I'm Late For EVERYTHING

I know, I know, I'm late--what else is new? BUT! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! I hope everyone back home Stateside had a wonderful Christmas! I had my very first German Christmas (Weihnachten) and it was great :) Once again, Kai and Lisa are too nice to me and got me a few little gifts, and then even an awesome speaker for my iPod--and they loved the gifts that I got them as well, even though my most brilliant plan of the Krümel Kalendar won't be finished until the 1st, (so I just printed off the 12 months pictures and gave them to them as a sneak peek).
Christmas Eve, I met Bertus and some of his friends out at the bars in Bonn (I have been here 2 months as of today and this was the first time I have gone out in Bonn.. instead of making the hike to Köln. Retarded.) at around midnight or so. They were all really nice, and as everyone drank more and more, they begun all speaking only English, and I begun speaking only my perfect German, naturally. I'll admit, I ended up getting really drunk, and I blame it solely on the fact that I at one point became best friends with the bartender that would then make me all kinds of drinks, and the fact I did a shot of Tequilla with someone also didn't help my cause. NOTE TO SELF: Never drink Tequilla ever again. It only makes you act like an asshole (continue reading for example). We finally left the bar at around 5 or so (I think?) and got in a cab. Kai had told me that because it was Christmas, the trains wouldn't be running again until noon or so the next day, and because he wasn't going to really want to come pick me up at 5am, my best bet was to crash on Bertus' white couch. So I did. Now, I told you that tequilla makes you act like an asshole.. and it does. Apparently, I decided that the cab driver was an idiot and started yelling at him and calling him stupid/dumb the whole ride home. For no reason what-so-ever. Oops. Hopefully he didn't speak English and didn't know what I was saying... I slept FOREVER the next day because Germany has the most amazing invention ever invented in all of human history: Rolläden. (look it up, and be amazed). Basically, they keep out ALL light so you can have your own little crypt and sleep forever. They're so awesome. I don't know where in the world I will be living in 10 years, but one thing is a fact, and that is that I am SOOO having these installed in my house. I love them.
The day after Christmas, (Saturday the 26th), Kai, Lisa, Johanna, Emilian and I all went to Lisa's mother's house to have a little get together with her family. It was so cute. Her uncles and aunts, and grandparents and cousins and everyone was there. They were all just so cute, I wanted to die :) They reminded me a lot of my family--who I miss A LOT, especially during the holidays.. but there's always next year! Lisa's grandfather might have been the cutest old man I have ever seen. Although, most of the time, I was to busy thinking of funny things that I had seen/heard and would start laughing to myself (the wine didn't help). Pretty sure a lot of the people there thought that I was either A, retarded B, really immature or C, both. But whatever, I couldn't help it. Some things are just too funny. And so sue me, I like to laugh ;) At one point, Bertus told me later that one of his uncles interpreted my laughing as flirting with Felix--Lisa's 16 (yeah, I said SIXTEEN) year old brother. Yeah, the guy sure did crack the case! Wrong. But all in all I had a really nice time, and I was really excited to meet everyone in Lisa's family :)
So that was my first German Christmas experience. I can't believe New Year's Eve is in 3 days! That's so crazy!!! Again, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas back home, and have an awesome New Year's!!! (And remember to drink some Champagne at 6pm on the 31st also to be celebrating the New Year with me here in Germany--and I'm going to make sure to drink some at 6am to be celebrating at the same time as most of you back home!) Miss and Love you all every day! xoxox Megs

OH NO! IT'S HAPPENING!

OH GOD. I AM BECOMING EURO. After looking through my iPod with the music that I have been listening to a lot in the past week or so.. it's official. I'm becoming a European I think. Ugh. What is happening to me?! I've only been here for almost 2 months (what???!!) and the seed has apparently already been planted. Oh WTF. Oh well.

