Sunday history lessons

I would say that I am quite a nut about history. I love learning about history and have since I was young. Do I regret not studying it - no, because I have a job: yes, because I would love love love to work in a museum.

Today, instead of going to church I decided to take a little trip to the Schlossmuseum. I also find it quite saddening to think of how long I have lived here and haven't gone. I am quite embarrassed with how little I know about Darmstadtian history. When I think of Darmstadt I just think of farmland, and rural life because outside of Germany, now one knows about it. Before I came here, what I did I know of this place...??? nothing. But some real stuff happened here, and it really is not an insignificant little corner. Although there wasn't a King here, there was a earl and then later a duke who was in charge of this area. I did know that there was a connection to two daughters being ladies in waiting for Marie Antoinette at Schönbrun in Vienna.

The Schlossmuseum was quite nice and it was super interesting to hear things about the city that you are living in and help you appreciate things and find out why they were there.

One of the hospitals, that is still very active was actually a gift to an old Princess (Elisabeth).

But the biggest history-gasm of the day was finding out that the daughter of Queen Victoria (the Queen Victoria) married a minor prince of Hessen, which was the lineage for the Tsarina Alexandra of Russia who passed along haemophilia to her son Alexei stirring up the whole Rasputin thing in Russia prior to the first world war.

Also, Alexandra's brother Ernst Ludwig who is super important in Darmstadt (was a duke) who was very influential in the Jugendstil movement is the Godfather of Prince Charles

Minde blown!!

I am certainly going to need to learn many more things, because these discoveries really get my blood pumping with excitement.

Bitte nicht Schubsen

The picture above translates to "please don't push - I have a yogurt in my Backpack"

A dear friend sent this to me the last time I  had a slight accident with strawberry yogurt resulting in the destruction of my blackberry.

One would think that a person would learn from such an expensive incident.

I didn't

This time I managed to destroy a purse. Somehow now electronics or valuables were destroyed. It was only literature in the form of Ernest Hemmingway - sorry sir!

NO more yogurt for this girl!

starting a life abroad

I am at the point on my life, and I think I have been at this point for quite some time, where I am strongly considering the move to live on my own. I have wanted to do this for a while, since before my roommate issues started. The strongest driver for this is just being able to have only my stuff where I want and being able to arrange everything how I want. I really have a difficult time allowing over people around me to have their own space and ideas about how things should be run. One thing I will miss is the occasional someone to talk to, but I think that the benefits outweigh the negatives. At this point I do not care to have roommates who are friends, because when I am home I like to be at home...and I like being by myself. Weirdly, this huffington post article made me realize - not all point are true but I find resonance with a lot of them.

One thing that really really sucks about moving out though is that it is so expensive. Moving out on my own automatically means that I will be paying more for rent (less travel) and I have to buy normal cookware and housewares for my place. I hate when you live somewhere and get used to using certain cooking vessels for different purposes, but then when you, or your roommate move out you don't have them anymore. The nice thing about living in winnipeg would be having family and parents that are always looking to get rid of things, and they can tide you over until you can afford nice things for yourself.

If and when this move does happen, I will be hitting lots of second hand shops!

Deutsche Bahn - you have irritated me

So on 18.09 I decided it was time to buy my ticket for my trip this weekend to Munich. I did this just as I was leaving work...got home and found a coupon for 10 euros off. A little irritating, but whatever..I went online and wanted to see if I could amend my ticket. It looked like I could - there is a button that says "stornieren und umtauschen" which literally means cancel and exchange. When there is a button that says "cancel" I assume that when I am making the exchange I am going to cancel and get a new one. There is also a button under that says "stonieren" or cancel. I of course just wanted to trade the more expensive ticket for the ticket for which I could save my 10 euroes.

Today I checked my account balance and it looked a little low...a lot low...so I got a print out of my transactions and see that there was an extremely large charge from DB. So I logged onto my account and see that in fact I have two train tickets for my journey tomorrow. Not necessary. So I called in and the service agent tell me that I do in fact have to manually cancel the one ticket.

This website makes no sense. If I have to manually cancel anyways, why is there a button with the cancel and exchange option??!!! By cancelling today I have to pay a 15 euro service fee, meaning that using this coupon has essentially cost me 5 euros.

I called in to find out this information and said that it was misleading, and the service rep says that I should have called in...what is the point of having a website??!! It is also frustrating because I have so many options now of people that are driving to Munich with other Carpooling websites that I could have saved a lot more money.