Tanz in den Mai!

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I can't believe it's already May! April really flew by. I know the rest of my time here will too! Today's a holiday here, and I was lucky enough to get the whole day off. I really didn't think that would happen! A lot of the villages around here have big parties called Tanz in den Mai - Dance into May. I saw signs for parties in Hannover too, but I don't think it's the same. It's more just an excuse to go out on a week night since there's no work today. I drove with Rachel and Maz to nearby Degersen. They had a big tent set up, with long tables, the bar, stage, and an area to dance. Since we got there pretty early we didn't have to wait in line too long. They were really strict about checing id's and bags and everything - they took both Rachel's and my water, unfortunately.  We also think we got charged more because the pre-booking tickets were sold out.

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Some of Max's friends showed up for a little while, and then Laura, who was the au pair here before Rachel, and her boyfriend Nils, who was the apprentice here then, showed up with some of Nils' friends. It was so cold! After a while we couldn't stand it anymore so we had to get up and dance. The band was the JetLags, and they sang everything from 80's German Schlager hits, to 90's German hip hop and rap, to the Backstreet Boys and a few slightly more modern songs. They were pretty great, but it would have been even more fun if I was German and knew everything they were singing!

It's a beautiful first day of May, so I'm going to get out and enjoy it now!

Life Updates

I'm sorry I've been so bad about posting! Here's a little of what's been going on around here:

• Rachel, the au pair who was here before me, moved back in at the beginning of April to help out over the summer. We had become friends, os it's been great having her here! I don't go as crazy only talking to two-year-olds all day, and I get to speak English too which gives my brain a break! Florian, the apprentice, came back in March too. It's nice not to be all alone cooped up in the house like I was all Winter.
• The twins started Kindergarten! Right now they only go until 10 or 11, but in a couple weeks they're supposed to be "eingewöhnt" and be able to stay until the other kids come home at 12:30
• Spring has officially sprung! Well, except yesterday. But mostly it's been pretty warm and sunny. I've been running in shorts for a week or 2 and I'm already starting to get a shorts tan and watch tan. I didn't expect that so fast from Germany! But I guess my legs haven't seen the light of day since September.
• The Hannover Half Marathon is in one week, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. Then, the next day I'm flying to Portugal! I'm going by myself, but I'm really excited! I need to start planning my trip a little more. I told myself I was going to plan this one!
• I've also decided on my next adventure - Rachel and I are signing up for Tough Mudder in July! We'd found a random team of 8 people - Me, Rachel, her boyfriend Max, their friend Daniel from South Africa, two separate Australian girls who will be living/travelling here at that time, a guy from Hannover who posted on the event's facebook page, and another American woman who I haven't actually met but she was in the facebook group of the people I run with every Sunday, so I'm sure she's nice. We've started training and we're so excited! 

http://toughmudder.com/

• Philippa eats fruit (sometimes)! Yesterday she actually ate some babyfood apples and peaches. This is huge because she detests all fruit except sometimes bananas and occasionally strawberry flavored things, if you call it sauce and not strawberries. But apples are especially bad, and she tastes it no matter how hidden it is. And then today, I had toast with quark and cherry jam, and she wanted to try some! She loved it! I shared it with her, made another one with strawberry jam and apricot, and she ate those too. This is a huge step! 

Jobs, jobs, jobs. I've applied for several AmeriCorps positions and have even been rejected by some.

• Community Health Corps - didn't even interview me. The positions I was most qualified in required Spanish fluency, so I wasn't surprised.
• American Red Cross Seattle - interviewed for two positions, didn't get asked for a second interview for either
• NotreDame Seattle - my preliminary interview went well, and I'm scheduling an interview for a position tutoring/teaching in a high school and running an after school program with Planned Parenthood. I'm excited about this one! And if it doesn't work out, they have other positions that would be a good match, and my application can keep being sent to different sites and positions.
• BMAC Walla Walla - also interviewed with the head coordinator, and my application has been sent to 3 sites. This would be perfect, except it's in Walla Walla.
• Washington Reading Corps Seattle - I had to reschedule my interview for the middle of May, but they seem nice. I also am scheduling an interview for WRC in the surrounding areas, through a different organization. 

