apologies and stories

i apologise for my last account. it took me several weeks to get it all out and as you can tell, by the end, i just wanted it to be over and it reads a little rushed. so. i'm sorry. and to make up for it, i will tell you all wooooonderful stories to make you laugh and cry and maybe even hug the person next to you. we'll see.

the wedding.
eike's sister got married on june 6th and the reception was on the 9th, which is why i had to leave ibiza earlier than the others. it was all really lovely. i had to wear a dress... and i didn't hate it. in fact, i felt quite pretty. eike and i sat at the kids table. which...considering how many kids there are in the schling family, it was actually a really fun table. anyway, band was awesome, food was great, drinks were free -- all in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

southside.
i went to my first real big music festival last weekend. i can't say i'm the biggest fan. i mean, the concept is really cool. camp for 3 days, be dirty and get drunk and see a ton of bands. but i didn't get to see all the bands i wanted to see and it rained parts of the weekend so we got dirtier than we wanted and it's hard to imagine but the sound of a flushing toilet is sweeter than you'd expect sometimes.
but on to the good things:
i saw less than jake and me first and the gimme gimmes. of course a return to my high school music listening days was fun. of course hopping around in the mud with other mud-hoppers was fun. but really... these were great shows. props to ltj for continuing to play even though people were throwing mud at them. don't ask me why - i really don't think people hated the show. in fact, i think the mud was in some form a token of appreciation. it was like, "you guys rock. have some mud." the sense of it i haven't quite worked out yet but regardless, the band never left the stage and there were a lot of really amusing attempts to get people to stop throwing mud...
me first was the last show of the first night. they played from 12:30 until 2 in the morning. and it was so freaking rad. for all of you who don't know - me first is a punk cover band. and i don't know how many people at the show knew this but "the next song is... a cover" never got old and i think a lot of people had fun. what really amazed me was the songs that germans know all the words to. there are certain classics that i always imagined would stay sort of american... in the way that i think i may only know the because my parents listened to these songs and they remain cheesy in a very culture-specific kind of way. but no. at least the immediate group surrounding me knew every single word to barry manilow's mandy. strange, no?
the rest of the weekend was sort of a blur but a definite highlight was pearl jam - i never ever thought i would see them live. but i did... about 8 years after i stopped caring. and man... eddie vedder is HOT. seriously, girls. it's hard to be convincing. i was standing about 70m away on top of a garbage can with about 6 other people concentrating on not falling over but that eddie... he was amazing.

the bavarian state library
it exists. i've been there. whether or not i was actually going to get any real work done before july was questionable... the bavarian state library, hence forth now known endearingly as the stabi, was not interested in making that a possibility. first, i'm a foreigner and therefore not allowed to take books out. they do have really nice reading rooms with lots of light and plenty of tables and outlets for laptops etc, so reading there isn't a problem. the problem is that there aren't actually many books there. this is only mildly problematic for a person who has found most of her research material whilst browsing... so now i need to be organised and know which books i want. you beg, 'really?' and my dear friends, the answer is yes. in order to get a book/journal, one has to have it ordered from archives, where it will be sent to the stabi to be collected roughly 2 days later. if you're foreign, it takes 4-5 days. double burned.

dissertations
well they sorta suck. and not in a little way. in a big, fat, 'ha, take that for the next 2 months of your life' sorta way. i know 2 months isn't a lot. it was originally 'ha, take that for the next 3 1/2 months of your life.' but i somehow wasted away the last month and a half and now i've got just 2 left. and still no topic. i'm such a failure.

blogging madness (or lack thereof)
it seems i was designed to shirk all responsibility, whether important or not. it seems that i've subconsciously decided to take a stand against actually doing anything... and i am REALLY good at it. some people say they get bored doing nothing all day. me? not so much. i mean, of course i do stuff. i read a lot. but clearly nothing dissertation-oriented. i think i need to find some sort of... how do you say... purpose? if anyone has any spare purpose lying around, let me know. you know how to reach me.

