Dreaming big...

Two days after I arrived in Garmisch, I made a list of things that I had learned about the town and work so far. Here is that list, with updates as well:

This story shouldn't precede my Oktoberfest entry, but due to the popularity of it I feel it must. Let me provide a little background first:

The Abrams (where I live) and Edelweiss Lodge and Resort (where I work) is about a 1.5 mile walk each way. If you work at 6am you have to leave at 5am to get to work on time. The walk is dark and a little scary. Until you reach Zugsptizestrasse you're walking past houses in almost complete darkness, and you must cross an unlit path that wraps around St. Maarten's Kindergarten called the "kinder path". This path is probably the scariest part of the walk, only because you can't see anything unless it is a clear night and there is a full moon. If I wasn't concentrating so hard on not getting raped and killed and actually looked up, I would see the moon casting a soft light on the surrounding mountains. It really is beautiful here. But at 5am, you can't concentrate on that - you must survive the walk to work. Every other trek had been fine, except for one morning...

It was the morning after Oktoberfest, and although my friend Claire and I had gotten home at a decent hour from Munich we still woke up drunk from the previous days shenanigans. Luckily, we both had to work at 6am so we had one another to count on to get up on time. As we began our walk to work, I noticed I felt funny. Every little sound made me jump, and I was extra paranoid...then I realized that I was still drunk from the day before. Oh jeez, today should be interesting, I thought. I looked over at Claire and noticed that she was just as jumpy as I was. We walked the kinder path with no problems, and began to relax a little. At the next corner we saw a dark-colored van with its headlights on, but remembered that it was just the mailman. The drivers side door opened, and the mailman stepped out with a stack of letters in his hand and began to walk towards us. No problem right? Just the mailman delivering mail. Except instead of heading towards the mailbox, he was heading right towards us. Mind you we are walking in the middle of the street, so there is no reason for him to be walking straight at us when his van is parked on the side of the road and the mailboxes are on the side of the road. Claire and I both got scared and my heart started racing. I grabbed her arm and held on as tight as I could. At the last second he veered to the right, giving us a smirk (or maybe he didn't, I was drunk).

We passed him and continued walking. Claire looked at me with terror in her eyes, and I returned the same glance. We started laughing at how scared we got of the mailman, and let ourselves relax again. Claire laughed and said, "what would you do if he started running at us and grabbed us?" Except she didn't get to finish her sentence. She got about halfway through it when we heard footsteps behind us...running footsteps. We both turned around and saw a man running right at us!

Now let's stop right here and take a moment to assess the situation. If you were walking to work in the dark early in the morning, what would you do? Most people would do one of two things: 1. Run away as fast as you can, screaming and calling for help. 2. Take the man down by kicking him in the groin while screaming and calling for help. Surely no matter how scared you were, you would do something to protect yourself from harm. Right? Right?

Claire and I did neither of those things. We were still drunk, so our reasoning was a little off.

Kyrie's reaction to a strange man running at her:
Right when Claire was saying how scary it would be for the mailman to run at them and snatch them up, Kyrie turned around and saw a man doing that exact thing. She tried to run, but her legs seemed to get caught up in themselves and she was essentially running in place. The fact that Claire had latched onto her didn't help her plan of escape. Instead of releasing a high-pitched scream to scare off the attacker, her voice changed dramatically. She yelled, "UGHHHHHHH, LEAVE US ALONE!!!" in a cry that was three octaves below normal and in an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. Even Kyrie was surprised at the sound of her own voice. She continued to run in place, knowing that she would soon suffer a violent demise.

Claire's reaction to a strange man running at her:
Peeing her pants.

Please tell me that is not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? The man continued to run at us as I yelled in my Arnold voice and Claire was scream-crying. Then he did the strangest thing - he ran past us. We noticed that this man was not the mailman. This man was wearing a beanie, red windbreaker, spandex pants and running shoes. Why, if I didn't know any better I would say he was...on a morning run? No way. Why would this man run so close to us? Like the mailman, he waited until the last possible second before running around us. Since we were staggering in place and peeing our pants, he ran by quickly and I heard a laugh trailing behind him as he passed.

Claire and I finally realized what had happened, and we started cracking up. If my screaming didn't wake up the neighborhood, our laughing probably did. We laughed so hard we cried. And we kept laughing. And laughing. Claire informed me that she had "peed her pants a little" and "not to tell anyone" (that cat was let out of the bag long ago). My body shook violently from all the adrenaline running through my body, and I spoke with a hoarse voice for the rest of walk due to the stress I put on my vocal cords from yelling. By the time we got to work, things were better: Claire's undies had mostly dried, and I was sobering up.

