Suitcase Stuffing and Goodbyes

     After 10 days full of sight-seeing, mobbing Tescos, and 59 hours of driving, our group of 70 arrived in Esslingen at about midnight last night. I wouldn't say that travelling in such big groups is exactly my thing now that I've done it, but it was still a blast to see England (except for London) and stay with a completely strange family with whom I could finally speak English with. I learned many things about the English culture, but mostly I just learned that it's more similar American than German. One of these being that yes, British people learn other languages but, they usually only learn one (compared to a typical two or even three in Germany) and don't really learn them in order to speak them (much like how Americans learn Spanish, I would say). In the Yearsley family (the one Joern and I stayed with), Jeremy (who is 16) had been learning German for about two years, but could barely understand a word when Joern and I would speak German together. Now that I think about it, I realize that before I came to Germany, I had learned German for only two years and that I had a hard time understanding more than just a few phrases. I guess that that just shows how far I've come in just these past few months.

     Anyways, now that the 10 days are over, all I have to do is figure out how I'm going to fit all of the crap I bought into my two suitcases without exceeding the weight limit before I fly home on Friday. My strategy is to stuff all of the books and heavy things (like sand, don't ask) into my carry-on as there is no weight limit and to bundle the Sekt and wine up and pray that 1) none of the bottles break and 2) that my check-in will weigh less than 23 Kg. Worst comes to worst, I can always shove tons of stuff into my backpack and pray that it'll fit under the seat in front of me OR I can sneak my backpack AND my handbag in as hand luggage like I did in February at O'hare. And if that doesn't work, I can always pull an Anne Frank and wear 10 layers of clothes to save space. No matter how I figure out how to get there, everything's going onto the same plane and will weigh the same no matter how it's distributed. The only difference will be whether I have to pay extra for it or not, and I'm not planning to. 

     Luggage (or baggage, I forget which one's British and which is American) aside, today was the last day of school for both Joern and me at Schelztor Gymnasium. It was extra dramatic because not only am I leaving on Friday and this was the last time that I would see a lot of these people, but also because Joern is transferring to a Wirtschaftsgymnasium (business school) downtown and this was his last day with his class as well. Even the weather was feeling the mood and decided to drench us on the bike ride to and from school, but of course it's sunny now as I sit indoors and write this. Nonetheless, after school we drove downtown so Joern could get his braces on and I could buy some books while he did so, so I can continue to learn German even though I won't be surrounded by it anymore. It's almost kind of scary to go back to the US because of the fear of losing all of the language I have worked so hard to acquire and not having Joern around as my walking talking dictionary anymore. It's funny because the only difference between Joern and the dictionary on my phone is that Joern has better translations and knows slang, but other than that it takes just as long to get an answer out of him and his battery dies after about 10 translations. I don't blame him for being annoyed by my always asking for words and "was heisst ...?" and "wie sagt man ...?" but I mean it would be a little bit more helpful if I could squeeze more than a few words out of him per hour before he says "I'm not your dictionary!" and stops answering all of my questions. Anyways, I know that I am definitely going to miss Joern and my next objective is going to be convincing my family to take a vacation to Europe. 

     It's looking like Joern won't be coming to the US next year which is going to break up the annual visits to America that he has been making for the past three years. And it's also not looking like I will be coming back to Germany in the next year as my family is planning a trip to Asia, so I guess this is goodbye for now. We've spent the past year of our lives together and probably know each other better than anyone we'll know for a while, but now we've come to the part where our paths split and we move on to see what's next. 

Today is 26.7.2017 

Broken Lamps and Gold Hair

Gold Hair

     I think that a parent's biggest fear when they send their kid off to another country is, "Crap, they're probably gonna come back with dyed hair and everyone's going to think we're terrible parents." But let me just say that I am not being rebellious, but rather adventurous. 

     I did make sure to get permission from those whom might be concerned with me potentially burning off my hair due to the powerful chemicals that my dark brown hair requires. These people included my parents (I made sure to mention that they lived through the 80s and were once adventurous too) and Joern's parents. The only requests that I received were to get it done professionally and to not mess up the bathroom if I chose not to. And I chose not to mess up the bathroom; however, I would recommend one to conduct more research than what I had before going straight to the internet and ordering the bleach, developer and toner that one thinks are the "oh so easy" steps to getting blonde hair. 

     I may not have done enough research to come out of the bathroom looking platinum, but I still had a full head of hair that wasn't orange, which is saying something. Anyhow, after waiting a week for my straw-yellow hair to recover from the harshness of the bleach, I had ordered another toner that I thought was supposed to make my hair either silver or platinum (don't ask), but neither color ended up being mine as I had ordered the wrong toner. Again, I wished I had done more research, but it is what it is and now my hair is somewhere between hazel and CrayolaⓇ crayon gold.

Broken Lamp
     Joern and I like to bicker a lot. I would say that we have achieved that status of conjoined twin old ladies/men. It's fun for us because neither of us really takes it seriously (except for when we do) and it really gets on his parents nerves. For example, at the lunch table today Joern and I had a whole opera about a little speck of food on his chin. I wanted him to wipe it off and he didn't want to, so I decided to act like I couldn't understand him because I couldn't get past the lentil on his chin while he decided to talk anyways. It was really funny because here Joern and I were, having a grand old time, while his mom was sitting directly across from us, trying not to blow like Yellowstone and rain her fire upon us. And so it is in this house.

     Saturday; however, the bickering turned into a little bit more while Joern and I were trying to watch Netflix. I won't go into the details of who I think is justified and so on, but I would like to say that it doesn't make sense to point light at the Mac screen because it's "better for your eyes". The aftermath of the battle included a neck strain for Nat, a very angry Joern that didn't want to watch Netflix anymore, and a lamp that had it's plug decapitated.

     Today is Monday and we (meaning me) got around to fixing the dang thing. I'm not sure why, but no one was on board with my idea of electric-taping the wires of the old lamp to the wires of a new plug. I mean, electric tape is made for this stuff and if the house burns down, then we can just sue the company that made the tape, right? Anyways, we ended up attaching a whole new head to the wires without electric tape and everyone's happy. I'm just not satisfied with the fact that there's no one to sue now when the house burns down.

 Update 
      With the party bus for the England trip something like two or three weeks away, I am still trying to stay afloat in school and not get called on by a teacher until then. We had the official ground-rules meeting for the trip on Friday and I found out that we might be close enough to London to get the Starbuck'sⓇ You Are HereⓇ London mug after all. Win. Everyone is constantly saying that the food in Great Britain is supposed to be terrible, so I'm super excited to get up in there and try it for myself. Being a person that eats pretty much anything, I don't think I'll ever understand why people don't like certain foods to the point where they don't eat them. The closest I see myself coming to that point is bleu cheese and even then, I will still eat it without the slightest cringe.

Remember, flip flops are shoes

Nat