PAPERWORK SUCKS.

So as of yesterday, I am OFFICIALLY a 'citizen' of Bonn!!! Germany is famous for their countless hoops that have to be jumped through when it comes to the beaurocracy and all the things one needs to do to stay here. It's not that any of it is real difficult, just time consuming, and all-around pointless (if you ask me). But whatever. Luckily for me, I'm an American, and female, so it's not hard for me to get a visa. However, you still have to make 3 seperate appointments, all of which have to be on seperate days (which is dumb). BUT, first one is down. I am now registered with the city of Bonn, and am seen as a "citizen of the city" :) How exciting. Next, I have to go with Lisa and prove that I live in a house basically and Lisa has to show them almost all the information she has (blueprint of the house, yearly income stuff like that). Then, lastly, I will go to the German Consulate, talk to them a little bit about why I want to be here and take a small German test, and (fingers crossed) I will be given my long-term visa to stay in Deutschland. Although it should be no problem, I am now worried because Bertus was over visiting the other day and told the story of how the girlfriend of a man he works with, went to be a Au Pair in NYC and when she got there they asked her what she was doing in the US and she told them "I'm here to be an Au Pair for a year blah blah blah".. they then detained her, kept her at the airport for a bit, then put her on the next flight back to Germany. Ahh!! How awful! So of course, now I'm paranoid. But I'm already a citizen of the city, soooo I think I'm fine ;) Lisa told me that I should have no problems, as long as I don't tell them when they ask me about why I want to stay here that "I am here to find a German husband and to work illegally to make some money" or anything along those lines. Agreed. After I officially become registered with the city of Bonn, I was also given a booklet of "Gutscheins"--again, vouchers.. I know this word now thanks to Bertus ;) that basically get me free enterance to tons of museums and cultural events around the city, which is awesome! I have yet to go to the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (the German History Museum), and I want to realllly bad. I think I will plan a visit in the next week or so :)
That is all for now.. but tomorrow begins another weekend! Wa-hoo! Can't wait. As always, du alles habt meine Lieb :) xoxo

Nicest.. Surprise.. EVER

Okay.. first things first. Friday night Bertus finally revealed what the "big surprise" is: a weekend trip to BERLIN!!! :) Apparently, he's a really good listener and extremely thoughtful, and remembered me telling him a few weeks ago that I really really wanted to go to Berlin someday. Soo.. without me knowing, he booked a "gutschein" (like, "voucher"--good for a weekend within the next 3 years or so..) for a long weekend stay in a hotel in the city-center of Berlin, that we can use whenever we want/have time!! I am so excited and can't even begin to get over how nice of him it was :) So sweet.

Well.. umm.. I don't have much else to talk about, and I'm thinking of being a mega-nerd and playing some Civilization (I can't stop!!), but I wanted to share with everyone what my surprise turned out to be. Sooo excited :) :) :) Post again soon! Miss/Love everyone back Stateside! xoxo Megs

Home Sweet Home

Alright, yesterday's post was probably my most important to date, but I figured I should come back and write a little bit about what's actually been going on around here in the past few days. So BIG NEWS! As of this past Friday, we have officially been moved back to the permanent house at Max-Löbner Straße!!! Wa-hoo!! Lisa and I packed the last of our things from the rental house on Friday, and then I packed all the boxes into the G-Wagon. Luckily for everyone, I have AMAZING Tetris skills (ask Emily or Lindsey--they can vouch) and was able to get it all in on the first try. We made it to the house that evening to find all the main floor rooms empty and the new floors installed (they're really nice), along with a pretty thick layer of construction dust over EVERYTHING. We had our work plan set out for us for the next day. Saturday, Felix--Lisa's 16 year old brother, came over to help with the move. The bedrooms upstairs were pretty much packed with all the furniture and things that are usually downstairs in the living room/reading room/Lisa's office. Felix and Kai took down most of the big heavy things (one of those situations its awesome to be a girl: moving heavy furniture), while Johanna and I carried the little things down. Slowly but surely, piece by piece the rooms started to be filled again. After some of the things were moved out of the kitchen, I went in to begin tackling all the dust that had settled over everything. Basically, EVERYTHING needed to be re-cleaned, so I began washing the dishes and the cabinets they go in, everything. All in all, I was in there for probably about 7 hours on Saturday and I had only gotten about 2/3rds of the way done. (I finally finished last night--and my chapped hands from all the hot water are happy that it's over!). On Sunday night to celebrate our return to Max-Löbner Straße, Kai, Lisa and I had a bottle of Dom Pérignon with dinner. We all had to laugh though, that because we hadn't been to the grocery store yet since moving back--Kai made basically what he cold find which was some noodles and sauce and some corn as our salad substitute. So there we were eating a completely random, simple meal with a 200 Euro bottle of Champagne. It was pretty funny.. and man, is that Champagne good :)
My room downstairs is still being worked on, but Kai thinks that I will be able to move in for good by the beginning of next week. I can't wait :) But it is nice to finally be here, and I'm looking forward to when everything is 100% moved in!
Oh! And Bertus said he has some sort of surprise for me and I am dyinggggggggg to find out what it is. Apparently he kinda told me the other day, but I was half asleep or something. Ahh!! I want to know!!!!! Hopefully its more ToffeeOlés (they're really called Toffifee, but they are these delicious little candies here that I renamed).. hmm I'll post again soon.. hopefully with what my surprise is!! Tschüss! Love, Megan

You Can Thank Me Later.

