Visiting my sister

As some people may not know I have to nephews the older one is Uli ( 9 years old) and my younger one Leo ( almost 5 years old). I haven't seen them for almost 4 years, ok I went for a short visit in January but nothing long so after my parents went off to Hamburg for the weekend I decided to spent the weekend at my sister's. I left Friday around noonish to first visit a friend in Wuerzburg to have lunch there. Btw they are filming the new flick with Orlando Bloom there and we saw all the preperations. We had an awesome chinese lunch and then off I went to visit my sister and it all started with the dog being sick and pucking like crazy on the way there. Seeing them was great and we went to a soccer game. He is the goalie and his team won but they were playing against a younger team

For dinner I showed them the American way of making scrambled eggs in the microwave and they were quite impressed. Next day I made hamburgers and  they all like it yeah. In the afternoon we went sledding. Summer sledding better to say but I just post some pics so everybody knows what it is. It was a lot of fun:

There is a lift that pulls you and the sled up and then you go down the hill. First I went with my younger nephew which was a surprise because he doesn't remember me at all and then the two fought who can go down with me and  so I did 3 rides with both of them:

Saturday night we went to a biker party which was ok but nothing special. Oh, there was something there was a bone-fire and all the kids were playing with the fire and I was so worried that someone would get hurt till my sister told me to finally relax: 

I was so worried that something could happen but I guess I'm still living  U.S safety standards.

Sunday was a day of relaxing after my sister is a minister in the town she lives but had her day off we couldn't really do anything in town and went to a medieval festival which almost ended up leaving the whole thing after 2 minutes after Leo didn't behave at all. But it was quite impressive what they had: Knights, dancers, jugglers and so on:

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My older nephew playing soccer once again.

and the best thing was they had cheese fries

and the last one all of us:

It was a great weekend.

Looking for apartments

As most of you know now I accepted the spot at the university of applied science in Erfurt and there was just one small problem left finding a place to live. First of all the opinion between my parents and me are very different. I kinda know what which is a small 1 bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and thats it. ( yes I need a bathroom, too) I'm willing to spent about 250 euro and maybe a little bit more. My home is my castle. My parents are a little bit different here. They live (in my opinion) about 20 years behind 2010: I told them I was looking for 250 and they were like u are nuts and you won't get more money from us and in their opinion I should get a room size of a shoebox and share bathroom and kitchen with 20 ppl and it shouldn't cost more than 120. Ok two total different opinions have to go look for an apartment.

So how did it go? Well well not to good I have to say. First one was ok in my price range but it was as my dad called it a hole in the basement and we went on to the next one. Nice apartment but way out of my league and so we went on. Last one we saw was nice and we both liked it. It actual had all features my dad wanted and I like it too but it was way too price ( 365 Euro which is almost $430) So on we went to the dorm administration which told use the waiting list is way too long and to not even sign up. Bummer. So we went  on to look at the message board and yes we actual found some open rooms and I called and made an appointment for later on in the day. Then I went to school to sign up for it and went on to look for apartments.One guy didn't even show up to show us around and so my dad went home and I stayed to look at two more rooms. First was a flat share and as much as I want to say it was cheap but disgusting and the landlord was more than strange. Stuff like can I bring my own furniture or hang up personal items no not allowed. I wanted to take some pics for my dad to see after he had to leave for a meeting and I had to sign a waiver that I won't post anything online so no pics for you today. The landlord is Christian and involved in church and expects their tenants to go to church at least twice a months so ok I could have arranged for that but do I want to, not really. So off I went to  the last apartment for the day and I have to say it was great and it would have been everything I dreamed off. Especially  after he was selling his bed, kitchen, washing machine and other small stuff I needed for only 300 Euro. Awesome deal. It also looked nice and the price would have been more than affordable:

Ok decision was made quick I wanted that apartment but now I had to fight with the apartment administration which meant filling out tons of paper work and praying to get it. I'm still waiting so we will see.

 

Finding a school isn't easy

Ok after I got my associate degree from NCC I had to find a school to go to get my bachelor. I have been in touch with a couple of schools and applied and so far I had been accepted to all of them but they didn't like my credits at all. So after I got the last letter the day of my arrival here and I was like ok let's see maybe I just apply for a couple of more schools and so I did. Lots of paperwork and stuff but I was able to send them out pretty quick. I got my acceptance letter from one of the schools I applied to and I can now officially say that I will be going to Erfurt. I will be signing up for classes hopefully by tomorrow and yes there is a slight problem of  finding an affordable apartment and so far I had no luck. I will be going up there tomorrow and hopefully we proudly announcing that I found a small apartment. My mom wants me to go to the dorms but first of all I don't want to and second there is a waiting list which already has 250 ppl on it. So far my school search. I'm still waiting to hear back from other schools but so far it looks like Erfurt it is.

