Hot Roomie is moving out today.  This is both good and bad– he’s taking his <insert expletive> Foozball table with him and the kitchen will be cleared of the piles of dishes he tended to leave out forever, but overall I’m sad to see him go.  No more Monday night dinners with his hot friends, not to mention he was certainly the most outgoing of our WG 18 bunch.  A moment of silence may be in order.  Our door just buzzed earlier and a woman from the campus newspaper was here, asking if she could ask me a few questions on what I think about the housing.  The best part is: she asked me in German and I understood. My handle on the language is near first-rate if I’m reading it, but when it comes to listening and speaking, this is where my brain still gets bamboozled.  I was able to reply to her though that yes, she could come in but mein Deutsch ist schlect, to which she said no problem and conducted the interview in English.  Score one for the home (away?) team.

In other news, the weather has been in the sunny low 70s so I’ve been spending an uncharacteristic amount of time outside. Apart from setting my alarm unnecessarily early to run in the mornings, we’ve also taken to playing soccer and/or sand volleyball after lunch.  This provides heaps of entertainment for the Germans (who do e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. outside once the snow melts) who think we are just the most laughably dumb American group of people to e’er kick a ball around.  One group was FILMING us on their cell phone the other day, most likely to show their friends and say “Can you believe they wore that and said this?”  To their credit, we knew we were being heinously judged, thus played up our obnoxious inability to care at all what those around us thought.  If there’s one thing studying abroad has changed about me, I will certainly no longer think any less of foreign students on our campus.  Yeah, they might be weird, but how they act is normal to their culture and it has zero to do with me.  You shoulda seen the stink eyes I was getting walking across campus today in flip-flips, rolled up jeans, and a guy’s Marvel comics t-shirt.  WHATEVER.  I’m all about assimilating to the culture, but on a sunny Friday afternoon post-test, I’m not gonna put heaps of effort into my appearance– priorities, people.

Tonight I’m boarding a bus for Copenhagen with three guys from my program (my mother: “Why do you never hang out with girls?!”  As if she met me yesterday.)  It’s an overnight bus and we’ll arrive early in the morning for a day of sight-seeing and GIANT COFFEE drinking because Denmark has 7-11′s.  On Sunday there’s a bike race we’ll be attending which will be akin to Christmas for D-Bag because he’s a giant cyclist, then we’ll take the night bus back to Hamburg and arrive heinously early Monday morning.  I’m not foreseeing much sleep in the coming days, but I’m super excited to visit a new country.

With only six weeks left til the program ends, some students are getting anxious for home and some are going into full-on “I’m never leaving Germany” meltdown mode. Most of the students also here for the fall session absolutely dread returning home, a lot of them it seems because they escaped from less ideal personal situations in the states.  Those of us who have only been here since January have kind of kept one foot in Germany, one in America, and are eager to return to our normal routines and friends.  While leaving will be HARD and suck and produce days of “Aaagh I miss Germany so much,” I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to go home at all.  My life in Iowa is great, and there are people and places I want to return to stat.  My last six weeks look like they’ll be filled with travel, and my last weekend will be spent doing some fabulous shopping in Hamburg since I have done little to none in my time here (and someone needs a pretty new dress or ten to celebrate her 21st birthday in Vegas.)

Lastly, I have a project due for my one non-language class next month and it draws on my high school experience as yearbook editor (cue the dungeon music.)  I’m making a “semester book” type thing and my teacher wants me to expand it, make it real professional like, and include everyone so they can possibly use it to show future students/ prospects.  I’m not too concerned about this (though should be since I was supposed to start like… months ago) but who knows what types of posts written in pure frustration and agony might pop up later.  Get excited.