This isn't even the end of the story...because what happens after you sober up? Hangover ensues. Claire and I sat at the breakfast table with our co-workers and regailed them with the story of our walk to work. I began to feel sick. I could tell Claire felt the same by the way she poked at her cereal. We weren't doing too well. AND I was on scraping duty. This involves scraping leftover food from peoples plates into a large trash can filled with food scraps. The bin that morning had sat in the kitchen from the previous nights dinner, and when you opened the lid it released a smell that no one should have to endure, especially when you're hungover. After about an hour of scraping and trying not to vomit, I ran to the bathroom to get away from all the bad odors.

I went into one of the stalls and just sat, waiting for my nausea to pass. In the stall next to me I heard someone puking. "Claire?" I recognized the grunts between barfing. "I feel so sick," she responded, sounding like death. I was jealous - I wish I could just barf and get it over with. For some reason my body likes to torture me when I have a hangover and make me nauseated for eight hours instead of allowing me to vomit.

She cleaned up and left the bathroom, and after 5 more minutes of trying to convince myself "mind over matter" I went back to the front. I continued to feel terrible, while Claire's bathroom session had given her a second wind; she was bouncing around with a spring in her step and a smile on her face. "I feel great after barfing!" she said in a sing-song voice as I was dry heaving into the food scrap bucket. I couldn't do it any longer - I had to go home. I told my boss that I had eaten some bad thai food last night and said that if I don't go home I'll be on the toilet all day. If there was any language barrier at all, she understood when I clutched my stomach while wincing and said 'toilet' at least seven times. It was 7:22am when I went home - I had lasted 1 hour and 22 minutes. After walking home (in the daylight), I spent the rest of the day in bed sleeping. Claire championed through and stayed for the rest of her shift.

Since that day, I have not gone out the night before a morning shift and I have not gone to work drunk or hungover. I learned my lesson. And at least once a day, someone mentions to Claire and I how funny our story was about walking to work. Good story at our expense, right? I'll have to save this post and read it to myself before next years Oktoberfest, just to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I’ve made it.

Seven days ago I was packing up my life so I could spend a year working in Germany. I fit all my belongings into three bags: two large duffel bags and a traveller’s backpack. Among the lot were shoes, cotton swabs, lotion, scarves, hats, clothes and of course books. Although I only brought about 15 books, I plan on swapping them out for others when my boyfriend comes to visit.

So I guess the main questions to answer are: how am I doing? Or rather, what am I doing? I came to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the dark about a few things, like what my job would be or what resources would be available to us while we were here. Let’s start from the beginning:

Plane Ride
To get from Portland, Oregon to Munich, Germany I took a United flight from PDX to Chicago O’Hare, and then a connecting flight to Munich. The first flight was 100% full, which made for a fun ride. The first flight was okay, other than the fact that I sat next to a man who weighed about 300 pounds and smelled quite terrible. After that flight I had to rush to make it to my next flight, which was also 100% full. And I was in a row of 5 seats…smack dab in the middle. From what I’ve learned in the past of this particular seat, there is really no way to get up and stretch your legs, no way to go to the bathroom, and no way to even move more than three inches without pissing off your neighbor. What I learned is definitely true! During the 9.5 hour flight, I was able to go to the bathroom once when everyone on my left was awake and able to move to let me by, and sleeping on my part did not happen. By the end of the flight I was starting to feel really sick, so I was just praying it would be over soon. The ride finally ended and after going through passport control, I went to retrieve my bags…and there were only two. The two bags that I had packed my shoes, makeup, general hygiene stuff, electronics, and one change of clothes in were in my hands. The large backpack with all my clothes and socks and underwear was nowhere to be found. Usually I would remain calm, but I have heard horror stories in the past of people losing their luggage and not getting it for several weeks. I had a change of clothes, but no change of underwear! I had to have clean underwear! At that point I didn’t know where I could buy it, when I would get a chance to buy some, when I was getting my luggage back (if I got it back), or any information whatsoever that would calm my nerves. So I went to the lost luggage office and put in my claim, and trudged through customs to meet up with the resident managers and drive the 1.5 hours to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

The Newbies
The group that came in on September 13th ended up being 11 people: 10 girls and 1 boy. There’s Claire, Courtney, Laura, Macara, Me, Kelly, Annie, Paige, Parker, Lara and the lonely Colin. Parker and Macara (Mac) are from Seattle, but the rest are from the eastern side of the states. All of them are really nice and it’s been fun getting to know them. The first night we all went out to Peaches, a dance club/restaurant/cocktail bar. I guess every Tuesday they have a special where $1 = 1 euro, so they sell $1 shots and cheap beer. But luckily it was Monday: half-price pizza night! We all got individual pizzas that reminded me of Italy: huge, thin crust, delicious. I got the pizza margherita and a weissbier. The pizza (half-price) was 2,75 euros, but I only had half of the pizza and saved the rest for dinner the next night. Talk about a cheap meal! All the newbies hit it off pretty well the first night, despite the jet lag we were ALL experiencing.

