an apology, and a little bit of excitement, too

Hello whoever reads this.

I am finally, finally here, and maybe it is the jetlag, but it all seems just a little unreal to me. I arrived Sunday afternoon, completely and utterly exhausted, but still managed to stay awake enough to see two apartments and walk all over the neighborhood. I'm having a great time staying with Susi and Bjorn; they're suuper nice and fun people.

The airline lost one of my suitcases, so I spent the better part of Monday wondering if I'd be wearing the same pair of long underwear for the next three months. Fortunately, they found it and I breathed a long sigh of relief because that suitcase contains my snuggie which is an all-important item to have here in freezing winter Germany.

You know when I said before that it averages around -2 C here in winter? Yeah, well, when I arrived on Sunday, it was more around -8. Susi and Bjorn told me that ten days ago the temperature dropped below -20 during the day (!) But I am attempting toughness and although my cheeks take on a brilliant red hue whenever I go outside for an extended period of time, I have decided to accept this, being as it is my chosen life for the next few months. The crazy thing is that people run here even when it's in the negative degrees!

But the cold, unfortunately, brings us to the apology, which is directed towards my dear friend Avery D.

Avery--

I know that I promised you I would only wear those ugg boots as slippers. I admit that they are definitely vaguely hideous and bulky and unfashionable (and make me look slightly as though I have weird inflated feet). But, the thing is that here, everyone wears bulky shoes! Yes! It is wonderful and horrible that one must forego fashion in favor of warmth but that is sadly the truth. I promise to not allow photographs of my feet in the atrocity of UGG to be published where you can see them ;)

Love,

Jenny

Wait, hold up, I just looked up from my computer, and it's snowing outside! Excuse me while I throw on my, ahem, "shoes" and go frolic in it!

More later...

on the agenda today

• bank account
• cell phone
• looking at third apartment (imovefast)
• trying not to get lost
• praying that my errant suitcase returns to me from wherever evil lufthansa has stashed it. within the next century, if you please

it is cold here.

things about texas

• sky like an overturned soup bowl
• cotton and other such primeval vegetation
• chicken eggs as big as the palm of your hand
• hulk, silent house: the portrait of Muddy at the top of the stairs
• attic with every life magazine from 1935-1950
• the best cat fish/shrimp in the world

T minus seven days aka limbo

my trip abroad is weirdly structured, mostly because i'm going to texas for a week before hand to see my 93-year-old grandmother and other assorted relatives. technically, i'm leaving tonight (to stay in sacramento airport hotel) and then departing california tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. i am all packed, my room is neater than it has been since i descended on it post-finals--my mother just remarked on how it is finally livable again (thanks mom)--and, well, i am currently waiting for my father to get back from work so we can drive to the airport.

in other news, it snowed last night so i had my wish--to wake up and see my home covered in snow--before i...well, before i go live in one of the snowiest places on earth.

ok, going to stop the nervous rambling. i hate waiting.

packed bags (very proud of how little i am taking, considering that winter clothing takes up so much space, etc)

(pink) home in snow

snowed in

Well, not really.

But it did snow today, briefly, at home. These are snowy pictures from two weeks ago when my parents and I went up to one of my favorite places, i.e. the hot springs in Sierraville, CA. Basically, you sit in this glorious warm/hot water for a few hours and look at nature. It's fun, I promise.

Lodge (very warm, very nice fire, very nice old people who play guitar and sing Willie Nelson songs, very nice chocolate for sale).
view from hot springs deck. behind me, imagine large warm pool full of people.
Very hot bath is in the dome building thing
Ahem, snow excitement. Wearing homemade-by-mother alpaca wool scarf. Will probably have this on every single day in Berlin (it is very warm).

Parents indulging my need to document them+snow.

packing disaster

My room circa 3 hours ago.

It's looking better now; everything is folded in neat piles. Tomorrow, I will begin the editing process.

i can't decide if it's real or still too far away to be

I always told myself that when I started looking, really looking, for a place to live in Berlin, that "it"--my study abroad--would become real. Today, I talked to a friend of our family's, Susi, who lives with her boyfriend in Berlin (I'll be staying with them when I first arrive). She basically confirmed what I already knew: that there were only three neighborhoods or boroughs of Berlin that I really should consider as ideal living situations for student life: Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, or Prenzlauer Berg

I've been looking, and found some great places to share with other german or international students. It makes me so nervous not to know where I'll be living yet, but it's also incredibly exciting. The choice, though, seems at this moment to be a little beyond my grasp. I keep imagining my life differently based on the descriptions of potential roommates and pictures of the flats (Wohngemeinschaft, in German) themselves. I guess, really, that the decision is one I'll leave up to my future self--the one that will have to send emails of inquiry. (That is, my future self of three days from now. ACK.)

(Kreuzberg)

(Prenzlauer Berg)

(Friedrichshain)