What is more American than baseball? Peanut butter is. Fact.

In a fit of patriotism I volunteered to be in charge of the USA display for the Internationaler Abend.  I made peanut butter cookies.  Here is some relevant information about peanuts:
George Washington Carver, considered the father of the peanut, began his research into peanuts in 1903 at Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama. The talented botanist recognized the value of peanuts as a cash crop and proposed that peanuts be planted as a rotation crop in farmers' fields. This procedure was especially valuable in the Southeastern cotton growing areas when boll weevils threatened cotton crops. Farmers across the region listened to the great scientist and peanut production flourished. Additional research into the peanut helped Carver to discover over 300 uses for the peanut including shaving cream, leather dye, coffee, ink, and shoe polish to name a few.
The average American child eats 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before graduating from high school.

I hope you feel enlightened.

(Did I tell you that I already have my grades from my summer classes?  I have already finished my very last BYU class!  I just need to finish up my Tuebingen stuff, but my grades won't change based on that.  It feels GREEEEAAATT!!)

Imagine yourself as part of my adventure...

Sunday morning.  My last Sabbath in Germany forever.  It's been a taxing week, so I'm really eager to take the sacrament.  I wake up and get ready, then walk outside.  Amelia is also coming out of her building, so we begin to cross the Bruecke to the bus stop together.  Mike runs past us yelling "That's the bus we want!"  We look off into the distance and, indeed, there is a bus.  However, there is no chance of us catching it, so we remain at a stately pace.  We are surprised when we reach the bottom of the stairs and it is still there.  Realizing that we have a chance which hitherto seemed too fantastical to be true we take off running.  We get about 10 yards and it pulls away, leaving us busless.  Lamesauce.  We read the electronic signs and determine that the next bus doesn't come for 32 minutes and takes 23 minutes to get from WHO Ahornweg (our stop) to Hauptbahnhof.  Our connection bus leaves in 28 minutes, making everything not fit together in a way that gets us to church within the next hour.  I did NOT wake up to not go to church.  I WILL go and I WILL take the sacrament.  My resolve is firm.  I decide that what takes a bus 23 minutes can be done on foot by two girls in Sunday dress in about 25 minutes.  We take off at a sprint.  There are no sidewalks along the path that we are familiar with, so we run with traffic down a 4-lane highway.  We even make a protected left turn with outstretched arms, like airplanes, when the signal comes.  We get passed often, but only honked at once.  I sprain my left foot somewhere around Wilhelmstrasse and Amelia's shoes are especially unsuited for such activity.  Best part?  We make it!  We are at Hauptbahnhof about 3 minutes before the 19 bus comes.  We nearly asphyxiate, pass out and throw up. (All at the same time.)
We get to church.  I started the day clean, but I am now sweaty, bushy-haired and disgusting.  I am still trying to breathe normally when the bishop comes and greets the few of us sitting in the back of the chapel.  He says something to me which I don't properly hear because of the boisterous greetings taking place around me.  It seems socially acceptable to smile back and nod as if I understand.  "Sehr gut."  He asks me my name, writes it on a paper in his hand which appears to be the program and leaves.  I am exceedingly confused and nervous at this point.  The bishop just wrote my name in the program and I don't know why.  I am frightened.  I turn to those by me and question them about what just happened. "The bishop just asked you to speak in Sacrament Meeting and you agreed."  Oh, no.  oh. no.  I DON'T SPEAK GERMAN!!!!  I only have a few minutes to pull myself together.  I manage to do it, and I speak in a foreign sacrament meeting.  It was awesome!  Good thing I was on time to church....

