I’m back in cold old Germany – brrrrrrrr!
All that late night partying in Charlotte (the last one with home made pizza – yum!) made me really tired so when I got on the plane I was actually able to sleep! My seat neighbor and I drowned some gin-tonic and then my melantonin kicked in and I fell asleep around 8pm. I woke up a couple of times but was able to go back to sleep and I was shocked when they turned on the lights and served breakfast at 1am Eastern time – an hour before landing! Seriously, that flight must have gone by the fastest ever. I was so happy. Our purser was also super nice – actually so nice that I had to fill out a comment card about how great the service was.
Then another short flight from Munich up to Hanover and surprise surprise one of my best friends, Marc, picked me up from the airport! Yay! We then had some brunch at my parents and after taking a nap my other friend Jens came over to hear all the news and play video games with me. Why he insisted on coming over the first night I was back – I don’t know… Oh I guess he just wanted to get the manbag that I had to bring over for him.
Anyway, I had my check-up for my lungs today and good news, she typed in “lungs are now” in her little report. Yay! I’m down to one dose of cortisol for another month now and thereafter I only have to take it if I feel like I need it. Woot!
Well, I’m off to find a scanner to scan my old visa documents. The faster I get my visa the better; my Mom has already started to treat me like a slave again with making me cook and taxiing around my sister. Ah the joys….
But good news, I’m going to Italy for three days in 2.5 weeks so that should be nice.
Byebye Oma Auguste
Yay first time that I got to go online from home this week… our neighbor’s unsecured wireless signal is really NOT strong… It works for my roommate’s new macbook but my crappy old Microsoft wireless card is not digesting it well.
Overall this week was really nice but it was overshadowed by my paternal grand-ma’s passing over. After three weeks in hospital (which I didn’t know she was because my dad tends to not tell me things like that….) she died early this week. Good timing I dare say as at least that way I’ll get to go to her funeral when I’m back in Germany. I’m sad she’s gone and I feel horrible for my dad – I’m basically his only close family left – but I think my grandma is happy that she’s passed over to the other side and in her believes close to her daughter again. So not too much mourning, I think she’s had a great life and made the most of it and that’s the most important thing. Unfortunately death is part of life as much as birth and I think after 79 years it’s alright to die. But still… 🙁
Other than that, I’ve been busy socialising with a birthday party, bar time during the week, chilling with the neighbors, visiting old time friends in their house and BBQing, pool time and then today my German friend Siggie and his family invited me to go out to the lake with their boat. Of course today is the first day that the sun is not shining. Oh the irony. Though it might actually be nicer that way and definitely better for my skin ;). We’ve had temperatures from 90-105F every day that I’ve been here. I thought the pilot was kidding when he said “welcome to Charlotte, the temperature is 46°C” uhm no and that wasn’t even the hottest day…
Well, time has definitely flown by these past 2.5 weeks and I can’t believe I’m back on the plane on Wednesday night. Wow! I’m just hoping the visa process will go smoothly and semi-quickly cause even though I’ve been super busy every day there’s still so much I wanna do.
Anyways, hope you’re all doing alright, I havn’t really had the chance to read many blogs lately….
Good News!
Good news, I found a spot in the house with an unprotected wireless connection. Finally!! It worked the first night but never thereafter.
Anyways, I’m having a goog time here in Charlotte. The house is nice and my roomie is nice, too. I got myself an internship *wooohoooooo* (but only 6 vacation days a year!!! >:-( never heard of anything that low before….) so now the next hurdle is to get another J1 visa. Keep your fingers crossed! 🙂
Other than that, I’ve been having fun every day so far with meeting new people and old friends and drinking lots of American beer and sweet tea. So this weekend I’m gonna take it easy – everybody is out of town anyways – so yeah might be a bit boring but the other option would have been to go to Charleston with my roomie and her boyfriend and I didn’t wanna disturb the little time they have together here nor can I hang out at the beach all day like they plan to (hello northern European skin) and I’ve seen Charleston and wasn’t quite sure about the money and didn’t wanna hang out with the other guy that is driving down with them as he was hitting on me last weekend and he’s totally not my type. So there, I’ll have a good, relaxing weekend here and I think I’ll get some sushi from Harris Teeter now and eat. Yum! 🙂
Made It!
A very stressful day today. Got up at 5 after not having slept much that night anyways and my Mom drove me to the airport. Had a lovely flight to Munich and then another ok flight to Charlotte. So far so good (except for that hotdog in air, that was pretty disgusting). The pilot announced 39°C here and I was getting ready to enjoy the heat. After queing at immigrations for 1.5 hours and talking to the officer there I got a blue tag and a “pick up your luggage and see the officer” and then got to sit in the interrogation area. I was already seeing myself on another 9.5 hours flight the other way around. Damn! Got lucky though and got to enter the country. Phew! But geeeeeez, never again will I fly directly into Charlotte.
Thankfully my friend was still there to pick me up and we drove to the house. Nice place and after going grocery shopping and hanging out with their neighbors I’m now gonna take a shower and then sleeeep (hopefully).
OK this post doesn’t even describe how stressed out I was at immigrations but I don’t feel like elaborating right now. I guess they just didn’t like that I had had that many visas and was applying for jobs in Germany. But they were nice and they treated me with respect and in the end I got my stamp in the passport so I guess all is well.
Wish me luck for tomorrow!