Maryland, My Maryland

Well, I haven't posted in a few days, meaning I'm losing out to Rachel. Except that I'm in Maryland, and she's in Hawaii, so I really have no excuse. Also, she is in the midst of trying to survive a fucking tsunami, and is still blogging.

Life for me has been a little crazy. And by crazy, I mean it's been the mundane routine of suburban life that includes basketball, shopping, bad food, etc. But I'm going to recap it in a boring post right here... So if you don't want to read about my weekend, just stop. It's not that exciting, I promise. Save yourself.

Anyway, my parents were going to the Philadelphia Flower Show, so I volunteered (if you can call it that) to come down and babysit my sister for the weekend. On Friday I took the train from New York in the middle of a blizzard, luckily making it to Baltimore before it was even dark out. I took my 11 year old sister out for Indian food, which was kind of cute -- dinner dates with children are always interesting. Saturday I slept as long as I could until I had to take her to a basketball game, where she made 2 baskets and they basically kicked the other team's asses. We headed to Target to get a gift card for the birthday sleepover she was attending later, ate some Subway (gotta love the suburbs!), and then I proceeded to dye her hair. That's right, I put burgundy streaks in my little baby sister's immaculate, thick, long, beautiful black-brown hair. And they look damn good. She was quite proud.

I took her to the party in the early evening, picked up my charming little grandmother, headed to my aunt's house for dinner, where my cousin was home from college, found out the poor cousin has Celiac disease (gluten allergy), and then ate some really delicious home cooked food...sans gluten, of course. I love being home with family. You always eat so well and feel so wholesome and, well, full.... I spent some time talking to my grandmother back at her house, and that was really wonderful, as usual... I really appreciate the fact that I still have 2 very nice grandmothers and I know I need to cherish the time I have with them. Sooo... then I went home and was about to go to bed when my sister called me CRYING and wanting to come home. Some silly spat had occurred, but after calming her down and talking to the mom for a little, we determined she would be just fine to stay. I felt like a mom... big time. It was scary. Then I went to bed, where a cute little Cocker Spaniel and a fat black and white cat curled up with me. So cozy...

I woke up incredibly early on Sunday to do some work, which I was quite proud of myself for working on so diligently. I even went out for coffee and a breakfast sandwich (sausage, egg, & cheese on a bagel...nothing like New York, but oh well), then came back to "the office" to continue working. And that was only 8:30 a.m.! I don't remember the last time I was awake that early on a Sunday. I don't think those kinds of days happen in my life. So just about the time when I was supposed to start getting ready to go pick up Leah, my dad's computer crashed. That was helpful. And then it wouldn't turn back on. So I got frustrated, took my shower, went to get my sister, and took her to her basketball game. Where her team's asses were kicked. BADLY. I mean, this poor kid was crying by the end...

We both needed to chill, so we went out for Thai food... I'm trying to expose her to international cuisines... To bribe her into good behavior some more, I took her out to the mall to search for a "beanie" hat for her, and did some retail therapy on myself and got some impressive deals. Then I bought her a snowboarding game for her Wii. I am such a good big sister! We went to Borders, exchanged some books (Joan Didion, here I come!), then headed home only to find that my parents were back! My mom and I went on a book scavenger hunt around the house, because apparently when you live in a big suburban house you have 9 billion bookshelves and you can't find anything. Then you find stuff your daughter doesn't want and you make her put it in her suitcase, which will now be impossibly heavy. Thanks for the book about primates, Mom.

Oh, and from investigating the computer issue, I determined that the reason the thing had turned off was because my stupid fat cat had been stepping on it. I realized that right when it turned off, she had been under the table SITTING on the power strip I didn't know existed until later, so I have a feeling her extreme fatness made it somehow possible for her to push the power button, which is right on the top and relatives flat and easy to push. Ugh, the most cuddly, adorable, sweet not-so-little creature ever was the one that lost my work. Oh well.

Clearly, more work had to be done, so that was boring and I don't wanna write about it. We ate dinner (leftover beef barley soup!), watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics, drank some delicious Amphora wine, and I ditched the 'rents, and did some more crap for work, and then got bored, and here I am.

I will wax philosophical later about how weird it is to be 24 but to know so fully what it's like to be a parent in some ways, having dealt with my much-younger sister since I was 16. It's a trip. Literally. I mean, I have to take a trip to know what it's like. It will be nice to get back home to NYC to my own reality, which involves my own pursuits of happiness and selfishness and drunkenness and fun. But I always appreciate these weekends of suburban bliss, if you can call it that...

Mostly, it's good to spend time with my sister, as much as she might get on my nerves. She's a good kid, and she deserves for her big sister to buy her useless junk now and then and dye her hair and give her gum whenever she asks for it. And she even deserves to hear life advice from me even when she doesn't want to hear it. I'm just that good.

Ok I'm bored with this. Good night.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Ich muss Deutsch lernen... Meaning: I must learn German. Why? Because I need to explore the country where my family comes from, of course. My grandmother speaks fluent German -- in fact, she knew it before she knew English, although she was born in America -- but she never really taught it to her children. So my mother isn't fluent, and of course I barely know three words. Kann ich Deutsch sprechen? Nein.

Of course, regular old German might not even be that helpful in the region my family is from. Apparently there are crazy dialects in southwest Germany, most likely because it's so close to Switzerland, and in Switzerland there are an incredible amount of dialects. German, Italian, French, all muddled up in a million different ways for thousands of years. This poster from the region translates to, "We can do anything. Except [speak] Standard German." Ahh the things you find out from Wikipedia.

