The importance of umbrellas

Note to self:  ALWAYS prepare for rain whilst living in Hamburg.  Here's why.

Today started off fine, it was sunny when I woke up and still sunny as I prepared to meet a fellow Couchsurfer (will explain later) Julien for lunch.  I thought to myself, why not get some exercise and ride your bike to Altona?  Good idea, self!

Well, I drew myself a little map and set off on my bike towards Altona, where Julien lives.  And the minute I realized I was lost, it started to downpour. Totally downpour.  By the time I found my way to his building, I was soaked.  He answered the door and I must've looked like, well, a very not dry person.  I toweled myself off and we ate food and talked about dinosaurs and volcanoes and whether spiders have hearts and other cool stuff. 

Then, I headed to St. Pauli, which is next to Altona, to meet Lothar's friend Robert for coffee.  OF COURSE it started to rain on my way there, so by the time I got there I was totally soaked again.  Robert was nice enough to lend me a raincoat, because after coffee I had to go through Altona to Ottensen, to visit a new apartment.  And naturally it rained, and of course I got lost again, because despite my decent map-drawing and map-reading skills, Hamburg is a pain in the ass in terms of finding new places.  Some streets aren't obviously marked, and there are a lot of 5-point intersections and crazy fork-in-the-roads that trip you up, especially on a bicycle. AND to make matters worse, the silver thing on my bike that holds my bag broke midway and I had to fix it by wrapping my lock around it.  Go figure that my bike would freakin break while I'm already having a ridiculous day.  So I arrived at the apartment in Ottensen twenty minutes late, this time wearing a giant men's raincoat. 

The apartment was adorable.  The girl who is moving out is going to Alaska for seven months to see her boyfriend, so I would get her room.  And the girl I'd be living with is named Bente, and she's 19 and seems pretty quiet but still nice and relaxed.  The apartment is really cool, kind of like a farmhouse feeling...a gorgeous wooden floor and and really great location.  Anyway,  it got dark and I had to visit another apartment in Hamm-Nord, so I ended up leaving my bike in Ottensen and taking the S-Bahn to Hamm-Nord, walking in the rain to the next apartment.  

This apartment was fantastic too!  Everything was really pretty, with red and orange in the living room and blue and green in my potential room.  Steffi, the girl I'd be living with, is super nice and easy-going, and I made sure to ask her questions about her preferences because of my current asshole of a flatmate.  The apartment was super, but Hamm-Nord is pretty boring.  So who knows what's gonna happen.  I liked both apartments, but we'll see who calls back wanting me to move in.

Anyway, I really hope that I don't get sick from being cold and wet all day.  Tomorrow Dan and I are going to Bremen and it's gonna rule.  It's Freimarkt festival!  Thus, I will not post again until Monday.

ALSO:

Thanks for the suggestion, Emily!  I will try to find those magic erasers.

GO PHILLIES!  Finally...a World Series...I am beyond ecstatic.

I don't know if I said this already but I sent in my absentee ballot!  I even researched the stuff like auditor general and whatnot so I could make informed decisions about the PA candidates I didn't know.  Ya'll best be votin' too.

Me=screwed

Last night I think I lost a couple years of my life from freaking out.  As by now would seem apparent, I'm terrified of my flatmate.  Do you recall the incident regarding the paint on my walls? How it was "very expensive" despite its similarity to the color of wet concrete?

I got red wine on it.

I'm not surprised this happened.  It's only logical, given the events as of late.  She tells me I can't hang anything on my walls, yells at me for not cleaning well enough, I promptly get red wine on my walls.  

I was trying to open this wine and the cork got messed up and wine splattered onto the wall.  I frantically got a sponge and soap, and I got most of the color off, but now the wall just looks like it has some dirty patches.  Throughout my panic I was talking to Dan on Skype and he kept assuring me it would be okay.  I found out today that he thought I was talking about white wine.  Red wine in the hands of a klutzy person like me should be avoided.  I nearly always spill it on something because I get so nervous with fear of spilling that, well, it gets on stuff.  I just kept thinking to myself, "she's gonna kill me. holy shit. oh, no."  Basically...I really hope she never notices.  Or I am massively screwed.

