Alles Gute Zum Geburtstag!, Harry Potter, The Incoming Christmas Season, and Other November Events

So much has been happening in my German world lately and, without any real excuses other than my laziness slash writer’s block, I have been neglecting a proper update of this blog. I am sorry for that and I hope that this super, super long post will suffice as a proper apology.

November is in full swing here in Munich and a lot has been going on. I don’t think that I need to admit that I love November, though - I always have. Not only is it my birthday month but it’s also got Thanksgiving and long-anticipated new movie releases. And it’s kind of like a pre-game for Christmas, too – as the holiday spirit starts showing up in store windows and on the radio waves and the weather starts to change for the worse. Here in Munich it’s been a bit of a different experience, of course. The weather has been kind of indecisive about it’s honest intentions. A few weekends ago we had gorgeous, warm t-shirt weather and so we made sure to take advantage of the good day and we spent half of the day at Olympiapark playing football (or watching, in mine and Catherine’s case) and enjoying the sun and warm weather. We also caught a beautiful sunset – which, so far – has been the best part of the sun now setting at 4:45 pm everyday. Unfortunately, that warm weekend weather has passed and we’re back to rain and frigid cold and frosty mornings. The weather forecast calls for snow this week. Fun.

Last week I went to the opening of Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows Part 1 and it was every bit the amazing movie that I expected it to be. Of course, I’m always a critic of the book-to-movie adaptation so I was skeptical but, to be honest, they did a really good job of keeping the basic plot line in order and the movie turned out fabulous. It’s not the first time that HP has released in November, that’s half of the reason why I like November so much – long awaited movies usually make their debut. Last year (and the year before) I had Twilight releases and about 5 years ago, I had HP and the Goblet of Fire, three years before that was Chamber of Secrets and when I turned 15, I had Sorcerer’s Stone. I don’t know what’s going to happen when all of these movies are done and are no longer being released. Hopefully something amazing takes their place or I just grow up a little bit more to let it go. Ha.

My birthday just passed and I had a Munich-style celebration. It was actually a bit of a birthday weekend, seeing as Helen’s birthday was on Friday, so we celebrated birthdays from Thursday to Sunday. Thursday was a messy accident and I hadn’t planned on anything getting too crazy but we ended up moving on to a second bar after the first bar turned on the lights and shouted last call and we all ended up going home somewhere around 4 in the morning. So, happy birthday to you, Helen! On Friday we went out again for her “real” celebration and we started at our age old favorite, Jaeger’s Hostel where Cris treated us to free birthday shots in Helen’s honor. After Jaeger’s we danced all night at Neuraum night club before Lauren, Helen, and I decided that we’d had enough and we wanted to go home. With way too much money spent and our attitudes and enthusiasm going down the crapper, we caught a cab to Helen’s place and the three of us snuggled in her bed before Lauren and I headed to our respective residences at 7:30 in the morning. Saturday was spent sleeping it off – I managed 3 1/2  hours – and then that evening, we celebrated my birthday at Peaches bar in our tracht wear – Bavarian style! We got two Zombies (the second with a birthday discount!) and managed to stay at that particular bar until 1 am before we tried to find a worthy club and then failed. But it was all right, seeing as we’d had a rough couple of nights, and I was more than happy to head home and crash in my bed. Birthday party success! On Sunday, my girlfriends and I wandered aimlessly around Munich doing everything and nothing (read: eating everything in sight, keeping warm in pizzerias and coffee shops, ogling Christmas window displays, watching ice skating in Karlsplatz, and eating ice cream at McDonalds) and the day ended with cocktails and dinner at Roxy cafe on Leopoldstrasse. It was a lovely, wonderful birthday and I was (and still remain to be!) so grateful to have so many wonderful friends to share it with me. Danke schon, my lovelies!

Wing, Fio, and me at Roxy

My birthday hat?

Also, something I should mention about my birthday… as a gift, some of my friends bought me a ticket to see one of my favorite bands, Angus & Julia Stone, as they passed through Munich on the 14th and the concert was wonderful. I absolutely loved every minute of it and my ever so delightful company! They are such wonderful performers and their music is even more incredible when it’s live. I highly recommend that you check them out and I can help! Here’s a video that I took from the show of their performance of  “For You” which is one of my favorite tracks off of Down the Way. Enjoy!

