29 July 2013

The Mom Recap! Part II

More Mom stories!

Around noon on Sunday we said goodbye to Al's parents and headed back to Göttingen, but not without some minor adventures. Our goal for the day was to check out three castles on neighboring hills because why the hell not? Our first castle was actually closed, so we hit up the second one, which turned out to be this bad boy:

Small but cute!

And from the tower you could see the next castle!

The last castle was, personal opinion, not particularly nice. It was a restaurant and hotel, but sort of looked like a prison which I think it actually was at one point. We did get to climb the tower though and take funny pictures on the way up.



...yeah, still not really sure what the skeleton was.

On the way out of town, we found this super awkward monument to the local sausage museum:

To me, that looks like a lot of things, none of which is a sausage.

On Monday, it was back bee-bopping around Göttingen for us! We started with some good old fashioned wandering and a delicious waffle, then caught a bus to the local tack shop. Or tried, the bus driver didn't actually stop the bus and we wound up nearly 20km out of Göttingen. Got there eventually, though! And we found a really cool helmet I wish I wasn't too old for.


Then it was time to meet up with Al and Kiwi Friend in town to go STRAWBERRY AND RASPBERRY PICKING! Yes, you can do that here. Which is both awesome and sucky, awesome because I fucking love picking fruit, and sucky because my master plan to make millions was to introduce picking fruit to Germany but IT'S ALREADY DAMN HERE. Ah well. I've got a couple other master plans on the fire.




And yes, we ate nearly as many as we picked. Or I did, at least. Al tried one and swore he could taste the pesticide, but I think he was just chewing on sunshine and happiness.

With our crap ton of berries, it was time to make a crap ton of JAM! Because my mom can do that. We wound up with three jars of strawberry jam (for New Roommate, Al, and Kiwi Friend), one jar of strawberry/raspberry jam (for me), and extra of both which I wound up giving to the Crazy Psycho Neighbors because feed the dragon, remember? We also had so many berries left over we used up a whole roll of puff pastry in various combinations of Strawberry and Something Else Delicious to try and eat them all. And gave the neighbors a bunch. I'm proud to say we actually managed to eat 98% of the strawberries.

Tuesday was more fun times, starting with Most Epic Ice Cream Ever (the guys at the ice cream place know us at this point) because my mom was all about the brilliance that is German ice cream. 

Q: How much was that ice cream?
A: 10 euros.
Q: Feel bad about it?
A: NOPE.

Then it was off to the lake where we rented a paddle boat and paddle-boated around like idiots because paddle boating is fucking awesome, that's why.


Followed by more ice cream! Because who needs a reason?

And that was it! Wednesday we got up bright and early to take my mom to the airport, and I was really sad. Later that evening, it started hailing grape-sized stones because clearly the gods were displeased that she left. And that's the story of how my mom visited me in Germany! And the weather has sucked ever since.

Adios!

24 July 2013

The Mom Recap! Part I

My mom left today and I am sad.

On the plus side, we had a really, really awesome and fun week!

Our trip started off with a trip to the barn, where my mom got to meet the horse I ride here and check out the barn, which is a pretty cool place because it used to be a training facility for knights in the middle ages. There's a big middle-ages tower chilling in the middle of the property, which itself is owned by a duke or a baron or something--at any rate, someone important with a title that is no longer relevant in 2013. We may or may not have run into him and I may or may not have spoken to him inappropriately, although in my defense he should wear a T-Shirt or have a name tag or do something to identify himself as something other than your run-of-the-mill crotchety old man.


On Thursday my mom got the grand tour of the city, and we met up with Kiwi Friend for ice cream. While my mom was busy oohing and aahing over the amazingness that is German ice cream, a newly-graduated Ph.D student came by to kiss the Gänseliesel statue, in appropriate Göttingen tradition.


