It's Just My Imagination... Running Away with Me!

I know that an imagination is a terrible thing to waste, but I do believe that at times mine can be a little over active and way out of control.... especially when it comes to forming both conspiracy theories and possible murder plots against me.



I chalk up the fact that I get scared easily and my ability to come up with crazy scenarios to the fact that I used to watch copious amounts of "Unsolved Mysteries" and "Rescue 911" as a child. Now because of my brother's love for movies, I also watched such thrilling classics as "Fatal Attraction", "Poltergeist," and "Nightmare on Elm Street" at a young age, ie 6-8 years of age... but these didn't really phase me. I was more traumatized and scared by "Willow", "Dark Crystal", "Labyrinth", and "Return to Oz" then I was scared by the actual scary movies. I believe that the later movies freaking me out still has a role in why I can't watch fantasy today. I would rather run into Freddy Krueger on the street than Willow or any small person with long hair for that matter... just saying.



But the point to this story is that I have always been a little timid and scared and believed that someone was actively trying to either kidnap me or kill me or the ones that I love. As a child it was prettty bad. I vividly remember when my mom worked nights, I used to cry myself to sleep in hopes that I would exhaust myself and fall asleep because I needed a break from my imagination believing that there was definitely someone in the house trying to get me. I also remember many times when I was almost kidnapped. Sometime I can tell you the three times that I am sure that I dodged being taken away in a white van... to this day I am positive it almost happened.



As I have grown up, I have actually been able to control my fears except for certain moments. I stay away from scary movies because they mentally mess with me for days. Case and point: When I watched "Mothman Prophecies" I didn't sleep for three days... three days.... there is no reason to not sleep. It is not a scary movie, really but it freaked me out. I also used to have this repeating fear as an adolescent/young adult. I can't believe I am admitting this because it is really dumb. During my senior year of high school and when I would come back during the summers from college, there were many times that I would come home in the middle of the night after hanging out with friends to our haunted creepy looking house on 5th Street in Duluth. When the house was dark, it was really dark. There were NUMEROUS nights that I would crawl into bed and lay there and all of a sudden get really scared that maybe, just maybe, my whole family was murdered while I was out becuase the house was so quiet. And then I would get really scared and frightened about me waking up to a completely dead family. These thoughts were not fleeting, they would penetrate my mind. So I would then do what any logical person would do, I would go into my little brother's room and poke him until he stirred. I chose him for two reasons to affirm that my family was still alive. 1. He would go back to bed easily and not remember it in the morning. I did once crawl into my sister's bed to confirm she was still alive and she yelled at me viciously. It is such an odd feeling to be soooooo happy that your sister is alive that you want to hug her and cuddle with her but she is yelling at you for waking up with her. So after getting the wrath from Gretchen, from then on out, it was always the little brother that would get the nudge test. 2. It was also convenient to choose him, because he was upstairs on the third floor with me so I didn't have to brave the possibility that the murderers might still be in the house and go onto another floor of the house. So i would nudge my brother, see him move, then peacefully fall asleep for the night. I know this is not normal but it happened OFTEN.

But the reason I share this completey crazy story is so that you understand how vivid and controlling my imagination can be.



That brings up the next point about me. I usually don't say anything or bring up my point unless I am sure that I know what I am talking about. And I would say 95% of the time I am right on BUT the 5% of the time that I am wrong... I AM EXTREMELY WRONG. But I will convince everyone that I am with that I am right even during these 5% of time... usually because I believe it with everything that I am. I call these "my conspiracy theory moments" because I will have you believing whatever I believe even when it is all the way out in left field.



