A tinge of homesickness...

Hank, I know it is weird to miss
my cat right? but I do...

 I had my first really problems with homesickness. I have had a few panges before now, but nothing that different than I what I would get not seeing my familly for a while, when I was still in the States. Basically nothing that couldn't be fixed with a phone call.

Mom and Liam, how can you not
just love that face!?!

I am, well I guess I should say was, used to playing with my nieces and nephew  quite often. Right before I left I saw them pretty much every day. Since they moved to Boise I don't think I have ever gone over a month without seeing them. And a month is an outside estimate. When I first arrived in Germany things were new, and so I didn't notice how much I missed them.

Alex, catching at a baseball
game. It's tough not being there
to support her. 

Madi and Liam, on one of our walks

Then one day about 2 weeks or so in, I saw a little boy on the train that reminded me of my nephew so much I had to concentrate on not crying. The little boy hopped up on a seat a couple rows in front, and facing me. His ball cap was crooked on his little blonde head and a giant grin across his face. He kicked his feet as the train drove down the track, taking in everything around him, and then he stared asking quesitons. I thought as I watched him that is exactly how Liam would behave.

Of course as soon as I got home I sent off an email asking when I could Skype with the little munchkin and this sisters. I usually Skype with them, or at least with the oldest about once a week,. This way I still feel a part of their lives with actually being there.

There have been other times when I have had a bit of homesickness. Usually there isn't a reason. I just want a big kiss from the littlest, the best bear hug in the world from the one in the middle, and to tickle the eldest until she is literally in tears! Those days are tough but I hadn't had a day like yesterday yet.

Congrats Kiev! Love you tons <3

The last picture I have of my Grammie.
At my sister's wedding

Saturday my big brother, the only brother I have, graduated from Boise State. I really wanted to be there to help him celebrate and all of my other friends as well. My brother had a big party and everyone was there, including my sister, who I haven't seen in about 3 years. I felt a little left out, not only because I wasn't there, but because if I had been there I would have walked across the stage with my brother.

Brother's family. They are just
so adorable ;)

I will graduate this summer instead, and the trip here has been totally worth it, but in the winter when the summer graduates get to participate in commencement I will be teaching in Austria. I didn't think that missing my graduation was going to be that big of a deal until I saw everyone's pictures and their ecstatic faces at being able to say: "I did it and this funny hat and gown and piece of paper says so!" Right now I feel like I am not going to be celebrating this great accomplishment in my life. It will be as if graduation didn't even happen. I will go straight from school here to teaching. No trip back home to see the family, I wont even get my diploma until I get back to the states next summer.  So ya, it was a tough weekend.

Oh the "cousins" from a few years ago
but still one of my favorite pictures of us.
What we do when Megan, Nici and I
are all together. 

Lunch at Sizzler's after one of Johnna's
visits to Boise in the summer. 

I am super happy that I have so many pictures of my family here with me. They help a whole awful lot. Oh and Skype is a godsend. There have been many days where I want to tell my Mom or Megan something and I stare at my computer screen waiting for them to show up on line, and then I pounce to tell them something! For me it feels as if a wait forever for them to wake up, most of the time.

I love my family so much and miss them terribly, but I know they are rooting for me and even though I am missing out on some things right now, they are thinking of me and I am thinking of them.

I love this Kid! Liam helping clean up after his Dad's haircut

A Mouthful of Tire

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine wrote this amazing blog post. I always love reading her blog because they are super insightful and she is a great writer, which helps. When I read her post I thought, "That is exactly how I am feeling right now, but didn’t know how to describe it."  She talked about how she felt like she was a dog, who finally caught the car she has been chasing after. Now that she has a mouthful of tire she isn’t sure what to do. Her situation was being accepted to a couple of MFA programs. She never thought she would be accepted but here she is with not one but two offers. I never doubted she would be accepted, but sometimes we don’t understand how others see us. Anyways, she is amazing. Have I said that already? If you want to read her thoughts go here. Otherwise, I will tell you why I feel like I have a mouth full of tire myself.

When I applied for the Fulbright, I like Jennifer didn’t ever think I would get accepted. I thought ahead just far enough to say: “If by some miracle they pick me, then I will say yes. But, where that isn’t going to happen, and I will have to figure something else out. Maybe, I will go back to doing hair, pay off some debts and work on some material to start applying to MFA programs.” So I waited and when April came around I was excited and anxious to see if I was chosen. That’s when the impossible happened. I came home from a wonderful weekend in Munich to find an email. A very happy email. I was accepted. For the next few days I was on a bit of a high. I double checked my dates, and made sure my graduating so close to my appointment wasn’t going to be an issue, etc. Everything worked out very smoothly. I sent in my acceptance, and then things started to sink in.

