The End.

7 months later. 28 cities later. 12 countries later. 7 classes later. 5845 pictures later. Too many memories to count later. This day has finally arrived. I'm sitting here in my packed room, with my baren walls and empty shelves, reflecting on the past 7 months. Where did the time go?

Traveling.   Studying.   Living.

I've met so many amazing people along the way, and I think it's only fair to acknowledge them. Being happy in life is not only about where you are but also about who you are with. The people I've met, be it in Hamburg or in foreign cities, have made all the difference. It's hard not knowing when I'll see these people, my friends, again. But I'm honored to have met each and every one of them. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me into your lives. And thank you to Kaitlyn and Daniela - this experience would not have been the same without you.

I was flipping through my agenda book last night looking back on everything I've done and everywhere I've been. My planner is my life - everything from flights, to excursions, to dinners, to nights on the Reeperbahn, to homework assignments, to test dates are marked in it. To pay tribute to the best of the best, I've compiled a list of my "Top 3":

Top 3 Favorite Cities:
1) Hamburg, Germany
2) London, England
3) Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Top 3 Favorite Excursions:
1) Paragliding over the Swiss Alps
2) Walking along the Cliffs of Moher
3) Hiking in the Swiss Alps

Top 3 Favorite Classes:
1) Public Choice (the economics of politics)
2) Media Representation of Climate Change
3) Energy & Climate Policy

Top 3 Favorite Travel Mishaps:
1) Drunkenly sprinting through the Amsterdam airport trying not to miss our flight
2) Getting lost in the München airport looking for the ticket counter
3) Accidentally walking 1 hour in the wrong direction while sightseeing in -20C weather in Prague

Top 3 Favorite Drinks:
1) Orangey Cosmopolitans in London
2) Girly, frozen cocktails in Barcelona
3) 50 cent Mexikaner shots at Lucky Star on Hamburger Berg

Top 3 Nights on the Reeperbahn:
1) 1.6.12: Our first night (aka the night we fell in love with Hamburg)
2) 7.28.12: Our last night (aka the night a crazy Albanian man chased Kaitlyn and I down the Reeperbahn)
3) 2.10.12: Tequila Night 1.0 (aka the night all hell broke loose)

Top 3 Unexpected Events:
1) Meeting a random British guy at a bar in Amsterdam and visiting him in London
2) Learning to effectively communicate in a language I barely speak
3) Discovering my sense of self

They told us before we left that the next seven months would be the best ones of our lives. They told us we would have the time of our lives. Well it's true. They really were, and we really did. But now it's time to say goodbye. I choose not to morn over the fact that this is the end. Because it's not the end. It's just the closing period on this chapter of my life. I choose to remember the good times. I choose to remember the memories I've made. You only live once. And who knows, perhaps the next chapter of my life will be just as memorable. There's no need to cry. It's just a new beginning. Goodbye Hamburg. Goodbye Germany. Goodbye Europe. I will be back. You mark my words.

Love always,
Nicole

Day Trip to the Nordsee

After a rainy and cool start to July, summer finally arrived in Hamburg last week. For the first time since last summer, I experienced temperatures above 90F. Even though I have enjoyed the few days of warm weather, I dread returning to the smoldering Oklahoma heat. I'm one of those weird people who prefer cool, rainy summers over hot, sunny ones. To escape the hot subways and sweltering city, Kaitlyn and I took a day trip to the Nordsee (North Sea) on Thursday. After a "short" 3.5 hour train ride, we arrived in St. Peter Ording. Even though it was long, it was a really enjoyable ride through fields filled with wind farms and solar panels. I wish the US would put as much effort into renewable energy as Germany does. As an added bonus, we got to see tons of sheep and cows. Apparently sheep are a really big deal in northern Germany...who knew?

