Doh!!

Yesterday, on the way home from my language course, I completely zoned out on the train and wasn't paying attention. I didn't realize that I had gone past Koenigsdorf until I heard them say the next stop was Horrem, which is one stop further than mine. So I got off the train in Horrem and then hopped back on in the other direction to go back to Koenigsdorf. At this point, for the first time since I got here over a month ago, there was someone on the train checking tickets. I pulled my pass out of my wallet to show to him and. . . it only allows me to travel between Cologne and Koenigsdorf. I didn't have a valid ticket. Damn it!! It's probably the only time that I've ever wished there were more people on the freakin' train, because he approached me about 30 seconds before my stop, and it's only like a 2 minute train ride. If there had been anybody else on that train, I would've been fine. And I wasn't even trying to cheat the system, it just honestly never occured to me to buy a ticket because I'm so used to not needing to buy a ticket. Anyway, I had to try to explain to this guy that I was on my way home from Cologne, I went to far and I hopped back on the train in Horrem to go one stop back to Koenigsdorf. I didn't quite catch everything he said because I had to get off the train before I missed my stop again, but I think I should be expecting a citation in the mail within the next week or so. Just my luck. fml.

Aside from that incident, yesterday actually went pretty well. After school, I was hanging around Neumarkt and talking to a bunch of the girls in the language course, and apparently they all hate it here. In particular it's the girls from Zimbabwe, Senagal, and Turkmenistan. They think it's too cold, too rainy, and too boring. I think they're crazy. The only reason it's boring is because they spend all of their free time sitting at home by themselves. One of them isn't even an au pair, so she has nothing to do all day, and she still doesn't go out exploring or travel around or do anything. So I'm going to try to get them all to hang out with me when I go places. It would be nice to not do everything by myself all the time, and I really think that they would enjoy their stay here a whole lot more if they just did something. I don't get why I, of all people, am always the only one who has any balls to do anything when I'm in a foreign country. You made it here, why not enjoy it?

Last night was pretty nice, too. Esther and Olaf went to dinner at a little Brauhaus in Koenigsdorf that they haven't been to in 3 years. They had a great time and I think they would like to make it kind of their "usual" place to go. They left at about 6:45 so I had the kids to myself the whole night. During dinner, I had to get a bandaid for Gustav's finger because he had a cut on it (you know, one of the ones that hurts because they can see it) so we went up into Esther and Olaf's bathroom to find them. While we were there, Gustav had to pee and I had to help him because, as usual, he waits until the very last second and then he can't lift the toilet seat because he's too busy holding himself. So I carried him to the toilet and lifted the seat for him just in time for him to lean over it and start peeing, but then he tripped over his pants. I don't know why his feet were even moving, but I had to catch him and hold him up so that he didn't pee all over himself and the bathroom. We were both laughing so hard. After dinner I helped them brush their teeth and get ready for bed, read them a story, and put them both to bed. Gustav went right to sleep and didn't make a noise. Pauline cried once about 20 minutes later, so I warmed her some more milk and sat down with her to look at a book, and then she went to sleep. When they got home from dinner, Esther and Olaf got to "meet" Lee through Skype because I was on the computer in the living room, so that was pretty neat, too. All in all it was a good day.