My Brain Already Checked Out and Flew Home

• 10 days more, from exactly 20 minutes ago, my plane will touch ground in SLC.  It's just the body following, though.  My brain is already immersing itself in mountains and rednecks.  I'm so excited! (Flights? Check.  Window seats for both legs? Check.  It's gonna be a beautiful day.)
• We all took a gondola-type boat ride down the Neckar.  It was joyful indeed.
• I purchased all the chocolate today that I will be bringing home.  And then it got smashed in my bag.  But I can't afford to replace it, so it will have to do.  I don't know whether it's any good because I got the off-brands.  Hold the thumbs! (That was a depressing chocolate tale.  Don't worry, it will probably be delicious.  Even bad German chocolate is superior to pretty good American chocolate.)
• I got the family letter, family.  Thanks!  (If anyone else sent a letter, please tell me you put my real full name.  They have no way of delivering the letter otherwise.  If not, do tell and I'll try to hunt it down.)
• My group project is doomed to failure.  Mostly because none of us care.  Next week I'm going to stand up in front of a ton of people, embarrass myself horribly and then flee the country ne'er to return.  I feel satisfied with this plan of action.  It makes it so I don't have to stress about my lack of preparation for speaking in a foreign language for 15-30 minutes in front of native speakers.
• So, according to the email I just received from the USU admissions office, they don't award scholarships to continuing students.  What the?!!!  He told me I should wait a year and enter in Fall 2012.  And what should I do in the intermission?  Work as a grease monkey in the oil field?  Shovel coal?  Be homeless?  Learn to carve designs in leather?  Open a bakery?  Okay, this is starting to sound like a plan....
• I found 5 euros on the ground tonight.  Add that to the 20 in Berlin and I've found over $30 (USD) just lying around during this trip.  Not bad, eh?

A Dozen Days Noch

• Dear Gingers (Julia mostly,) the other day I got sunburnt.  Indoors.  Really.  I got a burn on my nose and arms while reading in my room.  I rejoiced, and then I realized how ridiculous it was.  It would seem that I also don't have a soul. :)
• I made my last money withdrawal a few days ago.  It's do or die now!
• I finished with my art and architecture class on Thursday!  w00T!!!  I went out with a bang, too, I'm pretty sure.  My notebook project was hideous and snarky.  I pity my teacher for having to read it, but at the same time I hope he does and I hope he laughs at all the great things contained therein.  I also hope he returns them because I kind of want to keep mine forever now.  It's like a kidney stone- the harder it is to pass the more precious it is to you.  Just kidding.  That's gross.
• I will probably only have to do one more load of laundry here, which is a VERY good thing.
• If you want to have a point of reference of when I'll be getting home, go to the store and buy a carton of milk.  Open it, drink one draught from the jug and then cap it and put it in your fridge.  Don't disturb it.  When it goes bad I will already be back.  Yay!
• On Friday we attended a wine tasting that the University had arranged for us as part of our Bodensee excursion.  Guess what?  Wine tasting is super super boring if you don't drink alcohol.  She talked for at least 15 minutes about each wine (there were 4), but none of it meant anything to us who were just sipping grape juice and waiting for dinner.  Thank heavens the beer brewery trip tomorrow isn't something I have to attend.
• I GOT TO MEET UP WITH VERONIKA IN HEIDELBERG!!!  YIPPPEEEEE!!! Dang I miss that girl.
• I'm starting to get really worried about speaking in church on the 28th.  Topic ideas?  I can't latch onto anything in my brain.
• I saw someone Nordic Rollerblading in Heidelberg in the street with cars in heavy traffic, and she was keeping up just fine!! It was insane!  I have to try it when I get home!

Concentrate? That's for juice!

Confession:  I'm supposed to be frantically finishing my project before my big test tomorrow.  This blog post is my way of sticking it to my future-self.  This will really show that future-self who's boss. 

• Forget smoking in the kitchen- the toilet paper thief in my hall needs to die!  And when they do they will probably be sent to a special circle of Hell reserved for such filth.  I now guard my tp like it was a golden monkey filled with diamonds and Niel Diamond concert tickets.
• I haven't seen my home in more than 50 days.  Dear Mom, never let me get so far from home again.  Starvation is pushing the limits.
• I don't think Drain-O is as powerful here.  Drat this whole Bio/Green movement in Germany- I just want my shower to drain!
• I think I may end up sleeping in the airport on the 25th.  I figure that it's preferable to having to stay in a hostel alone again.  I am reluctant to repeat that life experience.  Airports are clean and nice and have delicious snacks and no people who shun clothing in public.
• Dear Carolyn, I am going to need you.  Desperately.  I have let myself go and will need your special aesthetician skills to set me arright before I venture off.  Heck, I'm going to need all the girls in the family in order to tackle this problem.  Prepare the power sander!  Also, do you have a straightener I could borrow until I can replace mine?
• I thought that I was going to manage to miss all my final tests and presentations here in Tuebingen because we're all leaving before the final day or two, but they moved the dates up to accomodate us.  Now I have two German tests and a rather large and involved presentation on top of the stuff for Art and Architecture.  Dobby's Sock!
• Speaking of which, I still haven't seen the last Harry Potter yet.  The magic and mystery lives on for me!  Bwahahhaha!

