Do I really look that young?

So yesterday I was at this picnic that Jonas's school was throwing. A couple hours into the picnic the parents got out the glühwein and one of the women started to pass it around to the various people around the fire. She walks up to me and says, "Would you like some, wait, never mind you're too young." and walks away before I could even react. Now if this had taken place in the US it wouldn't of really made much of a difference to me since I only just turned 21 at the end of May. But this is Germany! The drinking age in Germany is 16! That woman had just accused me of being 15! Let's do some basic math here, 21 minus 15 equals 6. That woman thought I was 6 years younger than I am, at the least! I didn't even want to ask her how old she thought I was cause I was afraid of the answer I'd get. :( She thought I was 15... I went up to her afterwards cause I wanted some glühwein and I told her I was 21 and she said sorry but I should take it as a compliment cause that just means that in 10 years when I'm 31 people will think I'm 25 but still, once I get back to the states I'm gonna get carded till I"m 30 at places that never card anyone else! I'm sure I'll start to appreciate it as time goes by but right now I just want to go pout in a corner. Wah! And I bet I'll look even younger then! I can't win!

Yay Birthday Parties!

I have to say that I have a this whole year will probably bring me a whole new respect for my parents and how hard it is to raise kids. One of the key points being birthday parties. Today is Sunday the 11th of September and I am tired. But before I tell you all about today we're going to go back in time to Wednesday the 7th.

So Wednesday, what did I do wednesday? Clearly I need to update this more frequently so I don't forget what happened all the time. I'm actually drawing a complete blank as to what happened that day so I'm going to skip it for now.

Thursday the 8th. This I do remember! I'm pretty sure that on Thursday I took Luke to kindergarden and then I stopped by the new house to check out my room which was painted. I've got dark hardwood floors and 2 walls a light cream color and 2 walls a light blue.

This is a picture of one of the corners of my room so you can see the contrast between the white/cream the blue, and the dark floor

Obviously I took some pictures while I was there and since I decided to take my camera out I thought I might as well snap a couple pictures of the view I get to see out my window coming up in about a month and a half. So here's 2 pictures of that.

There's a road that goes across but from the angle I'm at I can't see it unless there's a car driving along it. I think it's a pretty good view!

After I checked out my room and thought about where I wanted my furniture I went shopping. Nothing super exciting there but I did manage to get some Fedderweissen and I found Brause Bonbons!!! Woot!!! Nothing in particular stands out about the rest of the day but I do remember that one of the kindergarden teachers referred to me as Lukes mom that day which I found amusing cause what must she think? There have been 3 different women who drop him off and pick him up. At least the other kindergarden teacher knows who the mom actually is.

Friday the 9th I once again dropped Luke off at kindergarden and headed over to the new house again. This time because I was doing a drink run. In regards to my drink run I picked up 11 cases to return and bought 16 cases with 8 going to the new house and 8 going to the current stable. I also did some other shopping for the things that I forgot to get the day before/couldn't find. After that I helped make grinatensplitter I probably spelled it wrong but oh well. 

...

Wow. It's been over a month since I was updating this... The saddest thing is that I can't even remember too many details about the birthday parties. Suffice to say they were chaotic.

So since the whole day by day thing isn't working out for me I'm going to change tactics and switch over to the whole posting things that I want people to know thing.

