Sticky Apple Kisses

Hee hee, Patrick is featured in the second Journizer J log.  You can find both issues here, his is the one titled around the world in 80 seconds.  I have to sauna and eat some more.  Excuse me. 

So I am still here in Switzerland relaxing and vegging out. In fact the only thing I did yesterday was eat and read. It was a joy, and a bit of a change from the first few days here. Manly in that my cold sore is gone. The hideous thing raised its head a week to the day before Christmas Eve. My guess is that because I was so sick the week before, but I never took the time to stay in bed and get better, I paid for it with a hideous visitor from the Herpes family. I have not had a cold sore in years, but the last time it appeared I was in university, working too much, and stressed out. Sounds familiar no?

Well I could accept this horrible visitor until Christmas Eve. Patrick’s other Oma gets in the car and shrieks I have been giving “bad kisses” and I have Herpes on my face. She then proceeds to spend the 2 hour drive to Switzerland explaining how to get rid of the herpes. I keep saying COLD SORE as loud as I could until I finally give in defeated, yes, my face is being eaten by herpes. Gaaaa.

But it wasnt over yet. At the table Patrick’s brother in law announces (in case anyone in the room was blind) “Sherrie! you have herpes on your face!” Now the brother in law speaks English, and I told him its called a cold sore. He then insists, that no its Herpes. “Ok yes, technically, but we call it cold sores” and I attempt to kick him under the table because all this loud discussion about me having Herpes is making me uncomfortable. (and I have a brand new sympathy for anyone with genital herpes and how they must feel whenever it is mentioned in conversation. gaaa).

Not to be outdone he jumps up, comes back with a giant green medical dictionary in hand, looks up Herpes simplex and insists on displaying the page to me . Leave it to Germans to not let you misname something. The truth is there, blunt and in your face.

My cold sore is now gone, but Patrick’s Oma called from Germany to have me write down a list of creams the next time I break out in Herpes of the face. Sigh.

Hee hee, so true! Merry Christmas everyone!

If you can not read it go here and see the original!

This is an excellent video on the story of stuff, or how we consume way too much crap.

The Story of Stuff

It is broken up on youtube into different chapters, but that is the first Chapter after the introduction. It really makes you think about how we consume and about the destruction we inflict upon our planet and our bodies by doing so.

I am proud to say that since coming to Germany my consumption of stuff has dramatically decreased. Of course I will not give Germany full credit. Ever since my rucksack full of everything I deemed worth taking with me from Korea was stolen in Vietnam I have slowly been losing my attachment to stuff. Despite the initial shock and horror, I quickly realized that it was just that, stuff. And it was all for the best anyway, as I went straight from Vietnam to Argentina where my stuff never would have fit on Emma.  I mean this was it, one bike, 2 boxes, and home was a tent, which also had to fit. 

So my dependency on stuff started to decrease then.  But since coming to Germany and moving in with a Swabian, well we take it a new level.  Which I fully admit to fighting at first.  ;-)  But then I began to realize that the less stuff you buy, the more money you have, which means the more travel!  You don’t worry about the stuff you left behind, because you took it all out of someone else’s extra garbage stuff.  (hee hee, its true that most of our apartment was furnished that way, but think of all the stuff we saved from landfills, AND all the money we saved for our Eastern European motorcycle tour!).  I have also given up buying new clothes with each paycheck.  I would rather go to Africa for 4 months than keep up with fashion the way I semi used to.  (I was never so good at keeping up with trends, but I was very good at keeping myself up with new clothes and shoes, be it of fashion or not.) 

So watch it, save the planet and your cash for the stuff you really want!!!!

Thirteen Things I Have Just Learned About The Return Of Saturn    1.   I have been having something of a freak out the past 2 months (well longer, but it has been intensifying the past 2 months), a love hate relationship with my job, right down to the realization that I am going to be 30 in just 2 years. While ranting to a friend she told me I better get it cleared up as my Saturn’s Return was just around the corner, if not here already. So the first thing I learned about Saturn’s return is its name, which means just that, the return of Saturn.

2. I demanded to know more so she told me to google it to find it out for myself. I have to admit to not being a big believer in Astrology, but everything I read on this particular topic just fit - including that when Saturn enters into its original place in your birth chart your whole world turns upside down, right about when your 30. So I dug into it a little more.

3. It takes Saturn around 29.5 years to make its way back to its original position when you were born.

4. But Saturn stays in each house around 2 years, so the years between 28 - 30 is when you experience your Saturn’s return. AKA your first life crisis. Or at least mine, I was so freaking confident in everything I did up until now!

5. This is the time when you finally get to be an “adult” not 19 or 21. Which means I was right when I told everyone to stop freaking out at 24, we were still more or less teenagers. (I figured university delayed true adulthood, and so my age group at 23 or 24 were where our parents were at 19, 2 years out of school, Nothing!)

6. Each return is different based upon the house you were born under (so though I am a Leo I share a return of Saturn with anyone born roughly between 1978 - 1980. (You can find out exactly by checking out http://saturnreturn.net/where_is.html)

7. Even if the astronomy part is all crap, the timing is perfect. Right down to the fact that all of a sudden I find myself a workaholic obsessed with lists as the be all and end all to all my life’s problems. I bought Surviving Saturn’s Return as it was 12 Euros and I figured how can it hurt. If nothing else it will be fun. It was a little too fun as it all just fit a little too well, right down to the stress really kicking in September 3rd of this year, days before the Eastern Europe Motorcycle tour, which was awesome but tumultuous to begin.

