because i'm bored: August 5th 15:45 I am now on the road to Berlin from Füssen. After telling about yesterday I will continue telling of the days past. Do you know what I miss the most (second to friends of course)? Rain. Rain, storms, gray clouds, whatever, just as long as it isn't this dreadfully cheerful weather that we have had since we arrived. It is always sunny and warm with a blue sky. Some of the photos I have taken even look fake with the plain, bright blue background of a sky with not a single cloud. Yesterday we drove from Munich to Füssen. Mom and Dad wanted me to be the "co-pilot" and figure out which roads we needed to go on and tell my Dad which way to turn and when to turn off his lights or if the preson in front of him was stopped. This was so that I couldn't be bothered by Brett being obnoxious and I could gain experience driving with maps or something. I was horrible at until about twenty minutes into the drive when I started learning which signs to look for. After that I successfully navigated us south, across the border into Austria for a bit, then looped around and went back up to Füssen, which is very close to the border. It wasn't the original plan, but I did it on purpose and no one cared because we were driving between huge mountains in a country we had never been in before. The hotel was nice and we got icecream, then went up to the room. I was upset to find out that it was only one room, since my parents had told me to look forward to Füssen because we were supposed to have two small rooms. I had been excited to actually be able to get some sleep without hearing my dad snore. The room was cozy, but the bathroom was strange. A completely see through glass door that wasn't fogged or anything led to it. We ended up hanging a down comforter over it because not only could people in the family see it but you could see through to the shower, which was also fogged glass from the street. Europeans are a lot more comfortable with nudity I guess. We saw naked sunbathers the other day near a stream in Austria. No one cares. I read a lot and we walked around the village a bit, and I got upset because I wasn't going to be able to sleep (I didn't get any the night before because Dad was snoring so loud all night) so I took some sleeping pills and I was out, I shut my eyes, opened them a second later and it was dark and everyone was in bed and everything was silent. It scared me badly, and for a few seconds i breathed very panicky before calming down. It seemed like I had been completely unconcious rather than retreating into the subconcious...no dreams, no acknowledgement of time passing, no hearing noises--completely unlike me. This morning I took a shower and ate Brett's candy while we watched MTV, which had a lot of songs in english because they are popular there too. *MTV Deutschland* MOm said she will unblock it when we get home, which I am of course happy about. I guess she has a new perspective after being over here and seeing people lying around naked in public and she doesn't think MTV is quite so bad afterall. I think maybe when I get back I will miss things here. The small cars, the high speed limits, the places on autobahn with no speed limits, how comfortable everyone and everything here seems. And of course the part where everyone rides their bikes and walks everywhere, how everyone has their windows open constantly, and everyone is outside a lot. And how thick and beautiful the forests are, and well, almost everything. I love it here, but America is my home, and I'm not so sure I could laeve it permanently unless that is where my job took me or I had almost nothing to lose. The chocolate I am eating right now has strawberry and vanilla inside of it, and it is soo delicious! It is 9:15 and we have entered East Germany. The scars of the war have lived through the communist days, i suppose, because a lot of houses and buildings we are seeing are broken down shells that no one lives in anymore. All the buildings are dark and the area has an invisible aura of bad. Nothing is beautiful here, not like the other places we have seen. something feels very powerful and bad, and i hope that i am imagining it or it is just the past that makes me feel it so. brett feels it too, i can tell by how he is talking, saying he doesn't know why, but he doesn't think he is going to like berlin. I can feel fall coming, and i cannot wait. i love going out among the dead looking trees and feeling myself shiver with cold and anticipation of the longer nights and of hot food. of sleeping with the window open anyway. and the new school year is slowly coming closer and i cannot wait. i crave to learn more, especially of germany and its rich culture and history. and world history, and world literature, and choir, and design studio and maybe spanish lessons from Olga? i can't wait to see everyone and have a job and homecoming with my dress that no one else will have, and lockers and having classes with friends and parties. Ugh, the feeling i get here. i have to throw myself into daydreams or concentration to not feel it. oh well, i shall stop complaining. Nearing Berlin...A lot of people seem to hitchhike here, not old homeless men but anyone whos car broke down or anything. I've seen four or five hitchhikers already today. I had this odd flashback to a night amost a year ago when i was also listening to papa roach lovehatetragedy. I was so