Guten Tag!

 Hallo, Guten Tag from Frankfurt! One week here now and boy I have landed on another planet! Not really. I actually felt really at home landing here. I didn't have any trepidation or alien-like feelings. Flying into Frankfurt feels like landing in a Fairy Tale story... and for a major city it is actually quiet enough for me.  The first weekend was really nice, going out and seeing some sights, but unfortunately I was so exhausted by Saturday I was dragging myself to function, having only slept an hour a night since I arrived on Thursday.  I've been sleeping now since Tuesday pretty much non stop after developing an ear infection and today finally am up on my feet really getting organized!  Matt has been a great host, and unfortunately had to miss his travel to Milan this weekend due to his own slew of health issues so we are quite the pair this weekend recovering

 and laying low between loads of laundry and cleaning.  It's amazing how fast you can learn a language when you're completely immersed. I really haven't been able to Rosetta Stone at all since I got here and I've learned so much just from grocery shopping, laundry, and dining out.
I miss access to websites available only to USA IP addresses but might find a way to fix that... I miss seeing my friends' status updates during the day (since we are 9 hours ahead), I miss ranch dressing and free still water with your meals, I miss dryer sheets and flat bed sheets. I miss porcelain toilets (all plastic here... every bathroom seems to hold smell a lot more, peeyew).
  I say "hello" in the strangest ways I ever thought, my mouth twisting and contorting to meet the way my brain sees a word vs how it sounds, and which way I want to say it.  I'm pretty sure even though Guten Tag and Hallo are easy enough to say,  my brain has decided to stick to "chaiehtago"... and other such nonsense.

 The city is very green... landscape wise and environmentally wise.  I got yelled at in German when I asked for a bag (we bought arm loads of hangers and had to carry them 20 minutes away...) even though I was simultaneously buying trash bags... I was like... dude it's ok, here is your 10 cents, really, its ok, we re-use!!
Other than that everyone has been SO nice. The Germans are very friendly and very helpful, though less of them speak English than I actually thought they would.  Makes it very awkward when they say "Nein" and you're like... OK we're not going to get very far are we.... but I'm so grateful that they speak any at all.  German has so many sounds I cannot even make but I'm doing my very best!

 When we're not gallavanting around the city I'm here in our studio apartment re-arranging and cleaning until I find my little corner of home here in this new country.  I've been officially registered as a long-term tourist and am trying to let myself relax a little into that knowledge, let myself be a tourist, and in that way I think I'll be more productive with my art and other projects. Hopefully I'll leave here in 6 months knowing a good chunk of a new language too!  Matt and I have also been watching lots of Boston Legal, Matt feels it is his duty in some way to learn a little about American Law for his possible future immigration.  It gives us lots of good stuff to talk about!  I haven't been able to fully catch up on the Bachelorette but I will gosh darn it!!!

Week 1 complete. I still sometimes don't know if it has fully sunk in that I've made this journey, but I'm so proud of myself for doing it and now have a great story for the ages. I moved to Frankfurt for Love and am really embracing this experience for everything it is worth. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.