Thursday's Waffle.

Okay, so somewhere I heard about this blogging thing where once a week you make a list of ten things, a different list each week. I have no idea where I heard of this (I always forget everything as you well know), but I think it would be fun to do. And I'm going to do it on Thursdays because I've always wanted something called "Thursday's Waffle" and henceforth my list of 10 shall be called that. So here goes:

10 Things I Love To Do (and not just about Germany):

1. Going into bookstores. I love just walking around and looking at all the different kinds of books, the smell of books, reading little sections of the different ones, and the cozy atmosphere. 

2. Going out and having a drink with friends. It is just really nice to be able to meet up with my friends, head to a bar and chill out for a while with a drink or two. Maybe its more fun in Germany than in America, I don't know, but I love it.

3. Walking. Anywhere. Just walking places, instead of taking the usual conventions of transportation. It really nice to just relax and move. I can become really absorbed in my thoughts, I think I think better when I'm walking by myself than when I am just sitting or something else of the sort.

4. Doing things that make people give me funny looks. Its so much fun! Especially now that I'm a foreigner I get so many funny looks. The other day I walked the entire way down from the tallest church tower in the world without shoes on (767 steps for me, but I skipped the last one, there being 768 total). 

5. Thinking. I don't think I've ever done as much thinking before as I'm doing here now, since I can't talk so much. Sometimes I wish I could just think "record" and my brain would record my thoughts on paper for me, since I tend to forget most of my better thoughts. One of the thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail said that the hardest thing is running out of things to think about, but I don't think I'll have that problem when I do it.

6. Taking photos. I just discovered a recent liking for taking pictures, I'm not quite sure where it sprang up from. I don't mean like documenting my time with people, I quite awful at that, I prefer to live it in the moment and not waste time with cameras. But I mean photos in the artistic sense, but I'm not so good at it. I wish I could have someone teach me about it or something.

7. Cooking. I never realized how much I cooked in America before I came here, I guess its not so normal? And how much I took for granted in cooking, just trying to make chocolate chip cookies here was really hard. I had to make my own brown sugar. 

8. Playing music. I love playing my saxophone in a band when we play good music. Not quite as much here, because in Junge Band the music is way to easy, and in the Musikfreunde I don't quite agree with their taste in choice of music. I'm dying to play music like the stuff we played last year. Also, I wish I could play the guitar and the piano, I think they're essential things to know how to play, but alas, I cannot really play them yet. Yet. I'm working on it.

9. Reading. On a yucky day it is so nice to just cuddle up and read a book. I'm trying not to read in English much though (and that may not be working so well) and I miss reading quite a lot. I'm trying to read a little kids book in German now, but its kind of hard, and not my taste in books. But hopefully I will persevere. 

10. Writing poetry. I know I'm basically awful at poetry, but I do really enjoy writing it. I wish I could be a writer, maybe of just poetry, but I hate most varieties of writing, and can't write at all so that would never happen. Though it would be pretty awesome, choosing my own schedule, just spending time alone in pretty places to think and writing, maybe doing a bit of traveling. Ah, oh well. 

lovee,

em