First things first. I forgot to mention before but on my way to Aunt Tai's house I got pulled over! So when I got into the car to start the drive the first thing I did was get my navigation working before I left. Then I plugged in my iPod and I got the music working. Of course I was thinking that everything would work easily so I had already started driving. The music starts just fine but then I can't get back to the navigation. So I'm driving through the mountains trying to get my navigation working again so I'm swerving a little and driving slow but there's no one else on the road and I do make sure of that. By the point where I finally decide to give up on the navigation and just pull over on the other side of the mountain at a store I know I hadn't really looked behind me in a while. So I finally looked in the rear view mirror and shit, there's a cop right behind me. The first thought through my mind is I'm not speeding. I was probably driving about 70 km/h and the speed limit was 100 km/h. The second thought was I'm not going any faster cause I'm not used to the car and I wasn't as good with the road a month ago. So I keep going and the cop does nothing but it's not like he's going to take the next exit and leave me alone anytime soon since there are no exit's till the one that I'm going to take. I finally came up to the first roundabout and I was going to take the first exit so I turn on my turn signal before I get into the roundabout and take the first exit. Once out of the roundabout the first thing I do is check if the cop is still behind me. Of course he is! Yay me! Then a few seconds later I see that the lights above the car are now on and it reads stop pull over. Shit! So I think real quick in the US we're supposed to pull over where it's safe so I decide to keep going to where I was originally planning on going since it's right in front of me after a traffic light. The traffic light's red though so as I stop at the light the cop pulls up along side of me and rolls down his window, so I roll down my window. One of the cops in the car leans over and says hello so I say hello back though I said it back in more of a questioning tone. Then one of the cops asks me why I turned on my turn signal before entering the roundabout. I answered with I thought I was supposed to do that if I'm taking the first exit. The cop answered real nicely that I was supposed to wait until after I'd entered the roundabout before I turned on my turn signal. Then he say's just a tip for next time and that I can go. I can't even begin to tell you all how relieved I was! I mean look at it from my point of view, this is the first long drive I'm doing in Germany and I don't even get 10 km from the house before I get pulled over? Not a good sign.

I'm basically going to skip everything until now. The only thing of note we did was drive to Frankfurt and visit the Zoo but if you've seen one zoo you've seen em all.

So I'm not sure if I really know what I'm getting myself into with the weather. So it's already gotten below freezing and yesterday morning it was like 28 degrees Fahrenheit. So of course there was ice on the windshield of the car. I swear I spent like 10 minutes scraping the ice off! There's been frost on the grass for the past week too... Well, here's to hoping I don't freeze to death before you all see me again!

And the Fun Continues!

So I've decided to just assign everyone arbitrary names because in the post today I'm introducing 3 new cousins so everyone needs names!

So on Thursday the 1st after the younger boy, lets call him Luke, so after Luke came back from kindergarden we took him and the older boy, Jonas, and his friend John to the new house to play. I was told a couple stories about how badly John behaves and how Jonas behaves much worse when John's around but John was actually very well behaved. Everything was going good until Jonas didn't listen when the former au pair whose staying here, Lauren, told him not to hug the neighbors dog. Jonas frightened the dog, and it was a big german shepherd and he got bit on his left arm. Of course he's screaming bloody murder and Lauren is freaking out. She brings him inside to clean the bite a little but almost as soon as she looks at it she decides that its going to need stitches and that we need to go to the hospital. It turns out she was overreacting and the bite wasn't that bad but it was still good to go since they could clean it so much better at the hospital. What I found most amusing though was just how shocked I was by the distance to the hospital. See, I've lived within a mile or so of a hospital since about my 6th birthday and actually if I needed to go to the hospital in recent years I would just walk because it's about a block from my house in the US. But I'm living out in the country now and they don't have a hospital in every town. We had to drive all the way to Würzburg which took us about 20 minutes to a half hour. The whole ride there I was thinking how much farther? And my favorite, are we there yet?

Friday the 2nd we stayed mostly around the house I think. I know that Luke went to kindergarden that day and I went to drop him off. I also know that Jonas had to have his bite checked at some point that day. I'm pretty sure that Jonas went to a organized play thing that day. So that means that I was playing with Luke and I'm pretty sure that that's the day me and Lauren went on a chocolate run. Mmm... chocolate!

Saturday the 3rd Jonas, Luke, John, John's mom Susan, John's neighbor Mary, Lauren and Me went to Schloss Thurn which is an amusement park. It's really different from something like Great America though because the whole park is covered in trees and it's very family oriented so they only had one actual roller coaster but it was safe for any age so we even took Luke on it and he's 3. I had fun though and Luke and Jonas were sooo much better behaved then when we were at Playmobile land! That evening I promised my mom I'd Skype with her so I went on Skype around 8/9 my time which is like 11/12 noon California time. As I was talking to my mom though my cousin Natalie came online. So we chatted 3 way for over an hour but in the end I basically decided that I was gonna call Natalies mom the next day and ask if I could come over and stay there for a night.

Sunday the 4th started out well, I slept in a little and relaxed in the morning. I called my Aunt Tai around 10 and got the go ahead to come over. So I hopped in the car and started driving. I got to Aunt Tai's house about 1 in the after noon. I hung out some with her while I was waiting for my cousins to get there. Once Uncle Fred had brought them back he hung around for a while trying to set up my cousin Nate's iPhone. After he left Aunt Tai, Nate, Felix, Natalie and me went out for ice cream. Oh how I love gelato! After that we played a bunch of board games, ate dinner, and played some more games. I was planning on going on Skype but I totally forgot what with all the fun I was having with my cousins.

