Happily Home

I'm back! Sorry I took so long to post an update. I was near Augsburg for my birthday weekend. And yay, I'm back! It's good to be back. Thank you everyone who sent packages, postcards, letters, called, etc. I REALLY appreciate it!!! I felt so loved. Makes it easier to be away.

Since I've been back. Let's see. Yesterday morning I tried to luft and suddenly my window broke. Or at least the handle. Now it won't open. And it's the only window that tilts open from the top, so I have to completely open the others if I want to let in fresh air. The Hausmeister was supposed to stop by last night and have a look at it, but I was at art and it's still broken.

I've also decided my main means of clean laundry this year will be my sink. It's so difficult to find a time to sign up for washing clothes that I will only do jeans and bed stuff when I can. Everything else gets hand-washed and hung up on my rack and/or over my tiny heator.

Bureaucracy is still kicking my butt. I finally got the papers to the nice woman at the Uni and she is going to try and get my student id to me next week. Fingers crossed! However, my quest for a visa is not going so well. I called the office today because they are only open during my working hours, only in the mornings. Sheesh. The woman I talked to was very unkind and told me opposing things then said I couldn't be working without my visa but they couldn't give me an appointment for over a month but I couldn't go to the Uni to get it taken care of because I can't be a student AND employed. But I am. It's possible. She then said that I could do it at the Uni and then she couldn't help me and I wished her a good day through gritted teeth and hung up. I'm going to find another way to do this.

Today I did a class on dating in America and another one on Halloween, which is celebrated much more emphatically in the U.S. I even wrote a little story and had my students finish the ending, either with a story or play that they will read/perform next week. Fun stuff. They were interested and it made it enjoyable. Much better than last week's lesson on regions in the U.S......zzzzzzz.

The weather is nice here. In Augsburg it was yucky. Here the sun is shining and it's warmer, almost 70! So warm. I know, it's still like a heat-wave there, but Germany is a colder climate.

I have to run some errands soon, I need to get more shower curtain rings to hold up the curtain because it's too short and my floor is getting quite wet and the shower curtain then blows in and sticks to me and I spend the whole shower swatting and yelling at the shower curtain. (the cute rubber duckie one Mom sent).

Oh, I almost forgot the train ride(s) to Augsburg! It was quite amusing. Time to play Laugh at what Kate did. So I stopped by Chuck's to drop off some food I didn't want to go bad and he invited me up for tea. I accepted because it's always fun to hang out with him, then I stayed too long and missed two trains. I ran to the train station but just missed them. Then I waited for the next train, about half an hour later. Sadly I'd missed the quick trains and had to take the slow ones. By then I had to pee but didn't want to leave the track because there was nowhere quick to go, so I thought I'd wait because trains always have bathrooms. So I got on and put my stuff down and looked around and didn't see one. I asked the guy next to me and he said this particular kind of train didn't have no. Uh-oh. No!!!! I had just over an hour on it, but I wasn't going to make it. Surely he was kidding. But no. No wc. I tried to think of other things. I tried to listen to music. But after water and two cups of hot tea there was no way I was going to make it. I made the decision to jump. Sigh. So I waited until I got to a larger city (as opposed to a small, one-track station in the middle of nowhere) and got off the train. As luck would have it they were having a big festival and I found clean bathrooms right away. Sadly the next train wasn't for another 40 minutes and then was even slower than the previous. So I grabbed a snack from the bakery and sat and watched the ferris wheel. Finally the train came and I took it to Mannheim where I changed to a faster train for the next 2.5 hours. So after missing trains, having to abandon and wait for more, etc. it took me about 5 hours to get to Augsburg. Dear goodness.

And on the trip back it was a holiday and the last day of Oktoberfest and the trains were more full than I had ever seen. The first half hour I sat on the floor with many other people, then a sweet lady told me of a free seat as she got off, sadly I later got kicked out because some had reserved it, then I had to stand in the aisle. The next train was also very packed so I just stood like a good sardine among many others. As I said earlier, it's good to be home. But it was quite the adventure.

Ok, that is a book! It's about time I walk into town anyhow. Take care! : )