April 4th, 2007

Hello.

Yes, I've been more than a little bit negligent. Those of you who may have followed regularly have probably given up by now. I wouldn't blame you. I nearly threw in the towel on this blog as well. There have been several times in which I wanted to post something but I never did.

It was a long, cold winter here and I'm glad to say that it is over.  Between our opposing schedules, the incredibly short daylight hours, and the surprisingly cold temperatures, I was in a bit of a funk for the last few months.  I never really believed in that whole seasonal affective disorder, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had displayed some of those symptoms over the winter.  Fortunately not only has the weather been changing lately, but so have our schedules.  We've been able to spend more time together and we've even gotten out for a few day trips.

For the moment I'm taking a break from German lessons.  I recently took the B2 level exam.  I have no idea how I did, although I have a pretty bad feeling about this one.  If I have time this week I'd like to stop by the school and see how I did.  While my daily lessons are done for now, I am still working a few days a week.  But if you are looking for an updated score, I'm afraid to say this game was probably called on account of the slaughter rule and stupidity months ago.

It has been nearly a year since I started this blog. Back in May I wrote about what brought me to Germany. It was a long story and one that I never got around to finishing.  Tomorrow is the fourth of April, an important date for us and one that gives me as good an excuse as ever to resume blogging and finish what I started.

Three years ago today I boarded a plan for Paris.  Up until this point, my life was pretty ordinary.  I worked.  I went to too many ballgames and concerts.  I hung out on Tuesday nights at a bar playing dominoes and pinball with friends.  I was approaching 30 although it might well have been 22.  Not much had changed.  But now I was on my way to what could very well have been the most awkward blind date of all time.

She took the train from Cologne to Paris.  I had to find my way from Charles De Gaulle to the center of the city.  We agreed on a time roughly an hour or so later than my flight's arrival.  The plane arrived on time and I made my way to the train.  Things seemed to be working out perfectly until I got to the train station at the airport.  The automated ticket kiosks were out of order and there was a monstrous line to buy tickets at the counter.  Fortunately we did not count on my mobile phone being able to work.  It didn't. 

I finally arrived at the St-Michel/Notre-Dame metro stop at least two hours later than planned.  I hustled up the steps and looked for the first glimpse of the Cathedral.  I guess when you plan something like this, you see it in your head like a movie.  Sunshine, blue sky.  Just the right amount of people walking around in the background like extras.  Stereotypical french accordion music.  I walk towards Point Zero and we see each other from across the square.  Happily ever after and all that stuff.

Instead I reach street level and what do I see?  Hundreds if not a thousands of tourists crawling all over the square.  "Well, yeah, stupid.  It's probably like the second most visited site in the whole city," I must have said to myself.  And it is cold.  And windy.  Really windy.  I make my way through the crowd, searching the ground for Point Zero.  It wasn't all that hard to find.  But now I'm standing there, nearly on top of the mark scanning the surrounding crowd for a somewhat familiar face.  I don't think she's here.  I wouldn't blame her, either.  It is cold and I'm several hours late.  Did we have a backup plan?  Looking back now, I am not really sure we did.  Now what?

And just then, when I am about to curse Charles De Gaulle airport and my mobile phone service (or lack thereof), she began to walk through the crowd.  She was there the whole time, sitting on a bench nearby.  In fact, she later told me that she saw me approaching the whole way from the Metro stop. 

I couldn't tell you what our first words in person to each other were.  I don't remember.  I know we hugged.  The whole moment was so surreal and, yes, even a bit awkward.  We had become such close friends through emails and phone calls but now we were finally face to face.  Where do you begin conversation in a situation like this?  She had been waiting a long time outside and I still remember how cold she looked.  I suggested that we find the nearest cafe and have a cup of coffee so that she could warm up a bit. 

After the coffee we went to find the hotel.  I had been to Paris a few times before so I fancied myself somewhat of an expert on getting around the city via the Metro.  Just a few stops later she asked if we were going in the right direction.  "Of course we are."  And so we continued.  A few more stops and I realized she was right.

