most piled into two vans, but a few special ones (like myself) who get rather queasy when it comes to long rides, were put in one of the school vans.  at 8:00 in the morning and even before we were out of the driveway i found myself arguing for joni mitchell as another claimed that the “paved paradise” song is an amy grant song and not joni mitchell.

i love to be right and i love the feeling of satisfaction when one finally consents to my being right (if someone tells me that that song isn’t even a joni mitchell original then thanks… i just thought i remembered it being on one of her albums).  unfortunately, it’s a horrible way to live and doesn’t help build relationships or win peoples affections.  thankfully i didn’t ruin any friendships yesterday during our joking banter about different artists.  why am i telling you this?  anyway…

we all met at starbucks where students went out of their mind since they were able to order a drink in english and have the worker understand them.  the music, the smell, the sounds are all so american and i felt a bit like home.  to the delight of a few, sinclair ordered a machiatto.

i went from booth to booth for three hours and still hadn’t purchased a single gift.  when i got to stuttgart i had the most horrible reality check:  this girl is in a foreign country which enjoys selling very expensive hand-carved wooden decorations and she doesn’t really have any money.  and for the first time i found myself completely annoyed with how slow europeans go about doing everything — including walking through christmas markets.  at the end of the day i had bags filled with small little somethings to bring home. 

everyone has been singing “White Christmas” and i’ve been so excited since there are only a few christmas days in my past that haven’t been white, but i’ve been told that it’s not as white in the north country as i’ve imagined it’d be.  this is one rather sad disappointed girl.

two more journals to write, one more assignment to finish, a whole room to pack up and get cleaned, three songs to get ready for tomorrow night, and a few more goodies to buy to bring home, and then i’m done.