I am moving to Austria. I am going to be completely alone. I am going to have to teach children how to speak English properly, when I don’t even always do so. I am going to have to pass my classes. I got the ok to live a dream, but I am freaked out of my mind!

Right about this time I took a practice test for Studienkollege. I failed. I mean failed. A 48%! I have never gotten a score so low before in my life.  I knew right then and there that I was going to fail and have to turn down the position, because I couldn’t make it through my last semester of college. It was supposed to be really easy, just show up and you graduate, and here I am failing.

I know now that this is a little bit of an overreaction, but that is exactly how I felt. I was given a once in a lifetime opportunity, and because I don’t feel like I deserve it, I find reasons why it must be too good to be true. It’s kind of like with my first boyfriend, oh so many years ago. Things were great. We dated for about 6 months, never fought or argued, enjoyed the same things, and overall just got along really well. It had to have been too good to be true. I mean real couples fight, they argue, they have differences, and the only thing that keeps them together is that they love each other too much not to be together. That’s at least what I thought. So I started to find flaws. Enough to think someone else was better. He wasn’t. The point here is that I had something good, and because I didn’t have to struggle to make it good every day I didn’t think it was honest.

Now I have almost the opposite, and I am just now seeing it. I have something good, and although right now at this moment I am not struggling every day to keep it there. It isn’t going anywhere unless I tell it to. But I have struggled to get it. I worked hard for years to get the grades I did. Sure, I didn’t work as hard as I could have. I didn’t turn in my best work all the time. But I did put my whole heart into the one thing I think above everything else I did to get this scholarship, the Writing Center.  And maybe that is what I need to learn from all this.  Sometimes it may not seem like we deserve something right now, because we are not working hard to obtain it at the moment, but we can’t forget all the work that we have done before. And maybe, even if things aren’t perfect, if you put your heart into it that’s all that matters. 

A very full two weeks

Oh goodness. It has been almost two weeks since I have blogged last and I have been meaning to get one written, but of course there is always something that manages to get in the way. I really want to cheat and tell you to go here for updates on what I have been doing and photos, but I will talk a little (well a little for me) about them as well. For more details check out the link.

In the past two weeks Chris Iris and I went to a tennis tournment in Stuttgart. It was my first tournament and we got to see some really great players, like Sharapova (in pink and black) Ivanovic (in green and pink), Jankovic (in blue), and Wozniacki (in Yellow and orange). Basically all of the top female players were there! Chris was literally in seventh heaven because it was the Porsche Grand Prix. Watching tennis and surrounded by Porches. Which I have to admit was pretty darn cool :) Oh and Chris and I played tennis with our feet!


 The last two matches of the day, the really big ones we were super excited about, ended early because one player retired due to an injury. That was disappointing but I got some good footage of the best players' serves. The technique I am really working on my own playing right now. So I am excited to look at that more closely.

Our speed on the Autobahn.... 150mph

Chris and I had a long weekend, and we were going to go someplace, but the time off kind of caught us by surprise. We did get out of Saarbrücken at least for a day and went on a couple of day trips. Saturday Chris, Ben, and I went to Saarlouis, just a few minutes away from home.
Ben actually works out there at the Ford factory. We saw a little bit of the downtown area and some ruins the city is in the process of renovating. Then we went for a little drive to a small town where we stopped at a Biergarten for a drink. It was a beautiful day.


We were really close to the French border, and so we thought it would be awesome to take a picture of us at the boarder sign. Then we went to a castle, not exactly sure where, and walked around a bit more. It was a great day. There is so much to see and the landscape is so pretty that everyday it isn't raining too much to be outside it is a good day.

 On Monday Chris and I went to Sarrguemines (Sog-a-mund). It is in France, and well neither Chris or I speak a word of French. I needed to go to Saphora to get some make up they don't sell in Germany and we decided to be adventurous. Sarrguemines is the last stop on the Tram we take every morning to school. That meant getting to and from was going to be easy, the hard part was getting around the town. We didn't get lost. Thank goodness! But we didn't do a whole lot of wondering around either. We were hungry and so before going home we stopped at Subway. That was an interesting experience. We didn't speak French and the girl there didn't speak German or English. Well she could speak a few words of German, but not enough. There was a lot of pointing and head shaking, but eventually it was all figured out and we got what we wanted. The sandwich was super expensive 8 Euros, and not as tasty as I remember in the states, but filling.  We made it back to the train station without any mishaps, well unless you call running into, not literally thank goodness, an old man peeing in the street a mishap.

