The Queen of Infections

I have so much to write about when I get home, but I am going to take advantage of the free internet at the most romantic hotel here in Colmar, France.  Which I am staying at with my sister.  Nice.

Long day story short, Bethanne and I both needed to take care of a few things today.  First, we switched hotels this morning at 10:00am.  Our first place was a dump and the walls were made of paper.  Not sure HOW this happened, but we wound up finding a room for three nights at the only five star hotel in town for a very affordable price.  Check out the link above (it is knows as "Little Venice").  Our room is called Chopin.

Second on the list was to take a 25 minute train to the town where she will be working, called Munster (like the cheese, which is on everything around here).  We went to her school, met some of her teachers, and checked out the very small town.

Third on the list- get my butt to a doctor.

If there is an infection to be had, I get it.  I have been like this for about 5 or 6 years.  Staph, sinus, UTI- you name it, I get it.  The doctor says there is nothing I can do (like take a specific vitamin).  I just have super bad luck.  I swear, I am at the doctor about once every 4 months for something.

So leave it to me to get a sinus infection in France.  My mom was nice enough to call my insurance company to figure out how I would submit paperwork when I get home.  BA's teacher met us in a very small town via the train and took me to her family doctor.  I had no idea what to expect, and was so worried about the cost, knowing what it would be in I was at home with no insurance.  (Because France is on socialized medicine and we are not, I have to pay full price).

We got there at 4pm because that is when the doctor see patients from 4-8.  Weird.  There was no check in desk or receptionist.  Or nurse.  You just knew where you were in "line" in the waiting room.  BA and I talked to her teacher for an hour and a half until it was our time to go in.  They both came with me to be my translators.  He was SO personable!  And I didn't even understand him!  He did a full exam, chatted with the teacher and BA like they were old friends, and wrote letters for my insurance company at home.  

The BILL-  it was 22 euro.  $30.  WHAT?!  For a half hour appointment!  That would be at least $60 in the U.S.  I had 100 Euro on me thinking it would be around that.  Then we told him that I needed a cheap Rx because I would have to pay because I was from the States.  The teacher looked at me kind of worried and goes.... "Is 4 Euro too much???"  That's $5!!

Needless to say, I loved my French medical experience (minus the part that I am sick), and I will NOT be submitting this to my insurance!

Y's and Z's

I am now in a hotel in Colmar, France where BA will be living and have a regular computer, and am not in a hurry.  I just read over that quick train blog from the German computer and wow- sorry about the mess of a blog!  Little did I know if I just would have waited a few hours I could have actually written something normal!  More to come soon...

real quick hi

there is internet on the trains in europe! the keyboard is a bit different and i am on a friends laptop, so excuse anz mistakes.  The big this is that the y key is a z, but i only have about 5 minutes so i can't think about it!

we had a blast in munich and oktoberfest was much more fun than i ever thought it would be.  literally the biggest party i will ever go to in my life.  we also saw all the sights of munich and met some friends from canada and australia traveling alone that we did things with.  i will write a blog about everything when i get back with pictures. we missed our flight to europe so we missed a day, but we made the best of it and did all of the fun things in munich. heidis uncle picked us up after three days and took us about an hour north to stay with her family iin the country of augsburg. will write about that later too, but old aunt hildie had us stay at her house, and it was so funny.  they must not believe in heat, and it is much much colder here than we expected.  at least i had an excuse to buy a new inter coat.

thanks so much for all of the birthday texts and facebook messages! it is very expensive to use mz cell so i did not respnd to most texts and have not listened to mz voicemails until i get home, but i appreciate all of you thinking about me.

we are in germany headed to france today to see where ba will be living, with manz adventures to go. we are safe and sound and miss you all!!

Wedding Weekend Part II

This past weekend, we went back to South Bend, Indiana for my cousin Dan's wedding. He met Mimi when they were at school at Notre Dame, so they decided it would be perfect to get married at the church there. I could not BELIEVE how amazing the church was! I felt like I was in Europe when I walked in. Truly beautiful.
It's interesting how you go about getting married there. I am not positive, but I think you have to be an Alumni of the school. Anyway, there is one day a year that you can call to try and book your wedding. If you are lucky enough to get through, they tell you what the date and time of your wedding will be! They have four weddings every Saturday.

To back up a bit- we all arrived on Friday afternoon, and had dinner reservations at a cool place we found on line called Tippecanoe Place. It is an old Studebaker mansion from the 18oo's at it was 23,000 square feet! Funny enough, the rehearsal dinner was also being held there in the ballroom, so we actually got to see some of the family at dinner, even though we had no idea when we made the reservations!Saturday the wedding was at 11:00, we then had a big family photo, ate lunch on campus, and my family decided to go on the campus tour. WOW. Notre Dame has quite the campus! It was absolutely beautiful. Our tour guide not only showed us everything, but added in all of the stories and traditions about what we were seeing. One thing that was funny is that they have nicknames for all of the statues on campus. There's "Touchdown Jesus" and "Jump Mary Jump", to name a few. There was a nice hospitality suite at the Marriott for everyone to enjoy and watch the game, and then it was time to party!

