Our time is running out...

It just hit me.

Next week is the last travel weekend.
Meaning it's the last weekend we're allowed to travel outside of Germany this semester.

Which means there are only three weekends left.

So, has anybody figured out that whole stopping time thing yet? Because I feel like it only now began to hit me how SOON I have to leave and how much I still want to do.....

Not ready to leave this place yet!

• Neuschwanstein
• Rothenburg
• Rhine River cruise
• stay overnight in a castle...
• explore more castles in general.
• Wartburg
• Speyer
• a lot of other things of which I cannot think at the moment
• explore more of Heidelberg and the surrounding area

And, sadly, I don't have enough time to do it all. And that's only the stuff in Germany! I would also like to go to Belgium (quick pit stop for waffles and chocolate? yeah, somehow that never happened...), among other places. My comfort here is the thought that someday I'll just HAVE to come back and finish my exploring :)

In the meantime, this next weekend I will be going to PRAGUE, and I'm so excited to see the land of my people (I'm a quarter Czech, the most I am of anything, so I'm just going to claim that as my history for the time being)!

And, despite the homework and reading and finals that loom on the horizon (the only reason the reading is "looming" instead of something with a more positive connotation is that it's assigned reading), I will just have to make the most of the time that I do have left. You know, stray from the Hauptstrasse and explore the shops down random alleys. Take day trips on the Strassenbahn or the bus or whatever. Laugh with friends whenever possible. Try new restaurants, but be sure to say goodbye to old favorites too. Hike Philosopher's Way (can you believe I still haven't done that?).

I'm already starting to take a more proactive effort in treasuring what little time I have left, now that I'm realizing how imminent my return to the States is. Thursday night a few friends and I went to stargaze at the castle, and we hung out on this balcony-type area (I really wish I were better at explaining this...) which has a view of the whole Altstadt. It was gorgeous; just like a fairy tale ball: the castle lit up, the navy sky with stars twinkling, the large space perfect for dancing. My friend Genesis indulged my fantasy for a bit by dancing with me, and then we all hung out, looked at the stars, and played games. It was amazing, and I hope to do it more often before I leave.

Today was great as well. I went with 6 other girls as well as our visiting faculty member's wife, Mrs. Lemley, to tea in Mannheim (a town pretty close to Heidelberg). It was SUCH a lovely experience to snack and chat with all those wonderful ladies in a pretty tea room with delicious scones, tea sandwiches, and tea. Plus, I hadn't even been to Mannheim before, which is kind of ridiculous (but I will return soon, because they have an English movie theater, and a few Hunger Games fans and I plan to go there to watch the movie together). Then after that, I went with a few others to an evangelical free service (auf Deutsch, natürlich). The service is every Sunday at 6 p.m., but this was our first time there. This guy that we met there asked us why we hadn't come before if we'd been living in Heidelberg since September. Honestly, we didn't know! But we're planning on going next week... especially since they will have a potluck dinner after the service.

All of this is the beginning of the end, and it's all rather bittersweet. Of course it's only now that we realize how much we want to do that we always thought, "Oh, I'll do it later. I have plenty of time" because now we actually don't have plenty of time.

There are good things about going home, too-- don't get me wrong-- but I'm not necessarily ready for this part of my life to be over yet. I will be happy to be home, but right now I'm not ready to leave. At least the beginning of my goodbye means that I now appreciate and take advantage of so much more that is here.

Mr. Darcy: 200 years old and still making women swoon.

This morning was a typical Moore Haus Friday morning: sleep in to a reasonable hour, mosey on downstairs for breakfast, sit around, and then stay seated when someone undoubtedly decides to put in a movie to start the day.

Today's movie of choice? Pride & Prejudice.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie 3 times already. In Moore Haus alone. And I still stayed to watch the entire thing.

As per usual, most men ran out of the room (or said "this movie's torturous!!" in passing, much to the amusement of those watching) while women flocked to the couch, touching their fluttering hearts at frequent intervals. This is only slight exaggeration here.

All of this makes me wonder, just what is it about this story that is so relevant two centuries later?
I suppose there's a few things that we love to return to time and time again: the twists and turns of love, hate turned to love, an opinionated, intelligent, and (fairly) independent female protagonist (I only say fairly independent because the times restricted the amount of independence a woman could have... however, she was definitely independent for a woman of that time). But definitely, everyone's favorite is MR. DARCY.

So, why does Mr. Darcy never fail to make women swoon?

Because he walks in the morning fog, shirt billowing open, to propose to the love of his life.

