Du, du liegst mir im Herzen

Ah I'm in Germany!!!!  I cooked a spaghetti dinner in my room again tonight, which I shared with my friend Ian (see Weinprobe post, picture of dude whose head is cut off by the door).  He and I had an interesting conversation about the fact that sometimes it's easy to forget that we're in Germany.  Granted, there's obviously moments where it's impossible to miss it, but sometimes, especially when we're speaking english or we're around english-speaking people, it feels like a big multicultural city like Chicago.  It's an interesting feeling.  Today I was kind of out of it....as I've mentioned before, there's so many people that are sick here, which makes me paranoid, so I did my best to nap it off this afternoon.  Unfortunately it meant that I missed an unusually sunny Bonn, a city that has been overcast, cold, and rainy lately.  Can't complain too much...word from home in Northern Wisconsin is that there were 4 inches of snow overnight!  None of that mess here....

Last night I made my way to an Irish pub, Jame's Joyce, to celebrate St. Patricks with some friends.  Fortunately it's not a huge holiday in Deutschland, but nonetheless the bar was packed when we got there!  We had to worm our way to the bar through throngs of people to order our beverages.  No green beer in Deutschland, thank God.  I think there's laws against that here...seriously!!  There was a horde of Americans there, as well as a large group of Germans who work at the international office, so it was good to be surrounded by familiar faces.  I started out the evening kind of tired though, so I wasn't full of festive energy.  I did have some good opportunities to practice my Deutsch.  In one of the rooms there were a bunch of books on shelves around the walls, and I found one written by my Aunt Sara!  That was pretty cool...none of my friends would believe me at first that she was actually my aunt.  I'm going to have to go back and take a picture.  The last time I found one of her books was when I was at a coffee plantation in Jamaica!  It's cool to see the Paretsky name go global.  

While I was at the bar I had an interesting thought cross through my mind.  I was standing waiting for some friends and reading the menu auf Deutsch, and I was struck by how much I am going to miss the diversity here...it's like nothing I've experienced before.  There are Germans, Asians, other Western Europeans and Turks all over the place.  There are drinks that I could never order in America, food that would be ridiculously expensive, and, of course, no real German beer.  There's a party of me that's afraid of making deep connections here just because I know it will be hard to come back, but for the most part I'm amazed about the opportunity I have right now.  It's funny to think that I'm having the experience of a life time, and half the time I don't even realize it!

Okay, I'm heading out.  There's a group of people gathering at a bar to bid farewell to my friend, Stacy, who is leaving Bonn to return to the United States tomorrow.  Ah!  Unfortunately I only have about 4 dollars in small change (1 and 2 dollars are coins here, not paper) and then a fifty dollar bill....it's like walking into a bar and ordering a drink with a 75 dollars.  Eh.  Hopefully it won't be a problem!

No new pictures, but tomorrow I'm going to a museum of the Rheinland, so hopefully I can return with something to show for it!