I think that's it right now! I have more options if none of these work out, but I've made the decision to move to Seattle!

Another Day in the Life

This is super safe...

look who can ride a bike by herself!

they're no always as cute as they look...

look at my pretty bag!

they call all bubbles "hello kitty"

"glunglasses!"

look Ma, no hands!

cool dance moves

Philippa's new laugh. this is the face of fun right here

Italy! (and Amsterdam)

I flew through Amsterdam on my way to Italy, so I could spend some time there without making a separate trip later. Which wouldn't have happened. And because I haven't spent enough time in that airport (my host dad joked that I was at the point where I could use "du" there - the informal form of "you".

Amsterdam:

cute, the tulips think it's spring even though it's freezing

It was freezing and windy, but I walked to Vondelpark and walked around the outer loop. I walked back through the Leidesplein area, and through the flower market where there weren't any flowers yet. I tried to meet Meagan at the train station because she had come on a later flight, but she was on the wrong train and got there late and we didn't have phones.

canal tour

So after a while I went on a canal tour, and then walked through the red light district. I also stopped in lots of cheese shops and ate all their samples as well as what could be argued as too many stroopwafels.

Milan:

We didn't spend much time here at the beginning, but let's just say it didn't run smoothly. We had rented a car, but between my relative inexperience driving a standard, the fact that it was night and raining, and Milan being one of the worst places to drive in the world ever, it ended up being a disaster. We couldn't find our hotel or anywhere to park on the street near it, so we ended up at a parking garage. The man working there saved our lives. He spoke no English so we communicated through google translate on his laptop (thank goodness for wifi). It turns out our hotel didn't accept late check ins, even though we had to tell them what time we were coming when we made the reservation. So we ended up getting sent to another hotel and the man who saved our lives called us a taxi. It was the weirdest hotel room.
The next morning, we made lots of phone calls, and ended up taking the car back. We lost some money which was a little nauseating, but it ended up being the best decision we could have made. The people who recommended renting a car to drive around Italy were wrong. Don't do it...just don't. We finally made it to the train station and were on our way to Verona.

Verona:

arena

Juliette's house

letters to Juliette

It was late afternoon by the time we made it to our hotel, and I desperately needed to go for a run to regain some sanity and stop feeling like I needed to vomit. Meagan started looking for lodgings in our next location while I was fighting the sunset before I got lost in the very confusing streets. We went to the grocery store, which is a favorite activity for both of us, but it was a little disappointing in that it wasn't really very different from German stores. We bought ourselves a feast of tomatoes, mozzarella, pesto, antipasta, plenty of wine and a corkscrew, and these little lemon sorbet things that caught our eye in the checkout line before we realized what they were and that we didn't have a freezer so we couldn't eat them.

Romeo's house

The next morning (Tuesday), we went into the main square in Verona and were able to get a map at the Tourist Office and have them circle things we should see. We made our way through the pedestrian area to Juliette's house, through the old city and into the cathedral, before crossing the river and climbing up to the old city wall to get a view of the city. We ate delicious pizza things on the way back,  got our luggage from the hotel, and then met Meagan's friend Ilaria. They were in a German course together in Hannover before Ilaria had to go back to Italy. We ate our first gelato of the trip before her dad picked us up and took us back to their house, which was about 40km away, in a tiny village called Bezzetti.

Duomo

It was nice to be out of a city for a bit, and I went on a run on the roads and through the fields, and then got locked out of the house. We ate breakfast and walked to a nearby village, then came back and packed and made spaghetti. Ilaria's mom came back and drove us to Lake Garda. We had a little while there before our train left for Florence. We said goodbye to Ilaria, then didn't forget to validate our tickets before getting on the train.