 The first of May was Tag der Arbeit, or the German labor day. The really cool thing about that is they actually get the day off! No school, no shops are open. It is an actual holiday for everyone, not just congress and banks! Go figure right?

May first is also May day and traditionally the Germans go on a Maitour. Basically it is a really long walk around the area. There are little Biergardens set up in the parks of the different towns. We walked from one to the other and through the woods. We, Ben, Iris, Chris, Myself, Iris's brother and his fiance (Mark and Linda), Linda (yes another one) and Myriam.

It was cloudy, and no one wore sunscreen.
Well, a few people hurt...

We filled our Maiwagon (just a wagon) with drinks (mostly alcoholic) and a few snacks and went out. I had water with me thankfully or I would have been very thirsty. We walked from about 115 to 445. And I took the short route. Some of the others walked for about another hour! It was really fun however and good exercise too. :)

 After our walk we all went to Linda's for a BBQ. The boys brought out the bench for the neighbors to come over an have a beer, and we enjoyed the rest of the evening.

The rest of the week was pretty normal; attempting to wake up and go to school. Succeeding, but only just, and doing a lot of homework. With all of the days off we have been having lately it is really hard to get into a good routine, but eventually I will get it down. We have two more days off the month, so I will have more to tell you of course, and there is all the other stuff that is going on.... Well that will have to wait for another day, but I will start drafting now so it wont be too much longer.  Oh and "May the Fourth" be with you!

A Few Surprises

It's Saturday again, and I figured I should write before another week runs away. I have been busy this week playing catch up in my classes. When I picked up my new Studentplan after the Easter break I found out I was moved up a class! Yeah! I am smart. Well at least smarter than my test said I was. Anyways, I of course had tests this week in my new classes. Luckily they are not going to count toward my final grade, but at the same time it was a little nerve racking because I didn't have the same preparation as the others. I think I did alright, but I guess we will see next week.

My new Studentplan is much better. I still have to go to school on Fridays and it is a little later in the morning than it was before, but I am still home by 2 so I have plenty of day left. For the rest of the week however I don't think it could be any better. I start pretty much every day at 8:15 and am done by 1:15 at the latest. I is really nice having the afternoons free. I don't particularly like waking up at 5:30, but I know I will get used to it pretty soon. :)  My classmates are really friendly and there are a few who speak English which is good and bad. It is good that I can talk to them easily, but at the same time it is bad because we say things in English that we could have said in German. Nonetheless I enjoy having someone else to help translate or understand a word.

I have noticed that my German is getting better. I don't always know every word that I want to say or that I hear, but it is getting better. The other day Chris and I went to the bank by ourselves and that was a bit of an adventure. We started out alright speaking German. I didn't exactly know how to say what I wanted to in the best way, but I got my point across. Then the teller asked me something that I thought I understood, but I guess I didn't because she switched to English. I was kinda glad, and disappointed at the same time. I wanted to be able to say that we did it all, in German. At any rate I learned that I can do some of these harder errands on my own. I was also glad the teller spoke English because I didn't remember the word for transferring money. She knew what I want to do though and got it all worked out for me. I like that we live in a small town. The lady at the bank was the one who opened our accounts and so she knew who we were and that our German wasn't very good to begin with. She was patient and listened to me attempting to describe my problem in what I am sure was almost incoherent grammar. At least the trip was successful and I know that if I need to go back I can. :)


Last night we had a bit of an adventure. It was around 1130, I had just gone to bed. I was lying on my bed, in the dark obviously, listening to my book. I listen to a book on the train when I am by myself. Right now I am listening to Wives and Daughters. So, there I am and without any noise I see a light flashing in my window. I am on the second floor, so I don't see lights of cars driving by or anything, and it was raining so I thought perhaps it was lightening. We haven't had any storms bad enough for lightening and thunder yet, so I was a little excited at the prospect of seeing some lightning. It's one of my favorite natural phenomenons.  Unfortunately, the flash was too regular and frequent. So I look out the window. Now I have to tell you that this is a bit of a feat in itself. The ceiling of my room follows the lines of the roof. In other words, I have slanted ceilings, and the windows are a little high. What I have to do to see out the window well is to open it and stick my head out; oh and I have to stand on my tippy toes. 

