Well, I suppose I should say goodbye, if for no other reason than to make my mother happy. ::grin::

I'm safely at home, packing up my things again for my last year in Kansas.

After that, who knows?

Maybe I'll blog it. ::wink::

 
I'm in Munich, making what will probably be my last post from Germany, and certainly my last from EasyInternetCafe (oh, how we love you!).

Add to my injury log: one messed up freakin' foot that has had me limping for days. Now you see why I'm ever so happy that Greg came to Munich with Anna and me to help with our luggage. My room is successfully cleaned out, and all of my crap is sitting in a train station locker until tomorrow morning, when we'll grab it at 8am and lug it to the airport. But that shouldn't be tooooo bad, really.

We went out to dinner at the Augustiner Keller, which is the restaurant owned by the brewery that makes our favorite beer. We're probably going to see a movie and stay the night at The Tent, 'cuz it was so much fun the last time. And cheap. and we have practically nothing with us.

Last night was so sad... I've had to make so many goodbyes in the last few days, but last night was the worst yet. We went to the Irish Pub one last time, and Tony was trying to pretend like he wasn't going to miss us, because students come and students go...but I know he will. He sat and talked to us for a long time, and imparted his wisdom about life... He gave me a really excellent shot of 16 year old whiskey... very smoky and flavorful... Loglavin, maybe? I'm not sure what it was. This morning before I was even really awake I said goodbye to Jon and Kay, but I'll probably be going to Minnesota for fall break to see Kay and check out Minneapolis for grad school. Said goodbye to Memphis Anna and Vincenzo... And we just now sent Greg on his way. Tomorrow will be rough, but I'll probably be able to hang out with Anna at her gate right up until her flight leaves.

And in a little over 24 hours, I'll be home. Bittersweet, really.

Yeah. Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

 
This has been the most difficult thing I've ever done, but also the most rewarding and most fun.

I am more me now than I have ever been before. I am self-aware, self-sufficient, and self-confident.

I am young, I am beautiful, I am intelligent, I am interesting, and I'm going somewhere in life. I don't know exactly where, but that's okay.

Most importantly, I am happy.

That's so awesome.

 
I have lived through my oral exam, and I got a B! How nice. That means so far I've gotten 2 As, 2 Bs, one 'pass' and we'll see what I get on my paper. Sometime. When I decide to finish it. Maybe tomorrow.

Ewww, Anna just told me that our train leaves from Eichstätt Bahnhof off of track 3, which means we somehow have to schlepp all of our luggage down the stairs and back up them in less than 5 minutes. Life is rough.

I have something important to say. So important, that I'm going to start a new entry for it.

 
Oh, freakin' great. I have an oral exam in an hour and a half, and I just read a slightly upsetting e-mail. I'm mad at someone, but I'm not quite sure who it is. Maybe I should know better than to expect people to stay inside of their own lives instead of feeling they need to mess with mine. oh well. Not something I'll ever resolve, I suppose, because I don't really care enough to track down who it was that betrayed my trust... I'm just disappointed. Funny thing is, I'm not even going to be more careful about things. I know I'm a sucker and trust too many people with too much, so I'm hardly ever surprised when it comes back to bite me in the ass. It's just bizarre to see 2 and a half years of your life float away as if they never existed.

 
Notes to self on grad school applications:

Cornell: Jan 5
Georgetown: Jan 3 (joint deg app Feb 5)
Minnesota: Dec 31
MIT: Jan 15
Michigan: sometime around then (see also joint deg)

Deadline for figuring out where all you're applying: Sept 1

 
Back in Eichstätt... Saturday afternoon, and I am sooooo sleepy.

Lejla and I got back about 9:30 last night, got a pizza and a beer at La Grotta, went home to shower, and went to Irish Pub with Anna, Anna, Kay and Jon, where we celebrated Lejla's last night in Eichstätt. Closed the bar down, like in the old days... (but I only actually had one beer, since we got there so late.) I slept the sleep of the dead, woke up around 11, and started doing some packing. Then we said goodbye to Lejla, and Jon, Kay and Anna and I made some tomato soup and couscous for lunch, and now I am here.

I have to finish my Hausarbeit this weekend and study for a test, because my math professor is going to let me take an oral exam in place of the written one that I totally missed. Life is good, but my last couple days are going to be crazy since I procrastinated so well on my 2 week shopping spree. Best to be hopping to it...

