Postcards from a Plane Crash (Wish You Were Here)

Best song title. Ever.

So last night, as I am attempting to motivate myself to sit down at my desk (again) and start reading (again), wanting to skewer out my eyeballs because I'm so sick of studying, I get an IM from Kyla suggesting we form a Coalition of the Willing to invade the Stuttgart Starbucks. (okay, so that's not exactly what she said, but it sounds exciting and dangerous if I say it that way). Predictably, it took me about 0.80 seconds to get out the door.

It ended up being Kyla, Ronda and I heading up there on Kyla's leftover Schönes Wochenede ticket, and I found this quite fitting for a Stuttgart Starbucks run because, let's face it, no one appreciates Starbucks like three Washingtonians. Funny thing was that we arrived in Stuttgart around 10pm and were worried the Starbucks, which was about a mile away, might be closing. So we were pretty much half-walking, half-running up Königstraße while dodging other pedestrians trying to get there in time. Stupid us, we got there and it was nowhere near closing. When we left at around 11pm it still hadn't closed.

It was a warm night, so we all decided to get cold drinks. I enjoyed my first coffee frappucino in a long time. I usually don't get frappucinos because I know how much the people that work at Starbucks absolutely hate making them, but when the girl asked me my name and wrote "Math" on the cup, I didn't feel bad anymore. Seriously. I even SPELLED it for her.
M-a-t-t. Oh well, they messed up Ronda's too (she became Franka), and I have to admit that the holy-crap-what-kind-of-a-name-is-this expression on the drink maker girl's face when she called out my drink was priceless. "Ein grande Coffee Frappucino für.....*scrunched up face*....Math?" Ah, if only the camera had been handy.

Side note: it's probably in my best interest that there isnt a Starbucks in Tübingen, because Starbucks in Germany is ridiculously expensive. That grande frappucino, which would maaaybe have cost me around $3.50 in the States, cost me 3,90 € here. That's almost $5.00. So, when I go back home and people complain that Starbucks is "too expensive", I'm just going to grimace and tell them to shut up.

Anyway, on the way back to the train station we stopped at a World Cup Fan Shop that was having a sale to search for American flags. Unfortunately, none were to be found. How are we supposed to cheer for our nation's team tomorrow without Stars and Stripes? I have yet to see fan shop here selling American stuff. It's all Brazil, Germany, England, Czech Republic. It's bloody favoritism, that's what it is. Or it could just be because we suck.
Of course, at that hour of the night it was inevitable that we get a craving for Burger King, which we satisfied once we got back to the station. Mmmm....crispy chicken and fries on the train. Yum.

Yesterday I also made the fatal mistake of walking into the bookstore on my way to the bus stop. I made the even bigger mistake of checking out their politics section. 25 € later I walked out with a new book: The Cold War, by John Gaddis. The justification was that if nothing else it will be a good help on my upcoming Referat on Vietnam. Maybe. Okay, okay, I'm a big nerd and I just wanted to read what looks like a good book on the Cold War. Knowledge is power, people.

It remains to be seen whether today will be spent doing the level of studying that I feel like I should. I am flat-out sick of reading, and I'll be darned if I'm going to spend a 5th consecutive day doing nothing but homework.

Also: I like orange juice.