Lake Garda

Florence:

morning run

Duomo

We finally figured out how to get out of the train station and made our way to our hostel in Florence - PLUS Hostel, I would definitely recommend it and they have other locations in Italy and a few other countries. The people in our room were nice, which is always good.

Mr. David

In the morning, I ran through the main part of town across the river, and then on the way back climbed up the hillside and got a view of the city. It's fun to see cities as they're waking up, when all the vendors are just starting to set up their stalls and the hoards of tourists haven't been released yet. Most of the people I saw were other runners. Meagan met her friend Parker at the train station and we got back to the room at the same time. We made our way into the town for a walking tour, which was great. It was only us and a family of 3 from New York, who were a little pretentious but our tour guide was really good and we couldn't have done all that on our own. Plus there was free homemade gelato, including the original flavor which was invented there. 

We ate lunch at Gusta's, and I had the Gusta pizza which was delicious with arugula and tomatoes and parmesan. Then we went to Vivoli's for gelato, which is like the original or something but anyways it's famous. I had coffee mousse (SO GOOD), pear caramel, and dark chocolate hazelnut. We wandered around a bit and people watched, then ate aperitivo's at a bar for dinner. It's the best - you order a drink for €5, then get a whole bunch of snacks from the buffet - pizza, baguettes and spreads, olives, walnuts,.... 

aperitivos!

Cinque Terre:

Friday morning, we packed up early and caught a train to La Spezia. A guy got on in Pisa and sat with us, and noticed my Beloit College T-shirt because I was dressed to go hiking and said his sister went there! He was heading to the same place with us so we spent the day together. Our hostel was in Riomaggiore, the first of the 5 villages that make up Cinque Terre. We shared it with some architecture students studying abroad in Italy, and it was a strange room. But we had a fridge and freezer so we could finally eat our lemon sorbet!

We were told all the trails along the coast between the villages were closed because of a landslide in the fall, which was disappointing, but we were planning to go to the next village and hike up the mountains and maybe see if we could find where all the olive trees and wine were. We met a family on the platform that said that they had hiked on the closed trails between Vernazza and Monterosso, and that it was doable. So that's what we did, and it was so nice. It was beautiful there - I would definitely go back and do more hiking! We were lucky it didn't rain on us, but the clouds were sitting low and it was pretty grey. It was still a great day though. We got to the train station and wanted to go back and stop at one of the other villages on the way, but the trains kept getting delayed and then cancelled. We finally found out someone had jumped on the tracks, which was sad and made us feel bad for getting upset that it took us 4 hours for a 10 minute trip. We got gelato while we waited, and then made it back. We decided to have one nice dinner at a restaurant, then bought some (local, of course) wine at a shop and went down to the beach. I think this was my favorite place we went.

Saturday we wanted to get out early and see the other towns we hadn't been too, but it was raining. The path to the next town from where we were staying wasn't even possible to sneak onto, and the trains barely ran at all. We ended up being able to go to Corniglia, which is the only village on a cliff and not at sea level, for about 10 minutes. Our train ended up being delayed, and we were really worried we might not make it back to Milan very soon or without paying lots of money, but luckily we were able to figure out another way to meet up with it somewhere else.

Milan take 2:

After we found our hotel, the rain finally let up a bit and we walked down to the Duomo, but they were about to close so we couldn't go in, and walked through the Brera gallery. I spun on the bull's balls, which is apparently good luck. We were tired and hungry so we just went to the grocery store for snacks (and wine...), then found a place nearby for apperitivos. We were craving gelato, but of course couldn't find anything open. Thanks a lot, Italy.

Duomo (look! a ray of sun! amazing)

Sunday morning we checked out and lugged all our stuff back down to the main square to find the bus to go to the airport. It was so confusing and everyone told us different things. But we made it. Even though we had a long layover in Amsterdam again, we were tired so Meagan and I just ate a lot of chocolate and hung out and used up all the free internet. I got back around midnight.

someone's crrraaaaazzzzzyyy

she just continued to crack herself up for at least half an hour

Twins cracking each other up

Philippa's tall enough to open all the doors in the house now. That means I can't lock her in the playroom anymore or out of her parents' office. I look away for a second and she's gone. And when I'm in my room I keep hearing someone messing with the (very hard to open) door at the top of the cold, steep, winding staircase. But they're going to Kindergarten in 2 weeks!

