Aimless

This weekend was one that, as a Sagittarian, I was born for. Perfection in unplanned wandering.

M. was in Hamburg still, so I got up bright and early on Saturday AM (ok, 10 AM) with intentions to make over the entire apartment, including painting the whole place with bright and cheery colors, organizing all our trouble spots and getting some exercise outdoors for a couple of hours. After tackling our clothes closets, which took about an hour and caused me to break a sweat, I decided to change the plan a bit. One project was enough for the weekend.

The last couple of weeks we had been studying clothing and shopping words in German class. I decided to go out on a shopping adventure and try to shop only in German. Then I could be rewarded for practicing my new skills. So off I went to the U-bahn and with the original intent to go to Marienplatz, I noticed a street that I thought was in Schwabing and headed that way instead.

Halfway there a mob of drunken, leder-hosen wearing Germans crammed onto the train on their way to the Fanfest. Hilarious. They sang song after song and must have had about 10 different kinds of noise makers. The dour old women sitting next to me joined in the fun and were singing along in no time as well. Germany needs more World Cup atmosphere all the time.

I hopped off at my stop and it wasn't getting any calmer outside. Gangs of Swedish and German fans walked down the street in the hot weather. Shirts were off, bodies were painted and if I didn't know better it could have passed for college gameday.

After a few hours of einkaufen, during which I bumbled along with my "studying" (too big, too small, another color, etc) but not with my credit card, I realized we were approaching game time and the streets were starting to thin out. I made a mad dash into the vegetable store for Sunday's dinner ingredients (all in German!) before they closed for the weekend and my nagging boyfriend came home to an empty fridge and headed for home. (Somehow the thought of the empty fridge on Sunday briefly reminded me of a shining moment during my sister's visit when i heard a comotion in the bedroom while we were waiting for M. to pack for Italy... I yelled "what's wrong?" and a forlorn "everyyyythiiiing!" was the response from the bedroom).

As I was walking back to the Ubahn, hoping that Germany would manage to make it through this game, I decided to get an iced coffee at the Cafe Schwabing because I had overpurchased and was getting hot and tired. I looked over and there I saw my friend A. from my project in Basel. Serendipity. I had run into one of about 10 people I know in the whole city. He asked me to join him for a coffee and then onward to a Vietnamese restaurant to meet up with some friends. So, on a day that I was worried about being alone I got out and practiced my language skills, which worked out ok, and met some new people, which was exactly what I needed.

The rest of the weekend went well too. Some measure of my indepence was regained on Saturday. When M. got home I had taken the initiative to plan out our Sunday. We had a brunch with our friend L. that I cooked and then M. and I headed to the lake and let the day drift away.

Scenes from A Lazy Sunday

Typical Bavarian House

Mooooo!

A Sea of Wildflowers

Our Lazy Lake in Austria

I love German Rental Cars