• The brooding romantic hero never goes out of style.
• Mr. Darcy is kind and generous, helping save the Bennet family from scandal by paying for Lydia and Wickham's wedding. 
• He dotes on his younger sister.
• He's rich, but doesn't let it get to his head too much-- he's willing to marry beneath his station for the sake of true love, and he doesn't lord his money/station over people (unlike his Aunt Lady Catherine...).
• Modern women long for the gentlemanly manners of eras gone by. If you doubt this, ask one.
• He is in agony/torment over the strength of his love!

 



















































































































































































































 

 

 

 

One of the best scenes ever.

•  He's quite eloquent. Exhibit A: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." This also ties in quite nicely with the whole tormented with love thing. Unfortunately this quote was not in the recent film adaptation, but oh well, c'est la vie.
  
  An equally eloquent quote which actually was in the movie (and not in the book, if I remember correctly): "My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on."What girl doesn't want to hear that from a brooding hero?
• His witty banter with Elizabeth. Nothing's better than a man who can think on his feet.

I cannot possibly name all the reasons women love Mr. Darcy, because let's face it: there are far too many. Everyone has her own "Mr. Darcy" in mind, her perfectly imperfect man who will end up with her by the last chapter. Basically, Mr. Darcy is wish fulfillment for every girl who has the patience to sit through a period piece.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure why I wrote this blog post about Mr. Darcy. Maybe because this blog is Daydreaming in Deutschland and there were several girls daydreaming about Mr. Darcy in Deutschland today? Or maybe because I will always love Pride & Prejudice in its many incarnations. It's such a subtle, beautiful, touching love story... and sometimes, that's the kind of story we all need to hear.

Some logistics here...

So, I am aware of the fact that I have a back log of things to write about....

1. My Switzerland trip to Lausanne and Gruyere
2. Our Madrid field trip
3. My trip to Istanbul over the long weekend

I'm not going to write about any of this at the moment, because I'm going to sleep very soon, but I thought I'd put this post up for two reasons:

1. To let y'all know that there is more to come
2. To remind myself/ hold myself accountable over the internet, meaning I HAVE to write these posts someday, now that I essentially told the whole world (though only a very small portion is actually listening) that I am going to. 

 Anyway, that's that.
Today's basically your typical Thursday: I got to sleep in, since I don't have class on Thursdays until 4:25. Today was slightly different, since all the humanities classes sat in for an hour of the fine arts class at 11 am, but that's still sleeping in :) And that, my friends, is a wonderful thing. Especially after a long weekend of traveling (long weekend meaning Wednesday- Sunday). After all the classes were done for the day, a whole bunch of us watched Inception and made dinner... basically, a relaxing day.

Also, in German class this week we started reading Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama ( The Boy in the Striped Pajamas). I've heard how it ends, and I'm not necessarily looking forward to reading that part, but it's pretty good so far and interesting, since it's Auschwitz (or "Aus-Wisch") from the eyes of a 9 year-old German boy. What I find kind of funny is that it's actually an English book translated into German. Luckily, though, it's pretty simple to read (probably because of the fact that it's translated). Anyways, I'm pretty excited about that. It will be my first full-length novel that I've read auf Deutsch.

That's my boring updates for now... the exciting stories shall come later :)

Major Decisions...Literally.

It's interesting to think how much can change within a year and a half. Last year, as I entered college, I was convinced that psychology was the major for me. Halfway through the first semester, I decided that it was actually too science-y and I changed it to a double major in English Literature and Creative Writing.

When I planned my classes for my year abroad, I decided to tack on a German minor since I could complete it in one year by taking two upper-division German classes per semester (which was made possible by my fabulous German teachers in high school-- thanks Frau Mueller and Frau Kaulard!).

Now, I've done it again.

See, it's that time of year again-- registration. With all this important life-planning going on around me, I figured I might as well look into my major requirements again to plan my next semester/next two years of my life. For some reason, I decided to look at the requirements for a German major as well... just for curiousity's sake. Well, it turns out that I only need 12 more units (aka 3 more classes) tacked on to my almost-completed minor (just a few more weeks now!) to make it a major. I did some calculations, figured out what I still need to do for two established major, and discovered that by some miracle I have enough room to fit a German major. Not dropping my other two. Simply adding a third. And rather comfortably, at that.

I definitely didn't see this coming when I stepped onto Pepperdine's campus in August 2010. Really, I didn't even see it coming when I came back to Heidelberg after winter break in January 2012.

Like I said, it's crazy how things change.

This whole year abroad has been ridiculous in the best of ways, and I can tell you for sure that I never would have considered that third major had I never come to Heidelberg. I probably would have patted myself on the back for sticking with a foreign language for four years in high school, labeled it all as a great experience and eventually see my German wither from disuse.

