My week: February 15 ed.

This posting is rather late in its appearance, thanks to a plague of sickness that still has me stuck in bed. At least I'm to the point, after four days, that I can type something because my headache has somewhat abated.

So, back to last week:

-I finished up my German classes from the club. The teacher asked if I would be taking the optional exam at the conclusion of the class. I was under the impression that I had to pay to take it (which may or may not be true) so I said I was going to skip it. Since I was only taking the class for funsies and to improve my German, I saw no need for it. The teacher was really disappointed, saying that she thought I'd get a good score and I was the best student in class (oops, a little awkward, since other students were around, and really, I don't think that there's anything special about my performance other than I only missed two classes). I tried to make a joke about being the one who sets the grading curve higher but that joke failed because I have no clue about German mathematical terms.

At the very last class, she asked again and I said nope. The other students chimed in and it was practically a session of great sadness and gnashing of teeth in lament that I wasn't going to take this silly exam. I am completely flummoxed why they would care, but I guess it was cute. It also makes me think that I should have researched more fully the benefits of taking the exam! With my luck, it's probably required before taking the next class or something.

-I took on what I thought would be a simple favor for a friend, picking up her car from the repair shop. Instead it devolved into an incident that included security guards, men who were excited to do "manly" things, military police, the Pfälzisch dialect (oh lawd, I can't do anything with that), my ever-present worry about being electrocuted, being environmentally unfriendly (ugh), and surprisingly, a lot of laughter after the incident was resolved.

-I had dinner with a group of about 20 friends at my favorite restaurant. That was awesome, but I determined that my two smarty-pantsiest friends should no longer be allowed to sit together because they are just too much, combined ;) I was invited on a Valentine's Day "date" to a movie, but had to decline because I had already asked someone else on a "date" and I didn't want to be too much of a friend player. Of course the two smarty-pants guys got rolling on that so I didn't find out what the "date" offer was until later. A bunch of them (including smarty pants #1) went to see 50 Shades of Grey. They drank a bottle of champagne before entering but for me personally, I don't think that there's enough champagne in the world to make me want to see the movie.

-As I mentioned earlier, I had a hot "date" for Valentine's Day. I invited a friend to a dinner where our hosts were serving us traditional northern German food, which apparently includes copious amounts of schnapps, especially served in spoons and/or on fire. We were the youngest guests there, probably by at least 25 years. It was awesome. More to follow on that one.

-A bunch of us met up again for breakfast. I got several hugs, which I am not really into, but I'm to the point of saying, forget it and just let people hug me. For whatever reason, it seems to give huggers great anxiety not to hug and they seem to want to hug me even more. It won't kill me, I guess. I'm just not that into it. The breakfast was really fun as we crammed about 20 people into a one-bedroom apartment.