Strange things that happened so far or how many times can you embarrass yourself in 7 days.

Ok, everybody had told me beware that there are a lot of changes going on and it will be different. So I tried to do my best to fit in but once in a while it just seems so different. I went to a bakery right before closing and the lady already had cleaned up a lot of things and I wanted a pastry which was put away already and I asked very polite: May I ask one of the pastries, please and she looks at me as I had just arrived from planet mars. So there she goes in the back and gets me the pastry hands it over or better kinda throws it over the counter and tells me that is 65 cents. No here you go and as I said thank you she looked at me like what you wanna make conversation? But I got my pastry.
Oh another good one: Everybody knows how much I used my debit card and that I never ever had any cash on my hands. European money is different. For everybody who hasn't seen any yet here a picture of our coins:

As you can see the 1 cent and 2 cents look a like a lot and so I went to buy something and she hands me the chance and I say oh you gave me too much and she looks at me like no and i started counting the 1 cents and said no its too much and so she started talking to me like I'm a preschooler buying milk for the first time and counted out the money for me till I was convinced I was getting the right amount of money. Another money store worth to tell. Who has been to ALDI? Remember you have to put in a quarter to get a cart and bring it back. Every cart in Germany needs one Euro to be used. So I went grocery shopping with my dad and he was like ok put the cart back and ok I was one of the people who would just push the cart the next to the car but hey the guy who puts the carts away needs work too and there I went putting the cart back push it back into the cart thing and walk away. An older lady behind me screams at me   ( ok I translate it  to the best) Little girl don't you wanna take your Euro out, your parents will be mad if you loose it. So I turned around and looked quite puzzled was she talking to me and yes she was. Sure embarrassing yourself once a day helps to build your character but I couldn't really let go of the whole thing and played the dumb little tourist who only speaks English. So the old lady gave me my Euro and tried to explain to me talking a mix of German and English that I was supposed to take my Euro home.

I'm a New Jersey girl and as everybody knows 

and yes I got my scooter back to life and I was super excited to ride again and my first visit to the gas station. I got there and stop the engine and started waiting for a couple of minutes and then I figured oh righ I have to pump myself and yes I had pumped gas in NY or PA but I normally used my debit card but German gas stations don't have a slot for credit cards figuring that I went inside waited in line and then the nice girl behind the counter asks me which number and I was like 5 dollar regular and she looks at me eh? So I said nicely to her that I wanted to prepay 5 dollars and she looks at me  ( Everybody tells me that I have an American accent and that I look so American) getting her school English together explaining to me I had to get gas first before I could pay. OK so I went back filled my tank and went back in line, waited patiently and I guess the girl behind the counter figured my German wasn't that good and she started to tell every customer the story about the dumb American wanted to pay for gas before getting it. I might have to find a new gas station now but I talked back to the girl after I paid in my nice Bavarian accent if you have to gossip she might want to wait till the customer is gone. She wasn't that nice afterwards.

Buying alcohol in Germany. I had to buy my mom a birthday present and she is into Italian cooking so I went to buy some Italian stuff and a bottle of wine. So there I stand there and the lady asked me to see my ID which I accept and I hand over my NJ license ( Some mysterious way German drivers license after I had found it cleaning up my room has gone missing and I haven't had the chance to look for it) and she looks at it. Calls her boss and he wanted to know if I would show him my passport speaking a hard to understand English. Here we go again. I told him in German that this is the only ID I have and my year of birth is 86 which makes me over 18 and the picture looked like me as well. What's next. He hands the thing back to me still talking English and saying to me he can't believe I'm over 18 but after I'm from a foreign country he would sell me the wine anyway.

One more story how I solved my hanger problem which was mentioned before: The parents of our neighbors own a dry cleaning company and they were up to visit and somehow he looked the keys inside his VW rabbit. But he had left the windows open about 2 inches. I didn't get the whole story but he tried a couple of household items to open the door no luck.  The keys were on the floor mat of the backseat and the driver and passenger window were opened as mentioned before. He used a hockey bat, an old hanger, gardening equipment to open the door but the car is so intelligent that after a certain point you can't open the doors by pushing the unlock button inside. Ok the whole thing went on for a good half an hour till I suggested to use a magnet to get the key which was immediately turned down because that would never work. I kept myself quite just watching and suggested again and I guess they wanted to shut me up and tried it and yes it worked. We go the keys back and the owner was so grateful that  I got about 100 factory hangers for free and now my closet is full but I still have some hangers left.

What is happening next?

