I leave for Miami on Sunday, which means I have less than a week of this lazy vacation life. I have been writing and doing my suggested summer reading for law school, but for every hour I spend being studious, I spend an hour melting my brain with Desperate Housewives/skyping Ader/debating which shower gels to pack and which to leave here. I have to spend most of my time inside since I really overdosed on the sun and as a result have cold sores scabbing up all around my mouth. It looks as gross as it sounds. The very tactful nurse practitioner I saw today said it was good that I wasn’t going to see my boyfriend for a few months because “he wouldn’t want to see your face like that, anyway.” So okay, I’ll cool it with the sun for a while.

I’ve seen all my friends I expected to see at least once, and I have a feeling that people will come visit me in Miami, so it’s not super important that I see everyone again, although that would of course be nice. What I need to focus on now is packing and psyching myself up for school. Facebook stalking my classmates was a bad idea, because seeing where everyone did their undergrad was super intimidating. But I’m still feeling pretty confident that I can get back into my schedule of six hours of studying the days I have class and nine hours on the days that I don’t. I managed to do that in Albany, and this time I’m surrounded by people who are just as serious as I am (or let’s keep it real, a lot of them will likely be more serious than I am), and I don’t have to share my living space with anyone. My experience is that living with people you don’t like is awful for all the obvious reasons and living with people you do like leads to spending too much time blending margaritas and gossiping over games of Uno.

And I should be getting to Miami with plenty of time to set up my apartment, learn the bus schedules, and generally prendre le rythme. I get to ride my bike everywhere and I live next to a Whole Foods. Don’t worry, I’d be jealous of me too. I just wish I could go down there knowing some people. But I don’t think that meeting people will be a problem, because generally in my life the things I stress about don’t turn out to be issues at all; the problems are things I never even thought of. When I really get stressed out I can make a countdown of the days until winter break, when either Ader comes here or I go to France (and maybe Munich). After all, my first semester of law school will be over in 136 days.        

I’m back in New Jersey, recovering from Germany. Just kidding. Kind of. My last night in Munich was wonderful. It made me sad(der) to leave. Except I couldn’t wear the dress I wanted to for my going away party because it was too cold. This is in July remember. When I checked into my flight in Munich (in German of course), the guy was like, “Um…why do you have an American passport?” and then when we were about to land in New York, the flight attendant was passing out customs forms and asked me what kind of visa I had to enter the US. It’s flattering, but I don’t like having to admit nationality out loud in public.  

My mom was waiting for me in JFK. After so much traveling alone it was nice to have someone waiting for me at the airport. I just collapsed onto my bed my first night home. It took me literally the whole next day to unpack, or I should say it took me a whole day to figure out how to get all my clothes into my already overstuffed closet. That night we went out to dinner in Atlantic City with my aunt and uncle who were visiting. We had Cuban food and it was lecker. I’m still getting used to this whole English thing.

My best friend, Katie, came down for the weekend. The clouds ruined our beach plans but we had fun on Saturday night, once we got away from the sketchy men at the bar with comically strong Boston accents who wanted to chat about NASCAR. Monday I finally got my beach day with my friend, Emily. My mother had warned me about staying in the sun too long and of course I didn’t listen and now I have sun-induced blisters all around my lips. We went in the water and I thought it would be a great idea to keep my sunglasses on. So now they’re gone. God, my problems are all so first world. Anyway, it was a good beach trip. Scratched that itch, as my mom would say, if she would stop lecturing me about sun damage.

Monday evening I went out to get my split ends trimmed and buy myself some new cheap sunglasses, without my license. That part I realized after I got back. I had given it to Katie to keep in her purse when we went out and forgot to get it back. Oops. At least I got away with it. The rest of the week I spent catching up on my social life here. It’s a good thing I have a pool to invite people to and a father who is willing to drive me around like I’m still a freshman in high school. And since my group of friends who still live here gets smaller every time I come home, I’ve had time to think about law school (scary) and moving to Miami (exciting). I have a stack of books of “suggested summer reading for 1Ls” which I will tackle as soon as I finish choosing pictures to print and hang on the walls of my new apartment.  

