I once was a writer...

This post is dedicated to my dear friends Cris, Cata and Luisa, who knew that one day I would adapt to the European Lifestyle - and stop wearing winter panties in German-Warm-Weather. It only took me 10 months! My European lifestyle dictates that every day is a good day to wear a skirt. What I wear under the skirt depends on the weather. But also, every day is a good day for rain - so I always carry a European-style, fashionable rain coat. My European lifestyle dictates that, when possible, riding my bike to and from Uni is not only environmentally-conscious, but also fashionable, sporty and sexy. Also, every day is a "possible bike-riding day". Also, as above, every day is skirt-day, and every day is rain-day. My European lifestyle dictates that curls are in - because so few Germans have them. Also, volume is in, and the more the merrier. Since, as above stated, every day is rain-day, frizz and humidity beautify my voluminous curls all the more. My European lifestyle...

Disposable Grill, with grilling materials and stuf f: 2.99 € Stuff to be grilled: 10.15 € Sophisticated glasses to wear during a (cold) sunny day: 10.95 € Enjoying a sunny (and windy) Sunday afternoon with Honey in our front yard,  in picnic-style grilling,  with (not all the way cooked, but anyway) good food...  ...priceless!

The most important part of adpating to a new culture is embracing it, and acting like the natives do. Like, if you live with gorillas, you should pick their skin too and eat their little lice. If you live in a nude community, you should walk about bare. Bare naked, that is. If you live in Germany, well, you have to do as the Germans do. Monkey see, monkey do. For starters, if you want to be German, you have to go outside at the smallest sign of a ray of sunshine. If you want to be German, if the temperature goes above 0°C (and there is the aforementioned sun), you have to go outside. If you want to be German, if there is the tiniest sign of baby flowers blooming (and the aforementioned sun and the aforementioned +0°C rule), you have to go outside. You see, being outside is very important to the Germans. It's very important because you can almost never go outside! According to the Gregorian Calendar (the calendar we westerners follow), Winter goes from December to February. Not ...

I've been a little unfair to Germany and the Germans lately, and for that I publicly apologise. I tend to write only when I am trapped at home due to the inclement weather (well, ok, as Cata said , Wahrnehmung  is important, and gray, foggy and under 0°C is inclement to little Caribbean me). I tend to write only during these days and of course I tend to write with the mood that this type of days gets me into (OMG, please don't have Canuck read this post and accuse me forever of being the only English major in the world who finishes a sentence with a prepostion... which I technically didn't do because the sentence ends now, without a preposition). (Although, ending a sentence with "preposition" is just as bad as ending a sentence with a preposition, right?) The sun does shine--once in a while. And when it does, I go out. I make excuses to go walking, or shopping (without Honey's knowledge or consent, because we're supposed to be saving for my birthday......

It's been 6 months here. Six months of winter. That's all the Germans have--winter. Don't let them fool you: they will speak of myths and legends, fairy tales if you ask me, of some weird thing called spring , and then comes the completely unfathomable tall-tale of summer , which makes unicorns seem like normal, everyday boring stuff. But there are other things they Germans say. Things so cute, or so weird, or so plain interesting, that make me pleased to have enjoyed their winter, with sunrise at 9 a.m. and sunset at 4 p.m., and during this "daylight" time, no sun. How can you have a sun rise when no sun rises? Anyway. That is totally not the point. Not today. Not now. When I met with my German friends, Isa and Chrissy, in Barranquilla in May of last year, I think what they were most surprised with was our waking-up attitude. I used to sing them the song my mom used to sing to me (we sing it to each other every once in a while, still), which loosely translat...