Now, I'm seeing so many possibilities opened up before me. I'm thinking maybe of translating German literature into English, because that requires both German knowledge and some creativity. Of course, that won't be my only job. I'll do that on the side while I work in a publishing house. Oh yeah, and write novels. I'm not sure how I'll have time for all this, but then again, I never would have imagined having time for 3 majors in 4 years, either. I thought two majors and a minor were going to be a tight squeeze and that maybe I was being too ambitious... guess not! God's taken care of all the details so far, so I'll trust that whatever career is in the future for me, be it 1 or 3 or 5, will fit in my life in just the way he intends.

For now, I'll just go on planning and studying (lots of that!) one semester at a time.

And on a slightly unrelated yet still somewhat connected note, I can't believe that my time abroad is now 3/4 of the way finished! I'm flying home April 10... and not sure how I feel about that. Not that there's anything wrong with home, it's just that this is such a unique time in my life (living in a foreign country with 43 peers? what?!) that I don't want it to be over too soon. So now that I realize how limited my time in Heidelberg is, I'm started to linger more on my walks to and from class, walk down streets I always thought I'd explore sometime later, browse in stores on the Hauptstrasse I ignored before, stare at the castle some more, and realize that while life in Germany may now have a "routine," it is completely out of the ordinary and something I should never take for granted-- especially now that my time here has a rapidly approaching end.

It's good to know that at least now I won't completely be leaving Germany behind when I go back to the States. 

Yay German!

It's also good to know I may run into more excuses to wear my Dirndl again.

Ireland

Ok, I know that I have been majorly slacking in regard to updating this blog... whoopsies! I get distracted a lot. Not a really good excuse... more of an explanation, I suppose.

So, I have a lot to catch you up on! My first trip of the semester (to Ireland) was amazing, to say the least. And, like the vast majority (or perhaps all?) of trips this year, plans changed, and we had to expect the unexpected.

The original plan was this: fly in to Dublin on Friday. On Saturday, make a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher. Sunday, spend the rest of the day in Dublin, then fly back to Germany. Then a little thing called the NORTHERN LIGHTS decided to show up on the internet in an article claiming that the northern lights could be seen from County Donegal, Ireland. I showed this article to Chelsea, our fearless leader, who has had pretty much a life goal to see the Northern Lights and saw this as the perfect opportunity. So, through a series of changes we finally came up with a solid plan: fly into Dublin, spend a few hours there, and then take the bus to (somewhere in) County Donegal, then from wherever we ended up, take a taxi to our hostel in Malin Head.

Things for the most part went off without a hitch. The one problem with our departure on Friday morning was that there were only two options with the bus to Frankfurt Hahn Airport: one at like 5 am and another one that would get us to the airport with only about 45 minutes to get on our plane. We decided to play it safe and get up ridiculously early (we could nap on the bus anyway, right?). Once we were in the airport we had hours to hang out until we even needed to go through security, but we had fun being our delirious, sleep-deprived selves.

We landed in Dublin at around 3 and found a pub in which to eat lunch (dinner?). There we sampled some authentic Irish food while hearing some great live music.

The group! Completely filled with awesome people.

After that we essentially spent the rest of the day on public transport making our way to Donegal (and catching up on sleep again!).

We finally reached Sandrock Hostel at about 11 at night. And you know what? The long day of travel was so worth it! Our "hostel" was really more of a cozy guest house, owned by a very sweet Irish man who stayed up late just so he could be there when we arrived. He gave us maps of the area, told us what interesting things there were to do, warned us about the dangerous tides, and even made us tea (which was ridiculously delicious, by the way).

Drinking tea in the living room of our hostel

The next day we got up relatively early and walked around the area, exploring the gorgeous Irish countryside. It was cold and windy, but none of us really minded because it was so gorgeous! We saw excessive amounts of sheep (and took excessive amounts of pictures of sheep) and explored the coastline of Ireland's northernmost point. I can't even describe what a fantastic experience this was. The beaches were covered with beautiful pebbles (we took a few...or more), and the hills were covered in long, green, squishy, soft grass. We also kind of almost got blown off of a hill into the ocean by the most powerful wind we have ever experienced. But don't worry, this was all perfectly safe! Maybe.

The beautiful, rugged, northern coastline of Ireland. Watch out for the waves. Seriously.

All the girls :)

This was higher above the water than the picture makes it look.

Giving up on movement in the face of ridiculously strong winds or sitting meditatively taking in the extreme beauty all around us. However you want to look at it.

