When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite movies.

Harry Burns: I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Last weekend I had the privilege of meeting my boyfriend's parents for the first time. Meeting parents is one thing. Meeting parents who are from another country is an entirely different thing. Meeting German parents is a whole 'nother ball game. Hell, it's a whole 'nother World Cup.

At first I had gotten out of it due to scheduling conflicts. Then I got a phone call that flipped my world upside down, inside out, round and round, in the words of my girl Diana Ross. "I'm with my parents and they want to meet you. Like... now. Meet us at the Gaenseliesl." There I was hunched over my computer reading Oh No They Didn't in my boxers and a wifebeater with an ice tea stain on my left boob. "Uhhh now?" I asked. "Yeah." he replied as if he didn't know about my current bag lady state. Luckily, my hair was already fixed since I was instructed to gussy up for the national Mexican team training session in order to get autographs, which didn't happen I might add. Although the 'do was taken care of, I still faced the ultimate dilemma- what to wear.

a midriff and a miniskirt? too skanky

a hooded sweatshirt with jeans and flip flops? too American

a band t-shirt and chucks? too punk/emo

I finally decided on an argyle sweater, jeans and my sailing shoes accesorized with some pearl earrings. I wanted to come off as refined but not too grandma-y.

As I was riding my bike to meet them, I tried to think of all the conversational setences I could say. "Nice to meet you.", "The weather sure has picked up.", "No, I did not vote for Bush.", "I like to see the glass as half-full."

So I walked over to the Gaenseliesl where I was greeted by Amos and his dad. "Hallo, ich bin der Vater von Amos." "Hallo, ich bin Janelle. Das Mädchen, mit dem dein Sohn ca. jeden Tag schläft." Just kidding. Sorry, I won't be translating that one. His dad asked me if German was okay since he could speak English. The last thing I wanted to come off as was dumb even though that was inevitable given my German skills but at least I could get an A for effort, right?

The dad is going to work in the Philippines from November until March so he asked me a bunch of questions about my motherland. He asked me if he'd be able to learn Tagalog in a month through books. I've been hearing Tagalog my whole life and I can barely say, "I eat my rice with soy sauce." He asked me about the weather and even about the altitude. I told the man I had been to the city he's working in ONCE and that translated into me being the ultimate source of information for this place. I began making up facts for the sake of not sounding like I had no clue about the country my parents hail from.

Before he could ask me about the different types of insects that inhabit the Philippines, the mom showed up and we went to a nice little ice cream shop. I was hoping the mom would save me and ask simple questions like what my hobbies are or who my favorite Backstreet Boy was when I was 12. "Anything that maintains the homeostasis of life. I also find time for embroidery. Oh and Howie, hands down." Unfortunately, she was quiet as a mouse. Apparently, Amos' sister had complained that their mom asked too many personal questions when she met the new boyfriend. She decided to avoid further embarrassment by not participating in the conversation at all but the dad made up for it by bombarding me with questions. "So what is your vision for the future?", "So you belong the Catholic church, right?", "When did the U.S. stop occupying the Philippines? Do you think that was a good decision?" The questions just did not get any easier.

Finally he asked something I could answer with ease- "Are you following the World Cup?" I told him that I was and that my interest in the sport had only begun when I moved to Germany and because Amos would prefer to order in and glue his eyes to the television than actually going out like those among the normal ranks of society. WRONG ANSWER. That led to some relationship questions. "So how do you put up watching all this football with him? What else do you guys do together?"

Totally unbeknownst to me, Amos had told his parents that we were serious which prompted his dad to ask what we were going to do since my time in Germany was winding down fast. I froze because I didn't have the heart to say that we were calling it quits. Right when I had thought of the perfect, politcally correct answer that I cannot remember today, the waitress came with our bill.

Everything after that was a-okay. The mom finally spoke to me and told me about her travels before her children and her plans to stay in Africa for a few weeks. Very Angelina Jolie, I thought. As we parted ways, I told them that it was a pleasure meeting them and that hopefully we'd meet again before I flew back to California. They then invited me to Wuppertal, where they live now and then realized that they were leaving for their house in France soon so they invited me there instead. "Score," I though. I was in with the parents.

The experience wasn't as bad as I had anticipated it to be. I even learned a very valuable lesson upon meeting Mr. and Mrs. Groth- read the encyclopedia. ALL 26 volumes because you never know what they're gonna ask.

Who DOESN'T love Richard Simmons?

Last night Germany beat Poland in one of the most intense games I've ever seen since the World Cup began. It was 0-0 the entire time and then with three minutes overtime, Oliver Neuville scored a goal. I've never been so enthusiastic about a sporting event in my life. Let alone soccer which I never followed until I moved here to Germany. Here are some pictures from last night's game.

