F--- This, I'm Thirsty

I was internet-less for a week after I moved, so my posts are rather delayed. 

I was eating at Vapiano on my last night in Köln with the other PPPlers drinking a 0,2 Liter Diet Coke, when my friend asked me how much it costs. I had no clue (it was 2,50 euro) and I said that in the end it didn't matter, because “I was like fuck this, I'm thirsty”.  We agreed that it would be a pretty good name for a German blog because 1) That's the kind of attitude you have to have if you want to stay hydrated here 2) We were in Köln where beer can sometimes be cheaper than ordering a water and 3) Germans feel a lot less offended by f-bombs.  In fact, you can quite easily hear that word on German TV.  I was watching some special on Das Erste about the war in Iraq and they played a tape of a US soldier talking about something.  I really don't even remember what he was talking about, I just remember “fucking this fucking that fuck that”.  I wasn't too troubled by his language, but I was rather shocked to actually hear the word uncensored on public television.   I never really liked censorship in the US, but that's mainly because I don't really like listening to Lady Gaga sing about how she's a “free bit”, but at the same time it was really weird to heard that word on the TV.  I told my host family that in the US that would be bleeped out and their response was “But children learn that word in kindergarten anyways!”   I guess it's true, that the TV can't really raise your kids. But I digress...

I had a pretty good last week in Köln. I went to the Dellbrück Straßenfest and we also lit candles in a park one night and roasted marshmallows over the candles.  I had been to this playground once before and it is amazing 

It had a zip line and a huge rope-thing that you could climb on.  Perhaps the funniest part was when a bunch of security guards came to see what we were up to.  They came strutting over as if they were about to bust a bunch of drunk hooligans for lighting a bonfire only to find a group of Americans huddling around candles.  They noticed a couple of people holding beer bottles and said "I know this is Köln, but we still have rules, so if you could please move yourself & your alcohol 4 meters further away from the playground, that would be great."  

On my first night in Köln, my host family had one of their old host students over to visit and he ate dinner with me.  We then stayed up MUCH later than I would've liked to stay up drinking wine and talking about things.  My last week in Cologne, this same host student moved back into our house.  My last night in Köln was spent staying up MUCH later than I should've drinking wine and talking to my host parents and that same student.  How's that for symmetry? 

I left Köln for Heidelberg about 9 days ago and I have to say I miss Köln quite a bit. I lived with a nice host family (who also hosted a handful of other students!) there and there were 24 other Americans to hang out with.  Moving to a new city feels a lot like starting over.  However, it's nice to know that I have 10 months to get used to living here.