On a side note-  I am not the cleanest person in the world, but I do think that I can be tidy when I apply myself.  But seriously, when I look at the closet full of cleaning products I am lost.  Reinigungsmilch?  What the hell do I use CLEANING MILK for??  Case in point.

GRRRR

Oh, man.  I need to get out of this apartment now.

Yesterday Dan come over to hang out and I dutifully knocked on Vicky's door and said I have a visitor, and she just grumbled "okay."  Woman, it's Saturday night!  I don't know what it's like having your dismal social life, but I personally find it perfectly acceptable to have a beer and watch The Office with my good friend.  Hmph.

Then today, she wakes me up to inform me that I have to clean the apartment and do the laundry today.  Fine.  I can clean, whatever.  So I sift through the massive assortment of cleaning products and clean the kitchen counters, the sinks, the tub, and vacuum the floor.  So I come home (after visiting another WG, ha!) and she tracks me down and chews me out for not cleaning properly.  Apparently I was supposed to WASH the bathroom floors, and the tub wasn't clean enough, and I messed up the settings when I did the wash, etc.  She was like, "did you clean today?" and I said "I thought I did..." and she glared at me like a woman with a piece of coal for a heart.  She went on to say that things have to be clean in this place, and I just said that it seems that my definition of clean is a bit different.  I mean, how the hell am I supposed to even know which products I'm supposed to use?  There's, like, six different detergents, and a giant bin of other stuff.  I can't even figure out what I'm supposed to use to clean the toilet.  So yeah.  I had no idea I was such a slob...I thought I was rather on the tidy side.

I need to get out of this OCD hellhole.  Luckily, tonight I visited another apartment and it was really  awesome.  I hope they take me...I can't stand feeling like a guest in my own place.  I am not paying all these euros a month to be controlled and bossed around like I'm five years old.

FERIEN

HAPPY BERFDAY CHRISTIAN!  I hope it's full of Gary Matthews bliss!

Tomorrow starts the fall ferien (break)!  No class for two whole weeks...what am I going to do with myself?

Well, I'm gonna sleep in and lovingly sip Flensburger and cook delicious yumyums.  I have very little cash money so I'm gonna keep it simple and spend most of the time in Hamburg with a little trip to Bremen inbetwixt various play dates and whatnot.  

Teaching the Förderkurs for the V (11th grade) class is awesome.  There is this group of four boys who, according to their teacher Sandra, "adore me and would marry me."  This is splendid because this little quartet pretty much does my bidding and when the class gets out of hand, they tell everyone to shut up the minute my eyes narrow.  I have to admit, I have a little soft spot for them because although they are jokers, they are adorable and really want to learn English because they think it's real cool.  What more could I want than my own personal minions?

My friend Chelsea, who is an assistant in Flensburg, is coming to visit Hamburg this week.  So I asked Vicky if it would be okay if Chelsea stayed for a night and Vicky was all wary and crap and like "well if it isn't continuous" and I was just thinking GOOD LORD IT IS FOR ONE NIGHT, WOMAN!.   For heaven's sake, she needs to have a beer or a Mexikaner or something and relax.  Of course, after this happened I promptly set up two appointments to visit other WGs that I could potentially move into.  No freakin way am I staying here until July...

By the way, the mushroom sauce I made for dinner tonight was also pretty scrumptious.  I had a little bit of avocado left that wasn't really soft and ripe, and little pieces of that made the sauce pretty cool.  

My mama and pop sent me a package! I got my Dson yearbook (sniffle) and some local licorice and tea and A LITTLE DACHSHUND PLUSHIE!!!  I saw a lady walking a doxie yesterday by the lake and I went up to her and the little doggie jumped on my knee and left a little snot mark on my pants.   I pretty much melted into a vaguely Cait-shaped puddle.  She was very sympathetic when I told her that my little puppies were across the ocean.  See?  She knows the vast hole that not being able to carry a little Belle around under your arm creates.  Or giving a Sadie a hug.  

I know the sentence before last was horrible for a so-called English teacher.  Obviously I have been speaking too much German...it's ruining my sentences.   I am chastened.

jog! then eat!