This needs to be seen by the masses. Hence why I am putting a link on my blog. Bertus introduced me to this fine piece of movie magic, and I feel that I must do my part to make sure this video's message reaches as many people as possible. Enjoy, and, you're welcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WleZDzOTdTU

My Night as a Gothic Kid..

I have a few things on my mind to share today.. first, tonight is the National Championship back home. Alabama vs. Texas. Honestly, if there was a way both teams could lose that would be ideal, but since I don't think that's possible, I'm gonna be rooting for Texas--based solely on the fact that Trav and Lisa live in Austin (I still think Colt McCoy = Douchebag). So for the one and only time in my life: Hook 'Em Horns!! Once again, the game has an 8pm EST kickoff.. which of course means yours truly gets to watch it starting at 2am German time. Ughh.. it's gonna be a long night once again..

In other news, starting tomorrow we are finally beginning to move everything back into the other house!! Yay!! I'm excited to finally get settled for good, and I know Kai and Lisa (especially Lisa) are excited to finally be back in their home.

Sooo, I suppose I should also share my story from last night as well. So after my German class in Bonn, I had some free time and then met back up in front of the building where I take my classes to meet some other students of the language school and we were then all going to go out and grab a drink. So Peter, who is one of the owners of the whole school, and also a teacher, AND one of the people I went out for Elfte Elfte with, (11/11 or the 'mini' day-long Karnival in Köln), was the one 'leading the way'. Well, uhhh the guy basically sucks at leading, because next thing I know, I'm practically in the movie Eurotrip at some weirdo dungeon vampire (but not cool like Fangtasia...) bar that was blasting Rammstein (for those of you that don't know who that is, it's basically like an angry German gothic metal band..). Umm.. needless to say, it was awkward. There were 3 other girls in the group, but after our initial introductions none of them said another word to me. I'm not sure if they didn't speak any English or if they were just huge bitches. Who knows. There was one guy that was normal and wasn't into the whole leather and chains scene that we found ourselves in either. At this moment I feel like an asshole because he was really the only one I talked to the whole time, and he even walked me back to the U-bahn later, and I totally don't remember his name. But he is from a small town in French-speaking Switzerland and learned English from living in Melbourne, Australia for a year. I can't even begin to describe how crazy/awkward it was at this bar. Hahaha I wish I could do it justice because me and the Swiss guy couldn't help but just look at eachother and laugh by the whole experience. Oh well. When it was around 12:15 I decided it was a good time to head back home. I got to the U-bahn station and, ohh cool.. I missed the train by like 5 minutes and the next one wouldn't come until almost an hour later at 1:19am. My phone currently can't send text/calls out, so I had no choice other than to curl up and look like a homeless person and wait. Awesome life--I wish I would have had a 40 or something in a brown paper bag to really complete the look. I finally made it home, tired as hell, at around 1:30 in the morning. I can't remember the name of the bar for the life of me, but I a determined to figure it out so I can post a link to it or something so you can all see what I was dealing with. I mean, I just don't understand the kinds of people that were there. Last I checked life is really fun and random, and hilarious, so to be in a room where everyone is dressed in black patent-leather and acting like they would rather die then ever have to smile once is beyond me. But whatever--to each his own I guess.

Lastly, I just wanted to post this picture because it is soooooo cute. (and yes, I know the lighting sucks, but whatever..) Talk again soon --Megan :)