Neuville after shooting the first and only goal of the game and the Polish goalie.

Neuville jumping on a teammate lol

Jürgen Klinsmann, the coach of Germany, praising the Lord for finally scoring a goal

Philipp Lahm, who I have a mild crush on, won the Man of the Match award.

Neuville, Ballack (on top) and Klose celebrating. The look on Neuville's face is priceless.

Cindy's favorite player, half Ghanian and half German David Odonker

A surprising amount of people tuned in to the game in the U.S.. Since Germany won, I decided to commit and buy an official Adidas Germany jersey which are only $30 at various online U.S. shops. In Germany they're like 50 euros. Considering the exchange rate, I could get two jerseys for the price of one in the U.S.! Anyway, I decided to hold off last night and when I finally decided to invest this morning, they were OUT OF STOCK. What the hell is that crap?

Of course, Goettingen went crazy. Amos stumbled into my room trashed at around 2am saying, "Babe, everybody's going nuts. Everyone was celebrating at the Gaenseliesl. Do you know where that is? Everyone was screaming and I was in the front! It was incredible!" all the while banging my thundersticks. He told me the story AT LEAST three times so believe you me, those were his EXACT words.

Germany's next game is against Ecuador on Tuesday. Fortunately I have a gap inbetween classes and they play the game on campus so I'll be able to check it out. I've totally got World Cup fever. Auf geht's Deutschland!

Yesterday was one of those "The world is totally against me" days. After the hospital I went to Rossman (the equivalent of Walgreens) to print some digital pictures out. Some woman was ahead of me at the photo machine and she didn't know what she was doing AT ALL. She'd stick her usb shit in and nothing would happen. She tried THE SAME THING at least five times. I mean, I'm all for trying and trying but at least do something different! It's called 'trial and error' not 'continue to do the same shit and hope it works this time'. Finally she decided to stick her memory card in instead and it finally worked but then she didn't know how to order the damn pictures. I wasn't feeling like a good samaritan at the time so I decided to just go to the other Rossman and get a bratwurst at Wulf on the way.

WELL, Wulf didn't even have any brotchen and they told me to come back in a few minutes. So I go to the other Rossman, print out my pictures and go pay for the my other stuff. The woman in front of me wanted to pay with a 50€ bill but then decided that she wanted to use her debit card instead. The cashier had to cancel the cash transaction and start all over again. It also didn't help that the cashier was new and didn't have the slightest idea of how to go about this task. After losing 7-8 minutes of my life I went back to Wulf where to my dismay, there was STILL no bread. The lady said I only had to wait a couple more minutes but I said "fuck it" and decided to go back to campus.

On my way biking, a pigeon flies straight for me. It was seriously gunning for me. I had never seen a bird go directly for someone like that! Thankfully, my Lance Armstrong skills helped me dodge the flying rat but I still almost ate it.

When it rains, it pours but I usually let bad things just roll off my shoulders. If only I was so easygoing in terms of other aspects of my life. It had definitely been a long day but today is a new one. It's 3pm so the day is more than halfway over but so far no signs of the world still being against me. I'm probably jinxing it.

Yesterday we all went to the Mexico vs. Goettingen soccer game. Of course Mexico won since they are a national team. The score was 3-0. I gotta say I was a little disappointed though. I expected a national team to STOMP on a dinky regional one. Goettingen is in the fourth or fifth division for Pete's sake. There was a lottery in Germany for towns to play the national German team. The national team murdered the poor town 7-0. But Germany is one of the better national teams so I guess it makes sense.


There were a surprisingly amount of Mexicans there. Hearing all that Spanish reminded me of home. =)


Kate and I bought thundersticks with German colors on it. Apparently they're called Bang Bangs here. It's really hard to refer to them as Bang Bangs and still keep a straight face.

Anyway, after the game some random guy came up to Kate and told her that he was the mayor of a suburb of Goettingen. The town was doing a parody of this television show "Wetten das (bet that)" and his bet was to find German and Mexican fans and bring them back. Kate actually got into the car with the man and then Jen and I followed suit. Looking back it seemed real shady but thankfully, everything was legit. There was some youth program going on at the fire station. To their dismay, the mayor got American German fans and not real Germans. They were very hospitable nonetheless. We got free beer and food! We were kind of treated like novelties. When the firetruck drove us back to Goettingen, people were cheering and waving. Definitely a weird yet flattering feeling. My favorite part is the possibilty of being in the newspaper on Monday or Tuesday!

me and Jen showing our excessive American German pride

our potential photo in the Goettingen Tageblatt

All in all, a very fun day. Special thanks to Kate, Cindy and Vivian for some of the pics.

Of all the stupid, embarrassing things I've done on my floor with floormates present, this by far takes the cake. I don't even wanna leave my room. =/ haha