Happy Anniversary!– One Year Passed and the Unconventional Gift I Gave Myself

As of yesterday, I have been in Germany for exactly one year. On June 15th, 2010 I boarded a plane in Los Angeles and arrived in Germany 12 or so hours later. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year already. And it’s been an awesome year – as you know if you’ve been reading this blog the whole time. I haven’t been writing much, it’s true, because I’ve had other things to do but once I get back to California, I’ll be able to collect my thoughts and have some serious and emotional reflections. For now, I’m just here to say, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GERMANY! We started our year long love affair one year ago! Ich liebe dich. To celebrate this momentous occasion, I had all kinds of celebrations planned. One of which went horribly wrong. Haha.

On Tuesday night, I went to one of our favorite bars, Shamrock’s Irish Pub for one last Tuesday night of karaoke, beer, and good friends. It turned into a shitstorm of craziness. It was totally worth it though. Because even though I ended up in the hospital because of it, I was with my friends and I had a GREAT night. Absolutely no regrets.

But… yeah. I ended up in the hospital simply because I am a klutz and when I’m drunk, I’m a super klutz. Although I don’t remember much of the details, apparently I fell down the stairs to the bathroom (there are two of them, ha) as the bar was closing and ended up on the floor. I remember my ankle hurting but it wasn’t unbearable because I walked 1/5 of the way home from the bar. Pretty much the length of my entire street, which is about 8 to 10 blocks. Somewhere along the walk, I lost one of my shoes and my wallet. Woops. (My shoe was found my the twins down the street. Ha. Thanks, girls!) I’m pretty sure I remember hobbling the whole way home but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t walk on it. But when I woke up in the morning… hot damn. It hurt.

It took some convincing but I managed to get my host-mom to take me to the hospital. I was miserable. I was laying in my room, crying for my mom. It was sad. So, she gave me taxi money, my angel-amazing-of-a-friend Ana agreed to meet us at the hospital and help me out and then we were on our way. It was slow goes it because I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. But we managed it okay. In the end, we didn’t stay at the hospital because the wait was like 4 hours so Ana used her SmartPhone and found an orthopedic doctor and we taxied to Odeonsplatz for a second shot. From there, I was given crutches and properly examined.

Turns out that I tore the ligaments in my ankle and I won’t need surgery but just have to rest and wear an ankle brace for the next four weeks. I’m still on crutches now because everything is still tender and sore but I’m trying to recover! It’s put a bit of a damper on my packing and cleaning plans. Also, I’m mostly sad about the fact that I can’t continue running for a while. I was doing SO good and was so into it and now I have to take a break. Hopefully it won’t be hard to take up again and my ankle won’t give me any problems later. Lord knows I have enough issues with my feet!

Right now, I’m trying to focus on rest and getting the swelling to go down but it’s hard when I have packing and other crap that I have to do. Also, I’m only here for FOUR MORE DAYS. So I have a lot of goodbyes to get through and hopefully no more stupid, idiotic injuries.