"Waiting for the Sun" (Still...)

When I went up to Hamburg last month for Paul’s birthday, he made guacamole both nights and we feasted on the delicious green mush.  Afterwards, I was inspired to make my own guacamole, especially the weekend of Cinco de Mayo.  Well, lo and behold the German supermarket industry, I couldn’t find avocados in three different grocery stores.  I gave up finally, but was always on the lookout for the green monsters.  I popped into Netto just now because I had absolutely no food and was pretty hungry and there they were- three avocados!  I snatched up two and made my way home.  Cut and peeled one, and decided the second wasn’t yet ripe…well, the first one wasn’t yet ripe either since I could barely mash it even after trying to melt it a bit in the microwave.

So here I am now, sitting in my room nomming on crunchy guacamole and trying to tally the list of fails that have happened in the past week.  (Also, my internet has been blacking out all day so I wasn’t able to look up if unripe avocados are poisonous or anything… so if they are, well that will be the final fail of the week, and I guess of my life. Lol.)

Before last Friday night, things were actually going great- Rae and I had a blast at Frühlingsfest in Stuttgart—we actually ended up at gay night which was the biggest party I’ve ever seen, and then had a nostalgia tour meeting up with Katherine and Sarah in Heidelberg and going to Eckstein.  Rae and I did some quality shopping time in Dortmund on Monday and on Thursday, I headed back to Dortmund to see 77 Bombay Street, a Swiss folk-rock band, in concert with Becca, which was a ton of fun…but after all that, the fails started.

Me and Rae and Stuttgarter Frühlingsfest

Sarah, me, and Katherine reunited in HD!

77 Bombay Street in Dortmund

I guess I’ll rewind back to a week ago- last Friday night when the biggest fail of them all happened.  If you haven’t heard from me personally then you probably don’t know because unlike the first time, I didn’t broadcast it.  After having my second new iPhone 5 for three months, it got stolen once again in Germany.  I wish I were kidding.  Unlike last time though, when I was fairly drunk in Cologne celebrating Karneval and had it out and on the table and someone swiped it when I wasn’t looking, in this scenario, I was basically completely victimized.  A group of us went out to Eule, a small nightclub right in the city center.  I didn’t really want to go out because I had been feeling pretty depressed all week (a combination of PMS and the fact that exactly one year ago I had been celebrating the happiest week of my life with my best friends at BC right before we crossed the threshold to become alumni) plus I had to be up at seven the next morning to catch a train to Lübeck.  Almost all the other assistants in Münster are leaving next week though, because their contracts end this month, whereas the American contract ends at the end of June, so I thought that it would be good to go.  It ended up being a lot of fun- we got to the club and were all dancing and having a good time, except for this German guy that kept following our group around.  He was pretty annoying but we just kept avoiding him.  Anyways, about an hour later, I was standing at the bar with Rae and the stupid guy came back and came right up to me and like ran into me, and about two minutes later I did my “every five minutes Sabrina checks to make sure she has her phone because no way is she going to let it get stolen again” check and of course, it was gone, and then I realized that the guy had bumped my side right where my purse was hanging.  I grabbed Jon and we searched the club but couldn’t find him anywhere.  I went up to security and told them about it, and there was another girl there whose phone had also just been stolen and she was describing the same guy.

So there it is.  Two iPhone 5’s gone in four mounths.  One in Cologne and one in Münster.  But seriously- Münster of all places?!  And this guy was like a German student around our age- definitely not expected at all.  At this point, I almost wish I had just been an idiot and lost it myself so I could at least blame myself and know who to be upset with.  In this case though, it was completely out of my control—okay yes, I could’ve not gone out, but what, am I supposed to just be a recluse and stay in my room until I go back to America so that my things don’t get stolen?  I guess this last year has just been a series of events in which I just feel really helpless.  Events at the very end of the summer left me feeling helpless and confused, and then I had to move to Germany and I remember during my first few weeks here and again, just feeling so helpless and literally like I was stuck here for the next ten months and not even being able to fathom the concept.  When the winter and darkness hit and didn’t end, I again was helpless to the forces of mother nature, and then when my phone got stolen the first time, I felt helpless in the fact that I was now stuck in dark and cold Germany with no contact to anyone back home (yes, I realize I have my computer but the wifi in my apartment is wicked bad and my computer is now five years old and approaching its last days).  Thankfully, I went home for a week in February and was rejuvenated with some energy going into March for travels to Munich, Paris, Berlin, and Montpellier. 