Navigating the Paris metro with cumbersome luggage is not a fun experience.  Switching trains often means wandering down long hallways usually filled with small sporadic flights of stairs.  What I remember most from these first few hours together was the heavy rolling suitcase she had brought with being dragged up and down these stairs. 

So, I was several hours late.  I took us in the wrong direction.  What else could possibly go wrong?  We found out after checking into our hotel.  Way back when we first discussed meeting, I kept suggesting that she come with a friend.  I thought meeting up might be awkward enough and then being alone together might compound the problem.  But she persisted in coming alone.  We agreed to share a room in the hotel.  I booked a double room online - meaning a room with TWO beds.  What we got was a room with one double bed.  Exactly.  Now I felt like that guy.  Rather than dwell on the situation, we dumped our things in the room and immediately left in search of something to eat followed by a walk around the city. 

We found a bistro near the metro stop and took a table in the back.  At this point, I still remember everything seeming so unreal.  We really weren't talking much, or at least not like we had talked over the phone.  Eventually our food came.  The small talk and awkwardness continued.  I noticed she kept staring at something across the restaurant.  I finally asked what she had been staring at.  It was the pinball machine near the front door.  I hadn't noticed it when we walked in.  "I think it is Elvis Pinball," she said. 

Over the past year of getting to know each other, I told her about my Tuesday nights at the Skylark lounge in Chicago.  My friends and I would meet there somewhat regularly to play dominoes and pinball and generally have a few too many beers to drink.  We would call it the "Tuesday Torpedo" because it pretty much killed any productivity the next day.  Recently the bar had acquired this Elvis themed pinball machine.  It is a great game.  How could it not be? It has a hip-swivelin' Elvis built right in.  See for yourself.  I'll admit it, I'm an Elvis fan.  Though to be honest, maybe only a little more than casual.  She, on the other hand, is a big fan.  And the thought of my friends and myself playing this game must have left an impression on her. 

So there we were in this restaurant, having been together in person for only a few hours and not knowing what to say to each other.  "Elvis Pinball?  Really? Here?!"  I turned around and looked.  Sure enough it was. We quickly finished our meals, paid the check and went over to the machine.  We played several games over the next half hour or longer.  That was all it took.  The King had worked his magic.  We left the restaurant laughing.  All the awkwardness of the past several hours melted away and it was like it always was in emails or on the phone.

We boarded the Metro to head into the center of the city for a walk.  It was rush hour.  Crowded.  No seats available.  We were shoved into a corner by the door and had little space to move.  She couldn't reach for anything to hold on to.  I put my arm around her to keep her safe.  The rest as they say, is history.

Point Zero

The time really seems to be flying now. I've been able to get a fair amount done, but still so much remains.

I suppose at this point, if you're following this blog at all, you're probably curious as to why I'm about to make this transition. The photo at left provides a clue. Some might say it is the end of a great story. I'd like to think it is just the beginning.

Three years ago I was living on the near southside of Chicago. I had a nice two-bedroom apartment all to myself just off Taylor Street in the heart of Little Italy. When I first got the apartment the plan was to one day set up shop as an independent video editor. A nice place close to downtown, in a great neighborhood... who wouldn't want to bring their clients there for work?

At that time I had a Mac G4. Even then it was nearly obsolete. I decided it was time to upgrade it. I couldn't afford something new but I thought maybe I could get it running a bit faster. Doing so might allow me to take on a few more side jobs. My goal was to spend Saturday backing up certain files and deleting whatever else wasn't necessary. Then I could spend Sunday loading all the new hardware and software.

I scoured that computer. I was feeling pretty confident that everything was taken care of when I stumbled upon something I hadn't seen in years. It was the old AOL messenger/chat program. I couldn't even remember the last time I used it. I don't know what possessed me to open it but I did. I stumbled around a bit before I found myself in a Chicago chat room. From the looks of it, no one uses those things anymore. The only messages that popped up appeared to be automated responses to check out porn sites or lures for various phishing scams.

Just before quitting that program and shutting down the computer a message came up that had to be from a live person going by the name of Glühwürmchen. She was from Cologne, Germany and was online looking to speak to someone in order to improve her English. I didn't have all that much time to spare before I had to leave for a friend's party. But we had a nice little chat and ended up exchanging email addresses before I left.