Now that I’m officially 24 and my birthday is done and over, it’d be only normal for me to start thinking about Thanksgiving and getting all geared up for that. Unfortunately, the holiday will not be as traditional as usual because I’m not in the United States and because Thanksgiving is an American holiday. My friends and I are going to try to host our own international Thanksgiving dinner in celebration of the true holiday but with a bit of a foreign twist to it. Everyone can bring whatever kind of food they want and we have a Thanksgiving buffet, probably sans turkey but with a lot of other fun and interesting stuff. Of course, I’m going to miss my family this year – Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I will really be aching for my family this week. Hopefully it will pass without too much anguish and I’ll be okay until Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, Munich is ready for the holidays – officially. The Christkindlmarkt starts on Saturday and their already preparing Marienplatz for the big show. Basically, the market runs from November 28th until Christmas Eve and it’s just a big fancy market of Christmas vendors and pretty lights and eventually, snowy Christmas scenes. I’m really excited for it to start though – it’s something new and exciting and I love Christmas time so it’s the perfect venue to get into the spirit of the season. The Tollwood winter festival is starting up on Wednesday too and runs until December 31st. It’s a Christmas folk festival, much like the market but in a different place. Ha. And, of course, all of the stores in the city are putting up their Christmas displays and they’re especially delightful – probably just because I’m in a new country and it’s more exciting than being at the Del Monte mall or Cannery Row. Needless to say, I am super excited for the Christmas season to come in, full swing. And maybe I’m kind of, a little bit looking forward to the snow. A little bit…

Creepy Christmas puppets…

Gross.

   Putting up the massive Christmas tree in Marienplatz

Ice skating at Karlsplatz

Get your toasty, warm Christmas snacks – Gluhwein indeed!

In closing, I should say that I have about 5 zillion blank postcards that I need to send out, many of which are long overdue. So, if you’d like a post card – let me know. No promises though! I’m quite lazy and going to the post office takes a lot of effort. But I will try. ;)

A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words

I’m having trouble finding words right now. This is my life, right now, in pictures and captions. And in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, these pictures also kind of serve as a visual guide for my gratefulness to be here. Right now. Today. For seven more months.

To stumble upon new friends…

  Only to find that they’re really not that interested in your friendship, after all…
And that you don’t really care.

To delicious German bier and new friends to fill in the gaps…

To the naked trees and their shivering silhouettes…

  To blue skies in November…

To green grass and disrupting the peace… I mean, geese…

To a city that still surprises me with its splendor…

To Germans and their strange and creepy corner shops…  

To American past-times brought to distant lands…

To discover that you’re still a tourist at heart…

To fitting it all inside of a picture frame…

To twilight at 4:45 pm…

To your favorite band touring Munich and to
really, really good friends who get you tickets for your birthday…

Also, if I had a pictures for the rest I would share but I am ever grateful for movie premier nights and unhealthy Harry Potter obsessions and to the friends who help me feed it and who still love me even after I thoroughly explain and complain about the scenes that were left behind in the pages of the book. I’m also grateful for thick scarves, an overabundance of gloves, warm coats, worn in Uggs, and stockings. And, over the weekend, I will be grateful for another year of life (that’s 24 now!) and good friends to celebrate with, even if they’re not the same friends from last year. I’m also grateful for good parents and strong love and the benefit of trust. I’m always thankful for my sister-cousin and her beautiful children and the promise of a hand-picked birthday present, sent overseas with love and care. I’m grateful for my experience here, even if it’s not what I first expected and even though I can’t afford to enjoy the better parts. I’m grateful for my surrogate Oma and her loving family and the way that I am always cared for, no matter where I am or how I struggle. I’m grateful for my life, for the love that I have for myself and all that is around me, for my experiences and the choices that I’ve made, and I’m grateful for the fact that I have the choice to regret taking a year away from my adult responsibilities but that I make the decision not to. Regret has no place in my grateful heart. I am thankful for everything, all of it, everyday.

What are you thankful for?

Money Troubles (Again…)

Money is the root of all evil but, at the same time, money can buy you happiness. I know, it’s a conflicting thought but right now, money is excruciatingly evil when you don’t have it and I know for a fact, that if I had lots of it at my disposable, I would be deliriously happy. Especially right now.

I am dealing with so much financial stress and worry (what else is new, really?!). So much so that it’s actually causing me to regret my choice to come to Germany right now. I have debt back home that I am struggling to pay and it’s negatively affecting my experience here and my future life back home. I can’t get money back to the states without jumping through hoops or relying on other people to help. And that doesn’t always work. My parents can’t really help me with my debt and why should they have to? It’s not their problem. I know that I have horrible saving and spending habits and I’m not proud of the fact that I can’t manage to stick to any budgets that I make for myself.  I am already dealing with two months worth of late payments on my credit card and, as a result, my minimum payment has been raised $35 making it even more impossible for me to manage due dates. Because raising my minimum doesn’t help at all. I have a dental bill that requires $96 a month and as of December 28th, my student loans are going to start needing to be paid.