So I don't really have much to talk about today (other than my discovery of how I am listening to a bunch of EuroTrash music, and I can't lie, I can't get enough of it! hahaha.. Oh God.. New Low.) Anyway, I did want to post a few of the pictures I made for "die Krümel Kalendar" that I plan on giving to Kai and Lisa. Hahaha.. don't act like you're not impressed. Alright, I'll post again soon most likely. I think I might be going out to the bars in Bonn with Bertus, (Lisa's 22 year old younger brother) on Christmas Eve.. sooo.. yes! Haha. Post soon. Happy Holidays everyone. Ich Vermisse und Liebe dich alles :) xoxo Megs

What a Bunch of Liars

So as I have said on here before, I have been told numerous times that this region of Germany doesn't really ever get snow. Well what a bunch of liars! I woke up with a fresh blanket of snow yesterday (Saturday) Yay :) It's still nothing compared to what we get back home, but hey it's something so I'm happy.

Today is Sunday, which means another week has gone by. I really can't believe how fast it's already going. I am going on my 8th week here in Deutschland. Crazy. Christmas is also in 5 days!! WHAT?! Maybe I should get on the whole buying gifts thing.. I have NO clue what I am going to get Kai or Johanna. For Lisa, I am making a calendar out of a picture of Emilian. It's really silly, but I think its hilarious and cute, and I think she'll like it. I'm taking one picture (the one I posted of him on here last week..) and I'm using 'paint' to draw on him for the different months. Its pretty funny. So I have Lisa covered, but no clue as for Kai and Johanna. Hmm..

On Friday I didn't really do to much after 'work' other than read some more of my new book (it's called Pope Joan--it's a Historical Fiction book about a girl in the Dark Ages who pretends to be a man and becomes the pope.. it's pretty good and I would recommend it), watched Interview with the Vampire (awesome) and then went to bed. Exciting, huh? Yesterday, at around noon I decided to go into Bonn and do some shopping. I was hoping that I would find something for Kai or Johanna, but nothing. However, I did find something for myself :) I usually feel guilty when I spend money on myself--especially since it's Christmas time, but I needed a new winter coat since I didn't really have room in my suitcase to bring mine. I had been looking for awhile and could never find one that I truly loved. I also couldn't decide if I wanted to buy just like a cheap one from H&M or something that wouldn't last long, or if I wanted to spend the money on a really nice one. Well, I finally found one that I fell in love with--and it definitely cost me a pretty penny. It was 199.00 Euro. Yeah, I definitely dropped €200 (which is about 286 dollars American) on a jacket, but it's so beautiful, I love it, so I won't make myself feel bad for buying it. It's black, made in Italy, and made of "virgin wool" and cashmere. Ahh.. its gorgeous, I'm really excited about it :) After finding my new jacket I walked around Bonn some more hoping that I would see something to get for my family. Nichts. I spent around 4 hours in Bonn, had a cup of Glühwein, and then decided to head home. Before I left, I stopped to into the grocery store to buy a bottle of wine to give to Nachi for his "flat-warming" party that night. I was looking through the vast wine section, and decided it best to give a good American wine :) I asked the man working there where the section of California wines were, found a nice one and bought it. I got home around 5 or so, and just relaxed in my room for a bit before I had to take a shower and start getting ready for the night.

So last night, Nachi, my Indian friend that I met at TNDC, invited me to his new apartment in Köln for a little "flat-warming" get together and then we would all go out to the bars. With Pat back in the US for the holidays, I told Nachi he is now responsible for giving me something to do on the weekends :P There were 2 German guys there, a couple from Russia, a girl from Peru, a guy from Ukraine, a girl from Kazakhstan (who is constantly getting Borat jokes thrown her way) and 2 girls from Armenia. We all drank some Kölsch and wine at his new place, which is in an awesome location off of Freisenplatz--pretty much in the heart of Köln's bar/club scene. After, we went to Bar Cologne--which was the same place I had been the weekend before with Pat and Blake and the others. After having a few beers there, and a few shots of Jager, it was time to find another bar. By the time we found the next one we wanted to go to, everyone douched out and decided they wanted to go home. So it was just Nachi and I. He at one point said that he was impressed because I was 'out-drinking' him. I told him I went to WVU, so he should get used to being drank under the table ;) I think we finally left the bar at around 3 or so. The next train to Widdig--the tiny village I currently live in--wasn't scheduled to come until 5 or so. Being drunk and tired, that did not sound like fun. Nachi offered his couch to me, and I gladly accepted. We stopped at the PACKED Burger King that was right around the corner from his apartment to grab a 1 euro cheeseburger. I told him while standing in line (seriously, there were like 80 people in there--haha drunk people and their cheeseburgers..) that I didn't think this was a good idea because of my fear of BK. He thinks I'm nuts, like most people do when I tell them of my fear of Burger King (mostly because of the wrappers.. okay I know its weird, but I dunno.. its something about them...). We finally went back to his apartment and I crashed until about 10 or so when I woke up to make my journey home.

