My Dad decided today to change our DSL rate and get a router, which means I’ll be able to surf from my room again. Awesome! Not that it bothered me to check my mails in my parents’ office, but it’s definitely nice to be able to sit in my room and keep the Internet running all day. Right now, only one person at a time can be online due to a stupid switch-port that is managing our connection. Yeah, I know, you can make me happy with little things these days.

I am going to Köln tomorrow to meet with one of the German girls I met in Davis. She returned home in August and told me that she’s really “homesick” and if I would like to meet with her since I am the only one who understands her feelings ;) I am looking forward to seeing Regine again. We will suitably meet at Starbucks :) and of course, I would also love to get the chance and stroll over the Christmas market for the first time. I really like the one in Köln. I hope you’ll all have a nice weekend. Keep warm.

Happy Thanksgiving

filed under: my so-called life, this and that

today is “turkey day” and I just wish I could be in Ventura with Jon and his family. I remember last year when we had this really delicious turkey roast and watched a movie later. It was so much fun. It has become a special holiday for me and I am kind of sad I am not really celebrating it this year…. [it’s fun to live a cross-cultural relationship and have double the holidays per year,both the German and American ones. Too bad you won’t get both holidays off from work ;)] I miss Jon even more these days.

I went to see my great-aunt today. She’s always so happy when I come to visit. We had some cappuccino and “Spekulatius”, one of my favorite Christmas-time cookies.
Hopefully, I won’t get sick… many people [including my sister] came down with a cold and I hope I will be untroubled by the flu this year. It started raining here today and it’s pretty cold – that’s when usually everybody gets some kind of infection. So keep warm and drink lots of tea or hot milk with honey!

Fun weekend

filed under: friends, this and that

It started off with a really f***ed up train ride to Kiel. A real odyssey.
None of the trains I was supposed to take was on time. One was canceled completely and considering that I had booked this really cheap ticket which meant that I was only allowed to take certain trains, I ended up taking none of them at all :) This is the Deutsche Bahn for you. Fortunately, it didn’t really matter for me as I wasn’t really pressed for time and it also didn’t really matter which trains I ended up taking, but it was a whole mess to figure out how to finally get to my destination. I was lucky, because there were quite a few people who were in the same boat and needed to get to Hamburg or even to Kiel with me… [funnily enough, this is the time in Germany when strangers start talking to each other and show solidarity]. There was this really nice older guy who was travelling back to the north with this secretary after attending a fair in Düsseldorf and he invited me and his secretary for a “Bratwurst mit Brötchen” at the Hanover train station while we were waiting for our connecting train ;)
The next part of the journey, we spent in the “BordBistro” since there were no seats available in the cabin and he and his secretary had some champagne to kill time. It was all really funny after a while :)
Then finally, being 2 hours late, we arrived in Kiel where I was picked up by my friend Anke.

Romantic train rides…

filed under: my so-called life, this and that

I am almost done with packing my little suitcase and I’ll be off to a wonderful weekend soon. I am looking forward to get away. I will visit my friend Anke who has just recently moved to Kiel from Rostock and we’ll have a wonderful girls’ weekend together :) I’ve never been to Kiel (the farthest north I have come in the western part of Germany was Hamburg – I have visited Anke in Rostock before ;)) and I am really looking forward to seeing some more places in Germany!
I am going to take the train [thanks God I booked in advance and got a pretty good deal, because train tickets are so f***ing expensive :(] and I am really looking forward to the train ride! I get this nostalgic feeling when I sit on the train and see the world pass by outside my window… I made myself a nice care package and hot tea and I’ll just enjoy the “me-time” This is only true of course if I get a window seat and won’t have to sit on my suitcase in the aisle…[I didn’t want to spend another 1,50 euros per train (!) to reserve a seat since I am changing trains a few times].

I hope you’ll all have a wonderful weekend!

The miracle of children’s laugh…

filed under: my so-called life, this and that

it can really cheer you up. My sister asked me on Monday if I could go to school with her on Tuesday morning and fill in for one of her colleagues who usually helps her with the swim class. As a teacher, you’re not allowed to go swimming with a large group of kids on your own, but you need someone to accompany you for safety reasons. Usually it should be someone with a lifeguard license and since I have one, I was the first person she called :)
I had to get up at 6:45 a.m. (don’t know how I managed since I stayed up till 1 a.m. again the night before) and Nina picked me up at 7 a.m. She told me that her class is totally excited that I am coming! They had asked if I would come and visit them again since the summer. Some of them were not shy at all and were running towards me at once and held on to my arms and legs :) so cute!
The swim class was fun… we were in the non-swimmer pool and Nina had prepared a programm of water games. The kids had to dive for objects, we played a relay game and some game called “Waschstraße” where they were allowed to splash around :)
We took the bus back to school and had the breakfast break in the classroom together. I had brought hot tea for Nina and me and we sat among the kids and ate our sandwiches. It really reminded me of the times when we were back in elementary school sitting on these tiny chairs at these tiny tables.

