Sticky Apple Kisses

So I am slowly getting around to getting everything I have neglected the past 2 weeks done. My apartment however looks like we set off a bomb before letting Roxie and Skye loose for added kicks.

Roxies Innocent Look:

Skye J stealing my underwear has already been a theme on this blog, but really, the state of this place, well its just wrong that two functioning adults live here. I swear the moment my parents stepped out the door the dude who lives in our fridge ran amok.

Anyway, my WW this week came from the 2 days we spent in Cinque Terre, Italy. My dad had said if he is coming to Europe he is GOING to Europe, and wanted to visit the Mediterranean. My students laughed at us, but really, what is distance to a Canadian? As I found out this week, its 8 hours from Venice to Stuttgart, or about the same amount of time to drive from St. John’s to Corner Brook, without the following view:

So dad wanted the Mediterranean, and mom wanted Venice, so a trip to Italy seemed a must!

Once we got there we were told about a boat ride that for a mere 8 Euros took you to each of the villages. And that is where my WW came from!

Dad’s beach:

My shoes before they were sacrificed for the shower! We forgot sandals, and we stayed in hostels and campsites, and as Cinque Terre is a prime tourist trap (though an amazingly pretty one) they cost 10 Euros for those plastic things you get for 99 cents in your dollar shop!

This weeks WW is actually how I spent Wednesday morning. Something in me finally clicked. A big motorcyle is no different from a little one, I have got to stop letting this bike kick my ass.

And so I had a heart to heart talk with Betty, and we came to an understanding. I want to ride her, not her ride me. She took it well, and I had to be dragged off the compound, all the fun of riding a motorcycle came flooding through again, and she went to being an extension of me rather than a large machine I was trying to maneuver.

I learned to ride in Canada after visiting Patrick in Argentina and falling completely in love with bikes. (I wrote about my experience prior to Argentina here on Empowerment 4 Women), I honestly had no idea how long I would stay in Argentina, I was half planning on having him drop me off in Chile so I could find a job teaching English there.

I did not even have gear at this point, and the first day we met up in Buenos Aires we had to invest in gear. Or at least a helmet. I still was not convinced, and so I bought the cheapest helmet I could find, figuring I was there 2 weeks tops anyway.

The Green Princess Of Coolness Helmut:

Alas, it turned out to be hard, kicked in the stomach, love. Even with the baby alligators living outside of our tent.

The truth was motorcycles offered a freedom I had never had before. And having a tent rolled up and attached to the bike so that we could crash and sleep anywhere (and we did, even in the bushes behind the parking lot for the Valley of the Moon).

After the trip I was home 2 weeks and enrolled in a course so I could get my license. The major difference between Canada and Germany: In Canada you are allowed to drive once you pass your written exam with another driver. In Germany you lose all rights to your future license if you are caught doing so. And so they put you on a path that clocks in at around 2000 Euro, as you pay 45 Euro for 45 minutes for each of your 12 required lessons.

They also treat the small bikes differently than the big ones. Learning on the 125 cc and passing on it would have meant I could drive the 650. Here in Germany it does not work that way. If I want to drive a 650, I need to pass my license driving one.

And I confess, though I loved Betty I was intimidated by her. I didn’t fully trust her. Until Wednesday morning, when Patrick took the day off work to take me to the ADAC compound when no one else would be there. (As a learner of either a car or bike in Germany your only choice to practice is paying for those lessons with your instructor, or on the enclosed compounds where 100 other new learners are bouncing and bopping their cars around). Though I was going there once a week, the sight of those new learners popping their clutches and bouncing up the street hardly inspired desire to put Betty at their mercy.

And on Wednesday we had the place to ourselves, and it just clicked.

Now it really is just the count down of the lessons. I have 3 in a row on Saturday, I hope to have it all over and done with by the end of May, though my guess is that it would be wishful thinking that it will be done in time for the Horizons meeting May 22nd - 25th. Not driving my own bike.

This weeks WW is from Argentina, and though the pic itself is not why I ended up in Germany, the trip itself was the second half. The first half being that I met the German, the second half being I thought it would be a brilliant idea to follow said boy halfway around the world to South America.

The picture was taken in Salta on a stroll back from watching Star Wars Revenge of the Sith. I would say it was just an awesome night for picture taking, as we took this pic the same night:

But really the entire country is just photogenic.