That same day, I also introduced my mom to Crazy Psycho Neighbors because they wanted to meet her. Crazy Psycho Female Neighbor held my mom's hand, patted her head, and pinched her cheeks. All while prattling on about how nice I am. In case you were wondering, my mother is not the biggest fan of having her cheeks pinched by a crazy lady with a multi-colored head who holds her hand for long past the socially acceptable amount of time. She also got quizzed by the neighbors on everything from why I'm so nice to is she okay with the fact that I'm dating outside my race? 

Friday it was off to Coburg! But first we had to get a waffle because hells yes, waffles. This waffle had honey, yogurt, and a million different kinds of fruit. And it was awesome.

I don't remember much about the ride down to Coburg because I'm pretty sure I slept through half of it, by our arrival was lovely. Al's parents loved my mom and she loved them so everyone wins. We drank tea and ate food and then immediately went into town for the festival on the palace grounds. Also, in borrowing a light jacket from my mom, I accidentally made myself look like a sailor.



Saturday was tour Coburg day. We started off wandering the streets, buying presents for the tias in Portugal, and finding a tack store which my mom was excited to check out. The running joke all weekend was how Americans think Coburg looks like Disneyland. In defense of Americans, this is because Coburg looks like Disneyland. 


Then we took the coolest kiddie train ever all the way up the mountain and to the Veste Coburg sitting on top of the hill. There, we ran around like morons and bemoaned that you can't go in the castle's secret tunnels. And when I say "we bemoaned" I mean "I bemoaned" and now would be a good time to stop saying "bemoaned."





Also, mom ate this sausage and actually liked it:


Then we did a tour of a few castles in the area, including this one that I want to own:

And this one that had a lot of deer:


Saturday night we also ate the greatest lasagna in the entire world and I was way too full to do anything except for visit some donkeys, so that's what we did. They live near Al's house and are so cute!



And thus concludes Part I of the Mom Recap! We had a brilliant time hanging with Al's parents, even if my duties as interpreter made my head want to explode. Apparently, Al's parents and my mom can only discuss deep, difficult-to-translate topics like comparing welfare systems and police brutality. Plus side, I am pretty awesome at interpreting, with a specialization in comparing welfare systems and police brutality.

Check back for more mom adventures soon!

19 July 2013

Off to Coburg!

Hey all!

So my mom is here! And she's been an absolute jetlag hero. Thus far she has seen my barn here and had the grand Göttingen tour including epic German ice cream and a graduating doctoral student kissing the Gänseliesel statue because that's what they do here. Today we're off to Coburg to hang with Al's parents and check out lots of castles.

Pictures to follow soon!

16 July 2013

A Crazy Psycho Neighbors Update and other news

So I realized the other day it's been ages since I've posted anything about my Crazy Psycho Neighbors. The reason for that is that there's nothing to say. Weirdly, alarmingly, they decided a couple months ago that they love me. I know, I don't really get it either, but if there's anything a lifetime of being around horses has taught me, it's don't look them in the damn mouth. They've got sharp teeth in there. Anyway, instead of listening to my neighbors curse me out for a foreigner, now we overhear them prattling on in the garden about how nice I am and how hard I work and how proud of me my parents can be (hear that parents?). Now I only have to deal with their long racist tirades about the Roma that live across the street and how criminality is bred into the children. Not awkward at all. But at any rate, it's a nice change to sort of be on good terms with my neighbors, so to keep them happy, I make sure to take them cookies and pastries every time I bake. I say "sort of" because I think of my edible gifts more as feeding the dragon than neighborly kindness.

In other news, I paid tuition today on the last semester of my M.A. Gotta buckle down and start planning Adventuretime Mexicoland hardcore. At any rate, it's weird to be looking down the barrel at the end of my time in Germany (for the foreseeable future). This is the most settled I've been since high school, and it baffles me that I have to start planning to leave. Don't get me wrong, I'm ready for a change, but I can't help but wonder how the last two years have flown by so quickly.

In other other news guess who's coming to visit me tomorrow?

THIS LADY!

That's right, MY MOM! Who is so cool that when she finds a little store in a back alley in Óbidos, Portugal, offering to dress you up like a Renaissance princess, she says YES WE WILL DO THIS.