I just made probably my best cooking accomplishment ever, noodles with spinach sauce.  It was bangin'.  I made it to reward myself because today I jogged around the whole Alster lake! There are some ultra wealthy houses around there.  Holy crap.  I was drooling as I was running.  It was around seven kilometers, which for me is an endeavor.  But it wasn't too terribly difficult.  Although....I have a feeling I'm going to feel it tomorrow.

Today I taught the V class and they were so good!  I like them a lot...they dug my Aesop Rock song and I pounded the difference between simple past and past perfect into their German faces.  It was basically a preparation for their exam that's coming up.  I sort of have my favorites already, but I try not to show that...it's a tie between the V and the LK12 for my favorite class.  We'll see who comes out on top.

I have pretty roses in my room.  It takes away the pain of looking at my bland walls.

A sense of foreboding...

Hmm.  I think my apartment might be a brief experience.

Dan came over yesterday afternoon, because it was Tag der Deutschen Einheit (the anniversary of the reunification) and everything was closed and we were bored.  We made some noodles and watched TV before peacing out to go to Lokstedt.  I got home late, went to Ikea today, and have been chillin out since then.  So my flatmate Vicky comes home from work and is like, "Did you have a friend stay overnight?"  

I say no, a friend was over for a bit but we left and were gone for most of the evening.  And she informs me that whenever I have someone over I have to let her and Marjane (my other flatmate) know beforehand.  Uh, who does that?  Is spontaneity not allowed here? She explains that when people come over they use the toilet or whatever, and that costs money because water in Hamburg is really expensive.  Yeah, I know, but seriously?  This basically means that I can't ever have a party, and that even if a friend swings by the city and needs to stay overnight I have to clear it with my flatmates, even though it's my room and I have to pay 400 effing euros per month for it.   All because Vicky is turbo paranoid about the water bill.  She's pretty obsessed with the fact that the apartment is meant for three people, not four, and that when random people come over it raises the bills, etc.  I get that, but wow.  This is a little too intense for my taste.  This is the kind of thing you rarely discover before moving in...I told Vicky that we'd have to see if this works out, and that if our lifestyles clash too much I will look for another place.  As an adult paying rent, I would prefer some freedom.   And from what I've seen, I think she literally works all the time and has no life.  No big deal if I move out.

I can't even hang up a picture because the paint on my walls is allegedly expensive.  My walls are this kind of ugly shade that's sort of a combination between gray and sand and beige, if that's imaginable.  Who paid a lot of money to paint them that color?  My mother would have an interior decorating complex.  I probably should move out before I let her see it.

Anyway, I'm thinking that I will probably start looking for another room so that I can avoid the potential clashes that are definitely going to happen when friends come stay with me, or (god forbid) if I start dating someone here.  After the winter semester starts at the university it will be easier to find a place since there will be slightly less demand and I'll be able to take my time a little bit.  So I guess be prepared for tales of high-strung flatmates and agitated conversations in German.

On a lighter note, I found a store that sells mystic apparel and accessories, LARP stuff, and other super nerdy shit that I want to take pictures of and snicker at.  If you don't know what larping is, google it.  It's hilarious.

the usual

I'm beat.  I had to teach the ninth-graders today and since Lothar wasn't there, all hell broke loose.  Ugh.  Were we that bad when we were ninth-graders?  I kinda remember being a little afraid of most of my teachers, and if they yelled we freaking shut up immediately.  Mrs. Zehner, anyone?  She could be pretty scary sometimes.  Mrs. Rice?  Mrs. Wilkin? No one dared screw with them.  They would pretty much be in the shit house.

In other news, I used the Aesop Rock song "No Regrets" to teach a lesson on summarizing and analyzing texts yesterday.  For those of you who don't know, it's a rap/hip-hop song.  I was pretty satisfied.

I finally have my own room and today I went to the farm market and got tomatoes and a cucumber and an avocado and yummy bread.  And then I went grocery shopping for my depressingly empty cupboard and got banana juice and olives.  Mmm.

Sorry I haven't been writing as much but this week has been a bit stressful...hooray for the weekend!  PAR-TAY

Plus, going to Ikea with Sandra.  My room is sad and bare, but soon it shall be happy and colorful.  Effervescent, even?