ammogirl

Monday morning, we woke up bright and early (or I did, anyway) and got ready to go home.  Don’t you hate how awkward bathroom situations are at somebody else’s house?  I mean, if EVERYONE uses the same bathroom, when is it okay to shower?  Where do you put your wet towel?  How long should you take?  Is it okay to use their soap, if you’ve forgotten yours?  Can I ask anymore questions about this? 

Of course, it’s a little different when it’s your family, but still, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen them, and I don’t know…what if they are VERY PROTECTIVE of their soap?  Anyhow, I circumvented this whole situation by waking up three hours before anyone else.  This sucked less than you would imagine, because when I got out, I was all clean and relaxed and just stuck a towel on my head and went back to sleep until it was time to go.

So we made it to the airport, and subsequently back to Germany.  Customs was a piece of cake, baggage retrieval even easier, we were on track to make it home in record time when…the trunk of the car wouldn’t open.  And then once it did, the doors wouldn’t unlock.  And then once THEY did…the car.wouldn’t.start. 

You guys.  Do you realize that the worst place ever to have a dead battery is in an airport parking lot?  People just arriving are in a hurry to either meet their plane or the person they are picking up, and people leaving have just travelled and want to go home or have just picked someone up who has just travelled.  Nobody wants to help you.  Let me repeat: nobody.wants.to.help.  We asked every single person in the parking garage, but either they didn’t have the time, didn’t have the jumper cables, or didn’t want to use their Mercedes to jump our BMW.  No, I’m not kidding.  I would say something about how elitist that is but it pretty much says it for itself.  Anyway, no, we did not have our own jumper cables but in our defense, we have just bought the car.  I think you get a grace period, right?  And having them wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, what with the no help stance people were taking.  Of course, we COULD be a bit a fault for not immediately enrolling in ADAC, which is Europe’s answer to AAA.  I mean, we kept SAYING we needed to enroll, but saying is not doing, unless you are in a debate or perhaps, a talk show host…or an audio book reader…you know what I mean.  We dropped the ball on this one, big time, and had to suck it up when the ADAC guy showed up (having been called for us by a kindly on-his-way-homer) and we had to pay 75 euro for a jump.  That’s $98, or thereabouts, if you are wondering.  For a jump.  Annual membership in ADAC?  Oh, 90 euro.  So.

At this point, we had been in Germany for two hours, and all of it had been spent in the parking lot of the Hahn airport, and only now do we get to tackle the thing we had been worried about the whole weekend.  Remember in part one when I mentioned we stopped at the first parking we saw, because we were late and by the way, there was a hurricane outside and close seemed really, really worth it?  Well…four days later, it didn’t really seem like it: 100 euro.  I was like, okay, FINE, super expensive parking, and started shoving my money in the slot, because at this point, I didn’t CARE how much the parking was, I just wanted to go home, right?  Well, except I only had 97 euro in my wallet, of which the last 17 was coin.  And there was a line behind me.  And now I was panicked, and the people behind me were all "no..no…it’s okay" but I freaked out with my feeling guilty for holding up the line and hit "end" or "stop" or "refund" or whatever that button said and out came…17 euro.  And that’s all.  It gave me back my coin, and kept my bills…and now instead of being short 3 euro, I was short 83.  As I waved my arms around frantically trying to get John’s attention, I thought, you fucker, you stole my money!  But only after I got out of line.  I mean, I didn’t get out of line, I got out of THE line.  And I didn’t think that at John, the part about stealing my money. That might have been a bit unclear, but I really dislike hitting the back button.  Anyway, John came over, I yelled at him a bit because hi, it’s everyone elses fault when I am panicked, and he went off to get more money.

When he got back, I stuck my ticket back in and…guess how much I owed.  Well, only 20 euro, because, ha ha, the machine didn’t "steal" my money so much as "keep track of how much I’ve already paid". 

Anyway, we took off, and as we drove through the part where we had been blocked (ten!miles!away!) there were literally hundreds of fallen trees lined up on the side of the road.  It was insane.  I wanted to take a picture but with the dead battery and all, couldn’t really stop the car, so just imagine hundreds of fallen trees (big trees! deadly!) and try not to remember I tend to exaggerate because I’m totally not this time.  You guys, it was a lot of trees.  After that we got home with no excitement at all.

Okay.  So, on this trip, we had a horrible time on the way there and back, but a fabulous time in between.  Also, we spent no money while actually AT our destination, but made up for it at the airports, where we dropped a total of $380.  On snackpacks, parking, and a jump. 