My roomie and Our Room
Each person has a roommate unless they work weird shifts, like a bartender or a warehouse worker. A lot of our group knew each other and had already picked out roommates, so a girl named Laura and I decided to room together. Laura is from Virginia, went to Virginia Tech and majored in Hospitality. Turns out we have a lot in common: we’re both pescetarians, both have boyfriends (everyone else except for Colin was single), both love to cook and bake and both want to open a bakery! She even wants to open a vegan bakery…awesome! She is really nice and very laid-back, and didn’t even freak out when I busted her converter on the third day. Hopefully I can replace the fuse and it will work, but if not I offered to buy her a new one to which she replied, “we’ll figure it out - no worries!” I’m going to enjoy living with her very much. (Update: fuse bought. Converter fixed. Phew.)

The dorms that we are all living in are pretty big. The ceilings are high, there are several wings to each floor and the best thing: there is a gym literally 6 rooms down from ours! I’ve used it twice already, and am so happy. There are laundry rooms and kitchens too, where you cook all your meals. Everyone is responsible for buying their own cookware. I bought mine at the PX, but I’ll explain that later. Down in the basement there is a computer room, a room to hang out, a movie room with a huge TV and a Wii room. HR also has offices in the dorms, and the resident manager Jay works and lives at the dorms. For being an old Nazi hospital (rumors), it’s pretty nice.

In-Processing
In-processing was, for lack of a better term, quite a process. Because we are at code Bravo (and have been ever since 9/11) and because we were Americans living abroad, there was a LOT of paperwork and security measures to go through. Our social security numbers are stamped on almost everything, so that makes me a little uneasy. Hopefully Uschi (our HR person) doesn’t lose anything! During in-processing we were given a tour of the hotel, told all the rules, filled out a shit ton of paperwork, opened a bank account, got an ID card, got a mailbox, filled out more paperwork and waited a lot. The longest processes were opening a bank account and getting an ID card. My paperwork was messed up and they labeled me as a ‘contractor’ so my ID card has a stripe on it that no one else has…so not only did I wait 3 hours to get the ID card but I now have to go back and do it all over again. Sheesh. After we finally got all that done, we were allowed to go to the shopping area: the PX and the Commissary. At the PX they sell pretty much anything K-Mart would sell, like kitchen appliances, makeup, electronics, clothes, bikes, camping gear, etc. Everything is very fairly priced and I was able to pick up a converter for my electronics, a pot for cooking and a bunch of little stuff that I needed. The Commissary is a grocery store and had anything and everything you would find in the States - but cheaper. The only things that we are rationed on at the Commissary are coffee, tabacco and alcohol. The rest is fair game, and dang it’s cheap! I don’t plan on shopping there a lot because I would love to learn how to cook German food, but when peanut butter is like $2.29 and a bag of chips are $2.16...sheesh it’s hard to pass up. In the States a bag of chips are at least $3.00 now. I bought cereal, stuff to make PB&J and some tofu and brown rice. I figure I’ll wait until we get paid to worry about food.

The Job
I found out what I would be doing in the hotel on my third day in Garmisch. There are three restaurants in the hotel: Zuggy’s, which is a burger joint and bar; Pullman Place, which is an “upscale” restaurant, and Market Station, which is a buffet restaurant that is open 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. Guess where I’m working? Market Station, but of course. I received the job title of “waiter” which basically means I fill food on the line and scrape dishes. I don’t even get the satisfaction of washing the dishes…I simply bring the cart of dishes to the back and scrape the food off (luckily its composted). I’d say the job isn’t as tough as the people that I’m working with, but that’s for another post. HOWEVER, I have talked to the restaurants manager Fred Foley and the executive chef Howard about kitchen positions that are opening up, so hopefully in the next two weeks I’ll know more about my chances of getting a job cooking or baking.

There are a lot more things to talk about, but I think for now this is a good introduction to my new life in Germany. I love Europe, and I already love Germany more than France (shhhhh, don’t tell the Frenchies) because the Germans seem more laid-back AND aren’t stick skinny…so I fit in a lot more. Hehe. I’ll be back to update soon, I promise!

