German Girl

Sounds vaguely dirty, no?

Actually, this is a quasi-serious question about growing up. Ok, I admit that I do not intend to grow up any time soon. As my friend Catherine so lovingly puts it I am 'giving adulthood the finger.' (What do you mean? AuPair-ing and then spending the better half of a decade continuing my education will prevent me from embracing adulthood to its fullest?)

But, it is finally November in Germany! It is cold, grey, and rainy. It is that kind of teeth-chattering, bone-chilling, I-don't-think-I-will-ever-get-warm cold, too. Well, maybe not yet, but for a few minutes today it sure felt like it! It is awesome running weather though--I bundled up, put my gloves on, velcroed my G-Phi-B earnwarmers on, tied my key into my shoelaces and ventured outside. Exhilarating.

I came home, jumped in the shower, and then made my way back upstairs and out to meet Tara at Balzac. On my way out the door, Ina said, 'Okay child--don't you have a blowdryer?'

Short answer. No.

She insisted that I would catch a cold if I went outside with a wet head, which puzzles me a little bit cause it was still misting. I was just pre-wetting my head ;-)

But seriously, I know getting sick if you have wet hair is an Old Wives' Tale but I am sincerely curious to know if I am too old to go out in public with wet hair. I have never blow-dried my hair. I have waaaay tooooo much of it--Jen Song (SBHS 'Senior Luau') and Susan Chang (Soph Year Gummi Family bonding) would agree. It is just not worth it. I am fairly certain Inga, Emily, and Lauren remember my hair freezing into little haircicles when we walked to middle school on frigid mornings. I thought it was funny then, and, nearly a decade later, I still think it's kinda funny.

I promise that I won't show up for my wedding with wet hair, but is it socially unacceptable for me to do so now?

In other news, I should not have even bothered washing my hair because of the thing I hate most about Europe. People smoke everywhere. I talked to some Europeans about this, and many of them think that the US is too strict about its smoking policies, but for the love. I hated coming home and smelling like an ash tray after Mug Night, but at least that was quasi-appropriate. Beer, cigarette, I can buy that. I absolutely cannot stand spending hours in 'my' coffee shop studying and coming out smelling like I rolled around the floor of the Green Leafe. Bleh...

An interesting thing about Balzac though. I really love going there because it reminds me of my fave Starbucks in the US. Not that you should try to replicate your home life abroad, but it is nice to study in comfort. Though my Deutsch is getting much better, I don't even really need to use it in Balzac because all of the drink titles are in English! Yes, Latte, Cappuccino, etc., are Italian, but the 'Winter Special Apple Cinnamon' that comes before the 'Latte' is certainly English (unless I am losing it). It is trendy to do that here. It is so funny to watch the translation of the US abroad.

(And, I say the US because it is the US and the American media that affects European trends. It is not the English language itself but, really, Hollywood.)

Speaking of the exchange between the US & Germany (oh! brilliant segue Heather!) I went over summarizing and paraphrasing today in my Uni course. I had my students read this article. Check it out.