Living It, And Living It Well

I am so happy with my life right now. I come home almost every day from school with "gute Laune" (in a good mood- in German it's something you have). Just about every day the first thing I do is have a yelled conversation with Consty, not because we're mad at each other, but because I'm too busy eating to go upstairs and he's too layzy to come down. We're both interested in each other's days, so we make use of the necessary volume of voice in order to communicate how it was exactly like the day before.

Everything has really slowed down and settled in a lot. My family feels like a family, my bed feels like my bed, and the food seems normal. I have an awesome group of friends and I make new ones every day. I have yet to get into a real argument with anyone, but sometimes they get a little frustrated with me because I don't feel too obligated to do well in school, and they have to. I try to always be outgoing and it continues to pay off; I get to know a new fun person so often that I don't even attempt to learn names the first time I meet people anymore. It might sound like I'm bragging, and I guess I am a little bit, but I'm just so excited with my situation. I'm invited to a birthday party for the next three weekends, and I'm totally stoked.

My soccer team hasn't been doing so hot, but it's still a blast. The team members are just really nice, supportive guys, and they're fun to play with. I start every game and play all 90 minutes. Along with daily pull-ups, push-ups and crunches, all of the soccer I'm playing me has me in excellent shape. That just means I can eat more. And I do. A lot.

I was in the paper, which is pretty cool. I'll see if I can get the picture up on the page.

My friends here have really cool names. Constantin, Florian, Mateo, Jonas; it's just makes greeting people a more enjoyable activity. My favorite greeting that I've learned is, "Gude," except you have to say it like there are about four Us. Just stretch that vowel like your life depends on it. Guuuuuuduh is roughly what it sounds like. People think I'm really friendly because I'm smiling whenever I say hi to someone, but it's really just because saying hi in German is so great.

On Tuesday night my American friend Mateo came over. We slept from 10:40 pm until 12:40 am and then didn't go back to sleep until we had seen the results of the election and speeches of the aftermath. We sat on the couch in front of a TV and a laptop so as not to miss anything, ate cake, ice cream, yoghurt, chocolate, and anything else we could find, and just did not sleep. As my family left the house for the day, Mateo and I crashed into bed and didn't wake up until around 2 pm. Germany is incredibly happy with the result of the election, to a degree that I'm pretty sure the American public would never be with the election of any foreign official. In many cases they are better informed about what has been going on in America for the past few months than about their own politics. The States really had the eyes of the entire world focused intently upon it, in case any of you hadn't realized it. I've met only one person who supported "MC Cain" (that's what the Germans call him) in the entire three and a half months I have lived here, so if the election had gone any other way than for Obama I would be living in a very unsatisfied country.

I'm going skiing this winter on a glacial resort with my Consty and a few more friends. We stay and ski for a week, and that's all I get for the whole winter. It'll be tough without snow this year, but that should be a blast. Hopefully I'll figure out some way to transport my skis from my house in Concord to my house in Trebur. If anybody knows any secrets I'd love to hear them. I really want to ski on my skis this winter, and I'm desperate to find a cheap way to obtain them.

Now for the inevitable sad-but-funny story you've all been waiting for. If you've been following my entries you already know that I have school until around 5:10 pm every Monday, and that I ride my bike. Well it kind of goes without saying that when you ride your bike somewhere in Germany you lock it up. Combination locks are not quite as popular here, and my lock is one of the more commonly found ones that uses a key. When my family first gave it to me I was really worried that I would lose the key, just like I lose just about everything I actually need to keep track of. I had been, however, extremely responsible and did not ever misplace it. The lock is an old one and requires jiggling and sometimes a bit of force to get it open. This past Monday school had finally come to a tiring but successful end, and I crouched down in front of my bike to try to get my lock open. I jiggled it one way, jiggled it another way, pushed it in, took it out, and did everything else I could think of to liberate my captivated steed (Josh, you better be laughing). Suddenly I heard a small click, but the two ends of the lock had not seperated from one another. I stood there dumfounded, and eventually realized the key I was holding in my hand was only half the size it had been about fifteen seconds before. The rest of the key was broken off. Inside of the lock. It might as well have been in another glaxy for all the use it would do me there. I stood there for about a minte, just staring at my situation, and eventually turned and trudged slowly to the bus stop. I waited another half an hour for the bus, rode another half an hour on the bus, got home, and was greeted by a raucously laughing family. They absolutely love how absurd it is that I get myself into these situations so often, and I guess I do too, it just takes me a few more hours than it does for them.

Well, that's about it. Sorry this entry was a bit uneventful, but my life just seems fairly normal at the moment. Maybe in the next couple of weeks something truly worth an entry will happen, and you will have your belly laugh at my expense. I'm more than happy to provide. ;)

I truly hope you're all satisfied with your lives. I know I am.

Tommy