And here is where the story gets interesting.

So I headed for the U-Bahn, which is nothing special, it's how I always get from Bonn to Köln, and I pretty much know my way around now. So I was waiting for my number 16 to show, and I am not kidding--yes, I understand it's cold out, but people were looking at me like they had never seen legs before. I was wearing my dress from the night before (classy) with my coat and Uggs, but apparently this is CRAZINESS here in Germany, because I couldn't help but just laugh at everyone when they looked at me. Retarded. Anyway, at one point while I was waiting listening to my iPod, this man came and, like everyone else, looked at me like I had 8 legs, and then stood next to me. When my train came I boarded and oh what a surprise, the same creepy guy sat right across from me. And oh cool, he wants to chat. Usually, I am all for talking, but not particularily when I'm hungover and tired as hell. And especially not to creepy old men that are looking at me like they want to date me up. So he starts asking me if I am cold because of my legs. I told him no, and that where I come from it's colder. He asked me how old I was and shit like that. I answered politely but made it--what I thought--to be pretty apparent that I didn't feel like talking. But ohhhh, that doesn't work here. Apparently someone sitting in silence on a train looking out the window with earphones in their ears = I would love to have a conversation with you. He started saying something that I didn't really understand. I understood when he asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I was dumb enough to answer truthfully and say 'nein'. Dumb. Move. He told me I had pretty eyes and said he thought I was beautiful (note: he also thought I was from Scandinavia. Uhh, really?) Eew. The whole experience creeped/grossed me out. And lucky for me the guy was going to a small town south of Bonn, so yippee! he rode with me the whole time. Ugh. Finally it was my stop and before I got up to leave he told me that I was "very beautiful" and then gave me a high five. Hahahaha, I will admit, that part was funny. I mean, a high five? Whatever. It was creepy.

I finally made it home and crawled back into bed, watched Team America (fuck yeah! Comin' along to save the mother-fucking day yeah!) and slept for about another hour and a half. Just another exciting day in the life of Megan living in der VaterLand! xoxo ..and oh happy day! The SlingBox is back in business! And just in time for Bowl Season :D