I look out the window and there is a firetruck blocking the road right outside the house. I couldn't see why they were there or what they were doing, but they werem't running about, nor could I smell smoke, so I wasn't too worried, but at the same time fire trucks don't just block the road for no reason. I look around a bit and down the street to the right are a few more lights. By this time Chris had come into my room to see if I had seen the lights. We looked out of all of our windows, and even tried the veranda to see if we could get a better view of what was going on, but we couldn't see anything. By where the lights were we guessed the action was taking place in front of our friend Jan's house. Chris sent him a text asking what is going on. He said it was a car accident. 


We had kinda figured that is what had happened, but Ben and Iris weren't home. They had gone to Iris's brother's for dinner. I had texted Iris a few minutes before and we hadn't heard back from her yet. Of course we start to worry a bit that it might have been them. Jan however didn't say anything about seeing Ben's car, and so we were pretty sure it wasn't them. He would have said something otherwise. Then we got a text back from Iris. Everything was fine and they were coming home soon. 


 At one point while we were watching the lights on the firetruck and straining to see what we already knew we weren't going to see, we saw a tow truck drive by. We were hoping he would drive back the way he came so we could see what kind of accident and how bad it was, but it never came. I finally decided I would just have to find out what happened in the morning and went back to bed. It was 1230 or so. 


This morning we discovered the accident was a head-on collision and the one guy at least attempted to flee the scene. Our source of information was Facebook, so we don't know for sure, or how the people involved are faring right now. We didn't hear any sirens last night, so I am going to assume that means things turned out just about as good as the could considering the circumstances. 


I don't have a video this week. I really wanted to have Trier done for you, but I just have so many clips and photos to arrange and choose between it is getting a little on the overwhelming side.  I want the videos to be good and entertaining, so I have put a lot of pressure on myself. I think I am going to try and do this one a little different again. Instead of trying to show you everything in 15 minutes I am just going to take the highlights. So it might be a little shorter and I will probably leave somethings out, but I will at least have something to share with you in a more timely manner. I still have all of the raw footage, so I can always compile it later into something else. That will be the plan for now.  I have so much to say, but this post is getting on the long side, so there will be more coming soon. Right now I need to go do some research for an oral presentation on Monday!

What a crazy week!

Chris and I on our way to Trier. My very first train ride!

Awesome graffiti in Trier

I promised I would have a new post by Saturday, and boy do I have things to talk about.

A fountain in the Palace garden

Courtyard between the Dom and Liebefraunen Kirche

The trip to Trier was fantastic! It was like we were on a private tour of the town, and it really is a beautiful city. It would have been nice to spend another day looking at the rest of the town and spending more time with my new,  Chris's old, friends.

The group, minus me, out side the Basilika

The whole group in font of the Porta Nigra

 I will be writing a blog this up coming week devoted to Trier. :) Oh and I will have a video too, but in the meantime here are a few pictures.

The first thing you see walking into the Liebefrauen Kirche

When I checked my email after getting home from Trier, I had an email from the American Austrian Education Commission... I GOT THE SCHOLARSHIP!!! I am moving to Austria this fall for a year. Out of all the different applicants I was chosen to teach English to Austrian middle schoolers.

Kaiser Thermine

 I am super honored. I will technically be a teaching assistant, but from what I understand I will be doing a lot of teaching. I have three schools in Bad Aussee, I will be working in. It is a small rural town in the mountains!

Glockenspiel in Munich

 All I need to do now is, well a lot, but first I need to make sure I will be a college graduate by August 15th at the latest. I think I can make it happen! I will be filling you all in more on this very exciting development as well. Lots to do, and lots of decisions to make. One of the biggest is if I should or can afford to go back to the states for a month before I head off to Austria. 

A little waterfall on the way down from Neuschwanstein

Just after I got that super exciting news we all, Ben, Iris, Chris, and I, headed off to München (Munich). Let me tell you being a tourist is a lot of work! Lots and lots and lots of walking. The three days were wonderful, and of course I wish we had another day or two to spend looking at the sites and museums and things. I think that is always going to be the way things are.

looking good girl!

It so beautiful it looks fake!

 I am always going to want to spend more time, seeing more things. But on the upside München isn't very far from Bad Aussee, so it will be easy for me to go back. :) I will be dedicating at least one post to München as well soon. I have lots of videos to work on and posts to write... Till then...

Chinese tower in the English gardens

One night at dinner

Hofbräuhaus

The face of Chris in front of his favorite Castle...?

Hornschwangau

Neuschwanstein