The more late fees I have on my credit card, the more my credit score is affected and if I have a low credit score I can say goodbye to renting my own apartment, leasing my own car, and other important life-building things like that. So… hopefully I can figure this out and I don’t resent my year abroad for the rest of my life. Which is what I don’t want. Right now, money is making part of my experience here in Germany very unsatisfying. If I had known I was going to be dealing with these problems consistently, I wouldn’t have come here and would have just hoped that my money problems would have dissipated later in life so that I would someday be able to go to Europe. But hey, I’m here now so I am trying to make the best of it but the sacrifice that I’m making doesn’t seem balanced. My credit score is going to get butchered and when I get home, I’ll be working my ass off trying to save myself. I hope it’s a fair trade in the end.

I can attempt to budget and try to get this all sorted out but I feel like I’ve been trying to do that for six months already. And it has yet to work or relieve me of this stress. What’s the point of being abroad if I can’t afford to enjoy it?

Being grown up and responsible for one self is overrated.

I promise I have something good to blog about next time. Consider this vented.

Unnecessary Stress, Cold and Crappy Weather, Hogwarts & Harry Potter, and More Zombies

It has been a rough week around here for me. Not only was I sick for three days but I got caught sharing music illegally and my host-family is currently dealing with unnecessary legal stress and a possible 850 EUR fine at my expense. Fortunately, my host-dad is a lawyer and he knows a little bit about what to do but still, he shouldn’t have to deal with it at all. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson and I am seriously stressed out about it. I should have known better or I should have least researched Germany’s super strict laws about illegal file sharing. I didn’t share it on purpose – it was kind of like my computer orchestrated the whole thing and did it without me knowing but hey, that’s a risk I take when I choose to make stupid decisions like that. Hopefully no other letters show up and this just gets taken care of or goes away.

Because of my cold and the crappy weather, I’ve been in the house ALL WEEK and I am in dire need of a night out. I’m planning on seeing Helen again tonight, it’s been so long since I saw her, because no one knows how to vent about the au pair life like me and Helen. It’ll be nice to just get a little crazy for the first time all week especially since I have to hunker down and babysit again tomorrow night. And miss Eric’s birthday celebration. Sad face. Sunday is the day of my mysterious surprise which a little bird told me to keep free. I’m hope, hope, hoping that it’s a ticket to see Angus & Julia Stone because that would rock my world. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing what this is all about and finding out who sent me my mysterious Hogwart’s acceptance letter. Oh, I mean… Hogwart’s sent it to me.

I hope I get into Gryffindor!

And speaking of Harry Potter, I’m incredibly excited about the movie on Wednesday. It releases here in Germany on the 17th and Eric, Catherine, Laura, and I already have our tickets and are stoked to be seeing it so soon!

 

I have a feeling I’m going to be incredibly antsy just waiting for Wednesday to arrive and then incredibly depressed (but fulfilled) when it leaves. Fortunately, the following weekend is my birthday so the depression will not last.

Helen’s birthday is on Friday so that will be the beginning of the crazy weekend and then Saturday we’re celebrating mine. I fully intend on getting one of these with my friends:

( No, these aren’t my friends, I took this off of Google…)

It’s Peaches 5 liters of pure wonder and it’s called a Zombie. And we all know how much I love zombies. So I can’t wait for that. After Peaches, we’ll wander somewhere else and hopefully still be in a functional celebratory state. So, happy early birthday to me!

P.S. And homesickness (yes, you….), I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t leave me alone!

This Years Season Ills and My History of Dramatic (Non)Immunity

I should have seen it coming. It’s that time of year, after all. The sore throat season. The sniffles, the runny nose, the cough, the sneezes. It’s pretty much a given that anytime between late September and early January, everyone in or somewhere near your social circle will be sick – with something. And you will catch it. Or maybe you will be the source. Whatever it is or whoever first had it, it’s coming your way. Get ready.

I felt my season ills coming on sometime around Sunday afternoon. Like always, I ignored it. It was just a tiny sore throat – it would go away, I was sure of it. And then on Monday it was fairly non-existent, not even annoying. Naturally, I thought I was right and that I had won. The dastardly cold had yet to defeat me since I’d arrived in Germany in mid June. I was surprised seeing as, for most of my adult life, I have had one monstrous cold per every season. At least. I was just about to congratulate my immune system on it’s victorious accomplishment when, to my surprise, a devilish cold slipped in (not so unnoticed) late Tuesday night. Some might say I brought it on myself. I suppose that might be true seeing as I was out riding my bike in the freakishly cold weather Tuesday evening. And then I added insult to injury by riding my bike home at 12 o’clock in the morning. And maybe it doesn’t help that I sleep with my window open every night. In any case, I am now sick. Very sick. And if you know me at all, you know how well I take to illness.