Monday the 5th my cousins went all out for breakfast. It was cute really! I was told not to leave the room I was staying in and they would come in occasionally asking me what I preferred food wise or how much of something I wanted. They had the table all set and everything, so cute! Though I'm sure they don't like that descriptions considering that they're 11 and 14... We hung out all day playing more games and talking. We played Settlers of Catan and they were all fighting with each other and they didn't even notice that I had 9 points! Lol, then my uncle came over again to take Felix and Natalie to the orthodontist and we had to pause the game and that's when they finally noticed. Lol the look on Felix's face! I left Aunt Tai's house about 8pm and started driving back. By the time I got back it was about 11:30pm so I went to bed.

Tuesday the 6th. Well, not much has happened today. I went shopping bought some stuff, mostly food, but other than that I've been at the house with Jonas while he played with his friend Laci. What I find totally cute though is that when he says he's gonna go play with her he says that he's gonna go play with his girlfriend Laci. He doesn't realize that in english we don't use gender in conjunction with friend unless its romantic. Every time he says it I giggle a little to myself.

Thats all for now so till next time!
Anna

Settling In

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. Sorry! First I was traveling and then I was settling in. It kind of feels like I'm living with an Aunt who has young kids. Mostly cause since school hasn't started yet I've mostly just been hanging out with the kids and helping out with basic chores which I would be doing while with family. Once I start driving the younger boy to kindergarden and really helping clean house then it'll probably feel different but at this point I still feel kind of like a guest. Since it's been so long since I posted anything I'll go through everything I've missed chronologically.

So first Tuesday the 23rd. Oh gosh I can't even remember what I did Tuesday anymore. Oh wait! Now I remember! We went to Saltaire where we checked out the Salt Mill. By we I mean my Uncle, the female cousin I've spent most of that week with and her next oldest brother whose just 10 months younger than I am. I've got some pictures that I'll add to this post later but I don't have my camera on me right now. We finished up earlyish and then headed back to my uncles place. We sat around for a bit then walked my cousins back to their moms place. After that I spent most of the evening trying to repack everything so that my suitcases wouldn't be over weight.

The next morning Wednesday the 24th I took the 7:28am train to London Kings Cross. Now the entertaining part here is that we only really woke up at 7 so it was rush rush rush and we had to run with my suitcases which I can tell you is really hard! Especially since there were stairs! Once on the train I didn't really have anything to do til I got to London. No transfers or anything which was nice. Of course I got to London Kings Cross around 11 and it didn't take me super long to transfer to Heathrow so I was at the airport around 12 with my bags all checked in and everything but they don't tell you what gate to go to till like 40 minutes before the flight leaves so once it's on the boards you have to rush to your gate and get on the plane almost right away which was annoying since I was just sitting around for so long but I managed. The flight got a bit delayed in the air though because the weather over Frankfurt was bad, but it was the kind of bad where there's heavy raining for like 20 minutes or so where you can't land. All in all my flight was delayed maybe an hour at most but I didn't really notice cause I was pretty much asleep then. I was picked up at the airport by the family. We drove first to the new house that they're moving to and then to the house they live in now. Luckily the house they're moving to was on the way.

Thursday the 25th we went to a close by lake with a bunch of kids. There were the 2 from my family, 2 neighbors, and 2 kids of the moms best friend. So the mom of my family, the old au pair whose going to be living there and going to school in Wurzburg and me are in charge of 6 kids. The good thing is that the 2 kids from my family are the youngest. The 2 neighbor kids are something like 7 and 10 with the 2 kids of the best friend being about the same ages, 7 and 11. The best part about bringing all of the other kids though is that the two older ones will watch the youngest for us so we don't have to always keep an eye on him. Since he's 3 he needs someone to watch him at all times, especially at a lake!

Friday the 26th we hung around the house most of the day with the younger one. The older one was playing with a friend. Sometime in the afternoon though the mom needed to head over to the new house to make sure everything was going okay and to meet up with a potential boarder. What I didn't realize before is that their new house is attached to a huge stable so we're going to be living right by where the mom works running the stable. The potential boarder is a horse by the way. Oh! And there's a small guest suite so it is possible to have people actually come and visit me and stay for a few days!