R..U..D..E

Okay, so the "RUDE" from the title of this post is aimed toward the SlingBox that Travis got for me like a month ago. Probably for a good 2 weeks now maybe? It hasn't been working. SOOO that means, I haven't been able to keep up with any American sports. I goto espn.com regularly for the scores. But still. boooooo.
Aside from that, everything has been good. This past Friday I didn't really do much after getting "off" from "work". I seriously am sitting here trying to tell you what I did.. but I have no idea. I honestly can't remember. Hmm.. (and no, alcohol is NOT the reason for my bad memory mother). So Saturday, Lisa, Kai, Johanna and the little crumb and I all went into Bad Godesburg (small town just south of Bonn) for our "chocolate fondue" day. I am not even joking when I say that I feel like all I eat here is chocolate. Anyway, we went to that and it was nice. We had a small emergency when Emilian decided to be cool and just shit his brains out. Hahaha being a baby most be hilarious, like I'm sure he was acutally thinking in his head at the time "hmm.. this could be entertaining" and then just starting crapping his pants. Hhahaahha, is anyone else laughing as hard as I am right now after re-reading that? ahahaah. Whatever. Luckily he was able to be cleaned up, and Lisa had to run to the H&M across the street to buy a new pair of baby pants for him--it was the ONE time Lisa didn't have extra of everything in her bag, she couldn't believe it. Lesson Learned.
Saturday, I had decided that I would cook Lasagna on Sunday night, so we went to the store to try and get everything I would need. Again, it was quite the adventure trying to find everything--my list had all kinds of math and converstions all over it as I had to change everything from cups/ounces to ml and from lbs. to grams. It was really fun, let me tell you ;) While shopping, around 6:30 or so, I received a text from Pat (the other American guy I know, and pretty much my only friend here at this point..) asking if I had any "plans tonight?" I texted him back with "Plans? Is that some sort of sick joke?!" He told me that he was going out with a few other friends and I was more than welcome to come if I wanted. I decided I definitely wanted to go out, so when I came home from grocery shopping I started to get ready. I met him and Blake (a guy from Denver that I had met once before) in Köln at around 10ish or so. We walked to another bar where we met up with a few of their girl friends they knew. One of the girls, Sandra--who is British--had 2 of her friends from England there visiting. Uhh.. let me tell you.. they were HAMMERED. Apparently they had all been at the ChristmasMarkets starting at around 1 or so and had been drinking the traditional drink of the Markets: Glühwein. So yeah, shitfaced. The other girl was French, named Helen, and she was really sweet. There was another girl there, named Julia who was German and she had her guy friend, Jonathan, (also German, but also kind of Norwegian considering he spent all of his teen years in Norway? I guess? Maybe?) there as well. All in all it was a really nice and fun group of people :) There had been some sort of drama at the table with Jonathan and one of the hammered Brits, but I was kinda out of the loop and didn't understand why she was pissed off (I think she just had a case of the 'Jill Lookabaugh', where she got wasted and then got angy...) but who knows. The 2 Brits that were visiting (and piss drunk) went home and the rest of us walked to another nearby club. On the way there I was trying to figure out what the hell had happened with the "drama" at the table, and Jonathan explained it as one of the girls was just showing "proper bitch behavior". Haha I laughed for awhile at that comment. I mean, what is Proper Bitch Behavior?! Hmm.. I dunno, but I'm gonna try it out sometime. We all went to the club drank more and danced to some EuroDance mixes (I swear, they eat shit like that up, the sterotypes are real! haha). We didn't stay out nearly as late as we did the other time I had gone out with Pat--we left the bar at around 2:40ish.
Sunday was "Lasagna day". That is, after I pretty much slept all day. When I finally decided to stop being a complete waste of life, I got up and headed downstairs to start getting everything ready for Johanna and I to cook (we decided that about twice a month--weekends when Johanna was with us--I would cook and help to teach Johanna). Once again, and I'm not trying to brag (well, maybe I am) but my lasagna turned out bangin'. It was soo good :) After dinner I reported up to my room to my laptop to catch the scores of the Bengals/Vikings game. (Again, no SlingBox to watch it on.. grrr) Fortunately for me, I had left my cell phone down-chun (if you know my language from when I was little, you know what that means) in the living room so I didn't get Pat's rude texts/call (he's a Vikings fan).

Hmm.. Okay.. I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch of info, but I'm not going to lie, I'm kinda over typing right now, so I'm gonna go. But that was in a nutshell, my nice little weekend :) Post again soon, Tscüss xoxo Megan
PS-The way I just dead-ended this post.. haha.. I mean, great ending? Or greatest EVER?!?!

Krümel

Two posts in one day?! Do you think you can handle it?! As soon as I got this picture I had to post it.. so hence the double postings for the day. How freaking cute is he?! Oh my god.. way too cute I want to die.