The emails were soon flying back and forth and we were spending hours online chatting on another instant messenger. To me this was perfect. Here was someone thousands of miles away, someone I could speak to about anything and not feel self conscious because we'd never meet. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and soon we knew everything about each other. It wasn't all that long before we were talking on the phone. We'd spend hours, sometimes whole days on the phone baring our souls.

Inevitably, the thought of meeting in person began to creep into my head. It all still seemed so unlikely but it became something I really wanted to do. I think we both began to have real feelings for each other although we didn't want to admit to it. At one point she was set up on a blind date. She sounded apprehensive about it but I wished her well. Privately I hoped it didn't go well.*

It had been years since I had taken a big vacation. The last time I did anything on my own was three years before when I backpacked across France and England to visit friends. I started to formulate a plan. I told her that I was considering going to Paris in the spring of 2007 to visit a friend. I suggested that if she wanted, she should come to Paris for the weekend with a friend and maybe we could meet up for a day. Looking back, it seems foolish that I was so worried about what she thought of my offer. Especially when she countered that she would like to come to Paris on her own. For the entire week.

We met online in early April of 2006. In January of 2007 we made the decision to meet in Paris. Soon we had our tickets booked for the 4th of April. Just one logistical problem remained: how the hell do you meet someone in the middle of such a large city? Especially when you've only seen them in a handful of photos. We knew what we looked like. But it isn't enough to just say, "let's meet under the Eiffel Tower" at 2pm. Landmarks are landmarks for a reason: in general they are huge. And more often than not, they are crawling with tourists.

What we needed was a distinct spot. No, make that a speck. Something that is small and singular yet can't be missed if you are looking for it. And that's when I remembered it: Point Zero. For those who haven't been to Paris yet, Point Zero (also known as Kilometre Zero) is a small marker placed in the square just outside of Notre Dame cathedral. All distances in France are measured from Point Zero. It is easy to miss with the giant front of Notre Dame looming in front of you. But it is there if you look hard enough.

Now, it would be really easy for me to just end this post by saying that we met at Point Zero and lived happily ever after. But it didn't start out quite so perfect. In fact it started out as awkward as you might imagine. It took a little help from the King himself before it became the best week of my life....

more on that in a future post.


*In the interest of fairness, when I told her this she confessed that she also hoped the blind date wouldn't work out for the same reasons.

Get rid of what I don't need

It is Friday evening and it is absolutely gorgeous outside. This weekend's forecast calls for a whole lot of rain. There is a good chance that the Chicago area won't see weather like today's until mid-June. Seems like the perfect time to sit in a basement and put off doing the things that are more important.

What are some of these things? I still have some homework to do before tomorrow's German lesson. But that's just one exercise. I can knock that out pretty quickly. No, what I have is something that I've been dreading since I made this decision, the one thing that I'm worse at than almost anyone I know. Packing for a move. Packing isn't so much the difficult part, it is all the preparation that I'm no good at. What do I bring with? What stays behind? If it stays behind, where does it stay? And worst of all: what gets thrown out?

I am a packrat. I'm from a family of packrats. I've seen this coming and I haven't been looking forward to this. I am excited for this move for so many reasons. One of which is to simplify my life. Get rid of what I don't need. Get rid of what I don't need. Get rid of what I don't need. I need to keep repeating this until it it is done.

I planned this move well over a year ago. In February of 2008 I moved back home to mom's. The plan was to save a little money and leave in the fall. A shorter commute, a few less bills. Autumn came and went but due to circumstances beyond my control, I remained here.

When I cleaned out the old apartment, I was pretty impressed with what I threw out, gave away and donated. When I got to the house, I was not so proud of how much still remained. Especially when it ended up stacked in piles all around me. The last thing this place needs is more stuff.

So this weekend I am making it my goal to sort through at least a few boxes. I have to start somewhere. Get the ball rolling. Get rid of stuff I don't need. Get rid of stuff I don't need. Get ri... right after I finish this last bit of homework.

Get rid of stuff I don't need. Get rid of... oh, and didn't I hear that the Cubs are using a new lineup tonight? Soriano's finally batting third? Man, I might have to see that.