Patchwork

My warehouse (left) and the Post Exchange (right)... oh and the Kramer Mountain

My humpday off was not quite what I expected.  I seemed to seamlessly move from one unscheduled activity to another.  It has been a veritable patchwork of events, that seams to have made a quilt of a day.

My day off started with an easily avoidable trip to work.  I worked alone yesterday, as my coworker Collin had the day off, and I ended up working a little late.  By the time I was finally ready to leave, I was really ready to leave.  I guess I was in a bit of a rush because I left with the warehouse phone.  If this sounds odd, it's not I assure you.  The life of a warehouse worker takes him to several different places throughout his day.  Because of this, our work phone is a cell phone.  It stays in my pocket all day.  And last night too.  I had to drop it off back at work by about 8:00.  I was planning to make a trip to the Artillery Kaserne (where the warehouse, post exchange and commissary are) at some point today, so I decided to make this my trip.  I was planning on shopping for some gear for my bike as well as some much needed groceries.  The only issue that arose was this: apparently nothing in the Kaserne opens before 10:00.  I had roughly two hours to kill and nowhere to go.  Except for our local, friendly coffee shop.

THE coffee shop on base is this neat little cabin looking building in the same area as the PX (post exchange) and the Commissary.  I decided there would be no better time than today to investigate it.  I ate what appeared and tasted like an old breakfast sandwich and drank some freshly brewed German style coffee.  I had two cups of something that I probably could have survived the entire day with only a shot of.  Apparently the Germans like their coffee strong, and I have no ability to just sit patiently and read the newspaper.  The newspaper, by the way, is the Stars and Stripes.  I quite like reading it actually.  In the age of computers and the availability of instant news in the US, I have never really read a newspaper.  I've never had to.  I do not have my 3G anymore, and my internet is fairly slow (as my connection is shared with hundreds of people) so I feel that I have antiquated my information gathering, but perhaps not downgraded it.  There is something aesthetically beneficial to reading the printed word.

When it finally came time to do my shopping, I managed to get my "pimp gear" from the PX quickly.  I had two hours to think about it after all.  It is illegal to ride a bike at night without a headlight here in Germany, and as I am using my bike for work and not recreation, I will be forced to ride in less than perfect weather.  So for utility's sake, I bought a healight-taillight set and some fenders (to keep the rain/ snow off of my person) and applied them to my bike.  I also treated myself to a gadget (as I adore gadgets) that provides me with a plethora of information.  It is one of these devices that has a sensor attached to the front wheel that transmits wirelessly to a readout on my handlebars.  The kind of data includes any kind of combination you can think of using time, distance, and calorie count.  I am quite pleased with my bike.

After my vehicle supreme was assembled, I had a conversation with, as well as a Subway donation from, John.  He is one of the people that I arrived with and a cook at Edelweiss.  We shared conversation and a sandwich for about an hour before my roommate, Andrew, rather randomly arrived.  We then moved on to the Commissary to do some grocery shopping.  As we were leaving we ran into Richard, who was also concluding his grocery shopping, and we all traveled back to The Abrams together.  We talked about the oddities of idioms between languages, as well as troubles and benefits from the availability of verb-tenses or the lack there of between languages.  Admittedly, it is sort of a nerdy topic, but I was very happy to speak on it.  Language intrigues me.

After we got back home, Andrew and I unpacked our food.  He crashed fairly quickly for a mid afternoon nap, and I cruised the internet for a while.  Primarily (other than Facebook) I cruised through a few lectures on TED.  If you don't know about TED, it is this amazing organization that has the smartest most cutting edge minds of their fields give lectures on their latest research.  They are amazing.  I could watch these lectures 24 hours a day.  I recommend anyone check them out.

For the past few hours, I have been in the kitchen (which is communal) socializing with my dormmates.  I am planning on taking some of them along with me to Jameson's in a short while.  The person that I am replacing at the warehouse, Sam, is having his going away party there.  Even though I have to be at work tomorrow morning fairly early, I am going to help send him off.  He has been here for two years, and is very well liked.  I have been told several times, that I have big shoes to fill.  I reply that "I have big feet," then laugh because having worked at a shoe store for sometime, I know my feet are fairly average sized.

Humpday Off:  Complete Success.