yours,
la pandita

life after exams

well, predictable or not, i didn't really do much partying after exams. all i really wanted to do was sleep. and sleep i did. then i went to ibiza. and i slept more. and now i'm in munich. and i really think all this sleeping needs to stop. so in an effort to guide the winds of change, i'm equating successful productivity with all non-sleep related activity. breakfast this morning was a real doozy. but on to events...

i.b.i.z.a.
the culprits: monika, me, fareeha and shikha

i can't say a lot about ibiza to be honest. it was beautiful and i already miss being near the ocean (and all the great seafood) but we could have been anywhere. i should be fair and clarify that this was the case for the places that we frequented: sant diego, sant antoni and less so eivissa (town). anything once spanish about these places was lost when the service industry started catering to as many different kinds of people from all over the world. the menus in our town were in multiple languages, most signs were also in multiple languages and a standard breakfast was sausages, beans, eggs and toast. we did enjoy ourselves though. you can't really be picky about the kind of pampering you allow yourself. in the end, we did a whole lot of relaxing and it was well deserved on all counts.
but on to the good stuff...
we were welcomed to ibiza by the raddest taxi driver you will ever meet. it was 1 in the morning and not only did he race through the streets of this small island bumping to some club mix i can only dream he made himself, AND he was doing this all in a white blinging pirate t-shirt. and by blinging i mean his t-shirt was sparkling and shiny and something my sister would wear. this is not meant negatively - he was awesome.
this may come as a surprise to some of you but the sun in ibiza is freaking hot. after half a day of wearing my cool new shirt from neu look, i was and continue to be the proud owner of a slightly darker brown circle on my back. but no worries, it looks stylish. i predict that everyone will have one by the end of the summer. the first night out was awesome. we went into sant antoni for some dinner and we found a place right by the water with yummy sangria and seafood (now my favourite combination of food and drink, hands down) and no english menu. whether this was advantageous or not is still probably disputed among the four of us but i really liked it.
our second day was action packed. we went to formentera, a small island to the south of eivissa (town) and port. we'd read that the best way to get around the island was by bike and i was all about it. we'd had trouble finding the port in eivissa because we just took the bus in but after finding it and the ferry to formentera, i felt like it would have been a waste to just sit on the beach all day. so we biked. and it was great. we ended the trip with a quick stop at a beautiful beach.
we went back to town for a night of paella, flamenco and more sangria and i don't have much to say about any of it but it is worth mentioning that afterwards, we did this bunjee rope trampolining thing which was so much fun! monika may have almost broken her neck but in the end, all the flips made it worth it. good times.
the day after we went back to eivissa to check out the old city. it's surrounded by a wall and marked by the tall clock tower. i liked the old town. it was sort of quiet and it's obviously being made into a glammy part of town with nice new hotels and expensive shops and things but it's on the top of the hill and the view is beautiful.
we walked around a bit and eventually took the bus back to sant antoni to catch the sunset (which we were told we HAD to do at cafe del mar) but we never found cafe del mar so we did it at this other place and got delicious pretty coloured drinks. (i'm such a sucker for delicious and pretty coloured drinks)... after having more delicious seafood and paella, we returned home to the temptations playing in our hotel lobby, to which we danced; and then moved straight on, quite naturally, to an air hockey tournament and a pretty terrible game of pool.
the next day was my last and we made good use of it by going to the beach again. it was sort of the perfect way for us to end the trip. we all relaxed a bit before heading back to sant antoni to catch our last sunset.
i took a taxi to the airport whilst the others went back to the hotel and when i finally got into stansted, i found myself a nice little spot next to a shop to try and sleep until 6am when i could check in again. sleeping at the airport - not as exciting as it sounds. i don't recommend it. if you're going to do it, get there early enough to steal one of the spots under the signs because i think there's less draught and it's just a wee bit quieter because of less foot traffic... just some thoughts.