I have come to the conclusion that we should just stay at my cousins house full time.  This will be cheaper and in the long run, once I work out the bathroom dilemma, much less stressful.  And, there you have it.  My four day weekend, in three parts. 

Sunday finds me BACK in the UK, for work-related purposes only, which means: no karaoke.  Crap.  I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post, but I WILL try.  I mean, because I know you can’t live without me.

Tschuss!!

So!  Where did we leave off…that’s right.  The plane ride over.  That went well.  We ended up buying lunch on the way over, which was incredibly expensive.  Let me repeat that: INCREDIBLY expensive.  Fifty dollars expensive, nearly, and this was for two snack packs, two sandwiches, and two smoothies.  Are we stupid?  Well, no…but I was hungry, which makes me a total crabbypants.  Nobody likes crabbypants ammogirl, trust me.

Anyway, so we landed without incident, and walked at least three miles through the airport, which is the biggest small airport I’ve ever been in, and waited in a line of at least one thousand people to get through customs.  Anddd…thankfully, only stood in the wrong one for five minutes.  On a side note, watching people in the customs line is very entertaining.  Not that they are doing anything overly interesting, I just like to watch people and imagine what their deal is, like, why are they there and are they glad.  You know, nosy stuff.  Oh, also: I have come to the conclusion that the reason why I hate holding in-depth conversations in public is because unless you are whispering, which is nearly impossible in MOST public situations, EVERYONE can hear you, and that makes me really nervous. Of course, there is two disclaimers to that: pretty much EVERYTHING makes me really nervous, including spiders, lint, and unglazed pottery; and this does not count in situations in which I am perhaps indulging in a beverage of the alcoholic sort. 

I am all over the tangents lately, aren’t I? 

When we got to the veryyyyyy front of the line, all the while looking for our ride (and hoping they hadn’t assumed we didn’t make the plane…I couldn’t get ahold of anyone) my name was paged over the intercom.  This sent us all into a flurry of excitement, because getting paged = Fun!  Or, maybe that was just me.  Customs shooed us through, we got our one bag, and headed over to information, where this exchange occurred:

"Hi, I was just paged?  ammogirl?" (oh fine.  that’s NOT what they called me, but I DON’T CARE)
"Oh.  Yes…yes.  That’s right.  What did you need?"
"…um, hm.  Well, I was paged?"
"Is someone meeting you here?"
"I hope so…"
"Let me page them."

And I found it very strange.  But it did summon my cousin Caren, who took us home, and bla bla bla this is taking longer than I thought because holy CRAP I AM WORDY so fast-forward to the next day at the party, okay?  Thanks.

My parents and sister had flown over for my grandma’s 90th, and all the British relatives were there except one, so it was already fun before we got to the free wine, and then…well, we all know what the free wine does to me.  Good stuff, that.  I talked politics with my Uncle, or, rather, he talked politics AT me, while I did my best to pretend I cared while casting longing glances at both the rapidly emptying wine bottles AND the plates of dessert being set out.  We had a party in the bathroom (fun) and did a lot of comparing boobs and being loud in the bar (fun) and my mom accidentally (says she) stole someones jacket and gave it to my grandma…oh!  My grandma.  She’s 90 now, and starting to slip a bit, memory wise, and crowds bother her a bit.  But when I hugged her and said "Hi grandma, it’s me" she said "I know who you are!" and hugged me back, so.  It was a good time, all of us getting together for her. 

Grandma went home after the dinner (with her stolen jacket…good one, mom!) but everyone else headed over to my aunt’s house, where the karaoke took place, and I sang a little bit…fine.  I was a microphone hog the ENTIRE NIGHT, and in several videos taken that evening, you can hear people say "DON’T GIVE IT BACK TO HER!" but damn…I’m good.  We stayed there and drank and karaokeed until after 5.  FIVE A.M.  Not "five-ish" or "early morning" but "we got to bed just before 6 o’ clock in the morning" and WHO KNEW my Brit relatives were SO MUCH FUN?  Next time, however, I’m pretty sure I’ll pass on the vast quantities of shots…Violet Liquor?  Gross.

The next day was pretty low key, understandably.  We had a HUGE meal with the whole family (SIX different kinds of vegetables!  Three different desserts!) and I saw an old friend and THAT was emotional but fabulous and the next day we woke up early and came home.  Which will be part three.  Part three sucks. 

