2 new life changing items:
I did my first adult thing a few weeks ago; I bought a car. Watch out world; I am the proud owner of a 1994 red Honda Civic. The only downside to the car besides the speedometer not working and the fact that is a lowrider (seriously- ghettos fabulous) is that its a stickshift. It has been quite the lesson in humility as a stall out all the time and get laughed at by the germans. Boy are they relentless. However, I achieved quite the victory today after my friend Austin said that he wasn't scared to ride with me anymore. Me: 1 Stickshift: 0
Car insurance sucks. That bad boy costs me $140 a month for liability only! for some reason, my car is classified as a sports car; I guess they haven't been inside when the car starts shaking at 80 km. Since Germans start driving when they are 18, a 22 year old (like myself) is insured as though she has only been driving for 4 years even though she has been driving for 6. To top it off, when you're an adult and you live in Germany, you don't get insurance discounts for good grades anymore. Texas would never allow that to happen.
Something else happened to my car that would never happen in Texas. My door was iced shut. It took lots breathing on the door seal and about 10 minutes of yanking on the handle to get the door open. crazy huh.
The other thing that changed my world involves me moving into a new house. As some of you know, I moved to Heidelberg which is about 3 hours away from my old town. I'm currently living in a family's basement apartment. Many European houses, including my new home, have these window shutters called rolladens. They roll down on the outside of the window (similar to what you might see at a beach house) to black out the entire room. I KNOW RIGHT! These past few weeks have been the best sleep I've ever had (and I've had a lot of sleep). I don't have that pesky sun trying to wake me up at 7; absolutely zero light comes in. Since Germany hardly has any storms, i'm pretty sure that the entire purpose of these gifts from God is to blaock out the sun. See, in the winter, the sun sets around 4 pm and rises at about 7 am. It is dark for waaayyy longer than it is light. BUT in the summers, the sun doesn't set until around 11pm and it rises much earlier. So, if you want to sleep longer than 7 hours (which I personally do every single night), the rolladens make it happen. I love them and insist they be in every home that I ever own.