So last night all of this came together for one night of freaking myself out which hasn't happened for awhile. But when I do something, I don't do it half ass, so I made up quite the scenario and believed it was unfolding. I woke up at 4 am because the power went out. Now someone might ask, "who wakes up because the power goes out?" because the lights were already off and there was really no way for me to know the power went off but my fan stopped and I am a big white noise sleeper. Therefore, I woke up to complete silence which allowed me to hear those voices in my head that wanted to inform me that bad things might be a brewing. So I can't help at night that my mind wanders and I instantly go back to the fact that the news now says that there is a traveling warning for Europe. And I think to myself is this the terrorists cutting off our power. Now the crazy thing is that when the power goes off, cell phone reception is also lost here. Not sure why.. crazy Germany thing. So I also think have they put up some cloud that doesn't allow the transmission of cell phones from satellites. I also know if this is all coming true, I am not in a good place because if people show up in my lil community of Albessen and ask for Americans... I and the lady who lives below me would be the only sacrificial lambs to offer up. And though I have tried to hide it, everyone here knows I am American... afterall I am referred to as the "Americana frau". So once again I do the only logical thing I can think of for someone that was woken up suddently at 4 am, can't see anything, and is not able to call anyone on her landline or home phone... I light two scented candles, decide that I have to go to my sister's house because I can't shower by candlelight but first take my dogs on a 15 minute walk. I am not sure what I was thinking with the walk except that I didn't think it would be fair for the dogs to have to be home for an extended period of time, since I was leaving at 430 am, without a substantial walk and it would give me a chance to scope out the dark neighborhood.



So after the walk, I had all my stuff and was leaving the house. I kid you not, I put my hand on the frontdoor knob to leave and the lights came on. But it was sorta loud and I screamed louder than I have ever screamed before in my life because I thought it was someone coming to get me.... I am a geek! Downright dweeb.. but I entertain myself many a days and once again my whole conspiracy theory was wrong. I just thought that was a story worth sharing.



So I also used this imagination of mine for good this weekend. I took a bunch of pictures from my time in Germany and made them into black and white photos to hang in my house. I have always wanted a wall of black and white photos so I am pumped to get them and hang them up. I also photoshopped some with different effects and color. I have included some in this blog.



I am going to go to bed now... hopefully without any weird thoughts. BE SAFE AND NUDGE A LOVED ONE TONIGHT... JUST TO BE SURE!

A GERMANY FEST can easily turn into a CRAZY MESS

Fest Season has hit Germany and I have learned that Germans know how to throw parties!



In the past couple weeks, I have ventured out to two of these fests: Bad Durkeim Wine Fest and Oktoberfest.

Everyone knows Oktoberfest and it just so happens to be the 200 year anniversary of the beer celebration this year. But there are tons of fests that go on during this time of year and most of them revolve around alcohol. And I have learned that the Germans have been now partying for centuries since the B. Durkheim wine festival has been going on for 570 years!!!



So the wine fest was up first. We had a big group of people attend the Bad Durkheim wine fest a couple of Sundays ago. Now there are two major mistakes I made right off the bat that I will admit to up front. Mistake 1. Why I thought it was a good idea to go to a drinking based fest on a Sunday, I will never know. And Mistake 2. I drove with co workers instead of taking the train there. (you will find out why this was a bad idea later on because the bad decisions did not stop there, they just started there).

So we get to this fest and it is MAGICAL. I had envisioned that these fests would just entail sitting at a long picnic-like table with friends and drinking. But I was wrong. There was stimulation for the eyes, ears, and tastebuds. This was the Minnesota Fair of wine drinking. The difference was that they did not serve anything on a stick, instead they served wine in 0.5 L glasses. I will give you a second to reflect on what I just said. They served wine in 0.5 L glasses (and filled these glasses fully). Therefore, you are pretty much drinking wine like it is beer… half a bottle at a time. I should have spent a moment at the wine festival to reflect on this fact, but I didn’t…oops… Hello, mistake 3


PLEASE NOTICE THE SIZE OF THE GLASSES OF WINE!

