Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

Now that my feet are fully wet, I thought I’d give you all an update about life in Germany. I’ve got a few friends, got a place to live, have had my first set of drunken adventures, and (sort of) have my first day under my belt. Life is mostly good, although homesickness started to kick in when I went grocery shopping, and couldn’t find peanut butter, granola bars, or non-weird cereal.

When I was getting ready to leave, Judy’s sister put me in touch with Lucy, another adidas intern, so once I got here, I was eager to meet and make friends with someone who didn’t only speak German. Friday night, I met up with her, along with Sean, Vera, and Jin, all adidas interns from England, Ireland, Bulgaria, and China (respectively), and we downed some beers at The Irish Bar (yup, that’s what it was called). Not only was it awesome to meet some other people who were in my shoes when they arrived in Germany, it blew my mind that I was sitting at a table with five people from different countries, whose common interests brought them all together. As an added bonus (sort of), Tim Brown, a shitty one-man American cover band, promised a free round to the winners of three rounds of name that tune. We won (Soft Cell – Tainted Love), and Tim didn’t deliver on his promise, but he did pull me on stage with him to sing CCR. Turns out I thought I knew more of the words of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” than I actually did.

The next day, I had lunch with Sean and Lucy, and then Lucy and I wandered around town for a couple hours. She’s a pretty cool chick, and I love wandering around new cities and figuring out my way around; I’m not quite there yet, but it was the first time I felt fully comfortable in the new surroundings. My new friends here even make fun of me for wearing flip flops when it’s too cold – somewhat familiar.

In the first few days, the cloud hanging over my head was finding a place to live. Before I got here, I sent out dozens of emails to people looking for roommates on what seems like the German version of craigslist. I only got a couple of responses, and one of them seemed like it could be a go. It was an Indian dude named Amit, who had an extra room in an apartment really close to the train station (exactly where was looking for), so once I got here, I set up a meeting to check it out. First impressions were NOT good… Amit was a really weird, fobby dude who didn’t seem to know anything about Germany, even though he’d been here for two years. Then the apartment was basically a dorm room, which was worse than my freshman dorm in Markley, and smelled like stale Indian food and feet. I quickly bailed.

After a couple more stops on the shitty, unfurnished apartment train, I got a phone call from Sven. I went to check out his place, which was a super nice, two bedroom, fully furnished place a little further than I was looking for, but after all I had just seen, I jumped all over it. My bedroom is his kid’s old room, fully loaded with the twin bed and bookshelf full of toys (second little boy’s room I’ve taken over in the last 8 months, and they both had legos. Score.). Sven is a 40ish, possibly gay (single, very neat, tucks in his t-shirts, and wears a gold chain), German dude. He doesn’t seem like the type of guy I’d go get beers with after work, but he seems like a good enough dude, and that’s all I can really ask for. I wish the bed was a little bigger; I had a dream last night that I fell off a building and hit the concrete – turns out it was my face slamming into the wall in my sleep.

Today was my first day at adidas. I showed up and met Rob, who I’m working directly with, on the brand communication team, and everyone seemed really awesome. Everyone I’ve talked to at adidas really likes their job – this idea is completely foreign to me. I have no doubt I’m going to love it here. Only problem is that my work permit is STILL not finalized, so I can’t “officially” work at adidas yet, which means I don’t have an ID, an email address, a login, or any of that good stuff. Once the HR liaison got wind of this, she was all over Rob about it, and he sent me home, which sucks. I hope it gets straightened out really soon (like, yesterday), but until then it seems like all of our hands are tied. The worst part is having to wait to get the 44% discount at the adidas outlet (seriously). That also means I get at least one more day of plowing through book number 4 (I only brought 7 and there don’t seem to any English bookstores), watching shitty German TV, and not being able to get on the internet.

Two days without the internet is probably the longest I’ve gone without it in several years, which is terrifying. One of the weirdest things that I’ve had to get used to is not having internet on my phone – so no google maps when I’m lost, finding hidden bars or restaurants that I’m supposed to meet people, or ironically, or looking up where to find an elusive internet café (side note – Microsoft Word doesn’t know “google.” A little territorial, huh?). Pretty sad. So it looks like I’m an internet connection, a bicycle, a few more friends, a gym membership, and a German Work permit away from being totally settled. Not bad for 4 days.

Song of the day: “Darlin’ do not Fear – Brett Dennen”

Book of the day: Downtown Owl – Chuck Klosterman

British vernacular of the day: “Fan-bloody-tabulous”