Several sources have pointed out that I'm extraordinarily behind on my blog. So I'm finally here to give you a little rundown of what I've been up to in the past month, after which I'm sure you'll see exactly why I haven't had a chance to post.
So my last post left off with my au pair meeting. After the meeting I went to have drinks with a couple of the girls in an attempt to make any new friends that might help these last couple of months pass faster. But nothing really panned out there other than discovering an awesome new bar. Then the next weekend I went to an Irish pub for a Toytown meetup. If I somehow manage to never explain it before, Toytown is a website for English speakers in Germany. There's a huge group of us that hang out pretty often, but I hadn't been out to an event in a while. The shock for me upon arriving was that I didn't know a single person there. I'm like the senior Toytowner now. Everyone I have met is seriously gone. So I stayed around awhile, had my first Guinness, and then I went home, mostly because the pub was directly on my bus line and I didn't want to go out further into the city with everyone just to have to ride home alone.
And just a few days after that little adventure Martina finally arrived! There was a lot of drama with her host family but she finally escaped Italy and made it back to Berlin. Her luggage didn't arrive until three days later, but I tried to keep her pre-occupied with awesomeness in the mean time. We went shopping for jeans (as all of mind apparently are disintegrating and I absolutely hate shopping for pants), we had falafel (my first time!) at a super delicious hole in the wall, we visited the Reichstag and the Jewish Memorial, and we had what was possibly my favorite night out on the town since I got here. Seriously, you know that saying that goes "Dance like nobody's watching"? I did that. And it terrified all the poor people in that club who weren't having nearly as much fun as we were. And after the club we hit that bar that I mentioned earlier, where we met some very strange men who apparently don't understand that to pick up a girl you have to actually talk to her. And the whole night was rounded off with a stop for 3am street vendor fries from the nicest guy ever. He gave us free sauces and even gave me free tea because of my cold. And all because Martina rocks at German :)
The other big thing that happened while Martina was here was Halloween. We're poor, so we made our own costumes for about 2 euros each. I was an angel and Martina was a devil. Fairly appropriate, I'd say. As is tradition for me, we watched Hocus Pocus. We also took my host kids trick or treating, which was mostly unsuccessful, but still invoked awesome childhood memories for us older kids. Oh, and earlier in the day I celebrated Halloween at the Kita with all of my little kiddos who were super adorable in their costumes. Not my most exciting Halloween ever, but I was pretty happy with it. And I was super grateful that Martina was here and that my host parents love her and let her hang out with us the whole time I was working.
The morning after Halloween Martina and I left for our final trip, Amsterdam. But I want to write about that in a separate post, so I'm going to skip right over to the day we got back, November 5th. I had to hit the ground running because my host mom was gone for an entire week, which meant I didn't get to spend as much time with my friend as I would have liked. But we spent her last few days in Berlin staying up late and chatting and all those things that friends do that I am going to miss way too much until I get to see her again. On Thursday the 8th I got up at 3:30am (because I'm such a devoted friend) to drive Martina to the airport. It was a little bittersweet. I wish she hadn't had to leave, but I'm glad she got to go home. She'd been here for 14 months (she's way more of a trooper than I) and I think she was glad to get to go home for awhile. But I'm pretty sure I've got a pretty good seed planted in her mind about Washington, so maybe I can convince her to come up some day soon.
After I left the airport I actually ended up getting lost and drove around Berlin in the middle of the night, but I did eventually find a street I recognized and made it home. I worked two more days and then I was extremely looking forward to having three whole days off to recover from Martina's visit and Amsterdam and the fact that my host mom had been gone for five days in a row. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I have had this cough since I got back from Italy. Nothing bad, mostly just an annoying tickle. But last weekend it started getting worse. And then my muscles started hurting. And by Monday morning I was almost ready to admit that I was sick. But it was Tuesday morning that finally convinced me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was dying. I actually broke down and asked my host mom to take me to the doctor. So that was fun. He gave me antibiotics and told me no work for a week. I ended up spending the entire week laying on my couch. It was hugely unproductive and miserable. By Friday I wasn't feeling too much better, so when I went back to the doctor I basically begged for anything with pseudoephedrine in it. But nope. They're just not big on decent drugs here. I gotta say, I miss that about home, even if it is terrible for my body. So anyway, I have been waiting it out all weekend with my herbs and teas and steamy baths and I am finally FINALLY getting a bit better. Well at least I don't feel like my sinuses are pushing my eyeballs out of my skull anymore. I do wish my stupid ears would stop feeling like they need to pop though.
The only time I really got out over the last few days was to go to my host dad's birthday dinner. It was fondue, and as far as I could tell with my blocked sinuses, it was delicious. And I particularly liked the decor of the restaurant. It was very rustic and cozy.
So that's why I haven't posted. And I swear, it's all true.
I'm gonna try and post about Amsterdam either later tonight or tomorrow. But believe me, it was our laziest trip ever, so don't expect too much.
Here's today's song. It's my favorite song right now and I think the lyrics really express how I feel about going home.
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