I took a bunch of pictures [of course!], so without further ado, I present you with the cute little village of Neckarsteinach.

And if you are bored or would like to know more about the town, I just saw there is a pretty long article on Wikipedia in English. Really long considering that the population isn’t even 4000 but I guess the place has a pretty interesting history!

Okay, now I am seriously going to post the pictures.

This is not Neckarsteinach but Heidelberg, I took this picture from the boat.

Now this is Neckarsteinach, and one of the castles.

I love timber framing, and many German towns still have timber-framed houses.

The Neckar valley makes for some picturesque scenes.

Me with Neckarsteinach in the background.

It’s so beautiful there.

I created this panorama picture from several different shots. You can see a bigger version here. By the way, Neckarsteinach is the southernmost town of the state Hesse, and you can see Baden-Württemberg [the state I live in] across the river.

We had yummy food, good conversations and I just enjoyed spending time with (almost) all of my friends here. I actually felt that with there being so many of us, there was not enough time to talk to everyone, but I hope that I will be able to hang out with most of my friends again before I am going back to Munich in just under three weeks for the rest of the summer.

I loved yesterday night! I also got really great presents from my friends, my favorite probably being a gift certificate for a pedicure from / with Jenn. I have never had a pedicure in my life, and have been wanting to get one for so long but I haven’t been able to justify spending so much [funny considering there are plenty of things I have no qualms spending loads on] so I am so excited about getting a pedicure, and Jenn and I will be doing this together, so it’ll be a super fun activity that I am sooo looking forward to. We will have to go sometime in the next couple of weeks because Jenn is leaving for a trip home to the States and then I am going home for three months. Of course I also loved the other presents I got, and most of all I just loved my friends spending my birthday with me.

What a perfect way to spend my birthday! We took a few pictures and you can see them on Flickr [if you are added to my friends there and logged in], else I also put them on Facebook.

Yesterday morning, I ran some errands at the university, and I finally got the grade of my Italian paper that I handed in over three months ago. I got a 2.5 and I cannot even begin to say how happy I am with that grade. Heck, that is better than my last Spanish paper was! I am so glad I stuck with the class no matter how much I hated it, and now all that is left of Italian uni stuff is a 15 minute segment during my oral exams next summer. After that I can start liking Italian again!

I also took care of some other stuff, and I got the papers I need to fill out to be admitted to the last year of university (thesis and exams). Now I just have to get signatures from four different persons on it, and I can hand it in. I will not be admitted until I hand in the certificates of the two classes I have not completed yet [the term papers I keep talking about], but I have to hand in the paperwork by July 15th. So the next few days I will be gathering all the necessary signatures, and then I am really on my way to graduation [still have to write the papers though, but this makes it seem more official].

I went to the English books only book store in Munich last week and I have to admit pretty much all of the books I have read lately were off the romance novels shelf. Oops. Doesn’t say much for my state of mind lately, but that is all I can handle at the moment. Fun short-lasting escapes from reality. And that probably won’t change for a while until I am done with uni, because that will keep my brain cells plenty busy with serious literature as it is.

Anyway, I have been back in Heidelberg a few days now. I haven’t done much since I’ve been back but my papers are calling my name [they yell, 'write me, write me!'], and regardless of how much I am not in a mood to write at the moment [maybe you could tell from my blog posts in the past few weeks], these papers have to be written. I have only another month in Heidelberg and by then I really need to be done with them. Then I’ll be starting on my thesis, and spending three months back home.

Today the weather has been so bad, it was sooo humid. I went to the store and when I came back out, it was like the air hit me like a wall … humidity is really not my kind of weather. But I took a couple of pictures tonight from my balcony and I wanted to share them. It may be June but that doesn’t mean the weather god can’t give us some pretty damn gloomy skies and rain and blah.

You can see the mist coming up from the trees on the hill over there [and no, this is not a black-and-white picture!]. Five minutes later, I took another picture because in those five minutes the sky had changed so much.

It was kind of cool, but I felt like the clouds were about to encase the building I live in. Living on the 12th floor with no high-rise buildings around really makes for some amazing views.

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Dr Grumpy in the House

Why you should read this blog?

Dr Grumpy [a neurologist] posts hilarious stories involving patients and other doctors, and basically this guy just had me in stitches for two hours tonight while I read his entire blog. Yup, every single post. Posts like this one:

This is a gem. From a new patient today, that I was getting some family background on:
Dr. Grumpy: “Any history of miscarriages in your family?”
Mrs. Notsobright: “My Mom had one, with me.”

So what are you waiting for …

Well, that is it for me. I have to be at work in eight hours so I think it’s bedtime for me. Until my blogging mojo returns to me, you can follow what I’m up to on Twitter.

Since I got my dearly beloved iPhone almost three weeks ago, I have been tweeting from all kinds of places, not just home. Which is awesome! Also, please note my lack of blogging is in no way related to getting the iPhone. Because even if I was permanently attached to it [which I am not, I do put it down when I take a shower ... okay, I'm kidding*], I could also blog from it. It is that cool!

