OK so I don’t know what made me do this today but I googled “coupon lowes” because I was going to buy some plants there (Lowes is a home improvement store). Normally when you google anything with coupons you get to these weird sign up pages and loads of scary looking stuff. But today I came along this and they had a link that without hassles brought me to the Lowes website where I could print a 10$ off coupon that I totally just used. I also got a 10% off World Market foods coupon and I’m sure there’s so much more, I just had to leave work ;-). So yes, got my 10$ off coupon and bought some herbs to replace my turf herbs that looked dead (I guess they were dead…) and a plant for me and a plant for Yung and Axel whose house warming party is tomorrow.
Hope you’re all having a great weekend and hopefully the US based readers among you will get some good use out of that coupon site.
Cheers!
Sanna Sleepy
Hello Peeps!
Boy, am I tired! Have been going to bed way too late this week and of course getting up early to go to work is just a big annoyance. 😉 Last night I think it was 1:30am, Tuesday 1am, Monday 2am, Sunday 1am… you get my point. And I slept alone all these nights so it’s not like anybody kept me awake. Last night I actually went out to dinner and then to the Irish pub uptown for a beer so that at least was a good excuse to go to bed late. But hmpf… not good… need to go to bed early tonight! (Have been saying that for at least the past 5 nights… oh the busy life…)
Last week was nice with sushi with a girl I know from when I studied here and then I introduced her to my guy friends and we had a fun time uptown. She totally stole my position as favorite German 😉 and is hanging out with my friends alone now, which totally wasn’t the plan. The plan was to reconnect with someone so when the guys do their things we girls could hang out. Uhm yeah. That didn’t work out so well I guess but maybe we’ll get a cute couple out of that one and I have a female ally, so, fine.
I hung out with David a couple of times, nice pizza from Brixx one night and then we spent Sat and Sunday together, miniature golfing and chilling at my place. Kind of strange for me to spend that much time with a person you don’t really know much about. OK so I spent that much time with my guys when I got here even though I didn’t really know them much but that was different. I think we’re still trying to figure out the other person so we’ll see where that goes.
An old friend from my high school year in New Jersey 1998/1999 was in town this week and thanks to facebook we got together for coffee and a little breakfast snack at Caribou Coffee. Sooo cool to catch up with eachother’s lives and to meet Janet’s friend Bill from Roanoke, too.
Sunday after being inside with nothing to do all day I was very glad to go out to dinner with my friends at night. Mezzanotte (the brick-oven pizzeria at Providence Plaza by Cotswold in Charlotte, NC (just for the heck of people that google it)) was ohhhh so yummy and reasonably priced. Fantastic gnocchi and then we went to the movies and watched Vantage Point. Fun!
Tuesday I ventured out to Southpark Mall to find a 1 or 2 cups stove-top espresso maker after not being able to find one at the mall here near I work (all they ever have are the big 6 cups capacity) (but however I did find Anthropology and boy that was a fun place to look around at – though *cough* too expensive for my taste). So, the smallest coffee maker at Southpark makes 3 cups so I’m hoping that Massimo can bring me a small one at half price from Italy and if not then heck I’ll pay the 20$ for a 3cup maker (ok it’s not the money that I mind that much, it’s the fact that the more water it holds, the longer it takes to get coffee (geee, all this writing about coffee just shows how tired I am ;-))).
Aaaanyway, I did not get a coffee maker from surlatable but I continued my hunt for something retail therapy worthy because for some reason I was kinda blue and entered the sacred haven of Steve Madden. Found a nice pair of shoes (so cute). For some reason I still didn’t feel ueber happy though and that evil apple store magically drew me in. 2 minutes later I walked out of there with a pink iPod nano and thankfully then I did feel good enough to leave the mall with a happy face. Yay retail therapy! 😀
Stopped by at Vanessa’s for a cup of echinazea tea (yum!) on my way home.