The wedding was beautiful- very elegant with the color scheme being black, white and red. Kinda funny- my sister caught the bouquet and Darrel caught the garter. I was like, eeewwww! :) You know it's a good wedding when everyone is on the dance floor! Below are some shots from the night- enjoy! (Did I mention we have some of the cutest kids in our family in the whole world??)

A Windy Browns Day

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I went to the Cleveland Municipal parking lot to tailgate for the Browns/Steelers game. Why I haven't been doing this for years is beyond me!! It's totally insane, crazy, and fun. Just to see all of the Browns buses people have and to see all of the guys dressed up like total football freaks is worth it.

We met Alisa and her friends because they were set up right at the front of the lot. Music, grill, KEG (really?!), and a fun group of people. We hung out there (where we watched a man literally wipe out next to us thanks to some Jack Daniels) and then took a walk to check out the scene. We stole some beers, got yelled at for the Steelers jersey a friend had on, saw some cornhole being played, and wound up on top of a bus with my cousin. The only bad part of the day was having to use the Port-O-Potty.

All day, it looked like it was going to pour, but it never really did. However, thanks to Ike, the wind was CRAZY!!! We saw on TV later that it was over 50 mph, but when we were outside, it just felt like the world was going to come to an end or something. The lot started to clear out when the wind hit hard, around 7:00. Garbage was flying through the air, tents were blowing across the lot... We decided to head back to my apartment, and the walk home was the windiest (is that a word?) walk of my life. It would literally stop you mid-step and you would kind of blow over a little bit. Even the metal newspaper machines fell over! Not a good day for contacts. We got back to my place and I was sweating because it was like a workout trying to fight the wind to get home!

Dumpsters

OK, I don't think I have written about this on my blog yet. Which is amazing, because sometimes I feel like it is RUINING my life!

I moved downtown about five weeks ago, and love love love living down here. It's a whole new world for me, within the same city I have always lived in. How great was it yesterday to walk out my door and into Browns party world?! I love my actual apartment too. As it turns out, I should have slept here for a night before I signed my lease...

I live behind the bars of W. 6th, which is easily the most popular area of downtown Cleveland to go out in. I am a night owl, so the noise from the bars never gets to me. They are really only super busy on the weekends, and I am usually out anyway. However, come Monday thru Friday, all of the dumpsters filled up with thousands of beer bottles start being emptied. And this is not a city thing- they are privately contracted waste management companies that the bars rent dumpsters from, and pay to have them come empty them. There are about four different companies with dumpsters around my building.

I totally understand that garbage needs to be taken care of, BUT, one little particular company called Allied Waste Management has taken the liberty of emptying their dumpsters before the sun comes up. Right under my window. I mean, as early as 4:45am. It is so loud, you have no idea. Some days I want to cry, others I laugh. Then by the time I fall back to sleep, the construction in my building starts, usually around 7am. This is all way beyond ear plugs, by the way.

Without going on for too long about this, I just can't take it anymore! I start every day ticked off. I have tried calling Allied, and of course leave messages and do not get calls back. Well today was the last straw. I called the Cleveland Police at 5:00am to file a noise complaint. They were super nice and even called me back later in the day to give me the correct number for a department at City Hall where they issue permits to these companies. Turns out you are not allowed to empty dumpsters until 6:30am. Still early, but not as bad.

My new friend Casandra at City Hall is sending Allied a warning letter, and I am supposed to follow up with them next week. I either have to find a way to make this better, or go insane! If you see Channel 3 News Investigates hiding in the corners of W. 6th before the sun comes up, you'll know who called them. And I'm not kidding. :)

Kicking It For Labor Day

This last weekend was REALLY fun! I went to Erie for the weekend, and Darrel and I stayed with his two best friends, literally out in the country. They live on a main road, and it is not paved. But their house and property is super nice. Their son, Noah, turned one on Saturday, so they had a party for him that we went to, went out to dinner, and just hung out. Noah is SO CUTE and mild mannered. Check him out digging into his cake once he finally figured out it was something you eat:Sunday was the annual Erie peeps kickball game. This is code for drink a lot of beer and kick a ball around. I didn't play last year, but Darrel convinced me it would be fun, so I put on the gear and decided to try playing for the first time since probably 5th grade gym class. Lets just say I wasn't the best outfielder there, but when you are playing a game where the guys are running the bases with beers in their hands, it's not that embarrassing. All of his friends there are great, and only a few made fun of me for not being a stellar player. :)Monday I drove home and went to my mom's pool for the day. I couldn't believe how awesome the weather was all weekend! Some friends came over and we just hung out all day. All said and done, it was perfect!