When I was a kid, I used to get the 24-hour flu about once a month. Or so it seemed. I would wake up in the middle of the night, sick out of my poor eleven-year-old mind, convinced that I was going to die. I would, of course, get to skip school and my mother would be at my beck and call all day but the trade off was a day stuck at home with a giant bowl at my side and a very, very weak stomach. I couldn’t even watch the commercials amongst my Nickleodeon line-up. One look at the green-slime cake frosting or the sweet products of the new Easy Bake oven and my breakfast (or lunch) was no more. Being the smart little whip that I was,  I would simply turn over to face the back of the couch whenever commercials came up. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time I just fell asleep.

I know this next one isn’t really about me being sick but it definitely showcases my dramatics. At 12, I fell down the stairs and fractured my skull. I don’t remember much about the incident but as I was told by dad, step-mom, and 2 out of 3 of my siblings, my hysterics brought ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, and half the neighborhood out to watch the scene. Hysteria continued on the ambulance ride and well into my hospital admittance period. Then I “woke up” three days later. I remember starting down the stairs with my too-big-shoes and a teen magazine and I remember waking up in the hospital room where I played video games with my dad and ate crappy hospital food. I remember nothing between those moments.

And then came puberty and the onset of my menstrual cycle. I would be out of commission for up to three days once every month. I would have cramps that made me keel over and cry. On one specific occasion in the 8th grade, I remember sitting in my choir class clutching my abdomen and crying while all my classmates (especially the boys) looked at me like I was from an alien planet. My choir teacher mercifully allowed a friend to accompany me to the nurse’s office and I spent the next twenty minutes crying hysterically about how I needed to go home while the office attendant tried very hard to understand my alien language. My mom picked me up in between her errands, handed me a bottle of generic labeled Midol, reclined my seat and said, “Sweetie, we’ll be home in a bit.” I groaned and moaned through the entire experience and then I spent the next two days on the couch, cuddled up with my cat, and a heating pad turned on to the highest heat. Thank God for the invention of birth control and it’s multiple purposes. I’d barely turned 16 when my mom put me on the pill to regulate my period. I can’t even remember what it feels like when my uterus violently revolts against my body. Amazing.

At the age of 15, I came down with bronchitis that was teetering close to the edge of full scale pneumonia. I was picked up from school due to a horrendous coughing fit that hit me sometime in the morning. My mom carried me around with her through her errands and I just laid in the car with a pathetic look on my face. Once at home, I curled up in my bed and tried to sleep but then another coughing fit attacked me. I coughed and coughed and coughed and it never seemed to let up. Until I started coughing up blood and I walked into the kitchen with blood all over my hands and shirt and pouring out of my nose. Nothing will ever surpass the look on my mother’s face when I walked into the kitchen covered in my own blood. The bleeding didn’t cease so my mom drove me to the hospital with a kitchen towel pressed to my face, which was now colored crimson red. They kept me in Urgent Care for a while and plugged my nose with a plastic pinch and sent me home about an hour later with a antibiotics and a diagnosis of severe bronchitis and borderline pneumonia. I spent the next week trying to manage crushing nose bleeds that came on with little warning. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it was spring break so I didn’t miss much school. Worst spring break ever in my opinion.

Ever since then, I’ve been hit with two to three nasty colds every  year. The reoccurrence of these horrible afflictions may have something to do with the fact that I work with contagious, sick face little children every day or maybe it’s just my immune system playing cruel jokes on me. The fact is, I don’t take sickness lightly and my body refuses to cut me a break. The nurses at my university health center started rolling their eyes when I came in once every season. The prescriptions started writing themselves by that point. And my best friends will never forget our spring break trip to Palm Springs and the day when blood started coming out of my eyes. I kid you not. I do not take well to illness. I always truck through it, unscathed and usually resentful, but during infection and up until release, I am a mess.

Last night I tossed and turned in bed for hours because the sinus pressure inside my head was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t sleep. For 13 hours that headache plagued me yesterday and when I woke up this morning with the ability to breathe and with the headache gone, I think I actually did a victory dance.

I don’t like being sick. My body can’t handle being sick. God only knows what I’m going to go through in the (distant, distant!) future when I’m pregnant or if I someday contract a terminal illness (knock on wood). Right now I fully intend on staying in bed all day (again) and watching yet another season of Desperate Housewives and sleeping through most of the afternoon. And to think, I was convinced being in Germany was a good luck charm for my ever-crashing immune system.

Wish me luck and full health and I promise in my next post, I’ll skip over all of this.

Spirits, Anyone?

Thanks to Google Analytics, it’s come to my attention that someone found my blog by using the following keyword:

“My au pair is an alocholic.”

