Oh hey blog, I almost forgot you were there! I'm sorry I've been so horrible about posting this month (3 posts for November so far, compared to the 14 of October. And not a single vlog!).
But lets not focus on my short-comings as a blogger...
Life has definitely been picking up since we last talked. Gemma and I finally got paid so we've been able to leave the apartment without fear! But there was some irreparable damage done... for example, the fact that we discovered a mutual love of wine and card games, making it much less exciting to leave the apartment when the promise of both waits for us at home.
On Wednesday we had a day off (some obsolete religious holiday that only the schools still observe), so Gemma, Andy (an ETA in Erlangen -click his name for a link to his vlog-), and I went down to Munich for the day to meet some other friends, 2 from Munich and another from Passau. The actual reason for the trip was to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in English, but visiting friends and seeing Munich was an added bonus. We all felt honored (dare I say, unworthy?) that such a big movie was being released in Germany 2 days before its US release? For once we had the upper hand in pop culture by being in Germany (trust me, this doesn't happen very often).
I'll spare you a full movie review, but I do want to say that I thought the movie was fantastic! There were parts that weren't great, and plenty of details from the book were missing. But people need to stop expecting movies to live up to books, in general. There is no way you can fit every detail from a book into a movie. Not only just because of time constraints, but also because the two mediums, book vs. film, don't always allow for the same channels to inform the audience. Where, in a book, an important detail can be brought to light simply by the narrator mentioning it, in a movie, it would have to be added in a character's line or somehow visualized. So while the movie is based off the book, you can't watch it with the expectations of it being exactly the same.
right, sorry about that little tangent... back to life in Germany?
Not too much new or exciting at school. I'm starting to worry about changing schools with Gemma in March (that's when their semesters change), because I'm just now settling and feeling comfortable with my teachers and the way my school works. I still don't even know half the teachers' names (even some that I've worked with several times....)
Gemma's parents are in town this weekend, so they have been out seeing the area. I met them for dinner in Nürnberg last night. But it ended up being the biggest night of coincidences. Gemma&co. were headed to Bamberg for the afternoon then to Nürnberg for the evening and dinner. My plan was to take a later train and just meet them for dinner. As it turned out, they ended up leaving Bamberg later than expected and we ended up on the same train down to Nürnberg. Then when we were walking around Nürnberg we decided to stop for our first glühwein of the season. Suddenly I heard someone say "Emily..." and since Emily isn't the most popular name in Germany, I was immediately suspicious. It turned about to be 2 other ETAs from Nürnberg who were supposed to meeting our other friend from the Erlangen area and her boyfriend. So there we were, all 8 of us, just having happened upon each other in the middle of Nürnberg!
It ended up being a fun night! Unfortunately there is a lot of construction going on on the railway between Nürnberg and Forchheim, so we had to take a bus to Erlangen. Well the bus dropped us off in Erlangen at 11:40pm and the next train wasn't due till 12:39. So we waited, in the cold, for an hour. But there were brownies from our newly working oven waiting for us at home, so it was all worth it in the end!
I'll leave you with this for now. I hope all of you in the US enjoy your Thanksgiving break and have a great holiday!
