Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Catch-Up...Second Week or "Happy Birthday to Me"

Unfortunately, I don't really know many other people outside of work and my roommate (don’t worry-I’m working on that party). I was pretty bummed to learn that a.) my roommate is a very diligent student and b.) has finals this Friday and would be spending most of the time studying. You see, dear Reader, this was inconvenient at best, because my 21st birthday was on June 24th.

So I reviewed my options. See a play? Star Trek was playing, could go see that. I mentioned my birthday to my supervisor, who asked what I was doing. I told her I had no plans in particular, and she insisted that I do something for my birthday and suggested that she celebrate my birthday with me. It just so happened that a local bar was having a free salsa lesson and open dance after and my supervisor and her husband just happen to be avid ballroom dancers. This was starting to look like the beginnings of a pretty fun birthday.

The day before my birthday, I spent my time at home making brownies (I have no baking pans at my apartment and brownie mix was the only thing I could find with a fold-out baking pan included!), which I brought to work the next day. I didn’t think my coworkers would do anything special, but I was surprised to see streamers and a "Happy Birthday" banner decorating my desk! Birgit, who was unfortunately on a business trip in France, baked a delicious cheesecake the night before and everyone pitched in for a gift certificate for me for Stadtbekannt & Co., a company that offers interesting tours of Aachen and the surrounding area. Simone (my supervisor) even opened some bubbly-no, no real champagne (alcohol isn’t allowed at work), but rather non-alcoholic sekt.

But I would have to say the two best birthday presents I got was amazing sunny weather (normally the weather changes on a dime, and not for the better) and being able to call my parents from work (my supervisor said it was a special occasion and let it slide)! For lunch, I had a fabulously unhealthy lunch of fries and a Schnitzel in a pepper-crème sauce. Yummy! I worked on translations of press releases for the rest of the day, then I headed home, checked e-mail and such, then it was time to head out!

I took the bus to the center of town. Since I was 20 minutes early (wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get lost…which thankfully didn’t happen), I treated myself to a scoop of melon ice cream, which tasted just like a cantaloupe jelly belly jellybean, in ice cream form. Soo refreshing! I met Simone and her husband in front of the City Hall building and we headed to El Sencillito, where I had my first legal drink-a mojito. Of course, turning 21 is no big deal in Germany because the legal drinking age for beer and wine is 16 and the age for everything else is 18. I thought it fit well with the salsa evening we were about to have. After dancing, Simone, Pavel and I headed outside to get some fresh air. I hobbled along the cobblestone streets in my heels until we found the nearest outdoor café for a lovely cup of hot chocolate. A relaxing end to a wonderful birthday.

Now this blog entry has two objectives-first, to tell you about a surely eventful 21st birthday, and second, to tell you how this changed my perception of Germans at the workplace. You see, before I left for Germany, I imagined that the people at work wouldn’t want to become friends with me-more specifically; the relationship would simply be professional. However, this birthday turned this perception upside down. It has been thus far truly a pleasure to work with the people at Saint-Gobain and thankfully, those pre-departure nightmares of being fired and deported from Germany couldn’t be further from the truth!

And remember my entry about that filmed Saint-Gobain experiment? Well, I was on TV!!!!!!!!! It's only three seconds long, but you can see it at www.daserste.de/plusminus. The specific program, "Bessere Wärme-Isolierung im Auto spart Energie" is available in the Mediathek.

1 comment:

  1. Happy birthday!
    Turning to 21 is great, at Germany and elsewhere.
    http://www.whatwasdone.com/Age.php?&Age=21

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