2/3

The saga continues! Not that me making lists of things I'm going to miss and not miss is a saga... moving on.

Part 1 involved all of the things I'm really going to miss about Germany, and Part 2 will now be about all the things I'm not going to miss about Germany. Unfortunately, the list is quite a bit shorter (but I guess fortunate for any readers!)

Sundays: I like Sundays, don't get me wrong-- a lazy day. Maybe go for a run, do some laundry, some homework, and whatnot. Germans really like Sundays as well and they crowd Hauptstrasse and die Alte Bruecke eating their ice cream and sitting on the Wiese. Now here's the sucky part about Sundays-- EVERYTHING IS CLOSED. Shops, grocery stores, a lot of restaurants, pharmacies, basically everything. Germany is a lot less European than a lot of Europe, but it's still stuck with the closed-on-Sundays-thing. I'll be happy to get back and not have to plan my schedule making sure I'll have enough food through the weekend.

gnats: I live right next to the river and therefore it's reallllly buggy. Not any gross bugs fortunately (except for that beetle attack we had on the Neckar one night, and the past few weeks have given us a lot of bees...) but it's just these little tiny gnats. They fly around in swarms, and during sunset, if you're outside, they just swarm in on you and attack. By attack I mean... just get stuck on your face and arms and neck, they're harmless but so freakin' annoying. Also, there are no screens on an windows so if you leave your window open with the light on, after maybe 20 minutes you've got a bug-infested room. There are bugs everywhere, but these gnats are seriously one of the most annoying parts of Heidelberg.

no AC: I feel kind of stupid writing about this one considering it hasn't hit above 70 degrees in the last three weeks and America and Canada are currently facing record-breaking heat... but it was annoying a couple months ago! Although there are no high temps right now, May and June gave us a lot of 90+ degree days, and combined with the awful humidity, made it nearly impossible to function. The heat would get trapped in my room, and I literally couldn't do anything except lay on my bed, because it was just so damn hot. Sometimes the American use of AC can be obnoxious-- in the summer, I shouldn't need to bring a jacket somewhere because I know that with the AC, it's going to be 50 degrees inside, but maybe a little bit of air would be nice once in a while on this side of the Atlantic.

awkward encounters with mitbewohneren: At BC, we always have to have roommates because we all live on campus, so having my own single room here has been great. I can do whatever I want, come home whenever I want, go to bed whenever I want, and not have to worry about being respectful to a roommate. Buttttt, I do dearly miss living with my best friends. I share my apartment here with two other Germans, and I honestly NEVER see them. We all share two bathrooms and the kitchen, and I think we basically do our best to avoid each other, and when that doesn't work, we both have to suffer through an awkward conversation...I don't even know the last names of these people I've been sharing living facilities with for the last five months. It's just real awkward, and as much as I love the freedom of sleeping in my underwear, I wouldn't trade it for my roommates, at least during my college years. I'm excited to get back to BC and live with my best friends again.

screaming children outside: I live on the edge of the city, on the new campus with all of the hospitals and research facilities and such. I get a big room and a wall-sized window and a big balcony all to myself, but I also have the pleasure of waking up to screaming children every morning playing outside at the day-care facility next door. I realize this isn't the fault of Heidelberg or Germany, but I had to mention it, because it's just something I'm really not.going.to.miss. I don't like children in the first place, and just don't like them even more when they're screaming outside my room all morning and day.

rude Germans: okay yes I realize this is a very broad statement. But honestly, I think Germans as a whole are just kind of rude, but I also probably just consider their actions rude because I'm an American and BOOM. cultural difference. (the whole point of being abroad, right?) It just gets really tiring after a while when they stare at you, and bump into you without ever saying excuse me, never make room for you to pass, and always cut you and shove you in lines, and whatnot. It'll be a welcome return to a land of hospitality, albeit fake hospitality, it's still pretty nice.

my room: as I've said, I'm a big fan of my room--I get a big balcony, it's very spacious, and it's mine. But because my dorm is fairly new (newer than the ones I live in at BC!), it's very echo-y and just not at all homey. You have to work to not make the doors slam, lest a loud noise echo through the entire hall. The white brick walls and blue, hard linoleum floor didn't add much either. I also will not miss my bed which has been broken for a while now, and if I lay in the wrong spot, the bottom beans supporting the mattress pop out which usually results in me sticking the mattress on the floor and sleeping there. And if I so much as turn over, it squeaks like crazy and usually wakes me up. Can't wait for giant bed at home :D

attire: most people have heard that Europeans would never ever wear sweats to class or out in public, and while that's very true--I've never seen anyone but Americans in sweats in class, the opposite is also true for Germans-- they never dress very nicely. This is really just a Heidelberg thing, because it's a university city, and therefore not super cosmopolitan and urban, and 25% of the inhabitants are students. But Germans my age basically have one level of dress-- jeans, sneakers (always stylish sneakers, but sneakers nonetheless), some kind of nice tee, scarf, jacket. ALWAYS. Usually no matter the temperature as well. Even when we went out to the club one night, all the people there were still wearing jeans and sneakers and I felt like such a tool for dressing up. It's something that has always bothered me while being here, and I had to dress down my wardrobe when I got here, and I'm really excited to wear something besides a v-neck tee and jeans. The bright pink sneakers I bought here will not even be returning home with me (not out of spite, but they are literally falling apart.)

pfand: this odd word means a deposit you pay on a bottle. and it's really annoying. when you buy most bottles of drinks, you pay extra for them, as a deposit, and then when you bring the bottle back into this pfand machine located in grocery stores, you get that money back. it's usually 8 cents for glass and 25 cents for plastic. this is the way germany encourages recycling, but honestly it's a pain in the butt. i'm going to recycle anyways, but making me keep all my bottles and then lugging them to to grocery store is really annoying.

Alright that's all! Well, all I cared to write about, but that really was all that was on my list. Stay tuned for Part 3-- what I'll be excited to return to!