The Crud

Hello again, it's me, your friendly neighborhood crazy American in Germany!  :)  So, Wednesday I started getting the dreaded sore throat and, being away from my apartment, there was not too much I could do to start the process of fighting it, so I figured I would just wait until I got home.  Back in the states, I would just take some Emergen-C, drink lots of tea and water, Dayquil, Nyquil, etc. and after a few days it would be good.  Well, they don't have those remedies here, so I did the best I could.  Needless to say I was down for the count all of Thursday and Friday and finally got out of the house on Saturday to do some shopping for some stuff I needed.  It really felt good to get out of the house, but could tell it was still a bit early for such adventures.   Thursday morning, I might add, I was getting dressed and somehow tweaked my back really good.  My lower right back has been feeling sore, but I must have moved just right because it really hurt.I slept a lot Thursday and Friday and tried to lay down only on my left side.  I couldn't get up when I tried sleeping on the right.  Oops. LOL  Anyway, I had been looking forward to church all week so that I could see people and get some fellowship in.  So Sunday morning, I still wasn't feeling 100%, but I decided to go and had great prayer time before and went.  

Now, I think I mentioned in my last post that they had the S-Bahn (local train service, NOT the underground lines) system was all messed up and couldn't figure out how to get to my destination.  Well, apparently, the same weekend, they decided to do the same with the underground, too.  From where I take the bus, it's only 3 stops, however, this weekend, my usual starting point was now the end of the line.  They put in a bus that takes the same route above ground, so it was pretty quick and painless, but my brain was having a hard time wrapping itself around the concept because of the head cold (that's my story and I'm stickin' to it).  Anyway, I got to church really early and service was really encouraging!  Gotta see my good buddy Matthias, who has been away most of the last two weeks and most of the rest of the gang too.  Apparently there was a married's retreat this weekend, so we didn't see most of them...  

Anyway, I mentioned a few weeks back that I met a brother from Iraq.  Yesterday, he looked like he was sitting all by himself at church, so I invited him over to sit by me.  He's about my age and seems like someone I might get along with well, so we decided to go to lunch after service.  After figuring out our way through the underground confusion, we finally found a bus.  I have to mention here and if you've been reading this blog, you know that I have gotten lost here.  A LOT.  So, I warned this brother ahead of time that whatever I tell him, tell me "No, Tim, you're wrong" and go the other way.  So we get to the place where we have to catch the bus and he says we need to go this way, I said, no I don't think so because we have to head north.  Well, this particular bus heads a few blocks the other direction and THEN heads north...  I realized I was wrong again and then (jokingly) chastised the brother for listening to me.  We both had a good laugh and due to his right thinking, we got to the restaurant.  We went to a falafel place and had a great talk over lunch.  

This brings up another issue I have been having here.  I don't recall ever having this problem in Munich and I definitely didn't have it in Spokane or Seattle.  But I realized that Berlin is a series of random roads going in totally random directions.  I didn't realize it, but it's super confusing trying to figure out which way I'm going, because I look at maps and say, "I need to go north from here."  Well, that's not always real obvious which way a road goes. LOL. When I went to meet the brother at the university a couple weeks ago, and came out on a huge traffic circle, I literally had to look where the sun was at to try to figure out which way to go.  I think when I get a job, I'm going to have to get GPS. In the states I always knew where I was and what direction I needed to go to get somewhere.  Oh well, not so much the case here I guess...

Well, that's enough for now...  Need to go try to get a workout in.  I don't have a gym yet, so I think I'll go check one out. Auf Wiedersehen!