In an attempt to unveil the mystery of the previous entry, I'll introduce a new goal that I have unfortunately forgotten to mention. The reason I started this blog was to tell the world of my long-term goals, and keep track of my progress towards those goals. So far, I have revealed:


Goal #1: Open a bakery of my own

Goal #2: Reach a goal weight and maintain (more of a resolution than a goal, since I can never stop working towards maintaining my weight)

Goal #3: Learn 5 languages in my lifetime

Goal #4: Be a writer

Before I could reveal more of my goals, I got sidetracked with work and life. I started to quote books and work on self-control of my anger and all that, when I still should have been continuing on the yellow brick road to Oz, my own personal goal heaven. Back to business and without further ado, here is goal #5:


Being without a trust fund, a lucrative overseas venture that allows me to travel in business class as I please, this is a hard goal. I don't have a foundation to take from for this - and I don't have the income to support this goal. I'm 24-years-old; my money is going towards rent and college loan payments. How in the world am I to get started on a goal that would take a lifetime to complete without a means to an end? Hmmmmmmmmm the brain started churning.

Get paid to work in exotic/foreign locations of my choice! Enter Edelweiss Resort and Lodge in Garmisch, Germany. Long story short, I found a job on craigslist to work at a resort in the Bavarian Alps, applied for it, interviewed for it and found out that I got the job! I will be spending 13 months in Southern Germany working at a resort that caters to American soldiers and their families. WOOOOOOOO!!! Work five days, travel two days! I leave at the end of August. Will update later. Fo sho.

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. That being said, a big opportunity has revealed itself to me in the past weeks and a small glimmer of hope might become a reality.

If this opportunity doesn't go through as planned, then the loss happened for a reason.

If it does, then the gain happened for a reason.

I must remember this either way.

A while ago a good friend told me of a memory she had about her youth. She was on the softball team for the first time when she was 7 years old, and was terrible. Her coach would place her in the outfield at every game, and if one was sitting in the bleachers watching the game, they could spot her and her wavy brown hair out in far left field, completely oblivious to the game going on around her. She would recall how her glove would become her object of most attention, and would use it for various things, like using it as a shield from the sun. Pressing the glove up to her face, she would allow the sun to penetrate her skin through the openings in the leather lacing. Other times, she would peep through the holes at the sun, letting the warmth bathe only the smallest parts of her pupils.

I held onto her story. It meant something great and prolific to me. But what? What could a simple story about being a child catch such a big part of me? Then I realized. At the age of 24, I wake up everyday with a million and one things to do. Most of them are mundane everyday tasks, wash the dishes, buy the curry powder for dinner, sign up for automatic bill pay. But more and more, harder life decisions interject my otherwise meaningless to-do list. Is this the job path I really want to be following? Is this a man who I want to share my time, living quarters and sexual escapades with? And for how long? For the rest of my life? Then I start thinking far down the road; at the end of my days, is this what I could have done to be my happiest? What am I doing to make my life as whole and complete as possible? Is washing the dishes part of this plan? WAHAAAHAH!!! I explode. There is nothing left for me think. All of my thoughts, worries and ideas have combusted into a big tangle, and I’m left with a lobotomy-like view on life.

Then I think to what my friend told me about her in the outfield. Staring through her glove at the sky, not a care in the world. Maybe she did have care, such as when will I get my post-game fruit snack? But I can assure you it certainly wasn’t do I have enough sunscreen on? Is looking at the sun going to damage my eyes? Or how are my parents affording for me to play softball when they have me and my brother to feed and a mortgage to pay and college tuition to put money aside for every month? Or even worse: is playing softball part of my life plan?

Oh, to be young again. To be carefree and unhindered by big life decisions. I would give anything to go back to the beginning and stay there. But that is not reality. Reality is there are bills to pay, mouths to feed (my own and no others, thank god) and career paths that I must follow and choose to go right or left at the fork in the road. So how can I face reality without becoming overwhelmed? Without breaking down and being an emotional mess at all times?

Maybe it is okay to go back every once in awhile. To put that glove on your face and just breathe in the smell of the leather. The smell of the grass. The sound of a bat hitting a ball. Maybe that’s what gets you through the mortgages, the taxes, the breakups. And maybe it’s not. But I’ll put my trust in it for now.

Blog: Design Sponge

Artist: Kate Nash

Etsy: Claudia Pearson Illustration and Hint

Regretsy: Bowl-Kakke

Food: The Olive Bar at New Seasons