Much frolicking ensued.

After that we got an early lunch and most of us headed back to the hostel to arrange our afternoon plans: horseback riding. Tom wasn't feeling the whole horse thing, so he said farewell to go on a solo manventure with promises to meet us at the tower at 5ish.

Horseback riding was so much fun. Unfortunately due to the weather (I wasn't kidding about the cold and the wind...), we had to have our lesson indoors instead of out in the beautiful Irish countryside. But it was a great experience regardless of what we looked at while on our horses.

Genesis with lucky. He was a big flirt with everyone. He also tried to eat her coat.

All of us in our snazzy riding gear in the stables. The funny thing on Chelsea's head is her GoPro camera :)

We had to take two separate taxi trips to the tower to meet Tom because we were using one taxi driver who had only four seats. I was in the first group (along with Genesis, Jaimy, and Emily), and once we got there we realized something: if we thought it was cold and windy before, we didn't know anything: there, at the tower (literally the northernmost point of Ireland) it was so wind thatit was hard to stand up straight! We met up with Tom and heard his adventures, but we weren't sure how long we wanted to stay at the tower.  Don't get me wrong: it was beautiful and we were still having fun. We just weren't sure how much more cold and wind our bodies could take

We took shelter from the wind in some random buildings there.

Meanwhile, the ever fearless Tom stayed outside of the random buildings and made friends with this Irish guy named James. When the second group came up in the taxi, we told them we planned to go back to the hostel soon, so if they wanted they could get out of the taxi real quick and take pictures and such. We were thinking of maybe taking two taxi trips to the hostel, but instead those of us who had been waiting ended up getting a ride home from James. I know, getting in the car with random strangers in a foreign country is rather inadvisable, but we figured it was okay: we were in small-town Ireland (so small that James' family had been living there for over 200 years, and he knew the owner of our hostel (whom our taxi driver also knew)). Plus, the Irish people we'd encountered so far were all incredibly nice (seriously, I think that as a whole the Irish are the nicest people I've encountered in my travels thus far) and we figured we could trust him.

So anyway, we hopped in the car with James and started talking to him. He mentioned that some lambs had recently been born on his farm and when we city-slickers were overcome with excitement, he asked us if we wanted to go see them. So we said YES. He turned around right there in the middle of the road (not like anyone was on it anyway) and took us to his farm, where we got to bottle feed and hold a week old lamb. Then he even showed us his day-old lamb!

The week-old lamb!

So fluffy!

The day old lamb! Inside an unoccupied, super old farmhouse that belongs to James' family.

So precious! Also, the lamb's not dirty. That's just its coloring.

The neighborhood dog Scooby tagged along. Even the dogs in the Irish countryside are super nice and friendly!

We had been looking at sheep for about an hour (maybe even an hour and a half?) by the time we decided it was probably time to go home-- after all, none of us have cell phones, so we hadn 't been able to tell the other half of our group about our spontaneous change of plans, and they'd been back at the hostel for who knows how long wondering where we had gone with this James they had never met.

When we finally got back, we found that only half of the other group had been waiting up, worried. While Chelsea and Edith had visions of us getting human centipeded (Edith's words), Josh and Ben were sitting in the living room playing connect four, wearing war paint (aka coal used for the stove/furnace thing). They weren't worried about us since they though (in their words) we were adults who could take care of ourselves (even if James had wanted to murder us, it would have been five against 1), while Edith and Chelsea had rather sensibly been wondering, "Who on earth is James?!?!?!?" and understandably doubting whether he could be trusted.

After all was explained, we settled down, made spaghetti, and played zoo (one of Chelsea's favorite travel games. We played it in Croatia, too. To those of you at home, I'll have to explain in person). We even got our new hostel-mates, some Irish guys, to join in the game too, although they were thoroughly confused and probably scared by our weirdness.

All in all, the trip was an absolutely incredible experience. We never did get to see the northern lights (both nights were too cloudy), but it was all worth it anyway. Our crazy quest to see the natural phenomenon led us to the most random Irish town, far away from all the usual tourist attractions, straight to the reality of what life in Ireland is really like. It was both low-key and an adventure, and most certainly a weekend I will never forget with some of my favorite people.

Ireland, I hope to see you again sometime. Maybe soon :)

Home Sweet Home

As I write this, I'm sitting on my couch... in CALIFORNIA! This is my 3rd day back home, and it's kind of... crazy. I don't know what to do with myself! Don't get me wrong; I'm excited to be home. Catching up with friends and family I haven't seen in 4 months is great and well worth the ridiculously long travel day it took to get here.