8.8.2011

• I'm fairly certain that one of my roommates smokes in the kitchen.  If I ever catch him in the act I'm going to Sparta kick him off the balcony, but rather than shouting, "This is Sparta!" I'm going to shout, "I have asthma!"  It will be epic. I'll write again from prison if my plan sees fruition. 
• I'm down to living off of gruel now, having run out of milk, quark, eggs, cheese, fruit, vegetables, meat, yogurt, cereal and bread.  I just don't want to spend any more money on something as mundane as groceries.  I'm going to need a multivitamin IV pumping some iron and B12 goodness into me as soon as I get back.
• Operation "Kick a Pigeon" is a go.  I am going to buy bread this weekend in Heidelberg and lure in some fine feathery friends.  Then I will plant my toe directly in their backside with wicked briskness.  Pictures to follow if it's a success.  If it fails no mention will ever be made again.
• Linking those two previous points- if I should accidentally kick a pigeon in such a way that it gives up the ghost, I will have to eat it for nutritional reasons.
• Today in class we did nothing but Umgangsprache.  That's the German word for slang or "street speak."  What little chance my language skills still had died.  I will never speak properly again, if I ever did to begin with.  I'm going street from now on.  Sorry, Anke.
• I have to admit that at the moment I'm a little more excited about everything that's going down back in the home territory than what's happening here in Germany.  My Provo contract just sold and I now have housing in Logan! I wanted to celebrate, but I think I'll do my Art History project with great somberness instead.
• I hate Macs.  Hate.  Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate.  I miss my computer.  I love my computer, broken though it may be.
• I can't concentrate on what I need to be doing with this page open, so I'm going to post this and close it.  Tschuess out, Leuts.

19 Days...

...until I'm home.  Wow.

• Pretty much our whole group took an independent trip to Neuschwanstein and Munich yesterday.  We had to catch the bus at 3 a.m. and we were traveling for more than 13 hours total, but I think it was worth it.  It was a blast!
• There was an insanely drunk midget on our first train.  Dad, you would have laughed your head off. 
• We went into an outdoors store and sat in their freezer room where you're supposed to test their coats and jackets just so we could cool down.  It was somewhere below zero and we sat on ice blocks watching our internal temperatures drop on the monitors.  Most refreshing thing ever.
• My brain has shut down completely and I can't remember why I started this blog post.  That's it, I'm outties.

WRITE

My address is as follows:
Cassandra Haslem 
Sommerkurse
Wilhelmstraße 22
72074 Tübingen
Deutschland

Please send letters by August 18th, no later!

This is for those people from home...

I'm not gonna lie, I'm hatin' on most of you right now just a little bit.  Or a bit more than just a little bit.  How many of you promised to stay in contact?  How many of you have done anything of the sort?
Blog strike.
(I find it depressing that that's all the fire I can bring, but I really have no power over you.  EMAIL ME NOW!!!)

Clubbing

Okay, there was a group of us that went clubbing last night, and I feel like I should write about it while it's still fresh in my memory.  To prep for this, I do want to say that it was a group of Mormons, we stuck together, did those things which were right and left at a reasonable time.  Sometimes people say that no animals were injured in the making of this production, but in our case no souls were lost in the making of this blog post.

There were ten of us that went, six girls and four guys.  The girl who was showing us where to go had a club in mind, but when she found out that none of us had brought our passports with us she decided we'd better try somewhere else. (How was I to know that they only accept passports as valid ID to get in?  I thought they were more lenient with stuff like that because of the much lower drinking age.  That and I thought that maybe you only had to show ID at the bar as you were buying a drink [which I wasn't planning on doing] because that's the only time it would really matter, right?)

We then went to a different club and stood in line for about 20-30 minutes.  Don't worry, it wasn't boring- this little hobo man who was so completely soused that I've never seen the like was hanging out towards the front of the line in front of us.  He was kind of creating problems because he was staggering around, running into people and shouting while clutching his little bag of glass bottles to recycle.  A man tried to get rid of him by giving him a cigarette, but then he staggered into a woman and she tried to fight him.  Eventually the bouncers took notice. [Aside: Let me tell you about the bouncers.  They were these three HUGE black men.  I'm talking NFL big, and not the quarterback end of that spectrum.  I also got told that they usually are pimps, so they're kind of evil and without any form of compassion. After watching them, I believed it. They are known for "sticking" those who don't comply.  I never asked exactly what that meant. ]  First they pushed him down, but when he wouldn't stay down and kept crawling back towards the entrance two of them caught a hold of his arms and literally drug him across the street.  He was on his rear end the whole way, kind of cartoon style.  They didn't wait for traffic, so there was a moment that I honestly thought they might just be throwing him in front of a car, but they went clear over to the other side.  Once there they threatened him a good while and who knows what else.  Then they sauntered back.  The man followed.  After that we couldn't see what happened, but a few hours later when we walked back down that street we saw the bag of bottles he'd had, left abandoned.  It seemed a bit ominous.  I bet he just passed out somewhere, though.

