I said I was gonna go shopping and so I did. Thankfully my company gave me a car that I can use until I find my own so I drove to SuperTarget and spent around 200$. Yikes! Well, you know how hard it is in the beginning to stock up on basic groceries and then I needed a few things like a water filter, a kettle, a small pot (because there were only 2 huge pots left in the house – not sure where the others went….), two fleece blankets, a large trash can, soap and all that stuff, candles……. yeah. Afterwards I was exhausted. Too much walking around trying to find everything.
I almost fell asleep on the sofa watching college football – ’cause that’s really the only TV channel that I get not too fuzzy right now but thankfully Giorgio and Chadi then showed up and we went uptown to eat pizza and coffee. Funny story, the owner of the coffee place actually remembered me from two years ago when I was at his other restaurant with some friends. Talk about good memory (though I keep thinking about whether or not I left such an embarrasing impression that I burned into his memory….).
Went to a party in south Charlotte then. It was supposed to be a World Party but it was more like a Latin music party with a belly dancer. They had Caipi though so that was great. Got home around 2am and went straight to bed. Aparently my body has arrived here but my inner clock is still back in Europe. You’d think after not much sleep on the day I flew in and then 6 hours the night after, I’d sleep in but noooo. I woke up at 5am. 3 hours of sleep – great. Yeah I didn’t think I’d be any good at work tomorrow so after tossing and turning for half an hour or so I took some melantonin. It took forever to work but I finally fell back asleep (yay drugs!) and stayed like that until 11. Oh bliss!
Organized my bathroom and walk-in closet today (yay), got some more groceries and sushi from Harris Teeter, looked at pre-paid cell phone deals (complicated is an understatement…) and later on it’s prolly a movie with the gang or I don’t know. Keeping busy anyway. 🙂
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! 😀
Packing
One more night in my bed and then I’m off for a year. I started packing last night and was super happy to learn that I can use my pretty big trolley as a carry-on. It fits US Airways’s baggage rules perfectly. I already have my pants, t-shirts, long sleave shirts, my blouses and cardigans packed up in one suitcase and I still have some space there! So now basically it’s only my skirts, underwear, PJs, jackets, shoes and purses left. Well and some non-clothes items… But I’m actually confident that everything will fit somehow. 🙂
Happy 10.000th Visitor!
Wow unbelievable, some time while I was cruising around Berlin on official business (aka getting my visa form completed) this little blog here had its 10000th visitor! Congrats anonymous person from Braunschweig who works at Kroschke. Surfing during work, huh? Well thanks everyone for always stopping by and reading my musings – I’m sure it’s not always fun 😉