This picture is completely unrelated. Unless you count the fact that it's a picture I took of a rose in my backyard...

However, being back in the States is definitely surreal... kind of like, what was real? Heidelberg, or life before? Obviously they both were, but so much of it feels like a dream. It was a bit disorienting at first... or maybe that was just the jet lag? Speaking of jet lag, that definitely caught up with us last night... my parents and I were sitting in the living room relaxing and watching TV, and next thing you know, I couldn't keep my eyes open. At 7:30 pm! So i fell asleep at 7:30, and my parents fell asleep around 8. Of course we got up later to go to our actual beds, so it's not like I slept straight from 7:30 to 8 this morning... but almost! It's kind of ridiculous, but it felt so nice!

The pros of being home:

• Seeing family and friends 
• Getting to hang with my dogs again
• Guacamole!
• Free refills!
• Free water!
• Free restrooms!
• "Oh there's no place like home for the holidays..."
• I get to choose from all the clothes in my closet, rather than just the select few I brought to Germany with me
• I get to drive (I missed you, Chip!)
• Free time to read

The cons of being home:

• Not that much of an opportunity to practice my German.
• Living with 4 other people is A LOT different than living with 45 other people. You think this would be a good thing, but I miss being able to go down the hall or down the stairs and find just about any one of my friends to talk to. Now I have to plan and drive (so lazy, I know).
• On that note, I MISS EVERYONE IN MOORE HAUS!

So, I guess this is what it's like when you have two homes: you can't be in one without missing the other. With that in mind, I'm going to make the most of my time in each place. I look forward to all the amazingly fun times I'll have with my wonderful friends here, making up for the lost time of the past 4 months and the next 4 after that. However, I will be so excited to return to Heidelberg and all the lovelies back there, too!

Perfekt? Das macht nichts.

Here's what I've discovered: when it comes to writing, I'm a perfectionist.

This is not a good thing.

Let  me explain. If you read any writing blog, book, pamphlet, what have you, or attend any creative writing course, they will tell you that the number one stumbling block of any writer is PERFECTIONISM. Because if you're perfectionistic (just made up that word) with your writing, you'll get frustrated by your perceived insufficiencies (did I make that up too? Mozilla Firefox is underlining that one as well. I thought it existed, but if it doesn't I'm still going to use it because I like it) and most likely give up, not letting your work live up to its full potential.

Tonight I was taking a break from studying for finals and showing my friend Genesis some of the things in creative writing I wrote last year. Since they actually had to be turned in and graded, these are probably the only things (besides poems) that I have seen through to completion. Not because I necessarily wanted to, or because I had confidence in where they were going, but because I HAD TO fight through my natural writerly perfectionism and write whether or not I felt "inspired" to do so. And you know what? It turned out WELL, if I do say so myself. I mean, not to pat my own back or anything. That's not exactly what I mean. Basically, if I am pleased with or proud of any of my works of fiction, it would be those which I had to see through to completion.

The interesting thing about that? I had NO IDEA where I was going with those stories when I wrote them. Maybe an opening scene, an image, not much more. Characters emerged, as well as some semblance of a plot, and while I wasn't confident about any of it at the time, after looking at it with the distance of several months I see that it was worth it, that the only way I am pleased with my work is if I just roll with it. Forget perfectionism-- it only holds you back.

So where am I going with this? Well, two places, I guess.

One: I need to write on this blog more. Even if I think it's not that great of an entry, I should just publish it anyway, in case maybe it will be useful to someone. It doesn't matter if I didn't do anything "exciting" like jet off to another country. Sometimes the beauty of one moment is enough excitement for a whole day, and I should feel free to share that with others.

 Two: If I may make a cheesy comparison, I would say that life is a lot like writing fiction. If you're an author like me who doesn't outline and just rolls with the story... well, that's life. We don't really know where we're going, who exactly we are (or will become) as characters, and sometimes we don't even know where we want our story to go. But if we let our perfectionist tendencies keep us from moving forward, from making the next chapter exciting, then we're not doing much of living. Of course we should try our gosh darn hardest to write with nice pretty metaphors and good character development and all that jazz. But we can't constantly look back on the few paragraphs we've already written and get all nitpicky about word choice. Does that make sense? I don't know if that translates outside of my brain, but I think I'll publish it anyway, since I'm doing away with this whole perfectionism thing. Because even if your writing's not perfect, at least your story is getting written and improving. And who knows? While it may not sound good at the time, maybe when you look back at it from the distance of time, you'll realize it wasn't so bad after all.

Sorry for the ridiculously cheesy life analogies. I promise I'm done with this for now :)