School starts next week. I can't believe I've already been here 3 weeks. So far the cities I have visited are Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Hannover, Bremen, and of course my home city of Tuebingen, and since I haven't spent much time in any one place, it doesn't seem like I've been here that long. But I guess I have...

Today I spent some time getting groceries. Shopping is a little different in Germany, for a few different reasons. For one, you have to bring your own bags - like cloth reusable bags or a backpack - otherwise you have to buy plastic bags there for like 10 - 15 cents a piece. Groceries are generally cheaper but sold in smaller packages. The supermarkets aren't as "super" as they are in America - much smaller, and of course everything is in German, so sometimes I have no idea what I'm buying. You need a 1 Euro deposit to get your shopping cart out from the stack. And there are no baggers - you do your own bagging. Grocery selection can also be quite limited. But for 3 bags of groceries, I spent under 40 Euros, which I thought was pretty good. And avocados are sooooo much cheaper in Germany!!

Other than that, nothing new here. Found out that my foreign language credits are worth more than previously thought. Things are good.

Tonight, I'm headed to the Communist Bar. It's not really called that, but the Americans label it as such because it's got a big ol' portrait of Karl Marx on the wall. Should be good times.

Yay Germany! I finally have internet, thanks to Stefan, a very nice German guy who found out that he could give his user name and password out to as many people as he wanted and everyone could use the internet in the dorm. So I'm online now... IM me!

Now I'm just being lazy, but here's a preview of the email I'm gonna send out:

Things have been going pretty darn good since my last email. I spent the weekend in Amsterdam, which can be very expensive as it is an extremely popular vacation destination year-round. Luckily, I've gotten back into the swing of being a young person in Europe, which means that I buy food in cheap grocery stores far away from the tourist hotspots and stay in youth hostels.
Doing the traveling thing this time around was exciting, because I left without the faintest idea of what I was going to do once I got there. I met 4 other travelers on the train over, each of them from a different country, and together we rented a cheap hotel room for 2 nights. We got in pretty late, but the next morning I checked my email and found out that my cousin Melanie (whom I hadn't seen in 6 or 7 years) was arriving in Amsterdam via plane an hour from that moment! So I found her and her friend James at the airport Sheradon hotel, and we had that Saturday together to hang out in the city, as well as part of Monday.
Another weird coincidence was that I ran into somebody from UW - Ashley and Andy's old roommate Peter. He and his friend from Costa Rica, Gabi, ended up staying the 2nd night with us in our hotel room. Isn't the world small?
Now, any rumors that I had heard up until this point about Amsterdam I had almost completely dismissed. Surely no one really stands around in windows, barely dressed and barely illuminated with a red light, waiting for a 'visitor' with 50 Euros cash, and there's no way they can sell marijuana in 'coffeeshops'. But both of these things are done in Amsterdam's Red Light District, and it makes for a place that has a bustling, never-ending nightlife and some very creepy people (drug dealers and such). Of course, there is more to Amsterdam than the red light district and I spent a lot of the weekend walking the canals, touring the Leidesplein and Dam Square, and visiting famous museums like the Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken Experience. My hostel the 3rd night was a friendly place near the Museumsplein called the Flying Pig, supposedly one of the most famous hostels in Europe. I'd recommend it - It certainly was a fun place, pretty cheap (21 euros for a dorm bed, better rate than the hotel room), free internet, good breakfast and lots of friendly hostelers. I met some Brits, a German, and two really cute Mexicans who are studying in Warsaw, Poland this year and swear they will make good on my offer to crash at my dorm in Tuebingen. But you offer that to lots of people you meet on the road, and I have yet to hear back on any of them, or make good on offers given to me, for that matter...

Okay, gotta go pack for OKtoberfest. :)

I think everyone who reads this knows by now, but just for the record, i got to Germany safely and got all moved in to my room. my only issue now is getting matriculated, which, as it turns out, is a fairly difficult and lengthy process. internet and phone don't come easy, either. but i'll get there.

at the moment i'm in Amsterdam at a hostel that provides free internet, so that's a plus. The downside is that there are only 3 computers, so they're almost always occupied.

amsterdam is a crazy city. this is definitely a place to visit, and not to live. Everyone should see it, though. at least once.

well, I gotta check out of my hostel by 10:30 today, and also get breakfast first. So i'm off.

I'm really going for an entire year. I'm not sure how I even got to this point. Really, I'm not even sure how I register for classes. Was I supposed to do it already? I'm pretty sure I do it when I get there, but what if I'm wrong?

I'm so freakin' excited and so incredibly nervous all at the same time. Plus, I have to pack. And then I have to fly. At least I'll have a week in LA. I think that will calm me down a bit and let me relax - Jeff can console me and tell me all the secrets about going to school in Tuebingen, Germany.

Travel plans keep developing every day. Ashley got plane tickets to see me in the wintertime, and we're going to go to the Weihnachtsmarkt in Munich and take part in a psychtrance dance. It's going to rock.

Off to find cheap airfare for in-Europe flights.

4 days. oh man oh man oh man oh man

HAHA! Napoleon Dynamite advertises for the Utah State Fair. (that was my favorite TV ad, and here's my favorite radio ad - the rest can be found here.)

You can't just find cake. Cake isn't naturally occuring.

"The two books of Maccabees relate the exploits of a family of Jewish heroes who deliver the Jews from the persecutions of the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes and establish a line of priest-kings, which endures until Herod the Great. One of these heroes, Judas, wins big against the Syrians, enters Jerusalem, and in 165 B.C. reconsecrates the Temple."

I think I should name my first son Antiochus Epiphanes. Sounds grandious, don't it?

Quote of the day:

"Can I borrow your fork and your pot pie?" -Andrea

Andrea, I will miss you so much while I am away. Continue to grow and change and be your wonderful self. And don't let anybody ever have the best of you unless they really, really deserve it, because you are something special. You are an amazing person, and I'm happy to be able to call you my friend.

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

"do they collide?"
I ask and you smile
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter

When you feel embarrassed then i'll be your pride
When you need directions then i'll be the guide
For all time
For all time

Death Cab for Cutie, "Passenger Seat"

By the way, I saw movies 1 and 5 on my list. I highly recommend both of them to anybody with a strong stomach.

I also saw The Ring for the first time. It was pretty good, considering I've been around for all the hype. Jeff and I are supposed to watch "Ringu" when I'm down in LA, because he (for some reason or another) has it.

So, Wedding Crashers, and Proof need to be seen before I leave the States.

Two weeks. That's all I've got to do all that I have to do. This is going to be a long haul.

i wanna see some movies.
1. The Aristocrats
2. Ladies in Lavendar
3. Broken Flowers
4. March of the Penguins
5. Boondock Saints

Everybody has a good side. For some it's the left; for some it's the right. It's the side you should use for having your picture taken, or for the first time you meet a person, or for when you are trying to get something you want or need.

I've determined that at least for now, my good side is my right side. The problem with this is, any interactions that take place through the driver's side window always exhibit the left side. The natural extention of this discovery is that I can no longer go through drive-throughs, and if I ever get pulled over by a cop (knock on wood), I will most certainly get the ticket.

All of this was thought as I was pulling away from the drive-through at McDonalds.