You might not think it’s funny but I laughed. As Blink 182 once sang, “No one should take themselves so seriously.” I sure don’t. Fio had friends in town this past weekend and so we took them to the Hofbrauhaus and we had our fair share of delicious German beer and good spirits. And then I almost passed out, slightly drunk and seriously exhausted, in my plate of lasagna. Don’t worry, I went to bed after that. And it only gets better from here. It’s my birthday next weekend. Party on, rockstars! I suggest you celebrate accordingly.

Thanksgivingless November, Munich’s “American” Mall, Chic European Style, A Fancy Grand House Tour, and a Long Overdue Lazy Weekend

November is one of my favorite months. Not just because of my birthday but because something good always happens in November. Usually it’s just Thanksgiving which is my favorite holiday but since I don’t get to have Thanksgiving this year, I hoped for good things in other places. Like the girls autumn break from grundeschule and a subsequent break for me, too. My host family decided to take advantage of the vacation and went away for two weekends in a row with just a day at home in between. This allowed me the chance to have a bit of a vacation of my own; sleeping in, lazing about, doing nothing and everything all at once. After Halloween weekend, the family returned on Tuesday afternoon for a day at home before they left again for their condo in Kitzbühel, Austria.

We spent their day at home together and the girls and I started the day off right with a baking project. I attempted to make the homemade Oreos again and this time, they were even better than the first batch. I had two six year old minions helping me, who mixed and kneaded the dough for me which is, to be honest, the most time consuming part of the whole recipe. After that they didn’t really do much else. I set them in the oven, I labored over the difficult task of flipping the cookies over halfway through (The tinfoil kept getting stuck to the cookies. It was a mess!), and I put the creme filling in between the cookies once they were done baking. And then we ate them! They were delicious, I’ll say that much. Soft and gooey and sugary deliciousness. That is a huge difference between America and everywhere else in the world. We love our sugar. Eenie didn’t even want to finish licking the crème filling off of the spoon – she said it was too sugary!

After baking, the four of us went to the mall at Olympia Einkaufzentrum to get the girls some new clothes for winter. I’d never been to the OEZ mall yet so I was actually looking forward to it. I thought that it would be completely different from an American mall but it’s exactly the same! Shops side by side, a food court, tables and chairs in the the middle, people everywhere. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was basically identical to the states, only not as big and elaborate as some of the malls can be.

We started off at ZARA and began our search for new pants for the twins. It is amazing how stylish and chic the style is here in Europe, even for the kids. I felt so out of place in my jeans and t-shirt, rocking a fleece jacket, and my Uggs. All of the displays for kids clothing were so European chic – flowery scarves, skinny jeans, pea coats in all colors, sweater dresses, ankle boots, etc, etc. While the twins were trying on courderoy, I found myself browsing through the baby clothes, coveting sweet little pinafore dresses and adorable baby pea coats for my 5-month-old niece, Madisyn. I wanted to send a little European flare to my little sweetie back in Montana. I didn’t end up buying anything but trust me, the desire was strong!

How cute is this outfit?!
Madisyn would be smashing!

Anyway, it’s safe to say that I am in love with kids clothes in Europe – so much so that I might even consider coming all the way over here someday when I’m a mom, just to buy all this super cute stuff! After ZARA we wandered in H&M which was, as usual, a mad house, but we found some super cute sweatshirts and pants for the girls amidst all of the equally as cute and fashionable clothes. I was officially jealous of their new clothes.

After the mall the Frau took us to their “new” house so that I could get a tour. They’re moving next fall into a house down the street where the girls’ father grew up. His parents lived there for some time and now it’s empty and they’re remodeling it so they can move into the house next fall. It’s MASSIVE. It was built in 1890 and is absolutely gorgeous. it’s got 4 floors and has wood floors and brick walls and way too many rooms. There is an entire separate apartment on the very top floor and the room which they’ve designated for their future au pair is just below the apartment, kind of in between the third and fourth floor. The house has a massive front and back yard and the whole property is surrounded by an extra tall brick wall. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I’m jealous that I don’t get to live there. There is a lot of work to be done until it’s finished – walls to be taken out, rooms to remodel – but it’s going to be beautiful when it’s done. Hopefully I’ll be able to come back and visit them in the coming years and see it in its finished state!

The family left again early Thursday afternoon and so I had the day to myself. I originally had plans to go out with a friend that night but he canceled due to seasonal ills so I decided to take the day for myself instead. I went grocery shopping and then restocked my bathroom toiletries with new lotions and body wash and what not. I was running low and had been putting it off. I did laundry all day and tried my hand at baking banana bread. It was a success and I am officially a master. I watched a disc or two of Desperate Housewives over the course of the day – I am obsessed with this show - and I made myself an elaborate lunch and dinner just because I could. I took a deliciously (I like this adjective, obviously) wonderful shower and used all of my new bath products. In the end, it made for a wonderful day of rejuvenation, productivity, and me-time. I enjoyed it. Maybe a little too much. Because I did it again on Friday, too.