The beach at St. Peter Ording was enormous. I have never seen a beach this large in my whole life. It stretched on and on and on. And it wasn't just the length that was shocking - the beach itself was over 1km wide. At one point, I looked behind me and saw a desert-like mirage in all directions. To get to the beach, we had to walk over this really long wooden bridge that stretched across a nature preserve. The experience of getting to the beach was an adventure in and of itself.

Walking over the Nature Preserve to get to the beach.

The Nature Preserve 

See, I wasn't kidding...the beach was ridiculously wide.

North Sea

The water was surprisingly warm. After seeing how cold the Mediterranean was in Barcelona, I was expecting the North Sea to be unbearable. But much to my surprise, it was really comfortable. The water was actually more enjoyable then the air. We chose an extremely windy day to go to the beach, so we were pretty chilly sitting on the sand. Kaitlyn and I ended up bobbing around in the waves for a bit to warm up. Speaking of waves, I'm not sure if it was just because of the wind or if it's always like this, but the water was really choppy. The waves definitely knocked me on my bum a couple of times. The difference between high and low tide is also really extreme. We had to get out of the water multiple times to move our stuff further up the beach.

Even though I'm not a huge fan of the beach, I actually had a really fun time. While Kaitlyn read her book, I built a shoddy sand castle, ran around pretending I was on Baywatch, and tried/failed to do cartwheels. My inner child definitely made an appearance that day on the beach.

My sand castle before the tide came in...

...and after the tide came in.

Kaitlyn and me at the beach (yes, she has a bathing suit on)

"I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world."

Sand shadows

After a relaxing day on the beach, we returned to town to feast on ice cream, fish and chips, and currywurst before heading back to Hamburg. All around it was a fantastic day at the Nordsee. Tschüss!

The Top Five Craziest, Most Psychotic Germans I've Had the Pleasure of Meeting

I've met a lot of really cool, interesting, unique, awesome, fantastic people since moving to Germany...but I've also met a lot of crazy, psychotic, mentally insane weirdos. As my time here draws to a close, I would like take a moment to pay tribute to the top five strangest/most hilarious people I've met since moving to Germany. I hope this post gives you a good laugh at my expense.

#5: The Librarian Who Made Me Cry
Do you have a personality trait that is both positive and negative and can serve as a massive asset or a huge liability? Well I do - stubbornness - aka my unwillingness to give in. Unfortunately, it's impossible to be stubborn and hold your ground when you're arguing in a language you barely speak. Four days before Spring Break, my teacher assigned a very large term project. In order to complete the project, I needed access to an online media database. The only way I could access this database was by getting a library card and logging in via the university passcode. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! After class, I went down to the library, walked up to the desk, and said in broken German "Ich möchte ein Bibliothekskarte" (I would like a library card). The woman pointed to a computer and told me to fill out a form online and then come back. No problem! I went over, filled out the form, got back in line, got to the front, gave her my passport and student id...and then she started rambling on in German. Oh shit, what's she saying? "Um. Entschuldigung. Sprechen Sie Englisch?" (Sorry. Do you speak English). Her English skills were on par with my German skills, so it made for a very interesting conversation. Anyways, to make a long story short, I finally figured out that she needed another form - some city or university document that contained a bunch of personal information. I tried to ask her where I could get this form, but she very rudely informed me she that she didn't know and it wasn't her job to know. To this day, I still have no idea what form she was talking about. After a few minutes of talking to this lady, she looked me dead in the eye and told me to step away from her desk that she could not and would not help me any longer. She then turned, called to the next person in line, and left me standing there helpless, clueless, and library-cardless. I was completely shocked! Did I really just get turned away from the library? Suddenly, my eyes welled up with tears and my nose started to run. Yes, it is true. The mean German librarian not only stopped me from doing my research, but she also put a damper on my stubborn personality and made me cry in the middle of the university library. It was a steller day for ol' Nicole.

