Super-Duper Wacky n' Tacky Euro Adventure

I am writing this entry from car number 118, bed 82 on the international train from Paris’ Gare de l’Est to Munich’s God only knows how to pronounce the name of that station. Hofbr something or other. We have yet to leave the station, but I feel I have already taken off for something new and unknown.

Today marks a significant point in my journeys in Europe: I am exactly two-thirds done with my school year abroad. And how this last third flew. I don’t know exactly what it was, but something made the past ten weeks fly by in time and in memory. I know I haven’t been nearly as diligent writing entries, so it is hard for you (and for me as I look back upon entries) to really tell what the hell was going on. Let me at least start with the past week.

I was freaking out. I know most Stanford students love to stress come finals time, and I am no different, but these finals were pretty bad I gotta say. It might have come from the fact that there was relatively little work in our classes (compared to Stanford, not Moscow) for most of the quarter; that is, until finals week. The teachers really laid it on thick with papers and tests. Not fun. The other thing is that my winter quarter finals have the tendency to be even more hectic than usual because my father’s spring breaks at St. Mary’s always happen one week before that of Stanford’s. Well good for my dad, you might say, except – instead of the kids getting homesick, my parents tend to get children-sick and visit their kids; usually at Stanford. But just because I am and extra 3000 miles away more than usual, doesn’t mean that would stop my parents. And so, however much I absolutely love the company (and that of Mama Toni and Papa Beto as well!), they always seem to have a knack for catching me at my worst. This week’s finals were compounded by a couple of things.

1) The damned Russian Embassy. Should have known I would have problems the second I didn’t have someone from Stanford holding my hand through the visa process. Long story short, I had to visit the Russian Embassy (which is peculiarly inconvenient to get to in a city of great public transportation) a total of five times to get my Russian visa for a tiny tourist trip. Let’s not talk about how bad it hurt the wallet.

2) I have come to be really appreciative of the great train systems throughout Europe. They are on average a little bit more expensive than flying but sooo make up for it in convenience, hassle, and general headaches. I already had a run-in in London with timing, so I thought I was free from any train gaffs again. Wrong. When I took a gander at the tickets that I bought for Munich over a month and a half ago, a realization hit me. I remember how weird it was to have this “16/02” at the corner of my ticket. I actually remember thinking, “oh, it must be a kind of code or something.” Because obviously, I had told the lady that I wanted the tickets for March 16, and there was no problem. In fact, I was probably even getting a deal by buying my tickets so far in advance. Oh, so wrong this time. Oh yeah, those great discounts you usually get by buying a youth ticket, means you give up ALL exchange and reimbursement privileges. In case you were wondering.

3) My two classes I’m taking for IR had this convenient little rule attached to then, that if you were taking the class for 5 units instead of 4, you had to do an extra 5 page book report to get the extra 5^th credit. Oh great. Most of us were bound to the 5 units from the Nazi unit police in the IR department. Book report? I mean serioiusly. Are we in 4^th grade? So I took “book report” to mean “New York Times Magazine article on the topic of my choice” and went ahead and got those reports out of the way. Actually, out of the way? Who am I kidding? This shit was in French just like every other assignment, which means it took me way longer than necessary.

Example: I am barely at 1 page of this very long entry which has taken me long enough already, and I am just babbling in English!

Cool fact about this particular train: I just plugged my computer into one of the two convenient little outlets in every cabin of this train.

Ok, just thinking about this past week has been getting me down again. Luckily, at exactly 11:45 this morning, I turned in my last two assignments, and I was done. I decided to forego today’s rugby match to spend some time with the rents. I really thought I would have been able to hang out with them more, but I honestly just had too much ish to do! We did some serious museum hopping and I got a lot of the tourist essentials I had been meaning to do done with and checked off the list. We also got a good view of some the student protests that have been making a headache of Paris travel as of late.

One more train fact: These German people, or at least that is the language I assume they were speaking, are quite stinky. I’m not gonna jump to any rash generalizations, but so far the past half-hour has not been the most pleasant. Ok seriously, this guy keeps looking over at me, expecting me to be impressed with his cell phone or something that he is plugging into the other outlet. Actually, I’m just kinda impressed with his stench. I wouldn’t even know how to go about getting that kind of stink.

Ok, all I want to happen right now is for me to pull out a suitcase from under my seat and see a beautiful selection of fine vodkas, and make myself a nice martini. What would happen after that is some mean guy in a hat and black suit would kick open the door waiting to collect the death warrant on my head, and spill my martini in the process. I wouldn’t be quite so mad at the death business, but more by my spilt premium vodka. We would have a good five minute rumble, but eventually my rage would get the best of him and I would toss him out the train window, not even caring to look at what was to become of his mangled body on the tracks. After the satisfaction of victory, I would brush my shoulders off, fix my hair, and proceed with another vodka martini in my posh train cabin. Damn my poor memory for not remembering the name of that film right now.

I am so very psyched for this weekend. I have 0 German in the brain except for something about a kankerwagon and lederhosen. /Don’t know if that’ll come up in conversation though.

Alright, I can’t fool my body anymore. After a week like this, it desperately needs some quality shut-eye. Plus, I have almost become accustomed to the smell by now. Almost.