Finally Here

Whoa. So a lot has happened since my last post and I’ve honestly had no time to update this blog on any of it.  So in the last month, I’ve established residence in 4 different cities in 5 different houses, quit my job, and finally made it over here in Germany to play ball.  My job  moved me to a new city a week before I quit, so I lived on an air mattress in a friends hosue while commuting back to my orignial city for the weekends where my roommates and I were in the middle of a move across town – a daunting and time consuming task which left me in a new house to which I had no bed, and slept on the couch.  Before my job moved me, I had been living in hotels 5 days a week… for 6 straight weeks.  This was coupled with working 8-6 those 5 days a week and commuting about 2 hours between cities, and not really ever having a house of my own.  In typical financial analyst fashion, I felt that my restlessness and uncomfort in sleeping would best be represneted graphically – so enjoy the pie chart above.  After I quit my job, I headed straight home to NY, where I had 2 days buy anything I may need and to pack my life up for the next 6 months, then flew out from JFK to London then to Germany.  In Germany, I met my team, and stayed up 40 straight hours to combat jet lag.  I got one nights sleep, then the very next day we had a road trip for an away game leaving at 2am on a small bus… so I didnt sleep for 30 straight hours there.  So here I am more than a month after my last post, and I finally had a breather to gather my thoughts and get back into this blog.  Hi.  

So yea, I’m in Germany now.  I’ve been here for about a week and I’m living in a nice “flat” with one of the German guys from the team.  We’ve already played 4 games: 2 double headers the first weekend I got here.  From my first impressions, I havent really been in too much of a culture shock here.  There the usual nuances that I would expect from any foreign country – such as smaller meal portions (that all seem to have some sort of sausage in them), smaller cars and cleaner streets, but I think I was expecting most of it.  One thing that’s really taken me by surprise the the “greenness” of the country.  In the US we’ve been making strides to become more eco-friendly, but we have nothing on Germany.  Here, everyone recycles… and not just recycles, but recycles with the ferocity of that weird old lady your parents know who has 117 different trash cans for each type of element on the periodic table.  At grocery stores, you have to pay for bags, each bottle has a  .25 cent return bounty on it, there seem to be no clothes dryers, and I’ve even heard people save the rain water to wash their cars.  This all seems like good stuff to me, minus the first couple times that I didnt realize you had to pay for bags and walked out of stores with akward armfulls of assorted groceries.  I’ve only had a few oblivious foreigner follies so far, which have included putting hair gel on my tooth brush, shaving using some sort of womans facial cream that I thought was shaving cream, and in other news, I lost my first set of keys and had to throw pinecones up 3 stories at the window to get my roommates attention (at least my baseball skill set is being put to use).  

This weekend we will finally venture out into the city to see the nightlife, and I couldnt be happier about this.  Its hard keeping your 21-25 year old male friends entertained with stories that dont start with, “so we were HAMMERED and…”

I’m off to the fields now, but check back often for updates.  My computer is my only source of entertainment, so I’ll be here often.

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