#4: Puff Daddy
I turn my attention now to the most awkward man I've ever had the pleasure of "meeting" in a bar. I employ the use of quotation marks because I never actually met him..or talked to him...or danced with him...or interacted with him. A few months ago, Kaitlyn and I were hanging out at our favorite bar listening to the live band. All of a sudden this guy, who we nicknamed Puff Daddy, came up behind Kaitlyn and started staring at me. He was an older man (50s maybe?) with a well developed beer belly and one lone puff of hair on the top of his head. I smiled awkwardly, not knowing what else to do, and then turned back to talk with Kaitlyn. I figured he would get the picture that I wasn't interested and go away, but he didn't! He just kept staring. So I grabbed Kaitlyn's arm and dragged her to a different part of the bar. Five minutes later, he was back, silently staring at me. It didn't matter where we were or who we were talking to - he would just appear out of thin air and stare at me. The crazy part was, we never actually saw him move...one minute we were alone, and then the next minute he would be there. It was pretty funny at first but got really old, really fast. At one point I threw my arms around Kaitlyn's shoulders and told her to pretend we were lesbian lovers. Even that didn't deter him! He literally just stood there staring at me for the better part of an hour. I finally pulled the plug and told Kaitlyn we had to leave. I couldn't stand it anymore - he gave me the creeps big time...

#3: Personal Bubble
I was sitting in the meteorology library studying for my Energy and Climate Policy final when I noticed this guy peering at me from behind the stacks. I glanced up, gave him a quizzical look, and then returned to my notes on nuclear fission. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him approach the table. I figured he was going to ask me a question, so I took my headphones out and looked up. Instead of talking to me, he walked up, stood about 6" from my body, and stared over my shoulders at my notes. I was really unsure of what to do, so I make eye contact with the guy sitting across to me. He gives me a "Do you know this guy?" look, and I respond with my best "Uh. No. So this is kind of awkward..." look. All of a sudden, the creeper starts asking me questions (in english mind you) about nuclear reactions. So not only is this guy invading my personal space, but he is also interrupting my study time and bombarding me with random questions. After hesitantly answering his questions, he starts asking me where I'm from. He then asks me which country in the US I'm from. I try to explain to him that the US is a country and Massachusetts is a state, but he doesn't believe me!! Thankfully, he finally turns around and walks away. This should have been the end of it, but noooo, of course not! He's back! Once again, he stands really close to me and starts staring at me. Now I'm getting freaked out. Is there a massive booger on my face that I don't know about? Suddenly, he thrusts a sheet of green paper in my face and points to a name. He then tells me it's a small village in Canada and asks if I've heard of it. Obviously I have no idea, so I just say no. He then points to another word and goes "This is a lake in Canada. Do you know where this is?" NO! Leave me alone!! Does he leave me alone? Nooo, of course not! He then starts asking me what the population of my home city is. At this point I'm so annoyed that I just put my headphones back in and ignore him. Thankfully, he got the picture and walked away. Meanwhile, the guy sitting across from me is cracking up and enjoying the show - the little tard didn't help me at all!

#2: The Sins of Speaking English
Daniela and I were on the subway home one afternoon, when this woman turned around and started talking to Daniela. We could tell that she was annoyed, but we had no idea what she was babbling on about. She then made a super sarcastic gesture motioning to Daniela to be quiet. Neither Daniela nor I were talking particularly loudly, nor were we talking about anything inappropriate, so we just kind of laughed and continued our discussion. About two minutes later, the woman turns around and goes bat-shit crazy on me. She starts yelling and gesturing and completely freaking out. My first reaction was to laugh, which I'm sure just egged her on. Every single person on the train stopped what they were doing and started watching us. Finally, a woman sitting across the aisle from her spoke up on our behalf - I didn't understand everything she said, but it was along the lines of "They're not doing anything wrong. Just calm down." It's surprisingly just how many Germans have yelled at us for talking English in public places.