I went out with friends that evening and we met at a new bar we’ve discovered called Cafe Trachten-Vogl. It’s definitely a new favorite – it’s got kind of a cozy 1970’s vibe to it and it’s got a lot of comfy couches and chairs and just a really mellow, indie ambiance. We had a beer and then moved on. Jessica and I had brought along our own concoction of rum and Coke so we were definitely buzzing. We left our friends behind and spent the rest of the night wandering the streets looking for new bars (and boys, of course) and ended up dancing with 7 or 8 Irish men at a Kultfabrik club. After they rudely ditched us, Jess and I decided to leave and randomly ran into two friends that Eric and I had met during our trip to Regensburg. Ondřej (pronounced like Andre, kind of) is from Czech Republic and Nikola is from Bulgaria (but Eric and I fondly refer to him as Victor Krum). They had a friend from France with them so the three boys accompanied Jess and I to the train station and kept us company as we traveled home. It was good seeing them again and hopefully we can all go out together again while we’re all here at the same time.

Saturday was lazy again. (I swear, there’s something in the water…) I laid around for most of the morning, taking advantage of being able to sleep in, and watched even more Desperate Housewives. Eventually Eric came by and brought Glühwein, which is a seasonal wine here in Germany that comes out around Christmas time. It’s hot wine and it’s actually pretty good! But it made me so ridiculously tired. Eric and I started watching a movie and I passed out for the last hour or so of the film. I couldn’t stay awake! After the movie, I got ready to go out again and met Fio and Nathan at Cafe Trachten-Vogl. We didn’t stay out for long because we were all ridiculously tired so I made it home by 10:30.

Sunday has been much of the same. Slept in, read my book – I just started reading The Last Symbol. I hope to meet up with friends at some point during the day. I’ve been feeling kind of remorseful that I let this weekend be so unproductive but maybe it’s just what I needed. Unfortunately, it’s getting much colder here in Munich so I can only imagine that there’s going to be a lot more of staying in and being lazy but I’m going to try to do everything that I can to fight that. I’ll get back into jogging in the mornings – I definitely let that slip past me. Hopefully I’ll get out and travel a bit more. Maybe Berlin or Milan. Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks and I can imagine that will make me sad, seeing as I won’t be with my family for the first time in my life. I usually visit my sister-cousin, Christy, and her kids and so it will be hard being away from them this year. I will survive but it’s going to be a long end to autumn. Winter is on it’s way in – the trees are almost completely bare now – and the colors of fall are dissipating. Before long it will be snowing and Munich will be beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I think I’m ready for this.

Gorgeous Munich sunset outside my window – Thursday night

Au Pair Recommended Recipes: Homemade Oreos

This is, quite possibly, the most amazing recipe on the face of the earth. A lot of people have been asking me for this recipe and truth be told, its Googeable. Smitten kitchen has the original recipe that I followed to make these chocolately, delicious cookies. And I’m so glad that I tried it out because this will be, without a doubt, something I do every year. When I have my own kids, we’ll be eating home made Oreos for birthdays, holidays, family reunions, funerals, etc, etc. Ha. There will be chocolate. There will be sugar. Yes, there are mountains and mountains of sugar in this recipe. Brace yourselves. And be ready to brush your teeth. Twice.

Homemade Oreos
Recipe lovingly borrowed from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar (Honestly, 1 cup is enough.)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F. (Or 190 degrees Celcius if you’re in Europe or GB.)
   
   
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, (You don’t need to have a mixer or processor. I had two six years old smashing baking spoons together and kneading the mixture with their hands. Get creative, it doesn’t need to be fancy!) thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
   
   
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined (PARCHMENT PAPER IS IMPORTANT! I tried to use tinfoil the second time around because we were out of baking paper and it was horrible. The cookies would get stuck and it was just a mess.) baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes (Don’t let them burn! They are so much better when the cookies are soft and NOT crunchy! The lesson I learned the second time around.), rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
   
   
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
   
   
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag (or just a sandwich baggie with a corner cut off, honestly…) with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.

Go Shorty, It’s (Almost) Your Birthday!

Yep. Only 18 days until my b-day! This is my official ‘wants-requests-secret-wishes’  birthday list. It’s a hell of a lot easier than emailing fourteen different people and it’s a little less self-involved than a Facebook status update. (Ha!) And fortunately for you (maybe not me), it doesn’t include much. Only one extravagant thing, so far. I figure it’s always safe to ask for at least one fancy thing!

