Hochzeitsfeier

Congrats, Alana & Adrian!

What wedding would be complete without a little conga?!

Next time I'll try and get some shots of Becky's "interpretive dance" ;)

Goose Bumps for a Day

With almost one hour of something that vaguely resembled sleep and an ice cold shower (thanks to Hornthalstraße’s lack of hot water between 10pm and 6am) behind me and one last look to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind, I closed the door to room 410 for the final time and headed to the Bahnhof. The train and airport terminal changes made me wish I could learn to travel lightly, but with the exception of random bruises and aching muscles the next day, no serious scars were left behind. But I can’t say the same for my airport experiences…
I was standing in line for boarding, two hours after checking in and having been handed my boarding passes, when the (horrifically rude and borderline evil) Air France lady – the same one who checked me in – suddenly rushed over to me and told me to come with her. A little puzzled, I asked why. Well, she claimed my ticket wasn’t paid for, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of line to a counter where she immediately made a call to put my luggage on standby. Thinking of the wedding I had to attend the next day, knowing that I had in fact paid for my ticket over a year ago, and being more than a little emotional (I don’t do well with one hour of “sleep”), I was instantly reduced to tears. Being far too tired to coherently argue my case or cause a scene, I mumbled through sobs when and where my ticket had been paid for. Well, the lovely Air France lady pretty much called me a liar and told me to shut up, but the impending take off and the afore mentioned wedding I couldn’t miss led me to repeat the name and location of my travel agent. After about five minutes and some more insults from the Air France lady, she suddenly had some sort of epiphany and realized that my ticket was in fact bought and paid for (did she think I made it all the way to Germany on a return ticket that wasn’t paid for?!?).
So, following this woman’s acknowledgment that I paid for my ticket, did I get an apology or an ‘I’m sorry for the misunderstanding’ or any sort of remorse on her part for causing me such unwelcome panic and stress?? Oh no, nothing but a “Just go!” from the Air France lady who’s name I don’t even know but who I think I may be on the verge of hating.
Anyways, that’s the short version of the worst part of my airport experience. I had problems in every airport I was in, but they all seemed like nothing compared to being called a liar, told to shut up and almost being pulled off what I knew was the last flight I could be on to get home in time for the wedding.
But it wasn’t all bad. The good: airplanes and airports have air conditioning. I literally had goose bumps for an entire day and loved every minute of it. My neighbour kept offering me his blanket and just gave me puzzled looks when I replied that I was fine, but he just didn’t understand that I was coming from a land sans air conditioning where I was averaging three showers a day.
And, of course, the best part of the day: touchdown on home turf. A warm summer evening and my first glimpse of the prairies in 11 months, the Bienvenue au Canada signs that I always associate with coming home, and family and friends I’ve grown up with greeting me with smiles, tears, hugs and kisses. There’s no place like home.

YWG

27 July
NW 795
20:20

Let me see your beautiful faces there.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go

My appartment is all cleaned up, the ugliest curtains I've ever seen are once again hanging in front of the window (I'm so glad there's an Ikea near Bamberg), my cupboards are bare and the closet is empty. In less than 24 hours I'll be flying across the Atlantic, aber meine Gedanken haben schon längst die kanadische Grenze überschritten.

The fun didn't stop there...

Next stop: CM Lounge. Just across the street from Calimeros, it took unbelievably long to actually make it inside, or make it back inside. Rewards for entering: cocktail gratis and an impromptu Erasmus party. It was a good way to finish off a year's worth of Thursday night good times.

Midnight snack

Will: Seriously guys, I think it's a good fit!

Sarah: Oh Will, if you only knew what you looked like!

Jean & I taking a break from our favourite passtime (cuttin' a rug)

Calimeros

The next stop on our night of fun was student night at Calimeros. As versprochen, we met up with the Irish and Co. Ye all are grand!

How could you not love them?

Sarah: Oh, Angela, you're leaving in a week! You must come dance on the table with us!

Ang: No, no, no, no, no! Me? Dance on the table!?

Maybe we're just a lot taller than the photographer?!

One Last Thursday...

That's it, no more Thursdays as an Erasmus student. First it was a sad goodbye to one of the sweetest Italians I know, Elisa, at the Wilde Rose Keller. Then it was Abendeinstimmung time with the Swiss, Silvia and Samuel. Our first plan was to make it an early night and be good little students who go to class and study and write papers on Friday, but that plan was quickly thrown out the window in favour of more celebratory options.

I'll miss sharing my "you won't believe what happened" stories with you, Elisa

Next best thing to the squeeze in and do-it-yourself shot: the timer shot

Geburtstagsfeier

Kathleen turned 22, and we were there to help her celebrate.

Weimar

The final trip the International Office at Uni Bamberg organized for us foreign exchange students was to Weimar. The pride of Weimar are the two literarischen Riesen they like to call hometown boys, namely Goethe and Schiller. The Weimar Republic’s constitution was drafted in Weimar in 1919, although that fact was barely mentioned during our tour of the city. Weimar was the centre of the Bauhaus movement and the first Bauhaus school was founded there the same year as the Weimar Republic. Other famous names who have called Weimar home: Bach, Liszt, Nietzsche, and Carl Zeiss.

Half the city is somehow named after these two

City Hall

Allison, Matthew, Aisling & Sarah

Niki & Leoni

Buchenwald

Still plenty work to be done

but also much fun to be had...

Don't you dare touch her cake

Who loves the Prairies?

I know Neil Young is with me on this one. I should be writing papers or studying or doing something productive, but I can't concentrate. I'm either thinking about what to pack, about seeing everyone, about hanging out with the coolest kids ever in Eaglemere ;), about playing peacekeeper between Oma and Opa during rounds of Skip-Bo, about hearing Plaut-dietsch, about falling asleep in the hammock in my parents' backyard, about driving down the Trans-Canada, about provincial parks, about, well, really I'm thinking about anything that relates to home. Oh, it's gonna be good...

What would you do...

...if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song, I will try not to sing out of key.

What does that song mean for a child of the '80s? It means the bonds of friendship between Kevin Arnold, Paul Pfeiffer, and Winnie Cooper. It means remembering the joys and growing pains of being a teenager. It means nostalgia through rose-coloured glasses at its sentimental finest. And from now on it will probably always remind me of this past year in Germany.

Thanks to Wes' extensive DVD collection (or should I thank Wes' downloading grandmother?), I watched the entire Wonder Years series while in Bamberg. Every episode of every season. That's 115 episodes over the course of six seasons. Those series creators were geniuses. I laughed, I cried, I got annoyed with Kevin's spastic temper (you try watching six seasons in the amount of time you'd normally watch one and see if you don't get annoyed), and in the end I agreed with Kevin that "growing up happens in a heartbeat, but the memories of childhood stay with you."

*Queue the sentimental music and begin to reminisce*

Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren

Who remembers where that schmaltzy little saying is from? Anyone who was in the German bilingual program with me has to remember those posters on the walls all the way from K-12. I finally made it to the Univeristätsstadt, and just in time to celebrate Canada Day with fellow Canuck, Christine. We hiked up to the castle in the hot hot heat, swam in the Neckar river (okay, stuck our feet in and watched the people who were swimming), did some shopping, watched some soccer, watched some movies (uh, don't go see Klimt), ate delicious food, drank even more delicious coffee, talked about our uncertain futures and very much enjoyed the company of another Canadian. Es war echt sauber (in honour of Benni ;).

Here it is: the oldest German university on German soil

I can't wait to be in a whole country full of these (Canadians)

Que saudades

Christine & Ang

The ruins at Heidelberg castle