Saturday the 27th me and the other au pair went on a drink run. Now this doesn't sound all that exciting but considering that we were getting the drinks for 2 stables (the mom is moving her work from the old stable to the new one by her house). We ended up buying 23 cases of drinks! Thats a lot of drinks! We had to put the seats down in the back of the mini van (I know some of you are laughing at me right now!). We could fit 4 across and 3 deep and 2 high. Of course the guy who helped us load them wouldn't wait for us to tell him where to put them so when we got to the first stable we had to search for what drinks we wanted to pull out to leave there. I almost died then too! My shoe twisted sideways on me while I was carrying one of the cases into the barn and I started to fall forwards, one step, two steps, three steps. And then the other au pair managed to catch my arm so I didn't crash fully on the edge of the case. I still got a nasty bruise on my right leg though. But no drinks were broken which was awesome! After we got to the new stable we made some of the workers there put the drinks away. We went back home for lunch then in the afternoon we headed to a place called Kinderland in Wurzburg. We stopped for ice cream on the way and oh how I've missed gelato! Anyway, Kinderland is basically an indoor playground but they have some cool stuff like bounce houses, giant trampolines, little motorized cars, and a small rock wall. We stayed there for like 3 hours then went home.

Sunday the 28th we went to Playmobile Land! Mom, Dad, I have a whole new appreciation for how hard it must have been to take me and my brothers anywhere! It was actually pretty cool, since the park was geared towards little kids there wasn't a single roller coaster in the park, instead it was all things that kids could climb on or slide down or whatever. The good news about having 2 kids and 2 adults is that we could split up so one of us was following one of the kids at all times which was good because they could enter in one spot and come out in like 10 different areas. The bad news was that I still don't have a cell phone which means that we couldn't split up completely so we were still waiting on each other and having to find each other the old fashioned way. All in all, an exhausting day!

Monday the 29th the younger one was supposed to go in to his new kindergarden to have a play date or sorts with the other kids while his mom hung out with him. Because of this I just had the older kid at home and he spent the whole time just playing with the younger of the neighbor kids. Nothing exciting really happened at all though.

Tuesday the 30th we hung out at home most of the day but we did go out for gelato and then for a walk through a vineyard. Oh how I love gelato! The best part though is that not only was it good gelato but cheap too! 50 cents a scoop! I was sooooo tempted to get some massive portion but since I was with the kids who got 1 scoop each I decided to limit myself to 3 scoops. Mmmm hazelnut!

Wednesday the 31st I had off. Woot! I basically spent the whole day lazing about on the computer and doing things I'd meant to do earlier but hadn't gotten around to. I worked some on my post but it's kind of a long one so I didn't quite finish it.

Thursday the 1st. Well the days not over yet but so far I've slept in and finished my blog post. I'll try to post more often again since it's starting to calm down now. The little one has his first day of kindergarden today so he won't be around in the mornings now and even though I've still got the older one around for a while it's not a bad since he doesn't have his brother to fight with. Is that free time I see coming my way?

Love you all lots!
Anna

Just Chillin

So yesterday was a much needed break from the craziness that is tourism. I mostly sat around all day. Me and my cousin went and got some random snack food from the corner market which is soo much more exciting than you would think it is! They have so many weird types of chips! After that 2 more cousins came over and we had an awesome dinner. We had 3 different types of delivery! We had pizza, chinese, and indian. Not a ton happened, just general family bonding type stuff.
Till next time!
Ciao

Uncles are EVIL!!! or England Part 3

So this is another one of those posts that I meant to post earlier but I didn't get back to my uncles house until about 1am last night so I went straight to bed. This first part was written about 6pm after the first part of the day.

Oh Gosh I'm so tired right now I can't even think straight! (Note that I was so out of it I used gosh). So me and my Uncle headed towards Haworth today to score some major grandma points. (Love you Grandma!) We hiked all the way out to Top Withers to take pictures of it. For those of you who have never heard of the place, that's where they think Wuthering Heights was about. It's this little farm house in the middle of nowhere, literally!