I snapped this one hanging off the side of a boat

and this one (as if you couldnt tell) from the back of the bike

In more exciting Argentina news however, I found out last night that Nazareth, one of the most awesome women I have ever been blessed to meet (darling Alix, please note ONE, for I have met many crazies through travel, but I have also been blessed with having met some of the greatest people alive), is coming to Germany next month!!!!!!

SQUEEEEEEEEEE

Yes I used squee!

Dont ask: seconds later she burned her side on the wood stove.

My WW this week is from my trip to the Dominican Republic with my parents. My parents were going in November, and I had said how much I craved a beach vacation, and I asked them would they be so sad if instead of coming home to Canada for Christmas I met them for beach vacation instead. My mom would be celebrating her birthday down there, and sadly, 2 weeks all inclusive was still cheaper than a flight to Newfoundland (let alone what I would be spending with my friends on nights out once I did get home). The original plan was to use my return ticket to fly into Toronto, and visit my brother and Skye, and fly from there to the DR and visit Alix on the way back. Sadly that turned out to be very expensive even with one way to Canada paid for. And so a direct flight from Germany.

We celebrated an early Christmas on the beach, and my dad actually likes Patrick. To the point where he actually HUGGED him. (For the record, until that point my father had only ever touched a boyfriend in an effort to physically maim him. An ex of mine who was trying to be friendly with my father mentioned that he was a black belt in Karate (my father is a trained kickboxer), and my father promptly spun around and kicked him square in the chest, sending him flying towards the window. My father then announced he could not have been THAT good in Karate. Gaaaaaaaaa! (aaaa when my father was younger).

Patrick did however present my father with homemade schnapps from 1978, which I think endeared him a little in my fathers heart…..
as did his stint as dad’s personal slave…

The pic itself is from when I suspected a sunburn, and asked Patrick to apply cream. As you could tell, he did not do the greatest job.

The trip however was fantastic, and I look forward to going back for my brothers wedding next year!

This week’s WW came from Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan when our friends Hans and Erin came to visit us on our island turf. (We had monkeys and onsens, they had Osaka and Kyoto, Grrr!).

But we finally headed off to visit Mt. Aso, which as Alix pointed out on another blog ( *and demonstrates my complete lack of observational skills*) appeared to populated by little Japanese gnomes. I did not notice that little child popping his head up in that shot before she did!

But rather than hike the entire thing we choose to bus to the top (from the very pretty bottom) and along the way we entertained ourselves with tricks we pull in the classroom, like the folded mystery drawing.

Once we hit the top however we were hit with a stinking, bubbling, pit, and outfitted with masks and the instructions to heed the drill should it sound, as it would mean the air had turned toxic.

Finally we stalked some Japanese bikers (and one turned and caught us sneaking pics, herrrr, before heading off to complete any outing in Japan - Sticker Club!!!

Ok, I have overwhelmed with pics, but sometimes I just cant pick, and at the moment Im numb when it comes to writing, so extra pics it is. 

Find other tell mes here!

My Wordless Wednesday is from my trip to Thailand, and I chose it because I love the photo, but also because it was a bittersweet time, and an escape from stress, which at the moment I am dealing with. Distance does help provide clarity, who would have thought the Buddha had some good ideas?

I was living in Japan when I went to Thailand. We had decided not to renew our contracts. It had been an amazing year, but also a very stressful year. We jokingly referred to Japan as “the great couple breaker” (stolen from a move in a Ranma 1/2 comic). We loved Japan, but the stress of adjusting to culture there, coupled with the penchant for taking out our stress on each other, made us decide that we should leave. (We had actually resigned to stay a second year, and then 2 months later asked for out contracts back as we had changed our minds). And so it was the end of July, we left for home August 6th or 7th (that plane ride is a bit of a blur in my brain, did we leave the 6th arrive the 7th? Or just leave the 7th and the 6th was the last day in Japan?) Who knows.

We decided that we really wanted to go to Thailand. Our travel agency told us they had a sale, and for 400 dollars we could have a week in Thailand. That we had already used up our holidays we never thought about. School was over, we had no more classes, surely we would not be required to sit an entire week at our desks literally doing nothing.