When we got to the front of this thrilling line, we got turned away for not having a passport and so it was time to resort to grungier methods.  We went to a club that our leader knew to not ID anyone.

It was super dingy and trashed, but it was huge and offered lots of different stations for dancing depending on the type of music you wanted to hear.  We kept hopping between them for the next few hours.  Nothing really noteworthy happened while we were in the club per say, but I saw what the clubbing culture is like and lived to tell the tale.

When we got home we smelled of smoke, death and the Underworld.  It was so gross.  I'm actually surprised I didn't have an asthma attack in the club, the smoke was so thick. My eyes itched somethin' terrible, though.

Conclusion: I would never go clubbing again.  Never.  Blegh.  It also made me more excited to go swing dancing in the fall, because it's going to be the bomb!

I'm too busy DOING things to stop and WRITE about doing things...

I really loved the idea of using a list of bullet points, so here I go again:

• My body hates Europe. So much. I love it, but my body is enraged. The bottoms of my 2nd and 3rd toes on my right foot are the latest to join the rebellion, which is being led by my stomach, ribcage and hair.  I've been sick for two weeks now, and I finally went to the doctor this past Thursday.  He said that I most likely have inflammation of the stomach. Whatever that means.  He gave me medicine, so we'll see if that works.  If not, he said I need to swallow a camera.  Yay!  In relation to that, as many of you may well know, when I don't feel well I lose all ability to control my emotions.  Thus, I've been incredibly grumpy, snappish and teary for the past two weeks.  Some people thought I was actually nicer because I was also mellower and less sarcastic, but I think I've been a wench.  One day, when I was hurting quite a bit, I went to get groceries.  A man on the street tried to hand me a flyer and a small bottle of free lotion for a promotion.  He spoke very quickly and used words that are not in my working German vocabulary.  The result? I teared up.  The flyer and lotion were in my hand, but I wasn't gripping them tightly, so he kept a hold of them on the other end.  When I asked, "Was?" He tried to explain why he was giving me these things.  More tears pooled for no reason.  It was then that he realized that his free gifts had pushed a mentally unstable girl right over the edge.  He uneasily withdrew his offerings and backed away warily.  Thinking about it later when I had a better handle on myself, I cackled for a very long time in great merriment.  His expression was priceless.
• This is where I put in a guilt plug: Some of you (and by that, I mean all but about two of you) are not staying in contact. At all. Not even a cursory attempt. Please at least drop small messages every now and again so I know a little about your lives.  I may not be the best at replying, but you can just stalk my blog.  I don't have that luxury in the vice of the versa.
• My English is completely shot.  I speak fluent Denglish, but neither English nor Deutsch.  I'm going to have to read all the classics when I get home to regain my power of coherent speech.
• We went to Dresden last weekend.  It was pretty, but I missed the hustle and bustle of Berlin.  On the Saturday we were there I may or may not have consumed 5 ice cream cones in one day.  May not have.  Don't judge me for something that may not have happened.  But just so you know, hazelnut flavor rocks and yogurt with fruit is also the bomb.
• I went jogging one morning, decided to take a different path home because I thought these two specific streets ran parallel.  Turns out, they don't.  I got lost.  Really really lost.  For upwards of two hours.  With no cell phone or public transit pass. It was awesome, though, I saw some interesting things as I wandered about.  There was a daycare named Kartoffelkinder!!! Everyone in my old high school German class will understand why that is super exciting.  At last I found a body of water and decided that I could survive there because there was water to drink and wild game to kill and eat.  I was about to try to build shelter under a bench or climb a tree to protect myself from rabid joggers when it dawned on me that this was probably the lake in Charlottenburg (the area where I live) and that since all lakes have boundaries, if I just kept walking around the edge I might eventually find something I recognize from the one time I'd been there before.  It worked.  I got home.  Late, but safe.
• The towel I bought over here must be made from recycled materials, and I think it was saran wrap in its former life.  Imagine trying to dry yourself with saran wrap.  Yep, that's what I do every morning.  It's kind of interesting.
• I have been talking about the Word of Wisdom and eternal marriage so often over here lately that I'm beginning to think that the church should be funding my trip here.  (Oh, wait, they are...)  It was really awesome to get to share some of my standards with my classmates.  When they found out that I'd never drank any alcohol, tea or coffee or smoked it nearly blew some of their minds.  Made me smile.  A peculiar people are we, indeed.
• Today I joined a Syrian demonstration for a little while just so I could chant "One Solution-Revolution!" and "We seek freedom!" for a little while.  Amelia and I were the only white girls.  It was unnerving, so once we got a picture of our Berlin protest, we quickly left again.  We are POSERS.
• Someday (if it is at all possible) I am going to bring someone (or multiple someones) back here to Berlin to show them how awesome it is.  I want someone else from home to understand why I love it some much.  I also wouldn't mind if they were exceedingly impressed with my knowledge of the city layout and public transit system.  Genuflecting is a bit much, but maybe a bow or curtsy to acknowledge my genius wouldn't be uncalled for in that moment.
• We leave in less than a week.  I'm already depressed.  But I'm so freakin' excited for Tuebingen!
• Only about 33 more days until I'm home.  The time is flying!

