So f&%#!ing busy

Dear Spill,

I am so sorry to have been ignoring you. I have been pouring every single iota of human effort into staying alive, making deadlines at my new job (yes, it's going great, thanks), not allowing the ol' account to dip into the red zone as I wait for that first full paycheck, moving in (pictures soon, I promise!) and passing World Politics and (boredom central) Microeconomics. It seems like every day there's some new crisis to be averted, something I forgot at work, a new bill to pay, a debt I didn't know I had, a call I forgot to return.

I can't wait to be finished with school. It is such a drag, and all it does is get in the way. Oh, and a certain someone is coming from Germany for a month but I don't have any time, so I guess he'll have to entertain himself until Thanksgiving break.

Even with all of this, I am SO, SO grateful for my beautiful apartment, so happy to have my Arts Editor job, and even though I am really poor now I am so extremely glad I went to Germany for a year, if only to have danced until morning properly, met Mirjam and Erich and Micha, read Kafka in the original language, to have lived in a house with a Klingel, reveled in the joys of public transport, divided my waste into like 15 different receptacles, experienced the madness, the agony, and the ecstasy that is World Cup fever, and shocked the socks off a lot of middle-aged women in the German Hygiene Museum by saying I got up at 9 most mornings.

But yeah, sorry I'm so out of touch these days. Here, keep yourself busy with a New Times. 

Love,

Anna

Heavy suitcase/heart: Update

Saw some friends for the last time yesterday and today.
My heart is double-broken now and Sunday isn't even here yet.
Bought some new books to fill the ever-widening void in my (espresso-black) soul.
I know I wasn't s'posed to do that but they are really mini, and I think I might take Coopak Shakur's advice (see comments) and send them by boat. 

I bought the pocket-sized Alles ist erleuchtet and Der Junge in gestrieften Pajama. True, I could read these books at home in my native tongue, but I would rather read them in German. I could stuff them in my pockets and they won't make my suitcase any heavier. Yeah.
(Built-in bonus: if someone spanks me I won't feel it!)

Said goodbye to Martin today and he gave me a cute scarf with the colors of the German flag. He is such a  model person.  I like him.

It gave me a sick feeling to see him go.

Will be gone from Erfurt indefinitely in 24 hours. I still haven't realized it. 

Not close to done packing, oops.

The weather couldn't be any geiler, but my head is a gathering stormcloud and I am raining on the inside. 

The Erfurter Sprachschule owes me 710 Euro. Should I be worried? Maybe I will call and nerve them.

Last night Germany got creamed by the Spanish. Erfurt took it personally. Tears were shed. Looks like they won't be Weltmeister this year.

I am spending my evening in Erfurt with Mirjam and friends in the Dubliner, the same little pub where I spent my first evening in Erfurt. I will be an emotional wreck and I really hope Micha still likes me after witnessing my emotional wreckage. 

 I am seriously a little worried about that. Okay, more like a lottle.

Oh, dear. Vergiss mich nicht!

FOM (Friend of Mirjam)

Mirjam having The Mirjam Experience (good music + good beer + intellectual conversation)

How is it possible to not have mentioned Mirjam in six months of blogging?

Mirjam is my tandem partner turned partner in crime and one of my favorite people in Erfurt. She is also one of the few English-speaking Germans who actually respects my wishes to speak in German most of the time. As a result, I learn some completely bizarre German word or expression every time we go out together. (And we do love to go out. In addition to the many other linguistic oddities I have picked up, I think I must have learned at least ten different ways to say "tipsy.")

Mirjam, in addition to being the most positive and dance-happy person I have ever met, is also amazingly well-informed. She seems to know about every single concert, reading, show, festival, dance party, film showing or other cultural event in Erfurt, no matter how obscure, and also seems to be on a mission to attend every single one of these events, where she inevitably knows everyone. All one needs to do as Friend of Mirjam is tag along for the ride...