From Haworth its a 3.5 mile hike out to Top Withers and on the way there it was all up and down difficult hiking. Of course 200 yards before Top Withers our path combines with a much easier path that's basically the same length. It took us about 2 hours to hike out there and only 1.25 to 1.5 hours to get back. Either way a 7 mile hike was way too much!

The real kicker is that there was a place we passed on the way back where we could have parked so that our hike would have only been 3 miles roundtrip. Plus we didn't have a good path to follow on the way back so I'm pretty sure that we went farther than 7 miles. This is why Uncles are EVIL!

After that traumatic experience we went to the pub in Haworth where Bronwell Bronte drank himself to death. Again if you're unfamiliar with Wuthering Heights it was written by Emily Bronte who is the sister of Bronwell. Apparently all the Bronte sisters died young, like around 30 or so, and after all his sisters died Bronwell just basically decided to drink himself to death. I might have even sat in the same spot he died! Morbid but kind of cool.

Once we had recuperated from our hike set off to go pick up my cousin and her friend from VFest. One long car ride later and I'm back home around 1am and totally exhausted.

We've been taking it easy so far today but we'll see what happens later. Two things to leave you with. If you want to see more of my pictures I'm posting all of them on Facebook but of course under my real name so if you're a total stranger you're out of luck. The other is that you can post comments on what I write. Ask questions or whatever and I'll answer.

Until next time!
Ciao

England Part 2

 So today we stayed pretty close to my Uncle's house today. We started off the day with a trip to the supermarket. Now that sounds pretty boring but its so different that every aisle we went down has something strange in it. I'm pretty sure we spent more than an hour there and we didn't even buy much. We put our groceries away and afterwards we headed out for some sightseeing.

The first place we went was Ripley Castle where we had ice cream. Supposedly its world famous but I didn't think it was all that amazing. It was good sure but I've had better. While we were eating our ice cream we went for a stroll to check out the area around the castle. Here's a couple pictures of the castle.

After that we went up to Ripon Cathedral. One of the things that was cool about it was that you could see where they changed their minds as to how to build it half way through.

The way to tell is that the front main arch is rounded while the back arch is pointed. On top of that on the front rounded arch the two columns are different heights.

Afterwards we went to check out Knaresborough where we also saw the ruins of another castle. Plus the city was very picturous in general so here's a couple pictures of that too.

This is a river that flows below the Knaresborough castle ruins.

A picture of the city overlooking the river

A picture of the train tracks that goes across the river and into Knaresborough

Some of the Knaresborough Castle ruins

A train crossing the bridge.

I love the picture windows!

Doesn't everyone just need to stop in the middle of a set of train tracks and take a picture or two?

How does one go about redeeming time?

I found a thatched roof!

So that's about it for today. Nothing super exciting but here's to keeping you all updated!

England Part 1

Alert! There were 2 posts made right after each other. The one displayed is what happened second so go back a post and read that one first!!!

Alright! So starting from where I left off. I got off the train in York, nothing exciting there. They even had an elevator! From there I found a pay phone and called my cousin who was going to meet me. Of course as with all plans, something went wrong. There was a miscommunication so she wasn't there but since I have a BritRail pass and no phone, it was much easier for me to hop on the next train to Harrogate and meet her there then it was for her to get to York and have to try and find her then.

So I got onto a new train and in roughly 45 minutes got to Harrogate. Well, after waiting for like 45 minutes for the train to arrive. Once in Harrogate I found my cousin quite quickly and we walked a little bit to get a taxi to bring my stuff back to my Uncle's house.

We sat around for a bit then decided to go eat. We ate fish and chips which was kind of exciting since it was real British fish and chips. After eating we decided to go for a walk to the city center and boy did it end up being a long walk! Afterwards we went back to my Uncle's and watched a couple movies so nothing crazy. I went to sleep about 10:30pm.

Then comes the morning of the 19th. I woke about 8:30am so score! No jet lag! Or at least I think so we'll have to see how I sleep tonight. Our plan for today was to drive my cousin and her friend to VFest. The distance would mean that normally it would take about 2.5 hours to drive there but it took us about 4 to 5 hours to get there.

Part of the reason it took us so long to get there was because a car caught fire on the road and they stopped all traffic on both sides of the road for at least half and hour though I'm not sure the total time we were stopped. But me and my Uncle did decide to try and walk up to the front to see how much longer it would take before we would move again.