This Sequel is Better than the Original, Kind of Like Madagascar II

• Whenever I went hiking in Switzerland (which is how I spent most of my time) I would find wild raspberry and blackberry bushes.  Did I forage in the Swiss wilderness and eat many berries for free?  Yes, yes I did.
• If you must ride a night train, crawl up in the luggage rack to sleep.  I was very jealous indeed of the man behind me who did.  He slept like a baby while I struggled to lean further away from Smelly Old Man (see next bullet point) in the seat next to me.
• A nasty old Russian man sniffed me on my train ride from Zuerich to Berlin!  I couldn't sleep after the incident, so I arrived in Berlin quite rumpled in mind and body. Why are people always sniffing me?!  It happens way too often to be chance!
• It's funny how quickly one can adapt to a different culture.  In my 4 hostel nights I got so used to having to share rooms with guys that when I reached the hostel where the BYU group was and I was erroneously given the key to the men's room rather than the girls', I just walked in and waited for them to tell me which bed was free for me.  It took me a good long (and I mean loooong) while to realize what was wrong with my current situation.  The poor guy trying to get out of the shower but being held captive by my female presence is what finally made my tired brain speculate as to what could be causing the slightly horrified looks I was receiving.  I then swapped keys and got me out.
• First Doener experience = perfection.  I WILL get a hold of one of those enormous meat kebabs and I WILL eat doeners at home.  I WILL.
• I hate art and architecture.  So much.  I love looking at it- hate learning about it.  
• I carried a jar of pickles cradled in my two hands all the way across Berlin (in the metro stations and everything) like it was some sort of sacred relic, because I'd had it for 4-5 days and hadn't been able to open it and needed a guy's help.  I got some strange looks.  I like pickles.
• I learned some funny/interesting things about Asian dramas.  Kamille, Haley and Julia- I will share this great knowledge with you when I get back.  It explains some things in Boys Before Flowers.
• Per request, here is a little more information about the morning that I found a shirtless man standing over me.  This makes the story less interesting, actually, so if you prefer the exciting version, don't read any further.  All it was was that two people had been assigned to my hostel room in the middle of the night, well after I was out like a broken lightbulb. In the morning the guy got out of bed and was standing in the middle of the room waiting for his sister to get up.  It was a small room, so by standing there he was kind of over my bed also, and it would seem he shunned shirts when he slept.  That is all. It just startled me greatly, because I'd fallen asleep alone and then woke up to a man's unrobed chest in my line of sight. Filling my line of sight, actually, considering how squinty my eyes are in the bright early morning sunshine.
• I'll try to get pictures on facebook, but I just want to type here that: We trespassed into an empty high-rise apartment in Gendarmenmarkt to watch The Scorpions perform live!!!!  It was AWESOME!!!  And last week we listened to the dulcet tones of Daft Punk as it drifted from the abandoned Tempelhof airport.  I think I'm a little bit in love with Berlin.  It's going to be difficult when we break up here in a little while.  I'm going to need chocolate.  Which makes it a good thing I'm in Germany, right?