I traveled up in a car with a bunch of girl co-workers. Now as I get older, I don’t like amusement park rides as much as I used to. I refuse to do anything that drops straight down because the feeling of free falling is not and will never be my thing again. And I thought I would be safe because my tech at work, Dajana, has also verbalized that she hates rides. Therefore, I thought there was no way us girls were going on rides. I was wrong because when we got into the fest we went straight for the rides. And the ring leader of who brought us to the rides was Dajana herself. Needless to say, I felt betrayed, confused, and scared. But we would continue to go on rides just-the-two-of-us-self-declared-ride-haters later in the night after a few 0.5 L glasses of wine. And it was actually a lot of fun… even though the ferris wheel was SCARY for the both of us.



The fest was a lot of fun and we stayed quite late and danced to German songs. Our group befriended a stuffed sheep and blow-up plastic air guitars. Dancing with props always adds to the fun!



Then it was time to go home and I decided to take the train home with one of my friends. Now I have never taken the German train before this and hear it can be quite complicated, but I figure I can figure this out. We get to the train station about 10:30 pm and I look at the train schedule. I now realize that out of the two of us, I was the only one that looked at the schedule and that was probably mistake 4 on my part since I have never taken the train. There are two listings going to our final train station destination for 12.09 so I assumed that the next train leaves at 12:09. I now realize what the schedule indicated was that there were two more trains leaving on September 12. I had a moment of stupidity and forgot that is how Europe lists the dates(our date of 9/12 is 12.09 to them) and didn’t think about it twice until we got back at midnight and no trains were running anymore, anywhere. This is also a good time to mention it is freezing cold and raining and we are stuck in B. Durkheim for the night.

The next train leaves at 5:29 am which would get us to our train station at 6:40 am. Since the next day is Monday, that would mean that the two of us could at least get to work only a little bit late. But the next morning, mistake 5 occurs: We take the wrong train, in the wrong direction, and don’t realize it for about 40 minutes.

By the time we get off that train and figure out how to get back, we realize there is no way that we will be at work on time or even before 10 am.

So I call my office manager and tell her that I won’t be until the afternoon to which she thinks I am joking. I think her quote was something like, “You have to be kidding because I would expect this from anyone but you.” I then inform her that I do love a practical joke but I usually don’t pull them at 6:15 in the morning because I love sleep more than fooling people. Then I called my sister to tell her I wouldn’t be into work until the afternoon to which she said, “This doesn’t sound like something you would do.” Whatever!

We finally did get home after taking the most roundabout way home. And I learned some great lessons. Don’t drink wine like it is beer. The German train system can not be figured out with common sense alone and should never be figured out for the first time after some jolly juice.

So I took a couple weekends off of fests but decided to go to Oktoberfest. I debated heavily on this decision because I was not sure if I wanted to drink again and be around drunk people again. But I figured “when in Rome/Germany” and it was the 200 year anniversary celebration.



I went up with two friends, Hattie and Mike, and we stayed in a town that was about an hour and half away named Nurnberg. Mike was meeting all of his guy friends early so that they could get seats in a tent. Hattie and I decided that we would join up early afternoon after doing some shopping chores in Nurnberg.



Hattie and I got to Munchen (German name for Munich) about 12:30 and realized that it was going to be fairly hard to get into the tent even though the guys were saving us seats or actually saving us standing room. But we find a side entrance with a nice Serbian security guard gentleman. We talked to him for about 20 minutes or so and then he let us in as a favor. Thank you!



We then stumbled upon the group of guys that had been drinking since 8 am in the morning. They were also wearing t-shirts that said “Back to Back World War Champs.” So I was surprised that they were all still alive since they decided to wear those shirts to a German fest. But it turns out that the Germans not only know how to party but are also pretty docile and friendly once they start drinking. So fortunately no one was harmed during the drinking of copious amounts of beer at Oktoberfest 2010.



By the time Hattie and I got there things were already pretty crazy. There were so many people everywhere but it was cool because everyone was really friendly. If you ever need a hug, a kiss, or someone to tell you how pretty you are, you just have to go to Oktoberfest.