Sony Cybershot DSC-W350

It’s basically an upgrade from the camera that I have right now but said camera is old and dingy and the zoom doesn’t work and occasionally the buttons don’t function and the camera generally falls apart and says, “NO!” for about two days before it decides to function properly again. Camera shoots for about $130-$160 US dollars so it’s definitely losing value from the last time I bought a point and shoot but it’s a good quality camera despite. I have my big beautiful Nikon, of course, but my little camera is good for outings with my friends and trips and nights out where I really can’t be asked to lug around the beast. I would definitely appreciate and lovingly care for this camera!

Everwood Season 3

This is, hands down, my favorite TV show in the whole world. I watched it for pretty much all of my late adolescence and it came with me to college and I absolutely adore it. I have season 1 and 2 and brought them both to Germany. I’ve finished them and now I’m ready for season 3. Eventually, I’ll need season 4 too but I think I’ll be back in California by the time that one releases.

Tickets to see my favorite band play live in Munich

I am in love with this band. Ask anyone who is close to me and they will tell you it’s true. I can’t stop listening to them, I am obsessed. Their music is amazing and to see them live would mean that my life would, without a doubt, be complete. They are playing in Munich on November 14th and tickets are, surprisingly, still available. I, however, under great duress, have decided to make a personal sacrifice for the sake of my dwindling au pair income and will not be buying myself a ticket to see their show. I will survive, this is true, but, at the same time, I would love to see them in concert. Sooner rather than later. This would be a gift that would mean ALOT to me, no doubt. And even better, would be a little company! Come with me!

iPod earphones

Sometime this summer, I managed to lose my wonderful, beautiful, remote controlled iPod headphones and I was miserable without them. I’ve been trying to replace them ever since but nothing can compare. They’re rather pricey (which is why I can’t afford them!) but I promise I’ll take better care of them this time!

Amazon.com gift card

Any gift cards are great, to be honest – kind of silly because of shipping costs – but great nonetheless, especially when and where online downloads are available. iTunes gift cards are also wonderful!

And that, right now, is all that I can come up with. Other than the obvious requests like money to pay off my credit cards and other practical, un-fun birthday things like clothes and shoes.

Halloween Weekend… and Other Stuff That I’m Trying to Remember

Truth be told, I can’t remember everything that happened between right now and my last post. This means that I shouldn’t be letting so much time pass between updates, should I? I’ll do by my best. Maybe it was just that I didn’t do much of anything memorable up until a certain point. Life hasn’t been busy but it’s been productive and I do have a lot to catch up on.

I didn’t do much last week aside from the usual au pair stuff. On Thursday I took the girls to their music lesson and so for an hour, I just wandered around the English Gardens taking pictures. It was a beautiful day and I found the most wonderful and serence place in all of Munich. I hope it’s this beautiful when it snows.

After their music lesson the three of us went to visit Brittany and her au-pair kiddo for a double play date. Brittany and I just sat around and talked while the girls played. Pretty standard. Thursday night I went out with some friends to a ToyTown get together. We hadn’t been in weeks so it was nice to see some familiar faces again. I got home super late, barely made the train home, and I don’t even remember crashing in my bed. Apparently I set my alarm but didn’t turn it on because my host-mom had to come wake me up at 7 am when she noticed I wasn’t downstairs. Oops! Needless to say, I was fairly useless on Friday morning from my uncomfortable hang-over but I slept it off for most of the morning. My host-family left for a vacation on Friday afternoon so I was really just looking forward to a little vacation from my ‘responsibilities.’ I know that Halloween might not be a big thing for the Europeans but a weekend of celebration was in order. anyway. Being an American and all, I needed to show my patriotism for our neglected holidays. We do them so well, after all.

Halloween 2010 (Munich Style)

For Halloween this year, I opted to go for something scary. I’ve never been scary before so I thought I’d change it up a bit from the last few years of Where’s Waldo and Pippi Longstocking clichés. So I picked an even better cliché. I went out as a zombie! I wasn’t sure that I could pull it off but by God, I did. And it was awesome! If you are my Facebook friend and have sufficiently stalked this weekends array of photos, you’ve probably noticed by now that I make a pretty kick ass zombie. I used a palate of colorful face make-up and created nasty, bloody wounds on myself by using a concoction of flour, water, and glue and then painted over it once it dried. And I topped it off with fake blood dripping down various parts of my body. It was brilliant. Fortunately, I had a venue for my fantastic costume as both Jessica and I were individually invited to a Halloween party by way of our mutual friends from the US Consulate. I got Jessica and Eric to go as zombies too and we rocked the streets of Munich so hard as we made our way to the party. Of course everyone stared but the best was when they smiled because it shows they’ve got good spirits. Needless to say, we felt pretty silly but it was all in good fun. We partied all night long (or at least until 1 or 2 am) and enjoyed good American company, good German company, and other types of good company, too. I’m surprised that we were all able to go out like we did because on Thursday night, we’d enjoyed a night out with ToyTown at the Clubhouse and the results were pretty much the same as they had been for the last time that we went to that bar. We were all ridiculously hung over all day on Friday so kudos to us for being able to rally for a night of good Halloween fun.