This is a picture of all the random people who got out of their cars to try and look farther down the road by going onto the oncoming traffic lanes. Obviously I was one of them based on the angle of the picture.

Here's a picture of the opposite side of the road all stopped and waiting for the all clear to start driving again. I believe they were stopped because of the smoke. Plus the car that was on fire was in the center lane...

When the cars were given the all clear to start driving again they were lead by a police car or something and forced to go slow since there were still a lot of people walking around on the wrong side of the road and they had to make sure that they were given enough time to get back to their cars.

After dropping my cousin and her friend off we decided to find a new way back since the freeway had stop and go traffic on the way back. The route we took back lead us by Chester where we decided to stop to eat and walk around some. 

This is a picture of the city center with it's cool old buildings and such.

We ate at a McDonalds, nothing special but food is food. It was raining when we first got there but stopped during our walk so we decided to put the umbrella back in the car then go drink a pint along the canal. I asked my Uncle for a suggestion of a real British beer but he said he didn't really know which was good but thought that tap was the way to go. Luckily a random guy at the bar had a suggestion for us so we both got the Bombadier. Or at least I think it was called that, if not it was something really close to that.

Nothing special after that. We drove home, watched a movie, I updated my blog and answered emails and that's the end of that. Stay tuned for England Part 2 or whatever awesome name I can come up with for it...

Airport Woes Part 2

This was written about a day and a half ago around 11am English time and everything is written as such.

So my first flight sucked. Small seats, less leg room and no individual tv. On a 5 hour flight I really think individual tv's are needed, mostly cause I looked up at the tv screen once and saw pasty face. For those who don't know pasty face is Robert Pattinson, the guy who plays Edward in Twilight.

Since the movie was ruined with pasty face in it and I was really tired I decided to sleep through most of the flight. Unfortunately that backfired since I could only sleep for about an hour or two during my second flight but oat least the second flight had personal tv;s and like 40 movies to choose from.

The best thing about both flights was that I had a window seat. Actually I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time today as I was landing in Newark, New Jersey. The other cool thing is that during my second flight the middle person was missing so I didn't have to worry about crowding anyone and bumping into them a ton.

I don't actually have anything to complain about at the Newark airport, probably cause I didn't have to deal with my two big suitcases...

Now London. Oh my God London! Have you heard of this new invention called an elevator? The airport was fine other than a small scare where I thought one of my suitcases got lost, but it turns out it just fell off the conveyer belt around the corner where I couldn't see it. They had elevators but this annoying gap between the trains and the platform. lets do some quick calculations shall we? Two suitcases that are just over 50 pounds each and 1 girl. Now I'm strong but that's hard to do, especially when rushed since everyone else wants to get off the train too.

Anyway, from the airport I took the Heathrow Express to Paddington station. This first part was awesome since I got it for free as part of my BritRail pass. What that is, is unlimited above ground train rides for eight days in England. So that means I still have to pay for the London underground but since I'm not hanging out in London its the smart way to go. For instance I got the Heathrow Express as part of it and others have to pay 20 pounds one way! 20 pounds one way, 37 pounds round trip, that's almost 80 dollars right there and I only paid about 200 dollars for my pass. Smart way to go? I think so!

Moving on, from Paddington station I had to take the underground to Kings Cross. Here's the main area where they need elevators. I've got to say I hate stairs and friendly helpful random passerby's. Without them I probably would not have made it on the train I'm on right now!

Before I move on though I want you all to know I paid 4 pounds for the little stint I did in the underground, 8 dollars for like 5 stops! And I thought Caltrain was expensive!

Now this next part is also really annoying. Since I have a BritRail pass I can just hop on any train but they have assigned seating for those that reserve their spots early. I had to search and I mean really search for a place to sit. I ended up finding a pretty awesome spot though since my luggage is right next to me where I can keep an eye on it.

I'm going to stop here and continue in a separate post of what I've done since then.

Airport Woes Part 1

Sometimes I love airports and other times I wonder why I even bother. Do I really need to leave the country? So far today has been one of the worse days. I'm tired already since I stayed up all night and even though I've been all over the world I've never actually flown alone. On top of that it just hit me at airport security that I'm not gonna see my family for a year. Let me tell you I'm disgusted with myself. Stop crying Anna stop it!