Anyway, I’ll leave you with Dr Grumpy’s blog to read, until I can think of something to write about again that is not complaining how bad of a procrastinator I am, and how I only just started the paper I meant to start at the beginning of April. And how I only have about six weeks now to write two 20 page papers. Because that? Is just depressing and stupid. Basically, just read this post again, and it is as valid today as it was a month ago [except I did get most of the reading done, phew!].

* About the permanently attached bit, not about the not taking my iPhone into the shower bit. Was this sentence confusing?

Now that I’ve ordered it I kind of what it to get here right now, but technically it would be better for it to take a few days because I will be paying two cellphone bills till mid-June when my current cellphone contract expires. I had to order the iPhone now because the special deal I got expires on Thursday and I have no idea if they are extending it or not. The guy at the T-Mobile store said it’s likely but I’m not taking that risk [just for the €30-35 that my second phone bill will be in those 1.5 months].

Anyway, so much for that. I got the 8GB iPhone, and am only paying €1 for that. So cool! My monthly plan is more expensive than so far but I think I’m okay with that. I am also getting more for my money and I paid the same for the plan I was in when I lived in the States.

So … iPhone owners [and iPod touch owners], please recommend any iPhone apps you think are great [and preferably free!].

I have written down a list of a few I know of, that I want to install but there are so many to choose from, it’s kind of hard to know which ones to get. The ones I want to get are: Nimbuzz [or another IM app], Skype, Google Reader, and an application for Facebook and Twitter.

I can’t wait to get my iPhone in the mail [hopefully before the weekend] and start using it!

By the way, I actually dreamed about the iPhone last night. I dreamed that I had finally decided to order it, and then when I went online to order it, they were sold out [even though it was two days before the end of the promotion]. I was so relieved when I woke up and realized it was just a dream, haha.

The Neckarwiese [Neckar Meadow] is so great, as soon as it gets warm in spring, people go there to read, lie in the sun, read, tan, play soccer or beach volleyball, run, have barbecues, picnicks, etc. It is equally as crowded in the evenings with people having barbecues or drinking there [as you can see here, a picture I took on my way home last night with my cellphone]. I am not the kind of person who can just lie in the sun and bake, so I don’t spend that much time there but it is beautiful. All the much better that I live so close to it.

The meadow by my building. Love how everything is so green now.

A little later I went downtown and hopped off the bus in a street in Neuenheim to take some pictures, the buildings there are beautiful.

I walked across the bridge to Bismarckplatz [Bismarck Square] – this is also the Neckarwiese, but from the other end. I live somewhere at the end of it on the right [north] side of the river.

The Old Bridge and Castle as seen from the bridge.

The castle again.

The north side of the river. I think this is the most expensive area to live in Heidelberg. Look at the previous picture for the view they get.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. There are some more at Flickr. I think I will have to remember to take my camera with me when I go for walks or elsewhere in the next few months, as this city is really just beautiful in spring and summer, and I find myself wishing I had my camera with me so often.

My entire semester break I was busy working, and while it was exhausting, it also gave me a purpose. And it gave my life some kind of structure. I know I’d be productive every day from 9am to 4pm. I was given this structure, and people who know me know I am notoriously bad at giving my life the structure I need but I am really productive if someone makes me work. [Read: I procrastinate.]

I get up late, then waste a couple of hours on the computer, go to work or class, come home, putter around some more, and then it’s already dinner time, and let’s face it, I am not going to make myself get all productive after dinner if I haven’t even started being productive yet. And every day has been going like this since I came back. 19 days ago.

And you know, you’d think after working and writing a paper during the semester break instead of the usual doing-nothing, this would feel good? It doesn’t. I feel unproductive, and it makes me unhappy and just feel blaaah. Not to mention that obviously I have plenty of stuff to do, like, write two 20-page papers before the end of May June [yeah, I've postponed my own deadline because I wanted to finish the first by the end of April and haven't even started yet]? Or, read one of the seven books I got from my prof for my thesis? Or read one of six books for my two classes this semester?

I am just so bad at giving myself a schedule and then sticking to it, because I don’t have to answer to anyone if I don’t. And I have a feeling things could go very badly for me in the coming year if I don’t work on that.

But the past two weeks, I have just felt really tired, and while I did have another cold [third one this year, hi immune system, did you go on a vacation or something?], it’s not like I was sick the entire 19 days I’ve been back here. I think doing nothing makes me feel kind of depressed and lethargic, and that in turn makes me do nothing … So it’s been really hard to pull myself together, but I know I have to do it, and I know that I will feel better once I do.

So tell me, do you ever have lethargic phases like this?

So it broke. And of course it didn’t break where it hit the counter, but at the end I was holding. Cutting my finger in the process. Lovely. No worries, it’s not a deep cut, nothing a bandaid can’t fix, but wtf? Why does it break at the top when it never hit anything [at least that I could tell] except for the bottom of the glass?

I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much from a glass I got for free at McDonald’s.