My mom has never been to Germany before, and she's also the first member of my family to visit me! So she gets the grand Göttingen tour (my Crazy Psycho Neighbors can't wait to meet her) and then we're heading down to Coburg over the weekend for some proper Bavarian castle parties. Personally, I can't wait to see my mom meet Al's parents who, when they speak English, do so with the most hilarious accents the world has ever seen. This is going to be absolutely brilliant.

Alrights my lovelies, I've got to go clean things so my mom thinks I'm a responsible adult.

Peace out!

09 July 2013

The ER story

Hey all! So we're 9 days into July, and I still haven't posted anything. That's because nothing has happened to me. Well, a few things have. I went to the ER for one. Here we go:

The ER story
Remember when I got hit by a car right before I went to England? I can't remember if I posted about the specifics, but to make a long story short, they weren't going fast, they didn't see me on my bike, but the car bumper took me out at the knee, I slammed my leg into my bike, both me and the bike fell down and it was a big scene. Somehow I managed to scratch up my leg through my jeans, through my boots, without actually damaging either of the latter. Had a big bruise, thought I was good to go.

Anyway, my leg still hasn't healed from that. Two nights ago, my leg started hurting like a mother for no reason at all, and after a couple hours and some urging from my mother, I was like "AGBHRG fine I will go to the emergency room." So I did.

Here's a couple things about the emergency room that probably shouldn't be the case:

--It's not marked. At every hospital I've ever been to ever, the ER is marked in foot high letters, bright yellow, with crap tons of arrows pointing exactly where you need to go, because everyone knows the suckiest thing to do when you're having an emergency is to spent twenty minutes wandering around the hospital grounds looking for the goddamn ER, somehow winding up in a giant stand of trees, hiking up a hill, and finally giving up and asking some guy on duty in the pediatric oncology ward for directions, which is when we found out...

--You have to take an elevator to the emergency room. Because it's not even on the ground floor. So what I want to know is, how do they get people there if, say, they're on a stretcher? And/or have impaled themselves on 12-feet metal tubing like I saw one time on Ripley's Believe it or Not? Because those guys wouldn't fit on in the elevator, it's a pretty small elevator. Do those people have to take the stairs? Do they make car crash victims and/or people impaled on things take the stairs? I'm assuming there must be some secret mafia entrance we never found for car crash victim on stretchers and/or people on Ripley's Believe it or Not.

--When you finally do get there the lady who checks you in is an epic bitch. We watched her yell at everyone who came through for various things, including at one family who missed their taxi because they were waiting for it inside the building. Their kid was in a wheelchair. Soulless, soulless lady. On the plus side, hey, no forms to fill out! And it's freeeeeee!

In other news, the two-hour wait to see the doctor was actually sort of entertaining. We saw guys suffering the side effects of mosquito bites (they itched), Botox (felt unpleasant), and a shard of glass through the hand (actually an emergency, but it's okay, he fit in the elevator). Also, there was a guy complaining his toes itched. And yes, he got seen before I did. Not a whole lot of pity in the ER when you go in a month and a half after you get hit by a car.

When I finally saw the doctor (who looked like he was my age), he told me he wanted me to get some X-rays because he suspected a piece of bone had peeled off my shin. As it turns out, the cause of my pain was an epically dire...bone bruise. And that was it. I have "fresh young legs," apparently, which under normal circumstances I would have taken as the winning pickup line from the Aperger Convention's Bi-Annual Awkward Contest, but "normal circumstances" generally do not extend to sitting in the ER with your leggings rolled up to your underwear.

The best part about the entire thing was that I got a prescription for, wait for it...ibuprofen. I didn't have the heart to tell the doctor I have not one, not two, but three bottles of ibuprofen sitting on my desk, because the fact that I need a prescription to buy it here offends me so I make a point every time I'm in the States to hit up Walgreens like I'm stockpiling for the apocalypse.

Moral of the story, when the apocalypse comes, I got yer ibuprofen right here.

The End!