Happy, Healthy New Year!

Hello everyone!
I hope you all survived the holidays in your respective homes or places of residence. We were up in the M-V with Stephan's family, which was pretty lovely and only a tad stressful. It's unbelievably peaceful and rural up there--they live in an old farmhouse which they're slowly renovating. Aside from the unheated bathroom, it was a nice break from big city life. We got to spend a bunch of time in the Ha-Ro (Hansastadt Rostock) with Matthias and Stephan der 2. and the rest of the crew--which was hilarious and partially unbelievable--New Year's was a little bizarre--we partied with some new friends of ours and their friends--I got my ass flagrantly grabbed by the male host (who I assumed was gay...apparently not...). Stephan was pissed. Oops. Oh well. There was a lot of gin drinking, a lot of Mia and Matthias hanging out and drinking in the kitchen, the odd bit of mingling and my characteristic "I'm Mia the American" schpiel. I'm always in the kitchen at parties. I don't know why--it must be some weird Cancer thing. I like to be where the food is. Speaking of food, there was wild boar there. Delicious! I am officially a huge fan. It tasted like my godmother's potroast. And Karen makes a really awesome potroast. Of course, being in the Ha-Ro, we had to go to the Stadthafen for the fireworks at midnight. In Germany, everyone is allowed to shoot off their own fireworks, which was petrifying for me initially, cause you know damn well that everyone around you is wasted and shooting these things off-- but I got over it and got some really beautiful photos.
After the fireworking, we sat around for a little while longer, but they were airing the madonna concert on TV (who sits down and watches a madonna concert at a party?) and the party was kind of winding down anyway, so we split around 3.
My favorite part of the New Years festivities was, however our departure from the party. I asked Stephan to give me a piggy back ride. I do this when I'm drunk--some of you have humored me, some of you have witnessed the phenomenon...but being Stephan, he refused. About three minutes later, Matthias takes off his backpack and goes into piggy back position. Out of the blue. I'm a piggy back whore, so I jump on. And the drunken bastard carried me almost all the way home. I was afraid for my life, and had to hold on so hard, my arms were unbelievably sore the next morning. Apparently my boots drew blood or something--I don't know exactly how, but he had these wretched scrapes on his hips. I felt terrible.

H'm. What else? I got books and bedding and hair stuff from Stephan's family, which was awesome. Our bed is not half so ghetto anymore--but enough about the festivities. Here comes the meat of the post. The delicious, ridiculous gossip that makes this worth reading. Or not. Depending on your taste.

So our roomates. Ahhh, the roomates. We were all supposed to ride up to Rostock together--one big happy family, you know? Well, our plan was to leave at or around 5pm. So on friday, we're doing our thing, last minute shopping, packing, cleaning, etc. and a little bit before 4, Christian sticks his head in and is like "one of you has to do dishes. now. so we can leave." Stephan was like "oops, sorry, gotta go get ingredients for Christmas cookies, can't do it." to which Christian countered that no, there would be no shopping, we were leaving in 15 minutes at the latest. Which was news to us. So Cindy came home, wound up washing all the dishes that were there (which of course I feel bad about, but she puts herself in this weird-ass martyr position) and we all wound up spendning the two and a half hour drive up to Rostock in complete and utter silence. But I really thought this was just typical roomate bullshit, and that after spending a week and a half with our respective families, it'd all be water under the bridge.


Ding-dong, I was wrong.

The other day, they both stormed out of dinner after having words with Stephan about the heat being on too much. So yesterday, after dinner, they held this little intervention with us, listed off their conditions for staying in the apartment as our roomates. I just looked at Stephan and was like "ummm, yeah...thanks, but no." I mean, Christian got pissed because of the frequency with which I bathe/shower. Sorry, but I'm still wayyyy too American to compromise my hygiene in the name of thrift OR cultural understanding. I realize that water and heat and electricity are more expensive here, and I pay attention to how much I use, but who the fuck is he to tell me when I can or cannot take a fucking shower!? When that point came up, I just started laughing. It's all so ridiculous. I refuse to freeze my ass off in my own apartment, or live like I'm in the 18th century to save a few bucks. It's not my nature. I don't think I'm necessarily extravagant, but shit, man--there are limits! So the upshot is we've sent in our Kuendigung of the apartment--I don't know if you cancel a lease in English or if you terminate it or what the right word is...since I've never had to do it at home, but hopefully by the first of April, we'll be living someplace else. Alone. Not with freak-ass roomates who really think that I should be sharing bathwater with my boyfriend. Not even because it's erotic! Beause it's cheaper!

I don't want to say I saw this coming from a mile away, but I did.

And then, of course, because none of this is personal, and we're all just "different" from one another, we had to sit at our dining room table and pretend that we all think everyone is still nice and funny and charming when all anyone really wanted to do was phone a friend and vent. Or perhaps that's just me...

So what did we do? Being the ridiculous, slovenly, decadent sons of bitches that we are?


Stephan, his little brother Max and I drank a bottle of vodka. Does it sound excessively alcoholic to say that I felt much better afterwards? I felt bad for Stephan, because really, they were his friends, and despite what anyone's saying, things aren't going to be the same after we all move out. Cindy made a point of saying about eight times that we'll have to have a knock-down, drag-out when the heating bill comes next year, because they don't use any heat and we do. I am really proud of myself for not hitting anyone or saying anything that would have made the next three months any more awkward than they already will be. But yeah. Now that everyone knows WAAAY more about my living situation than they ever, ever needed to know, I feel better.


Thanks for letting me catharse. I will now continue to enjoy the rest of my vacation (I start work again on Monday...eeeeeeeeew.) and perhaps watch a few episodes of M*A*S*H, or some of Family Guy, season 4.



Rock your respective post-holiday weekends. Rock them hard.


.me.