maple leaves

It's autumn in Göttingen
I'm walking home to my suburb
Rain falls hard on the city
on every homeless kitty

Oh please god bring relief
even if it's only brief
that she says the dreamer just make-believe
but I thought she said maple leaves

die Liebe

German phrase of the day:

Ich brauche die Liebe in meinem Leben.

I need love in my life.

Traum

The German word for today is

TRAUM

I had a very strange dream the other day, it was another end of the world dream again, I use to have a lot of those. This time it took place in UPIS 3-6, with books falling from the ceiling. I got out of the room and found Christian and eventually my mother. I was so happy to see her. We looked for our luggage somewhere in Sunken Garden, it was chaotic but also calm, in a way.

Last night I dreamt of a good friend, C. It was a very good dream, the kind that gives you warm feelings when you wake up and makes you wish it really happened. The feeling kind of stays with you for the first few seconds of waking up. In the dream we were walking, talking and very happy though it was a grey, cloudy day. We hugged each other. 

I skyped with Bryan yesterday and John and Kitsie today. Love circles the world like a satellite, truly. 

Today is Ganseliesel festival so there were a lot of people on Weenderstrasse, eating ice cream, crepes, or  those noodle boxes from the Asian foodhaus. It made my head whirl, vetsin overload haha. H&M coat, wool socks, UHU patafix. Intense longing for my English-language books, Stieg Larsson and being and living in Stockholm again. Bike adventure to Rastenburgerweg, Zwiebelkuchen dinner at Shannon's, Feder Weisen wine, and the horror movie bike ride back to my apartment. The houses are beautifully creepy in an Exorcist kind of way, but I've got Bolywool, Cats on Fire and Suburban Kids with Biblical Names in my ears, so it's fine. :-)

Traum means "dream".

There must be more than this provential life.

Little town it's a quiet village.
Everyday like the one before.
Little town full of little people, waking up to say:
GUTEN TAG! x5
There goes the baker with his tray like always.
The same old bread and rolls to sell.
Every morning just the same since the morning that we came,
To this poor provential town.
GOOD MORNING GEL!!!

GMT +1

Here’s me
Here’s you
Draw a line between the two
This is cartography for beginners
On a map the gap’s three fingers
But it’s more than that
It’s more than that

The Lucksmiths

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meine fahrrad

the german word for today is:

FAHRRAD

i finally bought a bike today. i think i was ripped off. it is a very old bike, but it spoke to my heart. it's red, it's retro and it has all these really pretty stickers! i'm so tired of walking so i just bought the first bike that i saw. evil bike dealer. :/ 

but i'll take good care of it and hopefully we'll have lots of adventures here in niedersachsen! "ein herz fur iere!" a heart for... what's "iere" bryan?

fahrrad means "bicycle".

e! ras! mus!

i went to an erasmus party last night with some couchsurfers. it truly lived up to its name: the music was a mixture of indian bolywood style, afro beats, latin american samba, german hiphop, justin timberlake and some cheesy 90s songs like mr. boombastic and... eye of the tiger. welcome to gottingen's night life! hehehe! 

but the company was great, perfect couchsurfing fun. :-) i really believe all the nice people in the world could be found in CS. it should be an organized religion. christian danced with me. dominic offered me a bike. bart told me some interesting things about erasmus (in a hushed voice "totally not about studying") and his misadventures with french people, rhea told me that everything will be okay. and i met anja, this really terrific girl. we became friends instantly because she accidentally said "GOSSIP GIRL" instead of "GOSSIPY". i love it! haha 

anja, dominic and i walked home together. all the stars were out tonight and anja pointed out casseopeia to me and dominic. i didn't see it, there were just too many stars. and i am never good at constellations (constipations, steve). 

anja walked with me the rest of the way home at 3am, eventhough it was a long way from town and it was a horror-movie night. hehehe! it was eerily dark and quiet. the houses in gottingen looked a lot like the house in the exorcist and dominic with his long coat, getting the bike from his garden and walking slowly towards us strangely looked like the priest in the exorcist poster, and for a second there i was truly scared. hahaha! we ate prinzen cookies while walking and talked about distance, medicine, more gossip girl, chuck bass, doctor house and going through difficulties (you will!) and how everything will turn out just fine. S and B!

i remember what jon said about the kindness of strangers. meeting her made me feel that yes, maybe this place could be home.

one step at a time. 

screaming herz

german word of the day for yesterday was:

LIEBLING

i went out at dusk yesterday to buy coca-cola, iced tea and milk at the penny markt near (not really) my apartment. the long walk was cold and i was listening to the radio department.

my heart suddenly screamed for you. "tang ina puntahan mo ko dito!!!" it said. it felt so good to feel your name on my heart again. it felt like it suddenly woke up, from a long, uneventful sleep. did you hear it? it didn't have to travel so far now.

liebling means "darling".

sunshine

Yesterday was absolutely crazy and gray-day-sad.

I got into the Frankfurt-Hamburg train for Gottingen, passing forests and forests of evergreen trees. That's the word for it, evergreen. It feels like Hogwarts and Tuck Everlasting and Forks something else altogether between panic and apathy and blank and adventure. In between forests, there are quaint little towns on hilltops, which are breathtaking.

But the skies are grey. I used to be a fan of grey skies, but now I'm not so sure (after seeing the blue summer skies of Sweden and experiencing this wet, autumn day (read on). Hmm, no.) It's cold, it's heavy and it drags your soul on the wet streets.