6 Months

also just a random self reflective commentary of my life. I can't help it, I'm feeling nostalgic.

First of all, Happy Texas Independence Day!

I've been in Germany 6 months to the day now. Some things have gone how I expected, some haven't. While I do have a very nice host family, I didn't really consider ahead of time what it would be like to live with my employers. 

I don't feel at home when I'm home.

At the end of a rough day, I can't go home and complain about my job. I can't come home and take up the whole couch in front of the TV and be lazy and eat cereal for dinner if I want. I can't do laundry whenever I want or have time, and often end up going just a little too long without washing my clothes, just because the washing machine is always running, and on top of that it takes about 4 hours to wash and dry a load. I did this in Beloit too, but I had way more clothes and it was socially acceptable to dig in the depths of your closet and wear strange clothing combinations just because you were avoiding doing laundry or legitimately out of quarters, and I had the luxury of the sports center laundry for my workout clothes.

I miss being able to cook and eat what I want, and eat meals that don't always take over an hour. In fact, being able to do anything in a timely fashion. 

I can't even spend time with my host family without feeling like I'm on duty. Because of the noise and chaos that follow the kids wherever they go, but also because I never feel like I can completely be myself. The language barrier plays a role, but again, there's the fact that I'm living with my bosses.

While they try hard to make me feel included and part of the family, I'm not. "Au pair" by definition means that I'm supposed to be equal to the family members, but there's no way that can actually happen. You can't just live with someone for a few months and automatically be part of their family. 

Obviously it's not all bad. I've learned a lot about myself, about kids, German and Germans, and I've made some great friends. And if there was ever a question, I have learned there is absolutely no way I will ever have 5 kids. It's a great experience, and I'm glad I did it, but one year is definitely enough.

I can't help but thing back to where I was a year ago too. On this day in 2012 I was supposed to drive to Kenosha with Betsy to a last chance indoor track meet to get the school record. Which I would have. But of course it was the only day it snowed all winter and we couldn't go, so I went to Rock Cut in my Texas flag shorts and took my disappointment out on a beautiful, cold, wet, exhausting run through the woods. And then I spent the next week lying in a bed in Myrtle Beach, SC and made people do stuff for me. 

I was in a different space last year, both mentally and physically, literally and figuratively. Some of you probably know that I've been recently dealing with depression, which looking back I can see started showing signs as soon as I got back from France in August. It takes a while for me to recognize what I'm feeling, because it's not the same as being unhappy. I let my mind slowly take over my life and forgot to listen to my body and be present. It started to affect things like my eating habits, and eventually things started getting out of control. A few weeks ago I couldn't ignore it anymore and was forced to look at the root of the problem. I've been making some changes, and the past few weeks have been better. I've had some setbacks, but I do feel more at peace with myself and am able to recognize that commentary that's playing in my head as just a voice and even shut it off sometimes. I'm feeling hopeful that I'll be my self again soon.

In a lot of ways though, I'm exactly where I was a year ago. I have no idea what I'm going to do next year, or where I'll be living, and I'll once again have to leave all my friends that I've made here. I go between excitement for the possibility of something new and what the next year might bring, to freaking out that I'll never have a job and I'll be homeless forever and won't have any friends and I should probably just move in with my parents and be a lifeguard for life. Looking at the past 12 months, I could be anywhere in 2014. 

One thing I do know though, when people ask what I'm going to do, I cant just shrug and say, "I dunno, I'll probably just go live on a farm in Germany" anymore. It just won't have the same meaning.

And just in case you actually made it all the way though this (so just you Kate), here's some pictures of the kids when I took them swimming the other week

Magnus

Johanna

Henriette