Schönes neues Jahr

Once again.. sorry for being late.. but HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope everyone had an awesome New Year's Eve--hopefully this year it wasn't dominated by my mother repeating where Champagne comes from.. ;) On New Year's Eve at around 7:30 or so I caught the U-bahn to Bonn Hauptbahnhof (main station) where I met up with Bertus (again, Lisa's brother) and his best friends girlfriend, Katrin. The 3 of us then got on a very short train ride to Bad Godesberg where one of Bertus' and Katrin's friends was hosting a small party. After getting off the train we probably walked for about 20 minutes or so (which not only sucks when wearing heels.. but sucks REALLY bad when having to walk on like cobblestone old world European streets..) But we got there no problem. The house was awesome and in the dinning room was a super long table where probably around 16 people or so were all sitting around eating. (Of course, we were late..) Bertus and I sat down at the end of the table and started arguing about how to properly eat shrimp. Okay, so I know I am right and he is wrong (obviously) but umm okay, everyone reading this has had cocktail shrimp, yeah? And it's served chilled, yeah? Yeah. I'm right. He thought I was like really weird for saying that you are supposed to eat it cold. But whatever. We got over it. We ate some awesome food with of course some Kölsch. After dinner the table was cleared and everyone was sitting around playing a drinking game with dice that I have never heard of. While that was going on, I was in the kitchen talking to a few girls, one of which said she had been an Au Pair in New York. I asked her where, and she replied with "a town called West Chester, outside of the city" I told her how my brother's fiance is pretty much from there. She knew of the high school that Lisa went too. I swear, small world. After talking to her a little bit more, and I went back into the dinner room where people were sitting up some glasses to play 'quarters'. Although, the exact version they were playing, I know as 'Chandeliers'. I actually had a few quarters on me, so I offered them to the group, since they are thinner than a 1 Euro coin, they are better to play with. At one point the guy next to me had his cup hit, so he had to drink. He was pretty much sipping his beer and everyone was yelling at him to chug it and what not. Me, being the stranger asshole, turned to him and just said "du bist ein Mädchen!" (which means, 'you are a little girl!'). Everyone started laughing--except the guy I said it too.. oops. Oh well, it was funny, and I was proud of myself for not being shy enough to NOT make fun of him. We continued playing the game for a while (the guy next to me left), and a girl sat down next to me and decided she wanted to play to, however, she wanted to play with her mixed drink instead of beer like everyone else. Uhh.. okay lady, it's your funeral. So she was sitting in between Bertus and I, and I kept trying to hit his cup. Well, needless to say I hit this girl's mixed drink (which she then has to drink) 3 times in a row before she finally quit the game. It was pretty hilarious, because I wasn't trying to hit hers at all.

After playing a little longer, it was almost midnight, so we all put our coats on and went outside. At midnight fireworks went off and we watched them from the driveway. Afterwards, we went back inside, drank some more and then it was finally time to go home at around 2? I'm not really sure what time it was. So Bertus, Katrin and I started to leave to go find a cab to take us back into Bonn. This is where the night started to getting hilarious.

First off, Katrin went from 0-60 at some point in the night, because she was fine--talking normal, nothing strange and then right when we were leaving BAM! The chick was SHITFACED. I mean, like, couldn't walk, slurred words, everything. I couldn't help but laugh, because honestly, I have NO idea how/when she got so hammered. We were able to find a cab and got in, with 2 random guys sharing it with us? and headed back to central Bonn. When we got there we walked Katrin (I use the word "walk" very loosely..) to her apartment building. We found out she lived on the fourth floor or so, and there was no way in HELL she would have been able to make it on her own, so Bertus helped her up all the stairs. After dropping her off, Bertus and I began the walk back to his apartment. As we were walking Bertus said "I'm hungryyyy", so we went to get some always delicious Döner. Bertus ordered for me as well, and asured me that what he was getting for us was really good. I mean, I was drunk, and it's Döner, so how could it not be? At the time, the PommDöner that he got us was AMAZING.. looking back, I want to barf. Basically, it was just a pita in the shape of a cone filled with fries, meat (lamb), and some sauce. We ate it on most of the walk home. As we neared his house, Bertus took the remainder of his döner and said "fertig" (means "finished") and casually tossed it in the doorway of an apartment building. I then, not to be outdone, 5 seconds later, yelled "FERTIG" and spiked mine as hard as I could against an apartment building's door. It seriously looked like a bomb had exploded. Oops. We both started laughing forever. Then another hilarious thing happened in our adventurous walk home. As we got much closer to his apartment--pretty much there, Bertus became all serious and was like "oh, I'll show you something! I do this every time I come home at night". He then proceeded to pick up some herbs that were growing next to one of the small trees on the sidewalk and began rubbing it in between his hands. I'm pretty sure at this second, I thought he was crazy. He then opened his hands and had me smell the crushed up Rosemary. I couldn't stop laughing because I just kept thinking of what it would look like to someone randomly seeing some drunk guy alone on the street at like 4 in the morning smelling herbs in his hands. hahahaha SOOOO funny. I'm laughing about it right now just thinking about it. The best also is how he explained to me that he does it because it makes him feel "gourmet".. haha omg, he is so great :)

When we finally made it back to his place, before I fell asleep I made sure to set my alarm on my phone for 5:58am. When my alarm went off, I got up and went to wake Bertus up as well (he had no idea what I was doing), and then I pulled out 2 mini bottles of Champagne and toasted to the Ohio New Year :) It was such an adorable plan of mine.

Wow. Okay.. and THAT was my New Year's here in Germany :) Sorry if it sounded really scatter-brained, but I pretty much wrote it a few sentences at a time throughout the day. I promise to post again soon. I think I might be going back to the TNDC meeting in Köln again this Thursday, so I could possibly have something interesting to report back soon. I hope everyone had an awesome New Year's back home, and as always I miss/love you all! :) Oh! And the picture I posted on here, is of fireworks going off over the Brandenburg Gate, which is obviously in Berlin.. and no, I wasn't there, but I liked the picture. So whatever. Sue me. Post again soon! xoxo Meg