Past Recollections and Future Revelations

Happy New Year everyone! I can’t believe we’re already 2 weeks into the new year; the time has just flown bye. I guess with Thomas going back to work, and coming down from the high of the holiday season, time just got away from me.

Christmas here was great. It was an entirely new experience of Christmas for me. My family usually just has a low-key Christmas eve watching holiday movies, drinking eggnog and maybe singing some carols. On Christmas morning we open gifts and then have a family dinner of turkey or some other fowl with all the fixings. My German Christmas this year was very different. Christmas eve is the big day to celebrate here, so we had Raclette for dinner, which lasted hours. Raclette is a bit hard to describe if you have no idea what it is, but I’ll do my best. There is a little oven with open sides and a flat grill on top. Everyone gets their own little pans and fills them with meat, cheese, veggies, whatever you want basically, and then cook it in the little oven. There are potatoes on the grill top and when your little pan is finished cooking, you cut up a pototo and put the contents of the pan on top. Then you enjoy your creation. It’s very fun and very tasty.

After dinner we opened gifts. The gift I’m most excited about is a trip to Paris from Thomas’ parents.

New Years was pretty relaxed. We were thinking about going out, but at the last minute we decided we would rather stay in, cook and watch movies. We did go outside at Midnight though and the fireworks were amazing! It sounded like a war zone or something. The sky was lighting up everywhere. It was extremely foggy so we saw a lot of flashes of coloured light through the fog. 2011 definitely started with a bang in Palmbach.

My remaining time here definitely involves a lot of travel. Thomas and I will take our trip to Paris in March, and in May my mom is coming (Yay!) and we’re going to do a little tour of Europe. We’re planning on Cologne, Berlin, Amsterdam, Lille (to meet up with Sarah!), possibly Belgium, possibly Trier. We still have to nail down the details, but I’m overjoyed that she is coming. As much as I like being here and feel part of the family, I miss my own family and friends a ton. So I’m pretty excited to be seeing them!

I’ve also been contemplating what I will be doing when I return to Vancouver in July. For those of you who don’t know, Thomas has decided to immigrate to Canada to be with me. The plan is that I will return to Canada and get the immigration ball rolling (he will be applying for Spousal Sponsorship as my common law partner, since we will have been living together for almost 2 years when he applies). Thomas will remain in Karlsruhe for a year to finish his apprenticeship and then join me in Canada. (We’re already planning visits haha, a year apart is going to kill me!)

When I left Canada there was a lot of uncertainty as to what I would do about school when I returned. I was having a lot of doubt as to what I wanted to major in, what I wanted to do after I got a Bachelor’s degree and even if I would stay at SFU to finish it. Since I’ve been here, I’ve considered pretty much every option and I’ve finally concluded that I will stick with SFU and stick with my plan to major in psych.  I guess it took a year of being away from school to realize that I should just have faith in myself and to remember that I do love psych and school in general.

I think 2011 will be a great year and I can’t wait to put all of my plans into action. There is nothing like having a lot of free time to make one appreciate a busy schedule. Happy 2011.