Wow, I think this was my longest blogging absence since I started this thing! Sorry about the lengthy interruption. I took a spontaneous trip west this weekend. See, my cousin, Carina, and her husband, Klaus, were supposed to come out here to Eilenburg for the weekend with their 3 year old son, Loris. But Cari called me late Thursday evening to tell me that Klaus had caught a bad cold and they wanted to know if I would be able to come out to visit them instead, seeing as how I obviously didn’t have anything else planned for the weekend. They even bought my train ticket! So how could I refuse? A weekend with family in a GORGEOUS apartment
(my cousin is an architect and 100% perfectionist with fabulous taste in everything), that promised to be heated to boot!
Heck yes, I went. So I had to hastily pack my stuff together Thursday night and took off right after school on Friday.
My trip to Aalen was 6.5 hours on trains packed
beyond capacity due to a recent train part recall that has put dozens of
InterCitys out of commission… but I managed to snag a seat on all three trains and the 6.5 hrs were so totally worth it. I arrived in a winter wonderland at 9pm Friday night and was welcomed with a little apartment all to myself
(they own this huge house and the downstairs apartment in empty) and a mini-feast of
hawaiian toast. Like, the
non-fake-cheese-cheap-ham sort. Like I said…Cari’s a perfectionist. :) Yum.
So on Saturday Carina and I drove to Ulm for the day.
Home of the tallest church tower in the world.
We only got to climb up
392 steps of it due to the upper stairs being
"dangerously slippery" (pah. I laugh in the face of ‘dangerously slippery’. They’ve obviously never driven on a Manitoban road in November… Unfortunately they still wouldn’t let me climb farther…) But let’s just say the 392 steps were…enough. Lol. Then we checked out the
Weihnachtsmarkt 
(aka. Christmas market….these markets are ridiculously important in Germany. Very traditional. Pretty much every city has some sort of Christmas market, whether big or small) and shopped for the afternoon. Carina mentioned earlier that morning that she wanted to check out the
KitchenAid kitchen machine cuz she wanted one for Christmas. Well, when we walked into
Abt (a giant appliance store) there was a huge
KitchenAid kitchen machine presentation and sale going on. So needless to say we walked outta there with a new
KitchenAid. :) Carina was so excited her cheeks were flaming red all day!
Lol.
(We immediately made a cake with it the next day, naturally. Tasty tasty.) I, on the other hand, used my food budget for this week to buy myself the cutest faded navy shirt dress from an OOBER-high-end store where you feel like everyone is staring at your shabby normal-person-attire in judgmental snobbery. even the bag they put my dress in had a zipper! Obviously a snooty store. 
However I got my dress for a steal of a deal…
35 euros! Woo! I just couldn’t help it. I tried to walk away…I really did. But then I figured I had enough food in the house for the next two weeks so the food-moolah went to the dress. Lol.
I wore it today with leggings and boots, horrifying every German within a 25 mile radius due to my 'basically nude' state. I mean, my sleeves only went to my elbows! And I wasn’t wearing proper thick pants! I would surely freeze in this –2 cold spell we’re having! Let me just say I was toasty warm all day, even on my bikeride to and from school.
Toasty. We Canadians are made of tough stuff, baby. Heck, I wear leggings, boots, and shirtdresses in
Manitoban winters. Geez.
On Sunday Carina, Klaus, Loris, and I went on an "Ausflug" to Dinkelsbühl.
Dinkelsbühl.
Dinkelsbühl. Nope, doesn’t matter how many times I say it. I still think it’s flippin’ hilarious. I mean, seriously? How do you say that name without smiling? Not physically possible, I swear. Anyways, it’s this absolutely PICTURESQUE little German city.
Every building was just adorable and everything was newly restored. Plus none of the stores in the city are allowed to have lit signs so it’s all super old-school and cool. The Christmas market there was CRAZY busy. Of course…Sunday. Germans don’t do anything but go to Christmas markets on the weekends from December til January. Lol.
And then on Monday Carina and I dropped Loris off at kindergarten
and had brunch at this café in Aalen called "Samocca". It’s a really great concept. Most of the employees there are mentally handicapped. They bring you a piece of paper with the whole menu on it, you mark what you would like to order and giveit back to your server. It’s just a really cool way of getting them "into society". So many mentally challenged adults are stuck working off in some little factory or whatever and I just think this concept is so clever! I mean, it’s work they’re entirely capable of and they get to interact with just people in general. Very cool.
And then came my 6 hour train ride home.
2 interesting things. First of all, I was reading my book when this lady walked past and I could have sworn I saw a dog’s tail wagging behind her. But then I was like,
"You’re crazy, Julia. There’s no way they would allow dogs on the train. Although dogs seem to be allowed almost everywhere in Germany, from stores to restaurants, there’s no way they would be allowed on a train! I mean, it’s raining outside! Dogs smelling like wet…ness are not usually welcomed in tight, compact spaces. Plus people have allergies. And others have severe phobias. Heck, I know a few people with dog phobias. Nope, there’s just no way. I must have imagined it." And promptly as I came to this conclusion the lady walked past in the opposite direction. With a giant black dog in tow.
SERIOUSLY? I mean, I am an
AVID dog lover. They're my favourite animal and I cried for 3 days straight when I had to put Maxime down last fall. But even I think it’s disgusting when people bring their dogs into clothing stores
(I mean, HELLO! DOG HAIR!), restaurants
(I mean, HELLO! DOG HAIR!) and especially trains. Honestly, how can Germans
of all the peoples in the world allow this? North Americans are usually so much more relaxed and carefree.
Germans are the efficient tighta**** with a law for everything against everything. (Again, I'm allowed to say this cuz I'm German...) So you’re not allowed to wash your own car in your own driveway, but you’re allowed to bring your dog into the ice cream parlour so it can lick a scoop of gourmet vanilla crème out of a special dish that will probably be used for the next HUMAN customer…DOES THIS MAKE SENSE? I think not… And
second crazy thing. I was just sitting in my seat on the train from Nürnberg to Leipzig, listening to my iPod, minding my own business, when the song suddenly ended and for approximately 10 seconds there was simply silence as my iPod took its sweet ole time selecting the next track. And that’s when I faintly heard Rihanna’s croaky "
Umbrell-a-a-a-a-a" to the right of me. You know how you can hear other people’s music when they have their headphones turned up too loud? Well, that’s what I was hearing. Now why is this significant enough to blog about you might ask?
BECAUSE THE PERSON SITTING NEXT TO ME…AKA. THE SOURCE OF THE UMBRELLA-A-A-A-…WAS THIS PRIM AND PROPER MIDDLE-AGED DUDE (WEARING FAR TOO MUCH COLOGNE)!!!!!!!!!! And his head was bobbing along slightly to the spastic poppy vocals. I’ll admit it. I almost lost it. I quickly coughed awkwardly into my hand as I realized I was about to start laughing out loud.
And immediately turned up my music. Then I walked home (20 min) from the train station in the pouring rain.
THE END.
For some of you who know me quite well, you already know about my skepticism. Let me just tell you from the outset: I don’t WANT to be skeptical about this. I wish I could believe in the institution of marriage the way I did when I was a little girl. No, I never dreamt of wearing a pretty pink dress full of tool and other scratchy materials. I never dreamt of some hunk riding up on a white horse to rescue me from a wart-covered witch. But I definitely always thought I would someday get married. It never occurred to me that some people DIDN’T get married. But over the past several years I’m starting to wonder whether it really is such a good idea. Sometimes I feel like the Runaway Bride...except I wouldn't even make it to the walk down the aisle. 
