Sunday, March 21, 2010

sick

After I got home from work on Friday, I thought my head would explode. I drank lots of water, took a bath full of salt from the Dead Sea (according to the bag), and crossed my fingers that I'd feel good enough to go to the birthday party I'd been invited to (in a really cool alternative housing project with lots of my favorite kind of people - namely those that, in one way or another, tend to live on the fringe).

No such luck.

I crawled into bed around eight and promptly passed out.

Hence the lack of posting. And so close to the end! Like I said last week, though, I'm giving myself a reprieve. Starting a new job, moving, running around taking care of immigration paperwork/insurance/setting up a bank account....it was all I could do to finally buy some groceries this week!

Yesterday I woke up with my head feeling even stuffier, but with a little bit of coffee in my system, I was sorted enough to walk to the pharmacy and get some ASS+C, which is aspirin and vitamins you dissolve in water. (And luckily I knew to ask for Ah-Ess-Ess, not ass.) I also went to the drugstore and fully stocked my cold-fighting arsenal with orange juice, hot lemon brew, nasal spray, and Tempo (the German Kleenex). On my way back to the apartment, I stopped for some Indian takeout - my tried and true way to unblock quickly. (Oh, and yep, pharmacies and drugstores are separate. You have your Walgreen's-style shop minus the meds, then a separate chemist, or Apotheke, that sells the hardcore stuff.)


By evening I felt well enough to go to a different birthday party (we started with dinner here), and I'm so glad I did because I had a great time. Mostly just work people, including a new student teacher from the States I hadn't met before. When I heard her singing "Business Time" at the other end of the table, my heart skipped a beat. Turns out she has both seasons of FOC on DVD with her here in Berlin. So in exchange for me helping her navigate the ins and outs of the Auslaenderpolizei (immigration police...not an official title), she's going to let me borrow the disks. Score!

So anyway, there you have it. Illness and life took over just as I was nearing the finish line of this 30 day challenge. All in all, though, I think I did well. And I learned that blogging more often is possible, and sometimes the very act of sitting down to WRITE is all I need to get going (may seem obvious, but well. Guess I didn't believe it until I tried it). Sometimes I would begrudgingly start a post, only to find the end result freeing and wonderful. Not always, but sometimes. Which is enough to make the whole process very, very worth it.

[29/30 complete]