Although a lot of young people here know english it is not common what so ever to hear people actually speaking it. So when Greg and I are out and about chatting away with each other people look at us like we are weird. It took a while to get used to that but I understand why now so you just forget about it. I used to get so scared to do anything by myself here. I was scared just to go to the gocery store alone, how silly does that seem. They are really big into grettings here. When you walk into a store they say hello in three to four different ways in a row and the same goes for when you leave. I had yet to feel comfortable to say anything other then hallo. There was no morning, hey, bye, see you laters coming from me. So I didnt go anywhere without Greg.
After being here for about two weeks he bought me a gym membership so I could go workout. At this gym you have to give this key thing at the front desk when you walk in and when you leave. This meant human interaction. I was scared shitless just to say thank you or goodbye. Every time I would go to hand them my key I would get super nervous and start smiling like a huge idiot and then mumble something and then walk away. With time it became less scary and now Im a pro! But just of greetings nothing else.
After being here for about two weeks he bought me a gym membership so I could go workout. At this gym you have to give this key thing at the front desk when you walk in and when you leave. This meant human interaction. I was scared shitless just to say thank you or goodbye. Every time I would go to hand them my key I would get super nervous and start smiling like a huge idiot and then mumble something and then walk away. With time it became less scary and now Im a pro! But just of greetings nothing else.
Greg's hockey games are really fun to go to. Just like everything else they are very different. The rinks have no heating in them so they are very cold but I got a nice long jacket to keep me warm. The fans are crazy here! They wave around huge flags and bring drums and sing the entire game. The games are so loud sometimes you can hardly hear the person next to you. Almost the whole rink is standing room only. All the wives and family are put in the same section and that is one of only two parts of the rink where you can sit. Weird right? They also have this thing with a gold helmet. Each leading goal scorer on their team wears a gold helmet. It seems like a target to me but it's just how they do things here. Needless to say Greg has been wearing the helmet a lot!
Halloween was bust here in german town. No dressing up, no parties, and most importantly to me...NO CANDY! I think that has been the only time I had a little case of home sickness. I look forward to stupid things like that and here it was just another day. Even though there is no halloween here germany has a lot of random holidays and Greg and I never know when they are. The best part is they usually fall on a monday which is veryyy bad for us. Nothing is open on sundays and by this time we have ate all our food. Sunday is always a game day so we usually just have food to make pre game meal and then a small snack for after the game. Mondays we always go to the store and get ur basics so breakfast and lunch and then we go and buy dinner seperatly every other day of the week. This really puts a dent in our plan when we wake up and it looks like a ghost town and all we have is water and strawberry jelly in the fridge and peanut butter and nutella in the cupboard. Yeah this has happened and not just once. Ill admit it I may have ate a spoon full of a PB and nutella.
The last time this happened we found a random asian place (go figure) downtown and had dinner there. This place was more of the take out place not a sit down restaurant, but we were so hungry we wanted to eat right then. They had two tables, which I think people just sit at while waiting for the food but we really did not care at this point. As soon as we got our food all these people came in and gathered around by us and just started drinking and hanging out with the workers. Greg and I started laughing quitely to each other. Imagine walking into a random persons tiny little apartment sitting smack dab in the middle of it all and eating a dinner while they hang out. It was weird to say the least but funny at the same time. We always seem to be getting into these very strange situations but just laugh because as much as you want to be like wtf is going on right now you just have to roll with it.
For instance we got to go into Munich for the day on Monday. I was saving my appetitte till we got there because I knew they had a Starbucks which I have been looking forward to for a long time and we were going to be drinking lots of beer and eat a good dinner. We went to the hofbrau house to have a traditional german meal. I wanted to get this yummy noodle dish with all kinds of cheeses in it but Greg thought it was lame and told me to order something better. So I decided to get meatloaf, thinking to myself how can that be any different from home. Well it was. The waitress puts my plate down and what laid in front of me looked very similar to a piece of spam. I looked at Greg and he knew he was about to get it. He told me just to order something else but I figured what the hell eat the dam spam!!! It was not my favorite thing I have eaten here but I am no princess ill suck it up and eat it. Who wants to be the rude American who wont eat their food, not me!
Well its about the time in the day where I drag myself to go and work out. Hope everyone back home is enjoying the beautiful fall weather and drinking lots of apple cider for me!!!