I'm back in Germany for a week now and after I have been asked what is going on what happened so far I decided to keep you all up to date here: I start all the way back with my flight home:
 Wed Sept 1st:
I keep it short here I got to Newark airport around 3.15 and good bye  was sad but quick. I had quite a lot of luggage to fly back home with ( thanks to air india) I only had to pay for one of them. After I was only dropped off at the airport I had to hire one of the guys to help me with my suitcases and yes he was nice and helped but then complained that I only gave him $8 as a tip and yeah I argued a little bit with him and then he left without more money. I was close to take the $8 back because he was such a jerk. I checked my suitcases in and paid for my 3rd piece and then the nice lady behind the check-in asked me to put my carry on on the scale and surprise surprise it was too have and had to be checked in. So I just grabbed the essentials as passport, ticket, gum and laptop and there went my carry-on. Security was more than a hazard because my passport was going to expire sept 9th but Europeans print the date in a different format than Americans. We write  DD/MM/YY and so the lady  told me my passport is expired and I couldn't fly. So far so good I had a new passport already made and I could go thru security. Waiting hall was boring but I used surfed the web for a while. Boarding same trouble with my passport but I made it and then I was totally stunned by the luxury of my economy flight. Every seat had its own TV and there was leg room. Ok maybe I'm so short but I was really surprised. I had a nice American guy sitting next to me and so the 7.23 hr flight passed by pretty quick. Getting to Frankfurt landing great and then it took forever till we were finally able to get out of the plane. I couldn't really see where we parked but when I finally got to the door I saw we were parked all the way out and had to take the bus to get to the terminal. Normally I would have never mind but after they took my carry- on I didn't have any clothes and yes I was still wearing my shorts and tank because we had 101 degrees leaving. Welcome to Frankfurt! The outside temperature is 49 degrees. Freezing. We finally made it to the terminal,passport inspection and then a 15 min walk to luggage claim. But all of my 4 suitcases made it. My parents have already been waiting for 2 hours since they checked on-line and it said the flight was arriving an hour early.
Now the funny part started to get all my suitcases in the elevator, our dog my parents and me and then finding the car again. OK, after a couple of wrong turns and looking for the car that was parked on one more level up we found the car and my dad who has a station wagon had a hard time fitting all my stuff in there and the dog but after about 20 mins we made it.

What else happened Thursday. I got home started to unpack my suitcases and yes my suitcases were once again opened up and checked out. What a surprise traveling with a trophy and Wii in my luggage but surprisingly the suitcase with my trumpet wasn't opened.

I message Claudine that I arrived safe but besides an OK good I haven't heard from them at all.
Thursday was also rough because I didn't sleep at all I was way too occupied with watching TV and talking to the nice guy sitting to me. My parents kind of forced me to empty my suitcases but here starts the problem my closet was full with my old clothes but I had 3 suitcases full with new stuff. So my first mission was to empty my closet to fill it up with new stuff so far so good till I ran out of hangers and I still could have need approximately 50 more of them. My dad suggested just hang more than one piece on a hanger and after I told him that this wouldn't happen he told me just to throw out all the stuff that couldn't fit because I can only wear once piece at a time.
What else happened Thursday and Friday. Not much I was still pretty much living in U.S time but I slowly started to adjust. Saturday my parents took me grocery shopping and to go into town to do some shopping. Just to say I mostly needed all the basics because I had no more room to bring anything like shampoo, headbands, toothbrush and so on. Ok I admit I got really spoiled by my parents but I also have to say I was surprised how cheap everything is. Funny story I just walked thru town and suddenly somebody started to talk in English to me while I was still talking German to my parents. Do I really look that American?
Saturday night I went out to meet one of my old friends and bumped into two others which after all was really nice and I had a good time.
Sunday friends of my parents asked us if we wanted to go to a wine fest and I was all in for it. Weather was actual nice, food and beverage were delicious. There is nothing of a good glass of wine from Franconia  and a good Gerupften Brot ( Camembert made a certain way).
Monday was the day of paperwork which means filling out more applications and getting certified copies of my NCC grades and my high school diploma. I also had to get health insurance and I'm on the desperate look out for an affordable cell phone plan. I was already at the point of wishing myself my American plan back but I won't get into detail but I let you all know the German system sucks big time. (Just saying paying 10 bucks more a month just for the phone? I don't think so ) So far I don't have a cell just using my dad's. Let's see how long that will last. So I got all my stuff to the mailbox in time and now it was time to wait.
Tuesday was a slight fight with my mom because she is insisting of ironing all my stuff and asking me to do and everybody who knows me knows that ironing would be the last thing on my behind right next to cleaning. Ok, if anyone has an answer for me why my underwear and socks have to be ironed, let me know. FYI during my 4 years in the states I think I ironed maybe twice.
Ok I think that's enough for now and I will let you know what life brings next for me.