Hedgehogs, Sleeping, and Seeing the City...by foot!

GOOD EVENING!

Well I skipped a day of blogging. I did that so I wouldn't get too nutty about it.

Yesterday I slept in till 10, then read the rest of the Nicholas Sparks book, The Choice. I tell ya what, Nicholas Sparks really takes you on a ride this time!! I got out of bed when I finished the book then rode my bike to Aldi to get some food... $11 later I am home again. It is amazing how much food you can get there for the price!

The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning and putting away laundry. When I came home I noticed how the shelf in the shower had fallen down AGAIN and the little bottle of facewash had cracked open, and there was 3 oz of my good facewash all over the shower floor. ARGH stuff like that makes me mad. There is still face wash all over the floor in the shower; it's not like I can get it all up at once. Whatever.

Sonja picked me up to go to the carnival at 8:15... while I was waiting, I saw a hedgehog scurry across the street! I wasn't sure what it was at first, so I walked over and saw it going through the grass. As I approached, it got scared and ducked its little head into the grass and didn't move for like 5 minutes. It eventually took its head up a bit so I could take some pictures of it, lol. How cute.

Sonja's friend Christian drove to Mayen to the Lukasmarkt... it was like a mini Octoberfest, seriously. Everything was just as expensive. We just walked through it and left. Sonja got some coconut almonds and they were amazing!! The regular almonds were awesome, too. I was getting kind of irritated after a while, because both Sonja and Christian were using me to practice their English... that is, when I spoke in German, they would simply answer in English. Then they would ask and say things to me in English, and even talk to each other in English!! AHHH I tried to tell them nicely, look, how would you feel if you came to the USA and all I wanted to do was speak German with you. They said they would have liked it. But it was starting to get on my nerves. Sure, English is easier, but I didn't come all this way to speak it to Germans, for heaven's sake.

After the carnival we went to one of their friend's house, where he had made a bunch of Greek style food in remembrance of his vacation, or so it seemed. All we did the entire time was look at pictures, literally hundreds, maybe up to 1000 or more pictures, from their numerous vacations. Talk about feeling out of the loop. We stayed and looked at pictures until 1:30 in the stinking morning. Sonja doesn't speak loudly or clearly, so whenever she did speak to me in German I always had to ask her to repeat herself. I made a mental note to myself to try to stick to people who will be polite and respectful of my wish to learn German, not help them learn English. I just thought that was so rude. And I'm a nice person so of course I didn't start yelling and screaming, but I really thought it was so impolite. I compared hanging out with them to hanging out with Melanie and her friends, and the latter was so much better in comparison. I can see myself spending the most time with them, at least so far! Classes and such haven't started yet, so I haven't met too many people...

Today I slept in until like 11, since I didn't go to bed till 2:30 or so... I made breakfast with my brave little toaster... Bauernbrot toasted, with spreadable cheese + salami. YUM it was delicious. I also had a piece of regular toast w/ Nutella. I am pretty proud of myself, I've had that Nutella for almost a month now, I guess, and there are 20 servings in the container, at least according to the label, and I still have 2/3 of the jar left. That must mean my MNPC (Mission for Nutella Portion Control) is successful so far!! AWESOME!

After breakfast I went outside. The weather today is PERFECT. It was 59 for the high. I didn't even need a jacket. I took my iPod for my Jesus music, crossed the big bridge by my house and walked alllllll the way along the Moselle till it met the Rhine at the big monument for Kaiser Wilhelm and the Deutsches Eck. I sat and journaled for a while then was on my way. I meandered around a bit, found some cool stuff and museums in the Altstadt (need to go back there!) and went inside an old church. Those places are scary!! It was so cool to see all the old architecture, it's so wild to know that these places have been here soooo long!! The city of Koblenz is 1000 years old, by the way. I took a ton of pictures along my way; I'll be posting those tomorrow morning once I can get to the lab on campus.

Museums in the Altstadt are open on Sunday; I think I'm going to go there next Sunday. I think it'd be a great thing to do on a Sunday. Then I think I'll take my bike, since by foot it is sooo far! By the time I got home it had been 3 hours and 15 minutes since I left. What a workout! I was sooo tired, not just from the sheer distance but from the hills and stairs and rocky surfaces. It was fun, though, a good break from the routine. A GREAT way to spend a Sunday. I listened to a David Miller message on Affecting Others Around You... that was a good one.

So now I am sitting here in shorts and a sports bra just chillin. I am really beat!! I may start a new book today. This time I might start one of my German ones...

Oh yeah, yesterday I also picked classes for the semester. Looks like I will be taking two serious ones, meaning, I will attempt to obtain credit, and one all in German that I will simply attend with no intention to receive credit (meaning no tests!!). Translation 1 seems like it is going to be a TON of work, but my schedule seems to be light enough that the work can get knocked out in one solid afternoon a week. Here's what my schedule looks like:

Monday: Intercultural Communication 10am-12pm
Tuesday: Werbecommunication 2pm-4pm
Wednesday: NOTHING
Thursday: Translation 1: 10am -12pm
Friday: NOTHING

I could probably just dedicate Thursday afternoons to nothing but doing the work for Translation, and that'd be that. Then I can be free to travel or play around all weekend =D. I am really hoping to meet some people this week who want to travel. I'll finally get to meet some more people in an organized setting this week, as things are starting to pick up as the semester begin draws closer. So I am definitely excited about that. So far, I only have Rome in the works as far as travel goes, and that won't be until March. I definitely want to take some day and/or weekend trips in between.

That's all for now, folks, I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Caitlin