We stayed til about 8 pm then Hattie, Mike, and I decided that we should take the train back to Nurnberg. When we got to the train station, we saw that our train was leaving from track 24 in 5 minutes. So we ran to track 24 and got on the train. I put on my ipod and fell in and out of sleep until 10 pm rolled around and Mike woke me up to tell me that Bad Durkheim had struck again and we were on the wrong train, in the wrong direction, and no where near Nurnberg. I am still not sure how this one happened because we all saw the same track and it wasn’t just me that looked at the schedule.



So we got off the train in a really desolate town called Plattling at a really dark hour, and 2 hours away from where we should have been. Lucky for us there was a train to Nurnberg in 15 minutes. So we went to the track where three German girls also waited to get to Nurnberg. The electronic screen above track 8 read “Nurnberg 20:17” so we waited and no train. At 20:18 the words disappeared and we found out the train got canceled and no alternative forms of transportation were offered.

At that time we knew we were not getting to Nurnberg tonight, but we had decided to try to get as close as possible, especially since this town did not look too promising. There was one train left at 20:45 to Regensburg which was about halfway between where we were, NoMansLand, Germany, and where we wanted to be, ThePlaceWhereWeHadAHotelRoom, Germany. So we waited for that train and as alas it also was canceled. So we were stuck there!


HOTEL ROOM FOR THE NIGHT OR AT LEAST THE NEXT FOUR HOURS!

We called a taxi to bring us to a hotel room, but first did ask how much it would cost for him to drive us to Nurnberg (we thought we would press our luck and see if this guy was willing to chauffeur us to N.berg.). We pressed our luck but got a big whammy, because we then found out we were 200 km and 280 euros away from sleeping in our already purchased hotel room. So we decided to crash in Plattling until 5 am the next morning.

We did get home the next morning and were able to sleep a few hours before getting back in the car and driving back to Baumholder.


US FINALLY GETTING ON THE RIGHT TRAIN, IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, TO THE RIGHT DESTINATION!

Here is a lesson everyone should learn: Never take the German train with me unless you want to test our problem solving skills and/or see the countryside of Germany.

So things have been crazy and as I declared on facebook, “I need a Zack Morris time out.” This weekend has been just that and it has been glorious. I have decluttered my house, hung up pictures, deep cleaned, and read magazines and a book by a fire in my woodburing stove. I have also made roastedpumpkin seeds which I might be addicted to… yum.. and did some yoga! And given my soul and liver a much needed break!

I have also had an alcohol free weekend. Which I wasn’t sure was going to happen or not. I have one more confession to make before the end of this very long blog. This Monday I did something that I have never done before in my life. I got tipsy all by myself and on purpose :). This is only the third time that I have ever drank alcohol by myself and the other two times were one glass of wine and a couple beers respectively. I actually never drink by myself or drink if I am going through stuff because I don't want to use alcohol as a crutch. But I threw that rule out the window on Monday night and it was FUN TIMES!

On Monday I cleaned my house, mopped my floors, and poured myself a bottle of wine (not all at once though... I still try to stay semi-classy). I told my sister and friend Hattie that it was the best time ever. There was no drama, no crowds… just me, my thoughts, and a dance party for one! I forgot how much I really like myself. Things here can get pretty crazy and drama filled and it was so nice to not have any of that. I was afraid it was a cry for help on my part and might become a common part of my life here, but I did manage to have a weekend this weekend with myself and no alcohol. So I now remember how much I like myself with or without alcohol. I know everyone that knows me thinks that I am an extravert x 10, but I thoroughly thoroughly enjoy my intraverted times and they were much needed this weekend.



If you have made it through this blog, thanks for reading. I know the last couple entries have been long but I have pretty much caught up on blogging and now will focus on staying up to date with short and to the point entries... MAYBE!

Hope all is well with everyone. Tschus!