TNDC

Last night--Thursday, December 10th--I went to my first 'Thursday Night Drink Club' get-together in Köln. Every week starting at around 8 or so, a group of "ex-pats" gets together to share some beers and just talk in English at an Irish Pub in AlterMarkt. The group was originally just a few Americans, Brits and Aussies living in the area, but over the last few years its grown to a much larger group of people from all over the world. I decided to check it out for the first time, and it turned out to be a lot of fun, but at the same time quite a surreal experience. I didn't arrive until about 8:45ish and there was barely anyone in the place. After having a mini-panic attack thinking that there was no one there, I found a small group of about 5 people sitting at a long table in the back. First things first, I walked to the bar ordered a Kölsch, and then a little apprehensively walked over to the table. As I approached most of them kind of stopped their conversations to look at me. I just asked "Is this the English table?" and immediately everyone smiled and welcomed me. We went around the table with introductions; there were 2 girls and a guy from England, a German girl, a guy from India and a fellow American from Kansas City, Missouri. They all were really nice and I had a lot of fun talking to a few of them. As the night went on, more and more people started to arrive. Eventually there would be 2 more Americans (a guy from Dallas and a guy from Brooklyn), a Frenchman, an Aussie, a girl from Greece, 4 Italians, a hilarious guy from Malaysia, a Pakistani and a few others that at the moment I forget where they were from. It was crazy to be in this setting--especially because it was, sigh, Karoke Night. I was talking with the guy from India for awhile. He was really nice and pretty funny. At one point the Pakistani guy sat next to him and introduced himself. After telling me his name and where he was from, the guy from India looked up at me and said "Look! An Indian and a Pakistani sitting next to each other and we're not even fighting!". It made me laugh. Even though I was "new" to the group, they all made me feel as if I had known them all for years--it was a lot of fun. Robert from England asked me at one point what I was going to sing. I pointed to my pint of Guiness and told him nothing unless I had about 4 more. He just laughed. At one point later in the night when the bar was pretty crowded a group of 3 locals went up to sing. The song started and I immediately realized I knew it. I started to sing a long at the table and everyone stopped to look at me--the song is all in German. I was immediately asked by a number of people "How in the hell do you know the words?". I just laughed and kept singing. At the end of the song, I stood up and said "whoa, I just blackedout, what happened?" and everyone--luckily--understood my humor and started laughing. It was a nice feeling to have back again :)
I had a lot of fun and definitely plan on going more. Clayton, the guy from Dallas is also planning to go to the DMB concert in February so its nice to know I will have someone to go with. I'm also tryin' to get him and another guy I met last night to go to Jam in the Dam with me in March.. but I have some time to convince them ;)
That's all I have for now--time to go on my daily walk with Emilian. Will write again soon! Hope all is well Stateside--I miss and LOVE you all :) xoxo Megan

..Oh and check out the AMAZING pic I took of the Dom last night when I was walking to the U-Bahn station to go home--I swear that thing will never cease to take my breath away.