Highlights

• I live with a lady named Frau Mueller.  She's marvelous.
• My roommate is named Becca and she's super great.  We have fun. :)
• I am mastering the Berlin public transit system. I'm going to have quite a bit memorized by the time I leave.  Which will be completely useless knowledge, considering that I'll never get to come back here, but hey, why not?
• A swan attacked me in Lucerne and I lost the lens cover to my camera.  I still hate birds.  I'm going to kick a pigeon while I'm in Berlin.
• We sometimes go walking through ghettos trying to find that elusive Berlin crime, but so far we haven't found anything worth mentioning.
• I am going to be late for church, even though I only wrote about 10 sentences.  Crud.  Goodbye.

Germany Is Great

Hostels and Lithuanians are of Satan- it was all fun and games when they had me sit with them while they played a drinking game (I was waiting for laundry in the room they were playing in, but managed to convince them that whiskey shots counted as alcohol and therefore I would NOT be participating in any way,) but then when I went back for my laundry there were terrible terrible horrid things happening in that room.  I ran away faster than I've ever run before, waited a few hours and then made the receptionist go into the room to check if the coast was clear. I will NEVER go in a hostel laundry room again. NEVER.
Berlin is freakin' sweet- I'm more in love with it than I thought I'd be.  I live in an apartment that is like a jungle/ballet studio (it's so cool!) with an awesome girl named Becca.
The guys have been keeping me safe, so I've never really been lost.
I'm well fed. That's all that matters.
Goodbye.

Dear Future Husband...

may we please have a summer home in Switzerland, or at least do our wedding registry from Cachet (my favorite store ever, even after all of these years) ? Please, oh please?  If not, I shall burn your toast every third Tuesday for the rest of your life. ;)

What do you mean this isn't Venice?

I somehow missed Venice, but loved wherever in the heck I was anyway. I'll maybe say more about it later.

Lost in Little Pompeii and A Roman Sabbath

On Saturday we drove to Ostia, which is known as Little Pompeii. It was an artist's dream. Absolutely gorgeous. Expansive, too. As is my wont, I soon became seperated from the group. I searched for them for about an hour and then just gave up. I then opted to cut them off at the pass by going to the entrance by the car. My plan worked eventually, as evidenced by the fact that at this moment I am on a computer, not sleeping under a bridge and eating a pigeon I bludgeoned with a rock. When we got back to the apartment by body revolted and put me back on MST by falling asleep for nearly 5 hours for no apparent reason. Stupid body. Now I'm all screwed up again just when I was getting settled.
Today (Sunday) we attended church at one of Rome's only two wards. It was neat to hear everything in Italian. It was a tragedy of small proportions that Anziano Parry got transferred out of Rome, though, as he almost certainly would have been at this ward otherwise and I could have greeted him. Meh, oh well.
I move to Venice tomorrow.  Wish me luck, as my stupid train arrives at the wrong station and I have to hike across town to find my hostel. I'm printing directions and hoping that Death isn't calling my number.  If he does, just know that I love you all and my journal is only to be read by those who will find it amusing, and even then only after I have been confirmed dead for 90 days.  Public readings can only take place after I have been stone-cold dead for 120 days.

Scottish Footballers and Shade Spot Hopping

Yesterday we went to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. All day. As we stood in line we talked with Kenny and Gemma from Scotland- they were pretty great, and very entertaining to talk to.  There was more to see than I think I'd realized.  Everything was very pretty indeed.  The day was exceedingly hot and dirty- I got so covered in dirt and dust that I had to wash at the outdoor shower at the complex pool before going into the apartment.
I lack the time and concentration to have this post be clever, so I'm going to end it before it can ramble.
One note: Dear Mom, my cell phone number is 0 175 121 6918, though I'm not sure you can reach me on it.  It's worth a shot if someone has an international calling plan, though.  I'll try to carry it more often.  Try. (Not necessarily succeed.)