That's ok though... Though I'm not fluent in any language besides English, I pick things up easily and I'm very good at distinguishing slight differences in pronunciations, even in languages I don't understand, and German is incredibly close to English. I heard some lovely (and very blonde) German girls talking at an ATM yesterday, and though the word I could most understand was, "Sheisse!" (meaning "shit," of course), I could also make things out like, "My pin number isn't working," or "This machine is so stupid." Mostly because of the frustrated tone, and the fact that pronunciation and grammatical structure are so similar to English, I found I could follow their conversation surprisingly well.

Besides learning the language, I want to go to Germany mostly to explore Berkheim, from where the maternal of my family hails - the Baumanns. The town is located in the Baden-Wurttemberg region. The closest I've ever gotten to it is at the Holocaust Museum -- we found the town on a wall where they list all the German towns and all the names of the Jewish families who were from there. It was terribly haunting and it made my mother cry, even though our immediate family had been gone for years by the time that happened. For her, I think, it was just too close for comfort, since she'd visited there in the '60s.

Anyway, as far as where I'll go when I visit... Everyone, myself included, usually thinks of Munich and Berlin and Hamburg when they think of German cities, but the cities in the Baden region are Mannheim and Heidelberg and Stuttgart and Freiberg...and I will visit them! The Black Forest is also right there, which is supposed to be absolutely beautiful. What's more, Zurich is not too far to the southwest, so I have a plan... Fly to Zurich, travel northwest to Freiberg, explore the Naturpark Sudschwarzwald, head east to Berkheim, find my relatives, stay on Jim's farm, head north to Stuttgart, then north again to Frankfurt. Then I guess I could come home. When will I do this? Not a damn clue. But I have it all planned out on Google Maps.

The funny thing is, I just did a little bit of Googling and I found a site where I can trace my mother's family back, but only on her Irish paternal side, not the German Baumanns. I was able to go all the way back to my great-great-great-great-great grandparents, Mary O'Rourke and Patrick Delaney, both born in Ireland in 1770. Perhaps I should visit Ireland instead...

Raindrops on roses...

I liked this so much I posted it on my other blog, too. I was just searching for a generic status update about the rain and this is how people responded. Hilarious. I love Facebook more than words can say.

On Top of the World

This is me on the floor of Reagan Airport, about 5 years ago. Maybe someday I'll travel to all the countries I'm touching. Hopefully...

Travel Bug

This blog made me remember that Nick has relatives in Denmark... His uncle married a Danish woman and he has 4 daughters who I think are in their teens, so that could be fun... So here are possibilities for free places to stay in Europe!

France - Visit Mom's cousin Sarah and her family at her chateau... It will sound pretty fancy when I can say, "I'm going to summer in the South of France." Ooh la la...

Germany - Stay at farm owned by Mom's cousin Jim. I have no idea where this is or if it's near any cities, but it would be nice. I know I also have German relatives in the Baden region but I have no idea who they are. I think one of them is the crazy cousin Maria who lost the house that had been in my family for generations. I should probably find it and buy it.

Ireland - Stay at condo in Connemara owned by Mom's cousin Peter. My parents visited there last year and loved every minute of it. There were sheep everywhere...no joke. I saw pictures. The landscape is beautiful and the local people are apparently the nicest, most welcoming in the world.

Denmark - Visit Nick's uncle and his family... Again, no idea where they live, but it would be great to do a tour of Scandinavia. Nick is part Swedish so I think they have relatives there as well.

I have never been to Europe, which saddens me greatly. Truthfully, I want to go to London the most, but I want to do that when I have a bit more money to spend, since I hear it's terribly expensive. I think I just want to go for the literary heritage... I feel like every English major should probably make a pilgrimage to London at some point. I need to pay homage to Shakespeare.

My travels involve a driving through and flying around a large portion of the United States, a quick trip to Canada, a week in Belize, and two weeks in Japan. More on that later...

Escape!

Here is my life plan... Basically it's a long series of escapes...

2010
Now - Work my butt off and save a lot of money... Basically I can't call out sick from the bar anymore. Ever.
May - Go to the Virgin Islands with Taylor to visit Cara. Flight = Booked. Me = So excited!
July - Visit Rachel in Chicago for the 4th of July, or for the Pitchfork Festival.
August - Go somewhere cool with the boyfriend, if he has enough money. We were discussing Hong Kong. That would be amazing, but South or Central America is more likely. Europe even, since we have a few options of free places to stay.
October - Go somewhere during Columbus Day Weekend. I don't know where yet, but it seems silly to waste a perfectly good 3 day weekend.
The rest of the year - Keep working...

2011
Beginning of year - Work my butt off and save money so I can do lots of long-term volunteering projects!
May - Boyfriend finishes program and we leave NY as soon as humanly possible. Yay!!
Summer - Go to India for up to 6 months to do volunteering through some program I'm not sure of yet.
December - Come home for the holidays. Apply to graduate school, if I have a clue by then what I want to do.

2012
January - Go to Tanzania for 3 months of volunteering through the Ujamaa Hostel.
April - Come home for one hot minute, then go to either San Diego to volunteer with K9 Connection, and/or to Seattle to volunteer with Furrytale Farm. However, I'd also like WWOOF at some point.
July or August - Come home, then pack up to move to wherever the boyfriend gets into medical school and I get into grad school, hopefully the same place.

So that's my life plan for now. I don't know how much of this I'll actually do, or if it will be in this order, but it's good to have hope for the future. I know I need to get out of NYC, but I also wouldn't mind coming back eventually, and I fully intend on enjoying myself while I'm still living here. I just need to travel, I need to volunteer, I need to see new people and places. Escape is my only hope! I just have to do lots of research and save money to make it a reality...