July ist hier!

I have to admit that I had quite an excellent Monday this week. Very surprising, seeing as how Mondays suck in general.

My boss was out of town so I only had 3 hours of work to do. It did, however, involve putting soil into little bottles, which is not fun, but I got done at 1pm so I'm not complaining.

I've been recycling clothes since I'm out of laundry coins, so after getting out of work early I headed to go buy some more from the Hausmeister. He was busy so I waited outside. A guy and a girl came looking for him and it turns out they were speaking Spanish. I got excited and tried to tell them that the Hausmeister was "there" in another room, but I'm pretty sure I got my prepositions confused and said "here" instead. I was thinking in Spanish, and then it came to me how to say it in German, but that's not what I wanted so I thought really quickly in Spanish and just spit something out. My brain cannot handle switching between languages that fast. They knew what I meant and smiled really politely. The Hausmeister came out and saw me waiting and told me "one minute" in German, but then chuckled and said it in English. So he does speak some English! Ha! This made me happy because up until this point I thought he loathed me. After I purchased my laundry coins I decided to redeem myself with the Spanish speaking people, so I knocked on their apartment door, and in Español perfecto, I told them that the Hausmeister wasn't busy anymore. The guy smiled and thanked me. I was happy.

So my German isn't that great, but I can certainly get by over here. My Spanish is definitely lacking in comparison with my German, but I am impressed that I remember all that I do, having not had any classes for 4 years. Language is still the one thing that I'm the most impressed about over here. I've watched people laugh and joke about a song the like in Polish, and then continue their conversation in German, and then turn to me and tell me what happened in English. I love it! Like I've said before, I really want to continue German classes when I get back to school, but I know that at this rate I will never graduate with all the extra classes I'm taking. We'll see.

Does anyone know if you capitalize the names of languages? Huh.

I found a little coffee shop in the Altstadt that I've been going to every now and then. It's good coffee. The prices are a little expensive, but now that I'm not eating out anymore I can afford good coffee. The same girl always takes me order. The first time apparently she told me "wait over there by the counter" but I had no idea what she said, so I had to give in and admit that my German isn't too hot. I hate when that happens - I do well and then I have to admit defeat in the end.

One thing that I will miss once I get home is all the bakeries around town. I had never gone into them until recently, but now I'm hooked. Ah, there's so many tasty things and just about anything you buy goes excellent with a little Nutella. Yum. I will definitely miss the smell of fresh break where ever I walk and all the yummy pastries that I've discovered in the last few days.

So they have this one liquor (mostly beer, though) store here that has a van called the "Getränke Taxi" (Drink Taxi). It's exactly what it sounds like. If you are too lazy (or too drunk, for that matter) to get in a car or walk down to the store to buy some more beer while you're watching your soccer game, you can just call the Getränke Taxi and they will deliver a case or two to your front door. I've seen it pulled up in front of my apartment building a few times - I find it pretty comical. I'm sure it costs a bit, but when you're running out of your favorite beer you have to get it somehow...

Apparently Germans don't like stick deodorant. Figured that out today when I went shopping for some because I ran out. They like body spray - a lot - and the little roll-on kind. I've always kind of detested body spray. I think it's the memories of the middle school boy's locker room where you could hardly breathe because everyone wanted to smell like a man and sprayed their can of Axe far too much. Yup. That's definitely where it comes from. Well, I sucked it up and smelled up about every bottle on the shelf (most smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol - gross) until I found one that was decent.

It's hot today and I have no AC. Ugh. It would be nice to get back to the apartment and relax in the cool, but no. But I guess we're saving energy over here so it's okay.

Well, I leave for Heidelburg tomorrow morning at 7am and get to enjoy a 7 hour train ride there. But I'm really excited because I will get to meet a lot of people, hang out with the girls I met back in Berlin, and I'll get to see my Uncle Mac and Aunt Melody. Eeek! They're hilarious - definitely the cool relatives. Can't wait. And I got an email saying that on Friday for the "company visits" the environmental students get to go to some really cool site (sorry, but I have no idea what it is - I tried to look it up and don't remember what I found) and then we get to go WINE TASTING! Yeees. I'm pumped. This will be an excellent weekend.

Plus I bought my ticket to Amsterdam for next weekend. Sweet.

Okay - tons of stuff to do to get ready for tomorrow morning.

Happy 4th of July!