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| MRRRR BUT I AM TRYING SO VERY HARD LISTEN TO MY RIDICULOUSLY LOUD COOLING UNIT |
berlin was... interesting. we left on the bus at midnight and arrived at 8 in the morning. and we were supposed to get a hearty night's sleep on the ride there. i was more than happy to oblige, i was all cozily contorted in my bus seat, sooo ready to catch some z's. i think maybe i didn't understand the fact that the south americans, the new zealanders, and the belgians DO NOT NEED TO SLEEP. EVER. i'm not sure what superhuman ability posseses them to break out into song at 4 in the morning, but it made me sad.
eventually, we had to sit up like zombies and pretend to be awake. at 8 in the morning, the volunteers started blaring german songs throughout the bus. about 6 of them, in a loop, for the entire weekend. which, okay. the first time i heard "waspassiert"and "und warum" i was like okay this *might* be the worst thing i've ever heard. and the second time i heard them i was like SWEET JESUS KILL IT WITH FIRE. but the third and following times, they secured a place in my heart.
here, have a listen. by the third time, you'll actually find yourself wanting to hear it ever again.
waspassiert, i have come to know, was originally a dutch song called watskeburt, which is a really slang way of saying "wtf happened". my life was incomplete until this song was added to it. really, i don't know what i would do without this song.
doesn't it just make everything alright? because that it the effect it had on us.
anyway, after being awake all night on a bus, we started the tour of berlin! JOEPIEE. obviously, none of us really cared AT ALL. we slaved along past all the huge sites and buildings, we meh'd at the berlin wall and trudged non-committally around the checkpoint charlie museum. which, i might add, was expertly cobbled together and sort of looked like one of those crazy people homage museums people run out of their basements. had i not been so tired, it probably would have been totally awesome. since i was so tired, i really just wanted to sit and never stand up ever again. nevertheless, i dutifully took pictures.
to be honest, i thought i would like berlin a lot more. it was just so gray and cold and depressing. i think if i lived there i would probably kill myself, no lie. but it was interesting. they had a lot of stands on the street selling seedy vintage communist hats. i'm a sucker for hats, so i picked up a blue beret, THOUGH I WAS TEMPTED to purchase the giant black fluffy communist hat.
by the end of the day, we were ever so ready to go back to the hostel. which was actually a really awesome place. it was huge and sort of looked like a united skates of america. think "laser tag-themed teen hotel".
the next morning we ate breakfast at the hostel [FREE MUESLI HOLLAAAA] and then got on the bus to go to a concentration camp. it was my favorite part of the entire trip. i took a lot of pictures. our tour guide was this indy looking complacent german guy with a paperboy hat and a button that said "them". he was painfully sincere and, since his first language was german, soulfully blunt. he was the most amazing tourguide i have ever had. the things he said about it just made me hurt inside, the down to earth way that he described everything that happened there. i wish i had gotten a chance to thank him.
that night, we all went to the hostel bar to chill out. it was lots of fun, we danced and drank and actually socialized with the other exchange students.
the next day we did a bunch of stuff that was unimportant, and we went on an epic quest for a supermarket. i didn't realize how much my life actually depends on albert heijn until i was in a place with no supermarkets ANYWHERE. it was painful, i think germans just dont eat fresh fruit. just bread and curryworst, apparently. which is basically like a hot dog covered in red spicy bbq sauce but you have to eat it with a little teeny fork?
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| we were less than enticed. |
okay, so enough about berlin. i would like to go back someday, but i still maintain that it depressed the hell out of me.
after the trip to berlin, jacque, the new mexican exchange student who lives near me, came to stay with me for the herfst vacantie. at first, we were like "PARTY ELKE DAG LETS DO THIS", but to be honest we spent most of our week dorpin' and watching life of ryan marathon on mtv. and we dont even like that show.
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| this kid has his own last name as a backpiece. i don't even. |
but we did get some things done. on tuesday afternoon we baked a pumpkin pie. it took us a while to figure out how the crust worked, and admittedly we had to hand press it into the pie tin, but it came out fairly delicious. after our pie was finished, i dragged her to the costume shop to pick out a costume for the halloween party we went to that night. she bought a bowler hat and a mustache and went as charlie chaplin, and i bought my hot pink nurse costume for 3-5 year olds. needless to say, i made some alterations. namely, i sliced the dress in half and turned it into a skirt.
anyway, on the way to the party we stopped at the albert heijn to see if we could find any fun sized american candy to bring to the party, to bring on some halloween spirit. we managed to actually procure snickers, peanut m&m's, and twix bars. though, you have NO idea how depressing halloween is without twizzlers, reese's, and tootsie roll pops. really, none. pie and candy in arms, we headed to susan's house. debby, ahnemeek [spelled phonetically because at this point i dont care anymoreee, i accept the fact that i cannot spell it XD], and bente were also there, dutifully costumed. i was happy, because i love halloween, so SO much, and i got to share my passionate joy with other people.