numb, it was scary. August 6th Sometime in the morning I am writing from the hotel room in Berlin. What i mean about berlin is that it seems like things here may not be fully better, i see all these groups of teeangers walking around outside without a care in the world and i wonder what their lives would have been like if they had been born five or ten years earlier. I wonder how many more questions without answers would go through their minds. We leave for Hamburg after seeing the berlin wall and the brandenburg gate. I will write more later. later... Still over a week until we leave and only ten days till school starts! i am starting to feel like the road is my home, because i am on it every single day. we haven't stayed in one place for more than a night in so long...we are back on it right now, on the way to Hamburg. I have actually come to like Berlin, which looks a lot more cheerful in the daytime. I could even see myself living there. we saw brandenburg gate and the remains of the berlin wall, and i got a little piece of it for myself. it may be fake, but its either a piece of the berlin wall or a spray painted piece of concrete from berlin. i guess its cool either way even though i would rather have it be the first. i am in love with Germany, and i do not want to go to france in a few days. I could stay here forever... Ich leibe Deutschland! we got lost on the way out of berlin, and then a bunch of skater guys jumped out in front of our car and one of them quickly washed our windshield. dad gave him a euro, and he was very thankful, thanking my dad kindly, and then said a few things that none of us understood, so dad just said bitta. i really am going to miss it here...but i am going to come back someday. august 8th 9:34 American time 16:34 here we are about to leave germany and cross into the netherlands, and i have learned a few things in the past week and a half; america is my home, but so is germany. i feel that, i fit here, i love it here, i am comfortable here, this is my home. and there are two families here who have told me i am always welcome into their homes: the vonderbanks and johannes and natalie. I am already beginning to miss the beautiful Germany. now we drive to calais, france, through the netherlands and belgium. calais has a beach and i am hoping to be able to get some time in on it, which will only happen if i'm very lucky because of certain circumstances that i won't explain. damn this road, it is so bumpy i can hardly write! the last day and a half have seemed only like a few hours, and i miss johannes, natalie, and daniella dearly, but i keep moving on. i have no choice. i know i will see them again someday. the netherlands is so far a land of orchards, tree-lined roads, and beautiful horses. yesterday i woke up early because i felt pressure building up inside of me and it hurt too bad to sleep. i got dressed but stayed in bed until the three of them got there. we gave them our presents for them, then walked to a bus stop. we took the bus to a subway station and took the subway to the Great Saint Michaelis church , which could be considered the symbol of hamburg according to natalie and johannes. everyone except for me and mom went up in the tower, but neither of us felt like it. so we went to see the church, which was also beautiful on the inside. then we went down to the basement, which was where a lot of people were burried, including j.s. bach's brother or son, i can't remember, but he was the music director for that church while he was alive or such. then we took the subway to the harbor and took a two hour boat ride through the harbor and canals of hamburg. it was dreadfully hot, and this combined with my returned aches made me suffer through the ride. i got light headed and could barely walk or stand up straight by the time it was over. i had to lean on mother or daniella until we got to the subway. when we got there it was almost full, so i had to stand, which was hard since i felt so sick. we finally got off on a street which johannes (he was our guide) said was an area of alternative scene. we ate at a texan restaraunt which was called oma's apotheke for some reason, and it wasn't a drugstore or run by a grandma, so i don't reall get it. i got a small bowl of soup and then helped daniella eat her spicy tortelini. then we went shopping because i wanted to get a cute hamburg shirt, which i ended up finding at a shop that was very cool....it had a back room full of pipes and bongs and books on growing marijuana, but in the front room it was all awesome alternative band shirts, and vintage records, and awesome clothes. We are in Brugge now, close to France and the beach! August 10th 2004 7 am USA, 14:00 france now we drive from calais to bayeux, which is on the beaches of normandy. the stay in calais was...interesting. the drive from hamburg to our hotel endd up being 12 hours long because wegot lost in calais and coquelles partially because of a lack of street signs. we got to the hotel and got to sleep about 1. the next day it RAINED!! i was so happy, because i had not seen a cloudy day in weeks. unfourtunately, i was stuck with some of the worst cramps i have had in over a year, and i felt so sick that i stayed in the hotel room while everyone else explored the area. i spent the day working on reading the odyssey. i don't eat much anymore, we can never find a good restaraunt, we end up choosing the safe