Frances in Germany

I studied for a little over one year in Paderborn Germany, from July 2005 to August 2006. These are my accounts of life in Germany. Enjoy the mishaps, spaniards, and super bees, I sure did!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Happy Valentine's Day

For most people, Valentine's Day is pretty "cut and dry". Either you have a date or you don't. By the time you eat your breakfast, you generally know if you'll be eating dinner by yourself or not. You know if you're going to find an empty mailbox, or a lack of chocolates headed in your direction. You usually know if you're going to spend the night watching bad television and sulking about your non-existant love life or not. But every once in a while, you trip over your own feet at on your way to the breakfast table and take a tumble. A fantastic way to begin the day. Bit little do you know that everything following you (lunch, dinner, the empty mailbox, lack of chocolates, etc.) has taken a tumble with you and the odds are surprisingly changed. You may have cereal and milk all over the floor, but the dice say "7". Who want cereal anyway? It was probably stale. Put on your red heart t-shirt and call it good. It's Valentine's Day.

So I packed up my computer and headed for the eurobiz office. I checked my email. Nothing worth reading. Decided I'd try to call my brother. He can appreciate my datelessness. Oh, forgot the headset. No phone calls today. So I go to lunch with Janine and Mikko. We're joined by someone else later, but I don't know his name. I've only met him once before, and it wasn't a priority to remember. Anyway, after lunch we go back to the eurobiz office and I check my empty email box again. then I just play around on the internet for a few hours. Then Mikko, Mikko (yes there are two) and Marika take their daily coffee break and I go along. This is not all that unusual. We're sitting in the cafe and William comes over. He's waiting for Mehek. She had a hair appointment and he's waiting for her. She was getting highlights for the first time. Sara was taking pictures. Anyway, the conversation turned to food and being poor and not having money to go out. So I say I'm making chicken tacos for dinner and Mikko says that's much better than what he'll have. So I told him he was welcome to have tacos with me. He was unsure if he would make it, so I told him to just send me a text when he was done with the rest of his plans for the day. He said he would. So then they all leave and I go check on Mehek's hair. I loved it. I told Sara about my potential date and she reminds me that she'll be leaving in a few hours to go to Italy, so we'd have to wait to gossip. After that, I go home with a little hope that there is still good it the world. Or, at least enough good to let me think I might have a dinner date. So I open the mailbox and behold....mail! Two red envelopes waiting patiently in the mailbox for me. I open the first one. My mom sent it "Happy Valentines Day from the cats". She knows I miss my cats. The second one is from my parents. So now my day has suprisingly improved.

So Mikko does come to dinner and he loves my tacos. This is probably because he's never had real mexican food, but that's ok. He brought me this giant sleeve of little chocolate flavored crunchy things. We agreed that they were kinda gross, but ducks would probably love them. Ironicly it resembled stale cereal. So sometime we'll have to go to the river and feed the ducks these nasty things. To make a long story short, we had a good time and when he left I was rather satisfied with my Valentine's Day.

I admit this was not what I expected that morning when I put on the t-shirt with the red heart on it. I thought that was as close as I'd get to a valentine. I was pleasantly suprised, pleasantly surpised indeed.