anyway, susan baked beautiful cakes that tasted like donuts and bought popcorn and ice cream, so obviously we didnt go hungry. since jacque and i accepted that this was our halloween, we decided that it was completely acceptable to shove 3000 calories worth of feeling-stifling sugar product into our faces. we watched nightmare on elm street, which is the dumbest movie EVER, and then sisterhood of the travelling pants, which made me rethink calling nightmare on elm street the dumbest movie ever :/
all in all, it was a lovely and delicious night.
the next day, we had nothing to do. until i remembered that ikea is just a hop, skip, and a jump from my house. i decided i needed to go. ikea was the only thing that was going to pull me out of my candy binge related depression, and i had to have it. unamused, jacque agreed to go. upon arrival, we decided that ikea was the best idea ever. we toddled through, trying out all the couches and wishing our houses would ever be so funky and practical. we smelled all the candles and browsed the korting warehouse. right before we were about to leave, we saw a bin of stuffed animals for really cheap. at first, we were like "euhhmmm. they're ugly, whatever". but then we took a closer look. they were actually really intriguing. half panda, half pug, half log, doofy looking oddly placed legs, complacent grin. it wasnt ugly, it was PERFECT and we needed TWO. we named them both klootzak and each biked home with one in our arms. might be the best purchase i've ever made, maybe. might need to buy two more. might need to buy five more. might even need to commission a giant ten foot long klootzak to use as a sofa. just sayin'.
after klootzak renewed our faith in humanity, jacque and i decided we were ready to go out for the night. since jacque's bike died, she borrowed one of mine since i have like 5, and we went to hengelo at around 8:30. first, we sat down on a bench and had a serious heart to heart. it was good. then we found the late night store. then we decided we really needed to find some people we knew. i texted one of my late night acquaintences from last time, and he was in the building we were right outside of, conviniently. we hung out with him and his friends for a bit, i'm sure they found us amusingly drunk and american. also good.
then we decided we HAD to go into the club called twinstwins with ridiculously loud pounding bass. we needed to dance. badly. so we danced for an hour or so, generally being embarrassing and not caring at all. then we tried to order food from the yamyam eetcafe, because i remember it being freakishly delicious. unfortunately, we were preeetty much out of money, so we had to eat out of an automatic wall food dispenser. which was disgusting, and gross. but i was not above stuffing my face with a kip burger, oh no. that was riiight about on my level at the time.
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| classy eatin' bij the snackautomaat.at this point, you stop being worried about "tasty" and start being worried about "safe to actually consume" |
after that, we decided it was really time to go home. cutting to the chase, i lost my bike key. i was unable to deal with this information at the time. somehow, jacque and i managed to get home on the same bike. i am constantly amazed by our faultless ability to not die. because i'm fairly sure we narrowly missed falling into more than one ditch. we decided we'd go back to hengelo the next day and get my bike. somehow. without the key. this plan was perfect and did not need to be further thought out.
the next day rolled around, and jacque and i rummaged through my purse completely and FINALLY found the key to the bike. cos, you know those moments when your stomach sinks and you think "THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING TO ME."? well, so far in my life, that feeling has usually been resolved by the fact that whatever it is has not actually happened to me. i got lucky like that once again. amy, another exchange student, was in hengelo and told me my bike was still there, and i decided that meant it was alright to leave it there another day. at around 5, amy came over. we were going to go out with her for the night,we were even invited to a party. but jacque and i could not even deal with that thought at all, so instead we decided to go eat at het pannenkoekhuis and have a movie night.
het pannenkoekhuis, as always, was all kinds of delicious delicious. i got a bacon and cheese pancake, covered it with stroop, and was ever so pleased with myself. you dont understand what a wonderful combination cheese, bacon, pancake, and syrup are until you stuff it into your recently un-hungover face in huge, contented bites.
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| LOOK ITS HAPPY. |
after our food excursion, we watched army of the twelve monkeys because brad pitt is incredibly at being batshit crazy. then we watched monty python and the holy grail, for nostalgia's sake. c:
anyway, jacque and amy both left today. i need to spend the rest of my herfst vacantie doing homework and going to ikea and buying more klootzaks. i have decided i'm going to gauge my ears, so im going to locate a shop to buy those at. also, i need to decide which classes i'm going to drop. i decided itd be a good idea to switch into math a instead of b and to drop the classes that im never going to follow or get american credit for. because lets face it, 3 hours a week in economy is a little excessive if all i am capable of doing in that class is sleeping and being completely confused. and i'd really like to pass the year.
tomorrow is halloween, and i am going to dress up in my costume and watch horror movies by myself.
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| forever alone. |
i'll update again soon, maybe, depending on how interesting my life is. honestly its cooling down over here, usually i dont have too much to talk about these days.
tot ziensss c:
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