8.  It happens again when we are nearing 60, as this is the second time Saturn makes his way around to his original location.

9.  More importantly if you do not deal with it the first time around, the second time is harder.

10.  The return of Saturn is a clock demanding that you do your inner work and get your life on track the way it should be for you, not the way others think it should be.

11.  The lessons astrologers talk about in preparing you for your Saturn’s return are important for  everyone all the time, as a believer or not.  At the risk of sounding like a nut job I decided to do this Thursday 13 because I loved the book.  but I would have loved it if it had been called “Common Crisis for Nearing 30 Women”  or “Freak outs of the average 30 year old.”

12. These lessons could be summed up as do your own inner work, be honest to yourself and others, love and trust yourself, and don’t surrender the power for any of your decisions to  anyone else.  Relationships and money are not the bandaids we are brought up to believe they are.

13.  If you love and respect yourself things work out.  The further you step away from that (staying with your partner because your afraid to be alone, not writing that book because it means everyone will laugh at you for giving up your job as a top exec, worshiping at the  feet of the great dollar instead of the divinity that is inside all of us) the further you work yourself into varying degrees of unhappy states.

And so as a believer or not, it fits right now. 

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I can not wait, 2 days left and I have 2 weeks holidays. 2 weeks where I plan to do nothing, NOTHING. Not even travel, unless you count going to my partners parents in Switzerland. Which of course I do not. But that is part of the lack of posting. I have been sucked into the world of trying to finish off courses, and covering for teachers who have left already to head home. And it has become bitter bitter cold here in Germany, So not cool!!!!!!!!!!!

I did write this the other day though, it applies to why I have been unable to write anything, not even simple blog entries.  Every ESL teacher suffers from it, the culture shock combined with what the hell am I doing with my life teaching English.  It is a great way to meet people.  But you do feel kind’ve useless on the grand scale of things.  But then when you really think about it most jobs really are quite useless.

I just read one of those books that reach out and wrench something from inside of you and hold it in front of you squirming – those ugly black vile bits of ourselves that we really dont like to acknowledge about ourself let alone examine. It was written about Africa, but the love of what the main character felt for Hunter, as well as the love hate relationship she has with Africa, could easily be applied to my experience in Germany. Africa is not the only place where you can love your physical setting while at the same time deeply loathing what your surroundings mean in your daily life. I am also worried that I am going to be swallowed up if I do not become more of an active player. At the moment I do find moments of real happiness and of belonging. I feel more at home here than most places I have been. I have begun to take my environment and make it mine. It IS my life. And yet I work more than I want, not just for the money, but because my partner does not understand why I would ever turn down the money. I cant help but wonder what staying here will do to me as a person. I am on a train to a job I no longer want, the times changed and yet still I am coming out here. My mother would have told me not to go if I dont want to. My partner pushes me hard to do it. And myself, well I swing from thinking its a great opportunity to feeling it is a huge mistake. Is this my intuition kicking in telling me it is a mistake? Or is it just my fears of commitment to a job and long hours. I really do not know.

Anyway, back to the now of typing.  I still do not have the answer to it.  But I did just read an awesome book on the return of Saturn which puts some things in perspective.  But a post for another time.

If your a reader over at Gypsy Princess as well then you know that I want to do the trip on a BMW F 650, but also that after listening to how heavy the bikes can be (and I mean from everyone, from watching Long Way Round, to my partner’s advice, to A Girl, A Bike, A Dream where she does talk about the heavy bike distracting from some of her enjoyment, and this before she gets out of the luxury roads of Europe!) I am having my first set of doubts. Of course it is also said that if you love your bike than nothing can stop you.  Try going through the Congo on an R1 Enduro. 

For Patrick’s birthday I bought him The Long Way Round DVD. We’ve been watching an episode each night before bed, and we laughed to kill ourselves at all the planning that went into that trip. Patrick had put a lot of planning into his world trip that took almost the same route, but it was a fraction of what they were doing. Of course he wasn’t followed by a film crew, but some of the crap they thought they needed, 2 sets of spare tires? Dudes people do that trip all the time without the benefit of a gear truck following! However I guess when you have a production budget that doesn’t want to spend the money required of spending an unplanned week in the middle of nowhere while you make the necessary arrangements to ship equipment in, then having it all with you is worth it.

Last night we watched the part where they went through the Ukraine. Hee hee, when we went to the Ukraine we did zero planning, we kept meaning to, but it was just always pushed back. Then it was time to leave and the only thing we had done was pick up Patrick’s fathers bike (the plan was to sell Emma and so we didn’t want anything happening to her). Jacqueline was made for the Swiss alps, maybe not so much for two fools who jumped on her with a map the morning of departure and took her through some of the toughest “roads” there are. I say toughest roads because most of these roads were not roads, in some countries like Mongolia they don’t even pretend they are roads. But Ukraine tries to pass them off as so. This particular pic was from a road in Romania, but it was the same trip and you get the idea. ;-)  Not exactly the road you want to be cruising at anything over 50, especially in the dark, it could be death.

More importantly this morning over breakfast Patrick pointed out that as much as we teased over the planning, some planning is required, especially since we plan to go through Africa.  So this morning was spent figuring out exactly what needs to be done over the next few months, budgeting plans were drew up, and we have begun to chart our route.  The nice thing is he kept his packing list from his last world trip, so we are already a major jump ahead!

And then as if the universe was telling me I am on the right track, I checked my hotmail to find that my cousin has started a Facebook group to bring me to South Africa next year.  Which makes all the extra hours working worth it!