Thursday, July 24, 2014

City Sidewalks, Busy Crosswalks...

Yay! Pictures in today's entry!


Sorry for not writing yesterday – nothing really special happened. For future reference, here’s a basic rundown of how my days usually work:

7:00 AM – Up, dressed, and get the kiddos ready for school.
7:45 – bitties at school
8:00 – I leave for language classes
9:00 – Language class starts. It goes until
12:00 – out of school, walk home or explore, stop somewhere for lunch, I’m free until
4:00 – pick the bitties up, go to the playground until
6:00 – home for some dinner for the bitties, play and books
7:00 – Daniel goes to bed
8:00 – Elsa goes to bed, and I’m free until
10:00 – when I go to bed

     
It’s not terribly exciting, but I get about 4 hours in the afternoon to explore to my heart’s content, and then a few hours in the evening to rest, read, and/or write.


My lunch, and yes -- it was as delicious as it looks.
Today, after class, I planned to go to a second-hand shop I’d found online. Second-hand shops are rare here – I think there’s like, three in the whole city. Most Germans apparently aren’t very impressed with second-hand stuff. But I was looking for some décor for my room and maybe another shirt or two, so I bought double lunch yesterday and went off to find the place. (I had to buy lunch yesterday because otherwise I would have gone almost as far in almost the exact opposite direction to get lunch. My bread was a little stale, but nothing that a sunny, breezy day in the park couldn’t cure.)

I found it with no problem (passed the zoo on the way) and while I think I’ll go back, because they had pretty good prices and seemed nicely busy, they didn’t have anything I wanted today. Well, ok – that’s a lie. They had two books from the Harry Potter series in mint condition, with the British covers, for only €4 each. But I have the books on my kindle and don’t really need to cart two big hardback books home when I leave so… With great reluctance, I put them back.
Lovely, no?
On my way home, I came across The British Bookstore and couldn’t resist the urge to go in. Small place, but a very good selection of (hallelujah) English books. I even found one in a €2 bin called Into The Labyrinth by Roderick Townley. It’s the sequel to The Great Good Thing, which I’d picked up on a whim months ago and adored – I didn’t even realize there was a sequel! So that was a nice buy – a consolation prize for having abandoned the HP books. :D

Victor and I took the bitties with us shopping this evening so Anna could clean house a bit. I saw a girl wearing an “I am S-H-E-R locked” shirt and so very nearly said something – and now I regret that I didn’t – but it’s just not normal to speak to utter strangers in the shop here. You pretend they don’t exist, and they do the same for you. So I gave in to cultural pressure and just smiled hopefully at her. She didn’t notice – but it’s nice to know that there’s at least one other nerd in this city. LOL

Oh, and I found a dead bird today. :( I was walking home and saw it on the sidewalk just in front of our building. I thought maybe it was just stunned or had a broken wing or something, so I bent down to see – but it was dead. I’m not ashamed to say that I – a great big adult living more-or-less on her own in a foreign country – teared up a little. I scooped the poor thing up (so light and delicate) and laid it in the bushes where nature could handle the problem. (Don’t worry, Mom, I washed my hands right away.)

Anyway, that’s been my day. Nerds and dead birds, books and exploring. Not a bad day, if I do say so myself. :D Hoping to do a video entry soon. I’ll have to wait for a day when I have the house to myself for a bit – Anna or Victor have been home the last few days when I get back from class.

More later,
~Mags

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