 
I'm in Prague! That makes 5 countries in a week, I think.

After Dusseldorf, Anna and I caught the train to Freiburg/Müllheim, and got to her professor's place, who was wonderful. There was another student staying there, so we all hung out. We got in late Monday, so pretty much just had a snack and some wine and went to bed. Also, I hadn't slept the night before because I had to spend it at the airport... long story. my flight was at 6 am.

Tuesday Frau Metcalf showed us around Müllheim, which is beautiful and in the wine country in southern Germany. We went to market and to see a friend of hers who lives in one of the old wine barons' mansion things, which is basically a museum of stuff from the 18th century. We ate lunch and the three of us took the bus to Lucerne, Switzerland, where we did a little sightseeing, and then came back. Then we packe up some wine and cheese and went for a walk into the wine country and had a picnic. cute!

Yesterday we looked around Freiburg and I caught (several) train(s) back to Eichstätt, where I was for 2 hours before I left for Prague with Lejla. We took a night train, got here, secured lodgings, and are now off shopping and sightseeing.

Injury log:
1 peeling sunburn
2 skinned elbows
1 scratched chin of unknown origin
several raw spots on feet from walking.

 
Crap, I just lost a post.

Anyway, in Dusseldorf after London, don't have time to write about it or even really process it.

It was perfect. Wonderful.

(And I think I rather like this boy.)

 
Back at the internet cafe...

I slept late, since I had been sleeping on a floor for a couple of days... My room is so cute. I'm staying in this ancient (i.e. since the 15th century) hotel thing, and I have a little single room with yellow walls and white linens and it's charming. The patron lady is a little strange, though. She was trying to tell me something about platonic love and a U with an umlaut. I was lost.

So then I went shopping this morning... whoo, buddy. I went to this liquor store, thinking I'd pick up a bottle of wine to bring to Simon as a host gift... and ended up spending like €60. I tasted a whole bunch of schaps.... Maybe some of the liquor will make it home. I got a bottle of the local white wine (which I later tried with my dinner... it's good. It's very clean and fresh), a bottle of a red wine liqeur, which was so interesting I couldn't pass it up (I knew they made schnaps out of anything... I have had mead, after all.... but this was really good and strange to boot.), and I got a little bottle of thyme schnaps, which is supposed to aid in thinking as well as digesting, and some little bottles of chocolate and white chocolate liqueur (which spelling do you like better? I'm not sure), and two boxes of Mozart Kugeln, which are these little balls of pistaschio paste inside hazelnut paste inside marzipan covered in choclate. They rule. Then I walked around some, then I went to H&M because I needed socks and ended up buying a couple of things. I tried to go and tour the salt mines, but I barely missed the last train. Suck. I did something... I'm not sure what... I wanted to go to a movie, but instead I fell asleep reading at my place. That's okay.

I woke up, and went out to get myself some dinner, and ran into the American law students I met yesterday. But then some lady asked if anyone spoke both English and German, because she was having a problem at her hotel, so I went to help her out, and my law students disappeared in the meantime. On my way into the hotel, however, I slipped down the stairs and injured myself pretty soundly, including but not limited to skinning my elbows and hitting my already aching sunburned back. Note to self: do not wear these flip-flops after it rains.

I took myself out to dinner at an italian place, where I had yummy pizza and a glass of wine, helped translate the menu for a nice Californian couple sitting near me, and observed the really hilarious waiter for a while. I am now checking my e-mail and I might go to the nearby Irish pub before I retire and get ready for my flight to London in the morning. Heh.

I've had an interesting experience linguistically, I guess. The bitch that works at the internet cafe during the day insists on speaking to me in English, but other people don't persist in speaking English to me if I repeatedly answer them in German. I had a very long conversation with the liquor store guy about this, and he says it's often just easier, because people generally don't speak as much German as I do even when they are familiar with it as a foreign language. And a lady later also addressed me in English once after I said 'Gruß Gott' to her, and I asked her if it was so easy to tell I was an English speaker after one word, and she told me the Rs of English speakers are nearly a dead give away. The dudes at the hostel in Munich tell me my accent is quite good. Heh, and the night guy here at the internet cafe told me that my English was quite good, and then corrected himself... 'Deutsch, Deutsch!' but I laughed and told him that I spoke English pretty well, also.