Man Can Fly and Italian Babies Have Curly Locks

  Well, I must remain brief for now, as I do not own rights to this computer, but I will try to summarize everything as succinctly as possible.
  June 21:  The flights went well. I managed to catch all of them and didn't have hardly any time to get bored in the terminals.  I saw many things, some of which include: An old man in a business suit doing ridiculous yoga stretches on the airport floor, a woman with toilet paper stuck to her shoe, a girl wearing a snuggie, an enraged Italian grandpa in a wheelchair shouting and berating his attendant in the most Italian fashion imaginable, an Italian baby so cute that I got broody right there in the airport, and much more that I wrote down somewhere else.  Midway through the flight from Newark to Rome we switched to
   June 22:  Where a guy across the aisle from me tried to pick me up by starting with "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"  That's hot.  He tried chatting me up for the next few hours and invited me out to have coffee, but I never gave him more than my first name. He looked like Evan Lysacek and talking to him kept me from clawing my way out of the side of the plane during those last few high-tension hours, though, and for that I am grateful.  Crossed fingers that I never run into him in Rome or Venice.
   At the airport Freddy, Philipp and Julie Luschin were there to get me and we headed immediately to their house. Once there we went swimming in the apartment complex's pool and then we ate lunch.  After that we got on the metro and went into downtown Rome. On this day we saw the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps and much more that I can't remember the names for.  It was exceedingly hot and it smells of smoke, but I'm growing used to the smell.
   After we came home we ate and then swam again and then it was off to bed for the lot of us.
   June 23:  I woke up at 6:19 a.m. bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I despaired of being able to go back to sleep until 7, the time my alarm was set for.  I finally forced myself to and the next thing I knew, it was 11! That's nearly 12 hours that I slept! I couldn't believe it. I felt like a despicable human being for being so lazy.
  When the show finally hit the road we headed by metro into town again. This day's agenda included Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica.  There was so so much to see.  Sistine Chapel is beautiful, as are the many collections in the Vatican museum.  We then wandered a bit more and then came home. After coming out of the train station we  stopped briefly at the grocery store.  It smelled like the Asian Market in Orem. Kind of gross, not gonna lie, but I bought some wonderful juice there in a funny bottle and a makeshift journal until I can find one that pleases me.
  When we got home we ate dinner and then watched "Hector".  It's an old German film that's in the "spaghetti western" style, even though it's about knights in the 1500's.  I think everyone should see it (with subtitles.)  It's pretty hilarious.  It taught me how to kiss a man in such a way that he doesn't see it coming and is unprepared to fight you off, even though he may want to.  Also, there's a scene where many French knights get run off of a hill and roll to their death with the broken remains of a battle ladder. It reminded me rather strongly of sledding at the Gillespie's house.
   Now it is exceedingly late and I must away to bed. I'm still really really homesick, but I wrote a countdown calendar until I'm home and now it's only 63 days.  I hope as many people as possible attend Roosevelt YSA 1st ward on August 28th so that I may see them ASAP. (Hint. Hint. Hint.)
P.S. Pope John Paul II holding a koala bear? Cutest. Picture. EVER.  My two favorite things combined into one superpower of cuteness.
P.P.S. The Luschin's have a bidet in the bathroom that has been designated for me. I'm still too scared and weirded out to use it, but it's always there, just staring at me. Bidet.  Gah.

I arrived. I can't write at the moment.

I live. It is awesome here. Actual blogging happens later.

The Third Stage of Traveling Grief: Flipping Out

All train seats and hostels are reserved. I am now going to go hyperventilate because WHAT IF I FREAKIN' GOT THE WRONG THING?!!! I could DIIIIEEEEEE!!!!

A Greeting and A Countdown

Hello!
I created this blog because I heard that's what all the cool kids are doing these days when they go on trips: travel blogs.  Considering that I'm not taking my laptop on my trip, it would be difficult to e-mail everyone from an Internet Cafe in the few minutes that I'll ever be in one, so this is probably the simplest way to contact a maximum number of people with minimum effort.
About my trip: I'm leaving June 21st and will be landing in Rome early in the morning of the 22nd with only one backpack and a railpass to my name- then the real adventure begins. I'll be going from Rome to Venice to Milan to Lucerne to Zurich and then finally to Berlin, where my study abroad is based at the Goethe Institute for the month of July. After that I will be in Tübingen studying at Tübingen Universität for the month of August. Food will be eaten, pictures will be taken and ich werde mich verlaufen. (If that last part bothered you, get over it. This will be a bilingual blog and there's nothin' you can do about it.)  I may even speak to strangers and hang out in bars (drinking orange juice, of course.)
Countdown: 61 Days. Exactly two months from today!
P.S. The title of this blog in no way refers to me being a tramp in the modern sense of the word, although I get a good laugh at the pun also. It's a Mark Twain reference.