choice; mcdonalds. because we don't know french or german, and don't know what is on the menu, and i'm sick of mcdonalds and i miss hot food. i've lost weight from not eating i think. we went to the beach when they came back and i was feeling somewhat better. the scars of wwII are everywhere! there are still bunkers along the beach, and we also passed big, stationary rusting machine guns. there are bombed buildings that no one ever repaired right outside the hotel. i got a lot of stones that were pretty and some taht had holes in them for necklaces from the beach, which was somewhat full of rocks and somewhat sandy. a haze was visible of great britain across the ocean, but not such a great view since it was rainy and cloudy. then we went to search for an american looking restaraunt that wasn't fastfood i had seen while wandering lost around bayeux called buffalo grill. we drove around for an hour or so looking for it out of desperation, and being sick of mcdonalds, before deciding that we would stop at the next cafe we saw because it was 20:30 or so and we hadn't had any real food in two or three days. the next thing we saw was a british flag on a cafe, so we stopped and went inside. i was worried that we wouldn't be looked on very friendlily, and that no one would speak english and the menu wouldn't be in english either, but i tried to hide my fear adn tell myeslf it wasn't mcdonalds (i don't think i will ever eat at mcdonalds again in my entire life!) and mom decided that this time she would be the one to say parlais vous englais (sp?)? the man who would greet us and give us our menus arrived at the table, and mom's mind went completely blank. she looked around blankly, and said "do you speak english?" there aws a moment when he seemed to be searching his mind for a suitable response, and i was sure that he was trying to remember the engish word no. then he smiled and said "i AM english!" which set us all to laughing. he brought us an english menu, and we talked for a while. he asked us where we were from in america, and we told him st louis. he said that he loves america and americans and that he wants to go to houston someday. we ate our food, and that is the first time we have felt truly welcomed in france, was in this pub owned my a french woman and an english man. and as we were inside and cozy while it was storming, we beginned to plan our next vacation, which will be next summer to england, scotland, and ireland. i am very excited! mom and dad even said that if i am stillin touch with stu next summer, when we go that we could probably go to cornwall and have him show us around! imagine that, i could actually get to meet him! i cant wait to tell courtney and kelsey. and golly, of course. maybe i will call him from paris or something. either way, me and him MUST find a way to keep in touch until next summer! the man who owns the pub came back and talked with us for a while longer. he asked us where we were going after calais, and we told him normandy and paris. he said he didn't care for paris, and warned us about the troubles that will most likely be ahead. he told of how if you are american or english, there are no hotels open when it gets dark. and he told us that if our car has american or english plates, we need to lock it up while we are there because parisians have an affinity for stealing the cars that do, or doing what they did to his car: smashing it up to pieces! he told of how jut the night before a french man had come in and sat down at the bar in his pub and said "pack up your things and go back to england; you aren't welcome here." He said he calmy told the man that he owned the pub, and that he should leave if he didn't like the fact that he was english. when he refused, he calmy told the man that he had three choices; he would ic his dog on him, he could walk out calmly, or teh guy would call the police. then teh guy left. calais is very close to england, it is where the chunnel goes to, and he had a french flag up too, so it wasn't like he was coming across as anti-french; the french guy was just ignorant. dad adn this man talked about how it went beyond the war in iraq, that the french weren't grateful for anything great britain or the united states have done for them, and they have disliked us for a long time. he told us we would have friends in england, especially northern england, and that we would have a good trip there. i like germany so much more than france, it was so welcoming and friendly. here, it omits an aura of we're-better'than-you to us. we went to the same pub for lunch today, since it was such a comfortable place and we felt we were among friends, and then we hit the road. i am awaiting home, even though i want germany. i forgot to mention that the englishman said that the people of normandy were very thankful and taht they do not dislike americans. we have just arrived in normandy, and boy was he right. there are american and british flags flying all over here, and thank yous and welcomes on all the store windows. my only worry is that we will get some static for having german license plates (this is the 60th anniversary of d-day). i think we shall have a good stay here before we move on to paris. "And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit" -Ecclesiastes ^i found that quote on the edge of one of the pages of the log, it says i found it in red dragon, either way i really like it.