Anyway, Sebastian met me on the station. He's really nice and a bit shy but we get along well. :-) After unpacking and eating German and Filipino chocolates and skyping with my mother and best friend, we went to buy pillows and sheets and blankets for my bed. On bikes!!! Two kilometers away from where we lived. In the COLD AUTUMN RAIN!!! Jet-lagged, tired and confused and disoriented. Hahaha It was an adventure. He kept looking back and laughing at me because I was too slow and I was cussing and saying really weird things. I dropped on my (new and very pretty) bed and went to sleep right away.

I remember unpacking and looking out my window and saying to myself, "What the hell am I doing here?"

But today was a new day! I woke up and decided that I will make things better. Things will be better. I took a bath, dressed in my most colorful clothes and walked out the door. I went to the university, tried to figure out the Mensa (the student dining hall) system where you would have to queue up to get a ticket (my first German words: Stamm Ein), queue up again up the stairs to get your food from a conveyor belt. I felt like "The New Student" walking in the gigantic cafeteria, finding a place to sit. But just being there reminded me that there is life in this town. Just hearing the buzz and the talk and the sound of students is already a comfort to me. Like the sun, like my favorite song playing in my ipod.

I went to my programme's office and met my coordinator. He's really, really nice, laughs a lot (Germans laugh a lot!) and makes jokes like "This is a silly program, we have nothing to offer you." Haha

I walked to the main pedestrian road. I realize that I love shops and downtowns and just being surrounded by so much life. I guess it comes from living in a big, chaotic city all my life. Yesterday was sadness because everything was so quiet (and maybe I was just really tired and confused and HELLO it was just my first day. Give yourself a break Angelf.) But walking down these streets with H&M and Mc Donald's and neon signs made me feel a little at home. Or the feeling that anywhere could be home. As long as there is an H&M. Hehe

I found myself in St. Jacobikirchen, this amazing Lutheran church in town with pillars of red blue and white diagonals, like the sides of an airmail envelope. They said it was made in the 1400's, when optical illusions were just discovered. I just sat there, thinking, praying. Singing "Jesus, Walk with Me" to myself. Why am I so afraid when he is just there with me? I will never be alone.

And then I met Jonathan from Couchsurfing (best community ever!) at the Uni library and he showed me around town. What would I do without Couchsurfing? He's really nice. We walked around the center, found a fairtrade store with lots of stuff from Philippinen, changed money after failing to find banks that are open (all closed at 16:00 Wednesdays), talked about my love for H&M ("the center of Gottingen and the world"), couchsurfing (and not couchsurfing) at Stockholm, and shopped for groceries. At Wilhelmsplatz I saw a boy with the same Strokes shirt as mine and I wanted to hug him.

And walking home, THE SUN SHINED IN GOTTINGEN. It felt so incredible just seeing the sun's rays. Now I know why Swedes eagerly await summer and now I understand how happy they must be. And maybe what I'm feeling is just a fraction of it. But truly, I felt that things will be better only because the sun shone.

It's so incredible to think that I am at the same time zone as Sweden. And it's just a train ride away, and yet I am here. And how I am giving this place a chance because I really believe that there is a reason why I am here.

It's stupid to give up on something just because you don't know (or too scared) of what will happen. Why don't give it a try and open yourself to the possibility that IT MAY BE THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? Haha Read that, Johan.

09.23.2008 Flughafen

September 23, 2008 07.00
Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof

I am sitting at the station, waiting for my 08.42 train to Gottingen. This is it, the start of my new life. I still couldn’t feel the gravity of it, I am on my own. But I could feel the fringes of it, that I am at the very beginning, the edge. And it is mighty scary. I miss my mother already.

But I am here now, and I think the only way to go through this is to go through it. Go through the motions of life as J said.

It’s just hard not to know anything about this place and yet I find myself here, waiting for a train to take me to the town that would be home for the next couple of years (actually I will be a European nomad, changing homes for every semester, but Goettingen is like home base). It’s weird not to know any German and yet I am here. But that’s what I am here for right? To live and to learn.

On the plane from Bangkok to Frankfurt I was sitting with a German couple, Joel and Christine. They were nice, taught me a few German phrases and they said they were culture shocked at Bangkok (haha what magnitude of shock would they feel when they go to Manila!?). On the airport, I found them again a couple of times and they helped me look for the long distance trains.

I remembered seeing on take off and landing they automatically reached for each other’s hands. Like magnets. I remembered Bobby Baby’s song, I like the moments in between going to bed and going to sleep, I like riding my bike in the morning, ten minutes of traveling to work. Soon we’ll travel round the world. Hold my hand when we land, don’t let go till we stop.

I remember singing “Ewan” to myself on takeoff and saying farewell to Manila, the most beautiful airplane city-view at night. It feels sad looking out that window, not knowing when I will see it again. And thinking of all the changes that would happen before I see that view again, I shiver when I think of it.

I remember switching to “Pulling Our Weight” because it feels more right. And it comforts me. If there’s a goal, a dream, the most important reason why I am on this plane it is to find love, the kind I’m dreaming of. I’m flying to you, whoever you are. And just thinking of that makes things better already. It makes sense.

The immigration officer said, have a great time!

In a few hours, I will be meeting my flatmate Sebastian. I’m excited! Hmmm Goettingen. Riding bikes, going to school, meeting new friends, trees, parks, hmmm.