Last night the gang plus Chadi’s brother who’s in town and I minus the date (as he felt anti-social last night) went to a somewhat traditional Japanese restaurant, Musashi, that was frequented by real Japanese. The food was great and afterwards we went to that Irish pub like I said. Fun times but man, I need to get to bed early tonight!
So yeah that’s what’s been going on with me. Hope you’re all well! :-*
Quality
Having lived in the US for a total of more than 2.5 years, most things here don’t seem strange to me anymore and what might be amazing, irritating, or weird to some newcomers has long become normal to me. However, there is one thing that keeps making me say I miss that from Germany! I’m talking about the quality of groceries. You’d think oranges and tangerines were fantastic here but the oranges at the supermarket are all kind of funky looking with white stuff over them and then they’re partly green and hmpf! The tangerines I bough had a ridiculous amount of seeds in them (think 1-3 per SLICE) and the olives in the glass were partly falling apart like a 3rd grade mushroom in Germany. My baby carrots had some weird portions (not too bad but still) and I don’t have to talk about ham and the like or chocolate, do I?
To be fair, there are some groceries here that are fantastic, like shrimps and beef and most fruits and veggies aren’t too bad. In general though I’d say the quality standards of a lot of German super markets and/or manufacturers are higher (prolly consumer driver).
But who cares about groceries when you can eat out or have TV dinner any day of the week, anyway, right?! (yuk) 😀
Now moving on to face care. Ahhhhhh! Nightmare here! Actually, not fair, it’s only really make-up remover clothes that suck. Spending almost 10$ on them compared to 2Euro in Germany you would expect them to work wonders. Uhm yeah no. Not that great. Same goes for cotton swabs. They practically fall apart here and you’ve got this huge fuzzy thing in your hand after cleaning your ears. Not good! The face cleaner I used in Ireland smells super weird here and is not 100% as effective as the one from there. Hmpf!
One thing I did find to have the same great quality as in Germany though is NIVEA Smooth Sensation Body Lotion but you know, that’s German engineering ;-).
(Just to be fair, there are a lot of items here that I find ok or great or feckin’ brilliant like make-up, my macbook, greeting cards, chex mix, scented candles, ice-cream,…)
Back in The Queen City
So after 3 months of annoyances and worrying I finally made it back to Charlotte. I’m super happy that that worked out – though I can’t quite say I’m excited. You know it’s not like the first time I went to London and was ohhing and ahhhing over Big Ben and such but it sure feels good to be back.
The day started super early at 3:30am. Yikes! Made it to the airport in Hanover at 5, which was good because the check-in lady made me repack my suitcases. So they went from 21 and 27,5kg to 23 and 25,5kg and she let them pass. Thankfully she didn’t made me weigh my carry-on; that was another 17kg (but down from 20kg the night before!!). A quick flight to Frankfurt including a 30 minute delay once we boarded and then a loooong one to Charlotte. I had the weirdest seat neighbor. Some young, blonde Swede with a huge tattoo of a half naked woman on his arm that was chewing tobacco and then… watching THE BEAUTY & THE BEAST!! Hillarious. We didn’t really talk but the movies kept me busy and eventually we landed.
I was of course again super nervous about immigrations after that last ordeal but the officer asked me one question. That’s right, one! “So is this the first time you are travelling with this visa?” He held the stamp over my passport but then hesitated for what seemed like forever while reading some more in his computer. Nervewracking! But he hit it, my passport got the stamp and “You’re all set”. Haha! Yay! I almost had a feeling this would happen after all that crap beforehand.
All my bags made it – yay! Massimo, Giorgio, and Chadi picked me up in a tiny Golf that was filled with garbage from the old intern but somehow we all squeezed in and got some food and drinks before I could convince them that I was wayyy too tired to do anything and they dropped me off at my new place. I even managed to unpack the majority of my luggage before falling into bed.
Well today I’m gonna have to go shopping. For some reason there are only 2 huge pots left – not sure what happened to the small ones and I had to throw away some dish towels because they were left in the laundry machine and were quite disgusting when I discovered them. Yuk! Whatever, SuperTarget here I come! 😀