The week-end and the coming week

So, yes, I did the TOEFL and yes, I managed to get to Germany.

The TOEFL was worse than I thought it would had been. First of all, despite I should had known, I hadn't fully realized that the test would had taken 4 and a half hour of constant attention, which left me somewhat exhausted in the end. Secondly, while I think I managed well the reading and writing part, as I wrote replying to a comment in the previous post I have doubts about the listening and spoken part, the first made harder by the background noise produced by another dozen or so of test-taking people the second by the strange feeling produce by having to talk in a microphone knowing you have less than minute to say something meaningful. Anyway, in three weeks I should have the score and I'll move from it, deciding if it's good enough or if I'll have to take it again.

In the evening, I was not still sure whether my flight would had left to Germany or not, considering the hurricane that had stormed Germany and most then norther Europe the day before, causing billions of euros in damages and about 50 casualties. Turned out, flights going to west Germany were on schedule, while the ones to east Germany or Sweden, due a wide detour they were forced to avoid the storm at the time over Poland, had from 2 to 6 hours of delay.

Taking off on time didn't help me much anyway. Already tired from the test, I had the misfortune of finding myself right behind a family with two hyperactive kids who basically yelled and cried for the whole two hours, despite the attempts of the parents and of the cabin crew of distracting them. Once at Hahn, I found out that, if the storm was over, the wind was still strong and cold and the last of my energies were drained by the waiting for the bus to Mainz. I was so utterly exhausted that I didn't even bother arguing with the taxi driver who took me from Mainz train station to Susanne's house and who failed to give me back the exact change for the ride.

Saturday was a quiet day, not surprisingly comprising a lot of sleep, studying on Susanne's part and reading and computer playing for me, until we decided to head to Frankfurt for a movie. It should had been "Casino Royal" (Susanne is a Bond girl of sort) yet, due mostly to the slowest MacDonald's employ of history, we ended up missing a fateful train and arriving at the theatre when the tickets for our show had been sold out. It turned out to be a good thing anyway as, given we couldn't go to see "The pursuit of Happyness" due the fact I'm going to see that with Liesbeth on wednesday, we decided to see "Babel" and that turned out to be an impressive, if distress-producing, movie (on the left, part of the cast).

Parenthesis about the theatre, the Turm. Never in my life, at least for seeing a recent movie, I had been in such a small, cramped, totally irrational (with the middle seat row being higher than the one behind it) place with such a small projection screen (that could had just as well been a larger than usual flat screen for how small it was) and who sported at times a bright vertical green line at the sides of the picture. It's really a testament to the movie that we left the cinema without being upset about all of that, but rather discussing about the meaning of the story or its inconsistencies.

Oh, we ended up with a James Bond movie anyway as, once back home, we put on the DVD of Goldfinger from Susanne's collection.... well, "we" might be a bit too much as I think I managed to see maybe one third of it, sleeping in and out of it.

And sunday came and as all sundays it went away much too soon, with the added stress that it will be one month and a painful surgery before I'll see Susanne again. Oh, and I got on the way back the same happy family that made such a wonderful event the first flight, and again they happened to be right next to me, behind rather than in front, with the added joy of being patted on the head from time to time by one of the over-exuberant kids.

And now, this week, which will be quite a full one too, it seems. VCN Ethnic dinner tuesday (which will be odd, my last list sees 16 girls and 4 guys), movie with Liesbeth on wednesday, Tandem happy hour with the Arcadia University of Thursday, probably an evening out with friends I have not seen for months now (between Being constantly in Germany and Christams time) on friday, a week-end out of Rome with Nova Romans and on monday... Bah, don't want to think about it.

Have a nice start of the week everyone.