This is for Carissa Jaillet and Allison Baisey

Alright, because these two made it apparent on my Facebook page that they wanted a new post. Here it is. I'm not going to lie, I am still surprised every time I find out people actually read this thing :) Anyway, I don't have much to report on, so I think I'll just share a funny/weirdo story that happened a few weeks ago. (Speaking of weeks.. as of tomorrow (Wednesday the 9th), I will have been here for 6 weeks. WTF. Where has the time gone?! I can't believe I've been here for that long already! Nuts! Anyway, moving right along..) Okay. So a few weeks ago when I went to Stuttgart and Esslingen to visit Naemi, the strangest thing happened along the way. So I was waiting for the train in Koblenz and just sitting on a bench minding my own business when a guy about my age or so sat down next to me. No big deal. People sit down to wait for trains. Nothing strange there. Anyhow, at one point, I'm sitting there minding my own business like I said, reading my book, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the guy that sat down is taking pictures of himself with his phone. So I immediately start thinking to myself "wow, what a douchebag. Who takes pictures of themselves?! You're soooo cool guy. Idiot". I decided to turn my head slightly to get a quick glance at him--and I am not kidding here--I turn and this guy is sitting there like NOTHING is out of the ordinary wearing those glasses that have the like, slinky eyes on them. WTF. Umm they still make those?! I thought those things were like an urban legend or something. And you're telling me that not only are they still being manufactured somewhere in the world, but this guy actually bought a pair?! Like he woke up one morning, and was like "man, I really need to find me a pair of some slinky eye glasses." I seriously could not hold it in, it was the weirdest thing ever, so I turned to the other side and just started straight-up, out-loud laughing. Obviously the guy had to know I was laughing at him--and not in the good way. Then, again without even cracking a smile to indicate that this is clearly somesort of joke, the guy takes off the glasses, folds them nicely and then slides them into his bag. Ummmm... so you're saying that you just carry slinky eye glasses around with you at all times?! Uhhh??? Seroiusly.. Germans are so weird and I love it. I am not even kidding, it was one of the most random/awkward moments I have ever experienced. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. This is a straight up real life. My life. I don't know how, but this is the life I lead. Well.. that's all I got for now. Although this Thursday I'm planning to go into Köln for this "Thursday Night Drink Club" that is for native English speakers living in the area--mostly Brits and Aussies so I've heard. But it's also karoke night I guess, so I mean.. they have to meet the real Megan Osgood sooner or later--might as well be sooner. Hope that brightened your day.. now get back to studying! Good Luck on finals girls and have an awesome break!!! :) xoxo

I Love College Football

Today is Sunday, December the 6th (can't believe I'm going on my 6th week here! Crazy!). which means that yesterday was another College Football Saturday. Whoa. I don't think yesterday could have gone any better. WVU wins, Pittsburgh loses, Florida loses (and Tebow cries)... man, if only I was able to actually have watched them! :( The SlingBox my brother got still isn't working, so I was unable to watch any of the games. But luckily, Jill was able to keep me updated along with ESPN.com. Awesome. I seriously miss college football. On another note, nothing too exciting has happened since last week. Although I did meet up with a girl named Rachel on Wednesday night. She's originally from Seattle, and just moved here with her husband who was transferred for his job. She was really nice and easy to talk to. This morning I woke up and immediately started cleaning/re-organizing my room. I originally wasn't going to unpack everything while we were still in this house (most of you know how the actual house of Kai and Lisa is being renovated and having new flooring installed--so we've been living in a different house since I've been here). The original plan was to be back in the other house by the end of November or so--or at least by Christmas. Kai and Lisa made the decision that it would be too stressful to try and move everything back into the other house before Christmas because it will not be finished until the end of this week or so, so we are going to stay here. Sooo.. I decided to settle in a little more. Going through my things, I found a stack of postcards I have already filled out for a number of people--but my mom has yet to send me the addresses for everyone. (I've asked, ohhh about 9 times..) I got to Skype with Hadley back in Morgantown on Friday for about an hour and its always really nice talking to people from home--although I got mad jealous when she said she was going to be going to Back Door happy hour with a bunch of people later that day ;) This week I plan on going into Bonn at some point to do some shopping at the "Weihnachtsmarkt" aka 'Christmas Market'. Theres something for sure I want to get Travis and Lisa back home there. I don't really know what to buy as presents for Lisa and Johanna here. Kai I already know. The other night at dinner we were talking about games we like to play and some how got on the topic of Risk. I told him how my brother and I used to play Lord of the Rings edition Risk while watching the movies (I know, we're SUPER cool). His eyes got big and he was like "What?! This does not exist in Germany!" and he was really excited about it, so I am going to try and find it online. Either that, or Lord of the Rings monopoly. I guess he really loves to play Monopoly--and he's a giant Lord of the Rings fan--so I figure it would be perfect. I'll most likely have to buy it through the US though, which is a hassle, but oh well. Alright, sorry this post wasn't that exciting. I'm gonna get back to re-arranging my room. Hopefully my next post will be more entertaining than this one. Go Bengals--beat the Lions today!!!! (Like thats even hard? Pretty sure Worthington Kilbourne could beat them at this point; KFR) Love and Miss you all every second! xoxo Meg