Things started looking up again as spring began to make itself known, but again, I was helpless to my allergies, never knowing when they were going to attack.  And now we reach the latest fail- the weather.  Germany is facing a Siberian Spring, as my favorite pub labeled it in a Facebook post today.  Today the high reached 11 degrees, which is about 52 Fahrenheit, and it’s been pouring rain all day.  The high this weekend is not even supposed to hit above 50, and grey skies have plagued the country for almost two weeks now.  I think the last time I actually saw more than a tiny sliver of blue sky was two weeks ago when I was in Heidelberg.  The grey skies here though, are unlike grey skies I’ve ever seen before, although nine months here, they really have become my norm.  Usually, it’s grey for maybe a day, or if there are clouds, they’re covering up a blue sky whereas here, the sky is blanketed in grey to the point where you can’t even see clouds, and when there are clouds, they are hard to distinguish because they are grey clouds covering up a grey sky.

So once again, I feel myself helpless to the forces of the weather.  I find myself not wanting to do anything but sleep or just sit on my computer finding warmth underneath my covers.  Going to school for just one lesson today seemed like the hardest thing in the world and I didn’t even feel better after I went to the gym.

I mentioned that on Saturday morning I had to catch a train to Lübeck- Becca and I went up to northern Germany for two nights and stayed with Corbin, another Fulbrighter.  I think that visit was exactly what I needed- it was hard traveling without my phone, but I had Becca and Corbin—we explored the beautiful city of Lübeck, ate marzipan, helped Corbin with cooking amazing meals, and had really great conversation which again got me wicked excited to start grad school in August and to be academically stimulated and challenged after a year a complete dearth of such things. 

Lübeck is a city with a feel similar to Münster and Heidelberg, but it’s the “Hansa Stadt” meaning that up until the 20^th century, it was an independent city, retaining much power because of its access to the sea.  During WWII, the city only got bombed once, as a test actually, so nearly the entirety of the city is centuries and centuries old, and as we walked along the narrow streets, I really felt like I was in the Europe that people think of when they think of France and Spain and Italy—a Europe that you don’t get a lot in Germany because so much of the country has been rebuilt. 

The famous Lübeck gate

Most famous marzipan in the world!

Corbin and Becca- exploring Gänge

Viking village...or the Shire??

 On Monday, Becca and I headed to Kiel, but stopped in Plön on the way, a small city next to huge lake.  It was fairly warm that day, but completely foggy and grey, so it was actually difficult to differentiate between the lake and the sky—a cool effect, I guess?  We then arrived in Kiel, and despite being on the coast in Schleswig-Holstein, we ate at a traditional Bavarian restaurant.  Our train wasn’t until 6:30pm the next day (Monday and Tuesday were religious holidays in our state) so we had planned to take a one hour boat ride through the Kiel canal up to the beach of the Ostsee (Baltic Sea), but yet again another fail- we awoke to grey skies and pouring rain which only got worse as the day went on.  Unfortauntely, 95% of Kiel was destroyed in the war, so there is actually nothing to do or see there (even Germans will admit to this fact), but Kiel’s attraction for tourists is its access to the Ostsee, but we couldn’t do that.  So Becca and I had to spend the day finding ways to bide our time and stay out of the rain.  We did get a nice lunch at the Kieler Brauerei, which was quite nice, and I bought a shirt at the mall that says “WAITING FOR THE SUN.”  I had seen it on a mannequin on Sunday in Lübeck and decided I had to have it because it basically defines this year for me.  Maybe if the back said something like, “AND LOOKING FOR MY PHONES.” 

Plön

Kieler Hafen

This is a "lunch" in Germany

Overall though, I liked northern Germany more than I expected, but I think that’s because it wasn’t the winter, when the sun shines there for maybe six hours a day.  I do wish it hadn’t have rained though or we had at least seen a tiny bit of sun so I could’ve put my toes in the sand and in the Ostsee just once.  It looks like there’s no reprieve from this cold streak until the end of next week, but I’m really trying not to let it get me down, it’s hard though.  I ordered a used iPhone 3GS off of Amazon and it was shipped yesterday so I’m hoping it gets here before Sunday, and then I’ve got to hash out even more money to set up a new number for the third time, and then I can once again be connected to everyone.  As I said, unlike the first time this happened and I was just completely depressed and literally counting down the hours until I got on the plane back to Washington, I’m less depressed this time and just more annoyed and exhausted and that key word again, feeling helpless.