I’m at the hostel in Düsseldorf now. I haven’t seen much else of the city because it’s been torrentially down pouring since I got here. A few minutes ago I packed up my things and started heading toward the nice big block of green on my map because I thought the sun was finally out, but I didn’t get very far before it started raining again. So now I’m back here. I’ll keep trying.

So, Salzburg. It’s one of those places where you can close your eyes, randomly point your camera at anything, and take a picture that looks like a post card. The trip there was a bit foggy and we were verbally assaulted by a random man in the train station, but after that things got better. Our hostel was on top of a mountain overlooking the city. We wisely shelled out for the lift instead of trying to climb up with our luggage. The hostel was super cute, run by people in dirndls and lederhosen. We spent the afternoon exploring the city, which entailed climbing a mountain (not the one our hostel was on but another one) and seeing the house where Mozart was born from the outside, because going inside would have cost ten Euros. Nothing in Salzburg is cheap; I survived on margarita pizza and ice cream. It was a nice trip nonetheless, especially the second day when the weather cooperated and we bought a first-class Bayern ticket off a guy at the train station for what we were about to spend on a regular ticket.

Monday morning I got the bus to Stuttgart. The trip was longer than expected because the highway was closed, but it’s not like I was in a rush. Schlepping my suitcase to the hostel was a bit tiring but once I actually got there it was perfect—clean and quiet. My room had six beds but I only shared it with one other person and the internet was free and fast. I had a nice nap and chat on skype with Ader and my mom for the first time post-storm. Tuesday I had a nice stroll around the city before settling on a bench in the beautiful garden outside the Schloss to write. My only complaint about the hostel is that the bathroom had windows but no light, so I couldn’t take a shower at night and had to go to bed kind of sweaty.

Yesterday I carpooled to Düsseldorf. That was the only part if the trip I was kind of nervous about because I had arranged it on the phone in German, so even though I thought everything was clear (and it was), I worried that I would miss my ride because of some misunderstanding and then not have enough money to get all the way up here. But my worries were unfounded, and so far everything’s been going according to plan. Knock on wood with me.        

I’m back in Munich, until tomorrow. Leaving Paris is always hard. Saying goodbye to Ader is always hard. And unless some miraculous opportunity wants to prevent itself very soon, this is going to be the longest stretch of time we’ve had to go without seeing each other. So there were some tears at the Gare de l’Est on Wednesday afternoon. The last few days before I left I managed to keep it together though. While I generally don’t think that ignoring reality is advisable, I made a conscious effort not to think any further than what we were having for dinner that night. Denial was surprisingly easy and allowed me to just enjoy much more of the two weeks than I would have otherwise.

I spent one day getting my mom her lentilles du Puy and searching every Celio in Paris for a jacket for Ader in the right size and color. It took me the entire day because there are a lot of Celios in Paris…and because I couldn’t resist poking around every fnac, H&M and Sephora that I passed. I didn’t buy a single thing for myself though because I’m out of money for things that aren’t completely essential and out of space in my suitcase. And out of space in my part of the closet in Ader’s apartment. And in my room in New Jersey.

Ader made me go through all my things at his place and decide what I could give/throw away. Some of the clothes I was hanging on to were unflattering on me or wouldn’t look good on anyone. They were easy to get rid of. But then there were all my bottles of unopened mouthwash and enough pairs of leggings and tank tops to suggest that I have some kind of disorder. I had to compromise and get rid of some of those. A few things I couldn’t get rid of even though they don’t serve any purpose, like my agenda from the spring semester of my sophomore year of college where I wrote down our first date.

On the train back to Munich I was sitting next to a family of very stereotypical Americans, so I don’t feel like I completely got to avoid all the fourth of July obnoxiousness. Side note: I am kind of proud of myself for staying out of the US on July fourth for four years in a row now (Stockholm, Paris, Paris, Paris and Munich). But then Johann and Delphine met me in the Hauptbahnhof and I’ve been too distracted to feel sorry for myself since then. They’ve been so incredibly nice letting me stay with them, that the least I can do is honor Johann’s request that I mention in my blog our traditional German crepes and cider. One drinks the cider out of a mug that looks (to me, a non-Bretonne) like a coffee mug but is not for coffee, only for cider.

Tomorrow I’m going to Salzburg, which I’m really looking forward to. Actually I have nothing but things to look forward to for the next few weeks.