#1: The Umbrella Lady
I already told this story many blogs ago, but it's my personal favorite so I'm going to tell it again. My all time favorite encounter with a crazy German person happened in January when my friend from Massachusetts came to visit. I took her to the Reeperbahn during the day to show her what it was like, and of course we ran into all sorts of craziness. When we got off the train, this deranged old lady started yelling at us for no apparent reason. She was even brazen enough to push my friend with the edge of her umbrella. We tried to cross the street, but she stood in front of us screaming and holding out her umbrella. When I tried to walk around her, she reached out and grabbed my arm. Personal bubble, people! Personal bubble!! As we started to walk away from her, she stuck out her umbrella and stabbed me in the butt! I kid you not!! Apparently she's never heard the old wives' tale "Never prod a sleeping bear." My patience with her was already declining, and getting poked with an umbrella did not help the matter. Needless to say, a bucketload of unladylike phrases came spewing out of my mouth.

Born on the 4th of July

23 Years Young

Sharing my birthday with America has its perks. For starters, Independence Day is a federally-recognized holiday, so everyone gets the day off from work. All over America, people are hosting cookouts, marching in parades, watching fireworks, and proudly displaying their American patriotism. Unfortunately, Germany doesn't recognize the 4th of July as a valid holiday (shocker), so for the first time in my life I experienced a "business as usual" birthday. Rather then the usual holiday festivities, I got to sit through a 3 hour economics class and stress over my finals which start on Monday. My parents always told me that I would never have to work on my birthday. I have officially put this statement in the same category as: "Of course Santa is real."  Damn parents - always lying to their kids! ;)

Fear not though!! I actually had a really great birthday. In the afternoon, I headed over to Daniela's apartment to feast on a delicious, homemade birthday cake. Afterwards, we met up with some meteorology friends for an impromptu cookout in the park. While a normal 4th of July cookout consists of chicken, steak, and wieners, I figured that when in Germany do as the Germans do - so I chowed down on freshly grilled sausage, aka brautwurst. Waddup Deutschland!

My 4th of July themed birthday cake courtesy of Miss Daniela.

After stuffing my face with sausage and chips, Kaitlyn, Daniela, and I made our way to the Reeperbahn. Christina Perri was playing a concert in Hamburg that evening, and we had tickets to go. We got to the Reeperbahn a bit early so we passed the time by drinking pre-concert cocktail at a nearby bar. The cocktails ended up being reallllly intense. I could barely finish mine, and we had to play the finger game (a game we learned in London) to get through Daniela's. Kaitlyn kept saying that the point of a cocktail was to have a delicious tasting drink...so we all agreed that the bartender failed at making girly drinks. Thankfully, the Reeperbahn provided us with a few hilarious encounters to distract us from the awful taste. Distraction #1: a transvestite deciding that the street was his dressing room. Distraction #2: a homeless man making weird music for us in a paper cup. Distraction #3: my complete domination of the finger game (which in turn saved me from having to drink the drink)

The red, white, and blue colored Reeperbahn stop.

Jamming with the Beatles before the concert.

Beat boxing into a cup at the top of his lungs.
The bartender ended up coming out and yelling
at him to step away from the restaurant.

After struggling through Daniela's drink, we meandered over to the concert venue. The room was super cramped, and it had absolutely no air ventilation. We kept fanning ourselves with the tickets hoping it would help, but as I learned from Dr. Kloesel during my sophomore year, fanning yourself only makes you hotter. Christina kept commenting on the heat and mentioned multiple times that it was the hottest concert she'd ever played. Despite the heat, the concert was really good! She played a nice mix of original songs and even threw in a few classics. I had a great time, and I think Kaitlyn and Daniela really enjoyed it too. So even though I didn't get to see the usual fireworks display or watch Pop Goes the Fourth, I still managed to have a really lovely evening.

