11-3

Day 11

Jeff had to go to work this morning, but he slept in as late as he could, so now I have a few hours to blog and wash clothes while we wait.  I told Emily that we didn't really need to go to Italy anymore, since I'd experienced so much, and she could just make a pizza and we'd call it good.  But the tickets are already bought, and it's gonna be in one of those sleeper trains you see in Bond movies, so they apparently look forward to it too.  That's tomorrow.*

This was a day to do nothing, and I spent hours of it blogging and copying pictures off my phone.  In many ways, it was a wasted day (I didn't even go outside until the very end of the night), but because Jeff and I have been sick (did I mention that he seems to have caught the same exact cough as me?), we needed a day to hang out and eat and watch television together.  My first day, we'd put on the first episode of "Severance," but I had trouble staying awake, and so he put on the first episode of a show called "The Detectorists," which I completely slept through.

"Severance" is a totally effed-up show about a group of people who work in an office, doing something so secretive that they've agreed to have a surgical procedure done so they will forget what they did the second they leave work.  But it goes both ways (like you're ex-girlfriend): they have no memory of their lives before they started work there, and as far as they're concerned, their WHOLE LIVES are working for Luman Industries.  The show is extremely well done, but it's also extraordinarily slow-moving.

One thing I meant to mention last week but didn't is that on my first two days here in Germany, I waved at strangers, both on the train and on the street.  Finally, Jeff saw me doing it and asked why I waved.  "Just to be friendly, you know?" I said.  "Well, people don't really do that here.  No wonder that woman gave you a strange look before."  But the odd thing is, ever since he said that, I've been tempted to wave at people (old and young, but mostly little kids, especially those in costume).  And I don't know if I would've been inclined to wave at them before told me that (because it's just in my nature), or if I want to wave because he told me it's culturally inappropriate.  Funny that.

*Later, Jeff would tell me, "And you told Emily you didn't want to go to Venice."  But I had to explain, I did want to, most of all, but I felt I had already taken so much, so, so much.  When I got back, my niece showed me what one night at the New York Hotel costs, and it made me throw up a bit in my mouth.  Luckily, I had been eating applesauce, so it didn't look any different.