(A Little, Tiny Bit) Homesick

Ah, the feelings of homesickness finally arrive. Don’t get me wrong–I love being in Germany and I will continue to love it, but I can’t help but be a little homesick during one of my favorite times of the year: autumn. Back home, the leaves are turning. The mountains have transformed from deep greens to burnt oranges, brilliant reds, rusty browns, and golden yellows. It’s one of the most beautiful periods of the year (just look at the featured photo)–and I don’t get to see it this year. It doesn’t help that every time I scroll through Instagram or Facebook, photos of WNC spam my feed.

While I’m at it, there’s another thing I miss about home: being able to see the stars. I noticed this the second night I was here, but I really feel its absence now. One thing I love to do back home is just look up at the stars and lose myself just for a moment. It’s hard to do that when you can only see a couple of hazy specks sputtering through the light pollution.

Fortunately, Western North Carolina isn’t the only place with mountains and a clear sky–I can travel to go see those things. So, while I may be hit with a pang of homesickness for my mountains and my home, it’s not so bad. Now, onto my week!

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be going to London in early November to visit one of my closest and most hilarious friends! I’ll get to be there for four nights, so be prepared for a post with tons of photos after that week.

Yummy peach drink.

Running away from the “Alcohol-Free” sign.

My week has pretty much been full of school and Freimarkt again. I do have a couple of funny stories, though.

So, like any woman you know, Dirty Dancing is one of my all time favorite movies–I mean, how can you not like hot ‘n’ sweaty Patrick Swayze, right? Anyways, at Freimarkt, I’ve heard the song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” twice. During both those times, something hilarious has happened.

The first time was in one of those beer tents I’ve mentioned. I was sitting around a table with a couple of my friends, drinking beer and mouthing the words to “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.” Then I notice a girl passionately singing the words to the song and looking like she’s preparing to run somewhere. I follow her gaze to a man. He’s kneeling down, arms spread out and ready to receive this girl Dirty Dancing style–I’m talking about that epic dance move right at the end. Of course, all of us turn our full attention to this potential disaster with glee. The girl even waited until the exact moment in the song that it happens in the movie.

I watched as she closed the distance between her and the man. He grasped her waist, lifted her up–and they collapsed. She fell right on top of him, wasn’t even up for a second. I actually caught all of this on film, but I can’t upload it onto the blog because I don’t pay for it. I’ll probably post it on Facebook at sometime, it’s quite glorious.

The second time happened just yesterday. Let me give you a little background information. I had seen these pineapple slushy cups all over the fair and for the past week had been trying to hunt down the small hut that serves them–which I finally found yesterday. I promptly bought this ridiculously expensive pineapple cup filled with cherry slushy and then we decided to leave the fair.

As I’m leaving, I hear “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” in the background–so, like any Dirty Dancing fan, I stopped for a second, sang along a bit, then continued on my way. Well, during that moment, a very large, very drunk man stepped in front of me, took my hands in his, and began twirling me around while singing “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.” Of course I was pretty taken off guard, so I didn’t notice right away that this hulking man had taken my pineapple straw in his mouth and was slurping down my prized slushy. Once this registered, I turned from baffled mode to get-my-slushy-out-of-this-drunk-man’s-mouth mode. I grabbed my straw and tried to pull it out of this man’s face, but he had the cap of the straw securely between his teeth–at this point, I was determined enough that I gave it one good, hard yank and the cap ripped right off, freeing my slushy from the boozer. Pretty sure I heard a pained sound come from him, but that’s what you get when you mess with my food, man.

Then I quickly walked to my friends and we made on our way to the tram station–crying laughing the entire way.

Pure joy of winning.

Can you spot the pirate?

Oh, hey there.

Parent selfie.

Other highlights of the week included winning a stuffed unicorn, spotting a pirate on the tram, and seeing the American flag flying above a corn-shaped hut. Oh, and getting a selfie from my parents–even though they were rubbing in my face that they were at a nice restaurant without me (love and miss you guys just so much). I also tried the smoked eel game, but I didn’t win, so maybe I’ll try again in the coming week.

Until next time, y’all!