John did not. I most definitely had to. To the point where when my supervisor heard my partner had the week off for travel, I was told she was too busy to help me close out bank accounts until 2 days after our designated departure time.

In my rage this bike was subsequently destroyed as I threw it against the house and then proceeded to stamp the shit out of it.

But I digress, the point is, I am usually a very happy person, but when I become stressed I revert to Tasmanian devil problem solving techniques. Scream a lot - and destroy.

And so I decided that I was going to Thailand anyway. I went back to the travel agency, paid another 400 to cancel the ticket and get a new one issued, only now I left on Friday night, meaning John was there a few days by himself, but my paperwork was in order, and my supervisor was on vacation at the same time. A technique I learned in Japan, it really is easier to apologize then to ask permission and have it denied. Then you really get in trouble.

But to Thailand I went, no one else cared I wasn’t there in the office sitting there doing nothing, and the one who did care was on vacation for 2 weeks anyway.  Find other Tell Mes here!

Find other Tell mes here!

So my WW this week is from my time in Japan. And not just any ole weekend, but the weekend we (as in me and my partner) decided to meet our friends in Osaka.

This is the sweet thing about my time in Asia (and which I admit to missing in Germany), my friends there were not just the wonderful people I meet when I travel. And though I do so love the friends I meet along the way, there is nothing like friends from home to battle those flare ups of homesickness. (I am convinced that as wonderful as travel is, when you live abroad for extended periods you will forever have fits of nostalgia that are hard to fight. I miss certain train rides, friends left behind, and I crave certain meals so badly that I contemplate 1000 Euro plane rides). I have nostalgia not just for home, but Japan, Argentina and even Korea.

But as always I digress, and my main point is that in Asia my friends were old friends from Newfoundland. We did not live near enough each other that we could see each other every weekend, or even every month, (except for in Seoul where there really should be a Newfoundland neighborhood), but I spent two New Years in Taiwan (one was ours, the other was Chinese New Year) with Krista, and Erin and Hans both lived on Honshu island, or a couple of hours away by train ride. Korea was basically like going back to university surrounded by friends I made there.

The weekend of my WW this week we decided to meet in Osaka. We went to see Takarazuka perform, to the Tezuka Osamu museum (where I compare my feet to the greats like Astro Boy and characters from Phoenix ) and was groped by this seemingly innocent Astro Boy!

We then headed to a goth dance night (which the WW picture is from), all in all an average weekend in Osaka.

Time for Tell Me About It Thursday!

This week’s WW was again from my stint as super nanny. It was taken however even before the job began. I arrived, had my interview, and then had about 5 days to enjoy Istanbul before the job began. I was invited out to see Taxim with one of the guys who ran the hostel. (I thought it was a guided tour that I would have to pay for, instead it turned out to be a date. Or at least he thought it was a date. I was back with Patrick at this time, and I thought for all of 6 seconds that I had finally found a Turkish male who did not think looking in a guy’s general direction meant I wanted to marry him).

This lead to Oma’s Wise Words of Wisdom. I ended up writing two versions. One version was written shortly after my arrival, and around this time I was enraged that I could not even leave the hostel. This is actually not that far of an exaggeration. This dude found me just outside of the Blue Mosque and I ran away only to discover his family had a carpet store just up the street from my hostel. He even got mad at me that after that meeting he never saw me for 2 days. (He demanded to know what it was I did, as he waited outside the hostel for me to come out for over 2 hours). That this was crazy talk obviously never occurred to him. Nor did the fact that I was taking 30 extra minutes to get to my hostel every evening, or that I had created the bleeding tea rug maneuver for his benefit! (which went like this:

dropkick him, on the way down shove apple tea still in its cup down his throat and THEN throat punch him to shatter the glass and leave him bleeding in a pile of rugs.

However once I left the hustle of the tourist section of Istanbul, I met normal men. Those that took weeks to even work up the words to say hello to you, let alone stalk you because you accidentally looked in their direction. This is when I wrote the second Oma’s Wise Words of Wisdom. One I titled the Greek version (as I wrote it when I first arrived and I was LIVID mad), and the second is the Turkish version of events.