When me and my mom got to the airport we parked in the international short term parking but of course all continental flights fly out of domestic so we had to walk a ways to get there. We also managed to get to the line in the middle of a rush of people because it was not long before the 6am flight and so of course all the last minute people were only just getting there.

When I finally get up to the kiosk to get my boarding pass I get hit with a $50 fee for my second suitcase. Though I was expecting it, it still sucks. Then the machine asks me if any of my bags are over 50 pounds and I confidently hit no since I weighed them earlier when I was mostly done packing and they were at about 30 pounds each. So of course both my bags are over 50 pounds with my first being at about 52 and my second at about 57.

The guy ignores the first bag but he stops at the second one and says that since its over 50 pounds I would get charged with a $200 fine! $200!!!!! Holy #$%^! So of course we asked right away if we could move stuff around but since my other suitcase is at 52 I can't put anything in there which leaves me with my carry on.

I pulled out a pair of shoes and asked the guy to check again to see if it was light enough yet. The display came up at 55 and I'm thinking shoot I'm gonna need to pull out more stuff but they guy asked if I was going to school. I answered with a kind of since I'll be working but technically I'll be taking a class online too so I'm kind of going to school. Either way the guy decides to let me through without the $200 fine and having only lost one pair of shoes.

That was a huge relief! I'm still kind of shaking. Luckily since my mom was there she just took the shoes home but man that scared me!

At this point my first flight is just starting to board so I'm logging off! Til the next airport!

Traveling

So its 12:15am here and I'm staying up all night before my flight tomorrow morning. Now that might seem like a stupid idea but I have a reason!

My flight leaves the airport at 7:10am which means that I'm supposed to be at the airport somewhere around 5am. Since it takes about an hour to get there that means that I have to leave my house by 4am. So I'd have to be up by 3:30am at the latest and I don't know about you but I have the worst time waking up in the morning so that makes me somewhat fearful of missing my flight but since I hate being late I figure I would have made it anyway out of sheer stubbornness.

The real problem comes not from when my flight takes off though but from when it arrives. With a 3 hour layover in New Jersey I arrive in London at 6:45am local time. Now personally the way I get over jet lag is by not sleeping on the plane and then staying up to normal bedtime hours locally and then crashing. Since I'm normally exhausted by then I sleep through the night and then I'm set! No more jet lag!

Because I have to get up so early to get to my first flight I'll be tired to start with and then since I'm traveling for about 15 or so hours I'll be exhausted when I arrive if I don't sleep on the plane. Once I get to London I'm planning on taking a train up to York to hang out with a cousin and a 2 hour train trip should never be mixed with an exhausted foreigner so I'm switching up my normal routine hence the staying awake all night!

My new plan is to be really tired when I get to the airport so that I will sleep better on the airplane. I'll get lots of rest on the plane so I should be good to go for a day of touristing when I get to England. Then after my awesome day of playing tourist I'll get to my uncles house and by exhausted again so that I'll sleep through the night! Thereby eliminating my jet lag! Anna, you're brilliant!

Well it's now about 12:30, I'm done packing and I'm not totally sure what to do with myself for the next 3 hours. I suppose I should clean my room like I told my mom I would but eh, I think I'll put it off til like 2am and play games instead...

By the way, here's my entire life in 2 suitcases and a backpack. The only things not packed right now are my camera, it's cord, and my computer.

Intro

Hey so this post is for those of you out there who are like Anna's leaving? She'll be gone for a year? What?!?

So first off Anna's not my name but it is what I'll be going by here. If you're curious how I came up with the name I'm using I've got one word for you, anagram. Back to the original point, I'm going to be working as an Au Pair for a year in Germany. Some of you out there are thinking to yourselves why, well I'll tell you why!

I've just about finished my AA (I've got one online class left to take) so the next step is to transfer to the 4 year and get my bachelors degree but I'm not ready for that yet. I'm honest enough with myself to know I won't study enough to get amazing grades at this point in my life and I'm frugal enough to not waste money on something that I won't get the most value out of.

I've always wanted to go off on an adventure so I figure this is a good time to do that. Go off, mature a bit, and come back into college a new woman who knows what she wants to study and is willing to study hard. For those of you who didn't know I've changed majors roughly 10 times and it goes from one end of the spectrum to the other so again, why spend a ton of money on something that I'm not even sure I really want.

So to reiterate I'll be in Germany for a year as an Au Pair and this blog is about my life during that year.