Photo courtesy of Radio Hamburg

At the concert

After the concert, we paid a visit to our favorite bar in Hamburg. Because my birthday fell on a Wednesday, the bar was completely empty. And when I say completely empty, I literally mean we were the only people in the bar. It was kind of fitting though. An acoustic guitarist was on stage playing sweet, soulful music, and we were sitting at the bar talking about how much had changed over the past year. We haven't even left Hamburg, and we're already reminiscing about the memories we've made. It's incredible for me to think back on the last year of my life. So much had to happen for me to be here right now - and when I say "here," I'm speaking of both the physical and emotional "here." I am a completely different person then I was a year ago, and it's moments like these that I remember why I believe everything happens for a reason. But enough with the sentimentals - here's to another fantastic year - may it be even better then the last!

Tschüss

Bitchfest 101 - The Woes of Student Housing

At the end of March, Kaitlyn, Daniela, and I moved into a new apartment closer to downtown Hamburg. I really enjoyed it for the first two months, but then things seemed to go downhill in a hurry...

* The No-Water, No-Bathroom Saga: Sometime last month, I returned from the gym hot, sweaty, and ready to shower. I went into the bathroom, put my stuff down, turned on the water...and there was no water. So I went back to my room and checked my sink - no water. I went into the kitchen - no water. Huh? We knew that construction was taking place in the building, and we were aware that we might lose water for a few hours, but what they failed to tell us was that we would have no water for three days. Thanks for the heads up! So I got to sit in my room for 8 hours smoldering in my own sweat only to find out that the water wasn't coming back on. Boy was I a happy camper! Skipping ahead one month...I finally have water, but now I have no bathroom. The brilliant people at university housing decided it would be a great idea to redo our bathroom right before finals. So our hall has been bathroom-less for two weeks. Construction is "supposed" to be finished by the end of this week, but when does construction ever finish on time? Not only are we bathroom-less, but I get woken up every morning between 7-8am by saws, drills, and machinery. And to top it off, it's completely impossible to successfully study in my room during the day because of the loud music and non-stop talking. Finals are stressful enough without the added expense of living in a construction zone.

* The No-Subway Saga: Beginning on June 7th, the subway that ran past my apartment was closed for construction. So what used to be a 9 minute commute to the university is now a 30 minute commute complete with a bus replacement service. Construction on the subway won't end until August, so unfortunately I will never again reep the benefits of living next to a subway. It now takes me the same amount of time to get to school as it did from my old apartment (completely negating the purpose of switching apartments in the first place).

* The Fly Infestation Saga: When I returned home from Spring Break, I found our kitchen, hallway, and bathroom to be completely infested with flies. Big, black, nasty house flies. One of the things I inherited from my mom was the need for a clean house (not to the same extent, but it's definitely in my blood), so this completely grossed me out. I had no idea where they all came from, and I had no idea how to get rid of them. And let me tell you - when I say infested, I literally mean that there was over 100 flies in our kitchen. It was the nastiest thing ever. Every time you walked into the kitchen they swarmed at your head. And every time you cooked food you had to hover over it and swat away the persistent ones. After one week of living with the problem, I took matters into my own hands. I found a fly swatter and went on a massive fly killing rampage. In the course of 1 hour, I killed over 80 flies. Some of my most memorable kills include killing two flies mid-mating, killing a fly in mid air with my bare hands (Karate Kid style!), and watching as a fly bee-lined into my soup and drowned to death. I had a grand ol' time digging him out. There are still a lot of flies in the apartment, but I've given up trying to kill them all. Plus, the fly swatter randomly disappeared and no one knows where it went.

There's not a whole lot I can do about these unfortunate events other then grin and bear it, but I find it quite humorous that they all happened at once. So in the course of one week not only did I lose my bathroom and my subway, but I also tripled my commute time and had to deal with an infestation of flies. And to cap off the wonderful month of June, I ended up getting food poisoning from chicken and have spent the past 24 hours curled up in pain...not having a bathroom close by posed an even larger annoyance then usual ;-). Tschüss!