The Final Countdown....

I've finished playing my last tennis in the US of the year probably...now I need to practice on the red clay. Too bad I threw away my TLC clay court shoes...thanks Randy. Just a heads up, don't eat a ton of Mexican food, play five sets of tennis, then go to Culver's for dessert...just...not so smart...

Here is my agenda for the next few days:

Friday: The grandparents arrive...we will talk about stuff, eat some good food, etc etc.....I'll need to get some last minute essentials, and hopefully I'll be close to being finished packing at least one suitcase. Maybe I'll try to go to bed at a decent time.

Saturday: We will head to the cities...I need to stop at Mall of America to get a coat, some casual shoes, and perhaps some other clothes...go out for one last meal, and hopefully go to bed somewhat early.

Sunday: Early, early, early morning. Way too early. I'll probably have to wake up at some ridiculous time like 3 or 3:30. My flight from Minneapolis to Philadelphia leaves at 6 AM. Not happy....I'll arrive in Philly at 10:28 (move up one hour) on which flight I will probably sleep. The group flight to Frankfurt from PA does not leave until 4:15...gotta love the six hour layovers. I'll have my phone/comp with me so hopefully I won't get too bored... I can meet some of the other study abroad people and hopefully just settle down a bit. The overseas flight is going to be long......I'm really hoping I can sleep a few hours on it, because...

Monday: Happy September. I arrive in Frankfurt at 6:10 in the morning after an 8 hour flight, so my internal clock is going to go bonkers. With my luck, my bags will get lost, but if everything is ok, then I'll meet Herr Riggs and head to my pad.

I'm starting to accept that I'm going a little bit more...it's not that I'm not excited, it just doesn't really feel like I'm going yet...normally I anticipate things so much, but for this...I don't know! Once I get there, I'll know I'm there, if that makes sense :)

Tschüss,

--D

Last Days

So... I've been finishing my last few days of summer while the last of my Norb's friends have returned to classes. It feels nice, but there's definitely not much to do around Rice Lake...so I did the next best thing and headed to Minnesota for the night yesterday. I had a lot of fun...I stayed with one of my coworkers (JC) from the summer and went to The Great Minnesota Get-Together (AKA The Minnesota State Fair). That place is ridiculous...you can get pretty much any food you can imagine on a stick. I think one of the most ridiculous things I saw was a Spaghetti and Meatball Dinner on a stick. Chocolate covered bacon was up there too...
We went back to his house and watched a pretty good movie (Juno, if you haven't yet seen it) and checked out semi-early. This morning I left semi-early to go out for coffee with two more of my coworkers (CM and KB). Although the GPS is a good invention, it sometimes does more harm than good, especially in Minneapolis...there is a ridiculous amount of construction, and it probably told me to take a non-existent road or closed ramp up to five times. I made it there and back, and that was probably my last hurrah before I leave.
I feel more and more ready to leave, but it still doesn't quite seem like I'm leaving in under five days. I'm not packed...although I haven't really unpacked so much from TLC. I feel like my German is lacking a bit...I'm trying to take some refresher lessons online, but my fault for not taking a grammar class since spring semester freshman year... I hope that the intensive German class that I'll take when I get there will help a lot!
Here are some things I need to do before I leave:

• Get my racket strung and happified...gotta bring TLC to Germany!
• Start getting a list of things I need...that's right, a list in a list.
• Tell my financial service providers that I am leaving the country, so I don't get accounts frozen. That would be a major bummer.
• Finish collecting addresses so I can send stuff to people. If you want my address, it is:

David Lachman
ESG/Vilmarhaus
Rudolf-Bultmann Str. 4
35039 Marburg
Germany

• Buy some more clothes, including a winter jacket and maybe some shoes...?
• Get my life organized

That's all for now... I'll spend my last few days sleeping in, watching The Office, or maybe organizing my mp3 player, watching the US Open, teaching some tennis, or just chilling. Comment if you'd like, nothing interesting is going on yet though!!

--D