Zombies don’t eat cats! Don’t be afraid!

Jessica, Eric, and I – the living dead!

We didn’t go out on Saturday night – I’ll get to that in a bit – but we did go out again on the 31st, the actual night of Halloween. Our spirits weren’t nearly as high but we had fun anyway. And I did the whole zombie thing again. Our favorite hostel bar was having drink specials and Halloween happy hours so we went there for good spirits. Costumes earned you a free drink so we definitely took advantage of that. We just had good old fashioned fun, enjoying all of the drunk people in costume and making new friends.

This time, they got me on the arm.

Honestly, I tried to do THREE zombie bites this time but the kitchen-concoction that I made irritated and inflamed my skin so I had to wash them off before I passed out from blood poisoning or something. But it all worked out well anyway. I bruised myself up and made the bite on my arm especially gruesome. Win-win for all!

No worries, there’s just a gross zombie sitting next to you.

  On the way home, I zombie talked the polizei. They weren’t amused.

Harry Potter Movie Marathon

On Saturday Eric, Laura, and I initiated our long-awaited HP movie marathon. We took a break from Halloween theatrics and spent the ENTIRE DAY in my living room eating food (a lot of it) and watching all the HP movies. Seriously… all day. You wouldn’t think that five movies would take up so much time… but it does. We started at about 10 am with a few interruptions here and there. We made homemade Oreos and they were DELICIOUS. I found the recipe online and managed to scrape up all of the necessary ingredients here in Germany. Laura and Eric helped me with the mixing and baking and even though the cookies themselves were a little crunchy, they were wonderful. They definitely made our HP movie night a bit better. I didn’t think that was possible, to be honest. Ha. It was already so great. Oh, and then by the end of the night, after Brittany and Nathan had come by, we made up Harry Potter themed drinking games like, “Everytime anyone says a spell, drink!” or “Any time they say the word ‘goblet’ or ‘triwizard, drink!’” Worked like a charm. I passed out a fifth of the way through Order of the Phoenix somewhere around midnight and then went to bed after I got tired of my friends drawing obscene artwork on my face. Thanks, guys! Ha. Eric and I rewatched Order of the Phoenix in the morning and in the late afternoon, after a delicious lunch at Killians Irish pub, we watched Half-Blood Prince. It was a wonderful 12 hours of my life, spread out, and definitely not wasted. Now we’re ready for The Deathly Hallows in 15 days!

Euro version versus the American version.
Even the Euro version of the movie had the word exchanged.

Cookies!

  Delicious!

Definitely making these again!

Regensburg, Germany

On Monday I got up early and met Eric at Hauptbanhof for a trip to Regensburg that was being organized by his university exchange program. It’s so nice of him to invite me to all of these parties and trips and things – I can live vicariously through real university students and pretend that I am still studying. Ha. Our train left around 9:30 and we got to Regensburg just after 11. We didn’t really know anything about it, we just went for the sake of going somewhere and meeting new people. Apparently Regensburg is the oldest city in Germany and is home to Europe’s oldest bridge. It wasn’t very exciting but we met some interesting people and had good Bavarian food and I took some beautiful pictures. And I got out of Munich! Now… when am I going to to be able to afford to go to another country? Sigh.

Regensburg

Students getting the tour info

   A pretty park that I couldn’t get enough of.
Thank you, Eric, for walking around with me and being my photographer/model.

GORGEOUS.

You know how I adore autumn landscapes.

I love the yellow.  

Now this week looks super promising. The fam is leaving for the second half of their vacation on Thursday so I’ll hang out with them tomorrow, go shopping and do some baking  with the girls (either banana bread or Oreos – I have to decide which one I don’t want to share with them, ha!) and then they’re off on Thursday and I’m free again until Sunday. Some of my friends are going to Prague but I don’t know if I can afford it right now or if I can fit in their rideshare but eh, I can go on a different weekend! Such is life in Europe! It’s only a train ride away.

I’m looking forward to Christmas – it’s coming so soon! Fall is almost over, nearly all the trees are naked now. I’ve become a master at raking leaves even as the wind blows more leaves down in the middle of my process. Silly. The Christkindl markts are soon, soon, soon! Can’t wait! And then New Years in London and seeing old friends and LAUREN FREAKING DEVINE. This girl is excited!

Now, I’m off to Brittany’s for movies and pizza. Our staple food. Seriously, I’m going to get so fat off of pizza. Not Bavarian food or bratwurst or potatoes…. Pizza Hut. It’s just better here in Europe and that’s my final excuse.

Das ist alles.