ONE) There are so many Bäckerei. These are bakeries. Get used to this word because I am Elisabeth and I love a good roll with butter, croissant, small piece of plum cake, elephant ears dipped in chocolate... Oh mein Gott...
And I am in my "honeymoon phase" here, which means that I have my vacation brain on and I look at those goodies and think, "Yeah of course I'll try that!". That is a recipe for fatness and being broke, my friends. Two things I'd like to try hard to avoid. So, I just bought a bunch of lettuce and tomatoes and stuff for healthy living. It was a successful trip to the grocery (Kaufland, ja!) even though I messed up, forgot to weigh a cucumber, and could not remember for the life of me the name of "cucumber", I was able to follow the directions of the cashier "auf Deutsch" for fixing my error, so you know, small victories, right? Gretchen mentioned that she loved the cheese, rolls, and various wursts that they serve for breakfast here. We chatted about how this will make us have big butts, but all the walking and biking is sure to tone the legs, soooooo when I return, I will be "shapes". Please love me anyhow.
TWO) As awesome as this is, all 4 of my days here so far are honestly mostly me being overwhelmed and sad and things moving a hundred miles (kilometers?) per hour when I'm working really hard at moving 10kph. But I will get there, and as I told Miss Gretchen, the little moments where I stop and look around and don't care how hard this is... they are pure gold.
I'm not about to pretend like I'm doing a good job of being consistently happy though, because I'm not.
THREE) German beds are ridiculous. RI-DI-CU-LOUS. They are comfortable and not in anyway 3rd world or anything, but you know what, they don't have topsheets! Nope! It's a mattress, a fitted sheet (or I assume it is, but I haven't inspected this closely), and a, hmmm, how do I put this? It's not a comforter because it's not big enough. The blanket on top is like a duvet that is exactly (I mean EXACTLY) the size of the top of the bed. The cherry on top is a big, square, flat as all get out pillow. If you fold it in half, it makes something similar to the size of a US pillow. I don't mind sleeping with my feet out of the cover, but a pillow is an intimate part of my being. I take pillows very personally. I explained to Gretchen that in elementary, whenever we had to do the "if you were on the mayflower and could only bring 3 things, what would you bring" things, I'd ALWAYS list my pillow. My packing list for this move to Germany should have been no exception. Gah! Wie sachts man "pillow" auf Deutsch? Das (Kopf)kissen. (Head) cushion. Cute. I just looked that up in my German-English, Deutsch- Englisch... you know what, let's just call it my "lifeline".
But really, I'm good here. Life could only be sweeter if I were a German language master, and that's precisely why I am where I am. Soon enough, soon enough.
Love always.
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