This weeks Wordless Wednesday is from my brief stint as supper nanny. To be fair to myself and to give a bit of background, I have always wanted to go to Turkey. (Not that this means much as I always want to go pretty much everywhere). ;-P However I had just finished my Masters (which was the roughest year of my life) and I had just broken up with Patrick. At the time I believed it to be for good. I knew I was finished with grad school, probably for good, and I knew from experience that teaching English was a pretty sweet deal in terms of travel and free time. I had looked into Moscow, as I desperately wanted to go back there. However I found an ad where they paid you a ridiculous sum of money to teach English to rich Turkish people’s kids. I figured at worse I get paid a couple thousand dollars for a months work before I am fired or I run, and I got to see Istanbul.

It did not quite work out like that. Directly before going I stopped to visit a friend in Switzerland, and being so close to Germany I of course went to visit Patrick, and within days we were back together. When I arrived in Istanbul the job (like the last time I worked in house with a remotely famous person) began sweet sweet SWEET, and became hell hell hell. (For the record it takes about 3 weeks for them to get use to you and begin throwing things and screaming before depositing very expensive presents on your bed for forgiveness.) Why didnt I leave? I had become attached to the twin boys. DAMN!

From my gypsy princess blog at the time:

Part of the joys of being a governess is that your part teacher and part nanny. So though while you get to throughly enjoy your preparation time and teaching time, there is also all out play time and the occasional bathroom break time when you are asked “is my bum clean” and you check, and then share some of the pride displayed when the 4 year old boy exclaims “WOW its as big as a snake.” (We were beaming over different things. He was impressed with size, I was happy that all that time spent on phonics and singing “the snake is in the grass” wasn’t wasted).

But there is also the fights over if its study time, or flat out “he/she is my sibling and I can take them out with a well placed clothesline to the neck if I so wish.” And sometimes at parties it gets a little out of hand and you need to sit with one of them while they throw a 40 minute temper tantrum, and you find your greatest fear (that one day you will turn out to be your mother) isn’t true, because you find your fathers words coming out instead “Tears don’t work on me, We should have thought about that before we tried to tackle your brother.” And you wonder how the hell your parents ever put up with you and didn’t dump you with grandma and grandpa and run off Costa Rica. And then you get a tearful apology and you decide to let the offender go.

And you open the door to see a four and a half year old neon orange dinosaur hurdling down the hall towards you. And your thoughts are (in this exact order);

What the fuck?

Where the Hell did he find that?

He cant put socks on how did he get orange spandex with fluffy spikes on?

Oh My God where do I get my own?

(I refer to both the outfit and the 4 year old).

Because we all know we can just go to the store and buy them.

Anyway, Patrick came to visit me, and the picture is from the week we took off to travel around Turkey. That is also when he convinced me to do the mature thing and address the fact that I can not work 15 hour days, no matter what they are paying me. About 4 days after this adult conversation, I was fired. But it was the best firing I ever had. I got to see Turkey! For free!

Other Tell Me About It Thursdays can be found here!

I like it! A new Thursday tradition for anyone who participates in Wordless Wednesdays, the picture goes up on Wednesday, and we tell about it on Thursday. My WW is from this summer when we were visiting my partner’s family. I learned I am completely inept as a sailor. My partner is a German engineer and made up of equal parts of both. As such he loves to explain and even worse, teach. (I on the other hand am pure Arts flake, I believe in appreciating it for what it is, don’t ruin it please with science). Let me amend that a little, I’m also lazy. If I don’t know how to do it, and it involves physical labor to learn how, I probably don’t actually want to know either.

That did not stop him from Taking It Upon Himself to enlighten me on a beautiful summer day. He was not just going to sail me around Lake Constance and sweep me off my feet, leaving me with romantic images from our weekend in Switzerland forever. He had already done his sweeping. Now he found himself with a History Masters student who did not speak German in his apartment (and who did not appear to show any real signs or intentions of leaving). Romancing may be nice, but it proved inefficient. And so he set to work to teaching me how to sail. From what I remember it went something like “blah blah blarg warr blar, Are you even listening????” From there it went to “fine, at least steer.” This is where I found out that going straight is not so easy, and I raced towards any object that looked like it could hurt if we hit it.

Victory was mine however, I got to lean back and take in the view, and allowed him the task of begrudgingly wooing me. But as it happens I rather like my men cranky and complaining, it trains me in tuning out their voice when they try to teach me to do something that involves something that looks dangerously like physical labor.