I have this to say: seventeen years, when you are dealing with family, means nothing.  There was a lot of getting reacquainted, sure…but not much.  It’s a very, very good feeling, knowing they are only a few hours away.  Oh, and that they had better get another microphone for the karaoke machine.

Next time:  Car Troubles!  Unhelpful People!  Amazingly High Parking Costs!

Tschuss!!

Hmm.  Looking through my archives, I use "alright" as a title a lot.  I think maybe I’ll just make that the permanent title.  Or not…but when I can’t think of something fabulously witty, it’ll be my default.  It can stand for either "alright, here’s a damn post" or "alright, I can’t think of a title, so."

Wow.  Anyway.  What I meant to start out with was not a paragraph about my title block, but a paragraph about my superfabulous weekend.  However, I am a bit scatter-brained today, so please keep that in mind.

So.  There we were, Friday morning, on our way to the Frankfurt-Hahn airport in the last stages of the pretend hurricane.  We sort of had an idea our flight WOULD go, but not for sure, because the airport site said all Ryan Air flights were canceled, while the Ryan Air site said nothing.  However, every road on the way there was blocked.  Yup.  Blocked.  At first, that didn’t stop us, because apparently the signs are only visible to certain people, so we pretended WE didn’t see them either, and followed everyone else around them.  This…you guys.  This was scary.  The wind was still blowing, okay?  And the road goes through a forest.  And the trees in this forest were swaying alarmingly close to the road, which we were on.  Looking INTO the forest gave you a view like this: tree - broken jagged stump - tree - tree - 5000 broken jagged stumps - tree.  This caused me an immeasurable amount of panic, AS YOU CAN IMAGINE.  FYI - placing a sheet of paper over your head will NOT protect you from falling trees, but WILL cause your family to laugh like hyenas at you.  FYI, FAMILY - hyenas are nasty and I DON’T LIKE THEM.  Anyway, wind, trees, paper…where was I?  Oh.  Panicking.  Now, here’s a good time to point out that we have never been to this airport before, and were relying totally on our navigation system to get us there (but following along on a map, because I love maps.  What?), and according to IT, we were fifteen minutes from the airport when what happens?  We come around a corner and almost CRASH into the ginormous tree laying across the road.  "JOHN!" I screamed, as I like to do while he is driving, and John utilized his NASCAR driving skills and simultaneously stopped and turned, thusly saving our lives from death by tree, and for that I love him and MIGHT possibly forgive him for laughing at me.

Whew.  This is…long.  And I haven’t even made it to the airport yet.  You guys, you’re getting this story in parts.

Anyway, so we turned around, and now who is the smartiepants for following the map, huh?  That’s right, me.  Except…all the roads were blocked.  And there is like, NO road signs.  So.  Back on went the navigation system, which will calculate a new route for you, should you encounter things like missed turns, or road work, or Deadly Tree Blocks.  And it DID recalculate, but reallllllly wanted us to go the way we were, because hello? WE WERE TEN MILES AWAY.  The navigation system (who will now be called Jo, because it’s quicker to type) kept telling us to u-turn, u-turn uturnutusfasdf and holy CRAP it was getting annoying.  Eventually Jo shut up and gave us the new route but I’m sure that she was thinking that we were stupid fuckers, and every road we came to she’d try and get us to turn on it, to lead us back the original way.  Finally, after basically completing a circle (a BIG circle) we managed to stumble across the airport…with maybe 20 minutes to spare before check-in stopped.  We parked in the first parking we found (which was close - remember this, for future chapters) and made our way through the wind and rain into the terminal.  It’s a really small airport so it was easy to find our way around, which was good, and then we checked in, and waited in the waiting room, and got on the plane.  None of that was fun, exciting, OR fabulous, so I won’t bore you with descriptions.  Oh, there WAS a poor girl who fell asleep while waiting for her flight to Krakow, and was woken up by her friends, who called her on her cell from the TAXIING PLANE.  Which, okay.  If you and I are traveling together at any point in time EVER, and we are waiting for a plane, and I fall asleep…wake me up.  I mean, seriously…she must be a total drag to travel with.  "She’s asleep, should we wake her up so she can board?" "…nah." 

The trip over was completely uneventful as well, surprisingly enough, considering the wind.  We landed at Stansted Airport in London without incident, and this, you guys, is where you wait patiently for the next post.  I know.  The anticipation is killing you.

Tschuss!