After that, I took the car and made a short trip to IKEA which was pretty close by [and which is ALWAYS worth a trip :)]. Nina’s students didn’t really want to let me go and asked me when I would come back and were clinged to my arms and legs again. I promised I would be back later to pick up my sister and they didn’t let me go before I had promised that I would come into their classroom again. They even suggested that Nina could go shopping and that I could be their teacher for the day :)
I must admit, they were really cute and I liked being there and it definitely distracted me for a while, but once I again I realized that I wouldn’t want to be a teacher every day! It’s a very stressful job and you must have nerves of steel!

I cooked Thai Green Curry for lunch today… something really exotic for my parents who are experimenting cooks, but have never really tried Asian dishes before. It turned out great and my Mom loved it [my Dad has yet to try since he wasn’t home for lunch].

These feelings won’t go away…

filed under: this and that

I am restless. I’ve been staying up till three in the morning lately, because I can’t sleep and then, once I sleep, I won’t wake up for 10 hours. I don’t think it’s a late jetlag. I am really nervous right now and I can’t stop contemplating whenever I am awake, so I think my body just keeps me in “sleeping mode” as long as possible once I managed to fall asleep.
The whole situation is really frustrating right now, because nothing is really moving forward… I know that I have to talk to my parents at some point. I just have to figure things out with Jon first.

I spent the weekend at Ilka’s which was awesome. It was good to get away and have a girls’ weekend with lots of talking ;) I think we talked for 7 hours straight and then fell into a coma *lol* time was -as always- too short, but we’ll see each other again soon. My Mom made “Martinskuchen” in the afternoon yesterday and we had my great-aunt, granddad and some family friends come over. Martinskuchen are yeast dough-cookies (with or without raisins) baked in hot oil [very yummy!]

Kölle Alaaf…

filed under: this and that

yes, today it’s that day again… the Carneval Season starts in the Rhineland area – not that I would care, but I am taking my sister to the train station later and she’ll go to Köln to party.
I am not a big Carneval fan myself. I somehow have a problem with “being all smiles at the push of a button”… but I enjoy watching some “Karnevalssitzungen” sometimes. It’s just part of our culture ;)

The last two days were kind of boring. I didn’t do much, hung around the house most of the time and did some more research.. I am involved in this forum (visajourney) and it’s fun to share thoughts and experience with people who are in the same boat.
I also tried to craft an email that I want to send back to Gerald. I want to let him know that I was really disappointed and confused by his email, because it all didn’t make sense, but that it’s time for me to move on and that I need a recommendation from him. It’s kind of hard to find the right words as I don’t want to sound rude, but at the same time want to let him now that I am pissed off by everything they did to me.

Tonight I am going to a concert at my old school with my Mom and great-aunt. I hope it’s going to be a nice distraction.
Have a nice weekend everyone!

Visiting time…

filed under: my so-called life, this and that

wow, today was a busy day. I was gone for 12 hours straight… I had a lunch date with Ira to catch up on the latest news and we went to a Chinese Restaurant in town which has a nice buffet and we had soup, a main entree, ice cream and coffee :)
After that I had promised to go and visit my Granddad. I had called him last night to tell him that I wanted to come over and he was already pissed that I had visited my great-aunt on Sunday and hadn’t stopped by at his place. You see, it’s always some kind of competition between the two of them about who gets more attention (well, actually it’s only my Granddad who’s making a big deal about it) and the point is that I can talk and hang out much better with my great-aunt. We usually have coffee and talk about this and that. My Granddad is more difficult to talk to and usually we end up watching TV together, because neither of us has anything to say. It’s not like I don’t tell him what’s going on in my life, but he usually has some know-it-all advice and that just drives me up the walls. He rarely tries to be understanding for my situation and he’s still trying to persuade me to go into teaching. It’s just very exhausting to talk to him. Apparently, he wanted to be extra nice today and had prepared coffee and cake when I stopped by ;) and we actually ended up talking [most of the time] and watching some TV for over an hour … this is not bad, not bad at all :)
When I got back from there, I had promised to stop by at my aunt’s and we talked for about 2,5 hours and she updated me about her therapy and what’s going on in her life. And now I am exhausted from listening and talking so much today ;)
other than that, no news today…