Last Saturday night, my friend J, my friend N and I went to a bar slash restaurant called New Orleans in a town not far from here. They serve typical southern cuisine, or at least that’s what they aim to provide paying customers with. Really, they just serve all kinds of American foods.

We arrived pretty early and were actually the first guests there. The restaurant is set up on two levels with a gallery that offers you a great view of the bar downstairs including all the cute bartenders and the tough guys sitting at the bar chucking beers.

I hadn’t been to this type of place for a while and as of July 1, smoking is prohibited inside all clubs, bars and restaurants here in Germany. Which was amazing. I hate smokers and I hate the smoke because it stinks so bad. In my eyes, it is the worst, most useless drug there is. Why would one even start smoking in the first place? God. But now those who can’t be seperated from the butts dangling from their mouths have to stand outside. Which, I guess, is fine during the summer but it should be fun to do so in the freezing cold of the night in, say, December or February.

The food was amazing and so were the cocktails, although I couldn’t have any actual cocktails because I was driving which was kinda lame. I don’t do alcohol very often and this seemed like the right place and the right time and the right occasion but J had only gotten her license the day before and N doesn’t have hers yet and so neither one could stir us safely into the big city. Which left the job to me.

I was glad to see them again because ever since graduation in early June, it’s been kinda hard to keep in touch with everyone. We had planned this night forever. This night, that had originally started out as a James Dean night (the video store had a DVD box special offer) but was then changed into a girls’ night out.

But it wasn’t my best night, I could hardly think of clever things to say and it bothered me that I even had to think about saying things to begin with because, really, if you meet with friends you haven’t seen in a while, shouldn’t the conversation just flow? J is a talking maniac, she wouldn’t shut up if she stood on fire which I love and admire and she and N appeared to be talking on the phone every damn night because I kinda felt left out. There were numerous Remember, I already told you? occasions, and I would just nod along, thinking that no, how could I know, we’re doing this night out to do just that, to catch up on stuff.

For some reason, I can’t laugh about the things that they find funny or entertaining, that’s what struck me the most. It seemed different from before because, normally, all my friends make me laugh. A good sense of humor is what I typically look for in a person and my friends know that I use sarcasm as a defensive mechanism whenever I feel over-powered, embarrassed or insulted. Laughing about the same things is probably the base of every relationship I am in.

But then they began to talk about boys and J said this guy at work drove her crazy because he smelled so good and he had a tattoo on his hip bone and was always lounging around and that she thought that he was maybe 21 or 22 and I was all like, SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD TO ME. And then J continued, apparently she had found out that he was in fact thirty years old, THIRTY she emphasized, THIRTY OH MY GOD EW! And N’s eyes widenend and they started giggling and suddenly burst out laughing and N was all like, COULD YOU IMAGINE? A THIRTY-YEAR-OLD?

And they proceeded to cry from laughing so hard while I thought that, yes, I could imagine and how could anyone feel as though N had just told some sort of joke that required laughing?; I could imagine spending time with a hot, grown-up guy like that any day instead of sitting around with you silly people wasting my time by talking about how your neighbor keeps wearing a skirt that looks actually more like a belt and how everybody always confuses your seriously annoying brother for your boyfriend and, did I know, how so totally embarrassing that always was?

No, I don’t fucking know. Also, I’m not interested in any of it whatsoever.

As the night went on, I felt more and more ashamed of dismissing my friends that way. I kept wondering why I couldn’t force myself to listen to all the useless talk about boys and perfect body weight and I’m going to the bathroom, wanna come? and everything else in between that I can’t remember because it was of no significance at all.

At times, I was literally looking around and realized that I really loved the New Orleans and the atmosphere and that I wanted to see both J and N and I wished that I could understand why I wasn’t like them. I would have loved to turn the conversation into a different direction; to talk about places we would like to travel someday or what our plans were for the future and if, maybe, they wanted to come visit me in my new apartment next month, to discuss the latest music and movies in depth, to compare what books we have read, to come up with silly plans to save the world. To have a real conversation about things that matter where people take sides and argue just for the argument’s sake or because they actually believe in something.

Maybe we just don’t have anything in common and to them, the fact that N has just dropped a French frie again - Gosh, I am so clumsy tonight, I feel so stupid! - is much more hilarious and of higher importance than everything else going on in the world.

It’s frustrating. How come there’s no one around that cares about the same things that I find interesting? How did I end up becoming friends with such girly girls that would do anything to always have perfectly manicured toenails but don’t have an opinion on global warming or the upcoming US election?

I do love J and N and I feel horrible about all these things that rose to my mind during our casual 4-hour dinner at the New Orleans. And because I want to be a part of what they think we have, because I want that friendship and because I want to feel the way they feel, I wanted to let them know how I felt.

On the way back to the car we went for a walk through the inner city and it was so peaceful and mild and quiet that I just wanted to smack them both up the head and then hug them and blurt out everything I just typed but I decided to swallow, to keep quiet, to hush and force a crooked grin when two Turkish boys whisteled after us and J and N, yet again, burst out laughing.

This is what my future home looks like from above. Well, not my apartment but the excitingly international heart of Europe I’ll be moving to - something I’ll get to in a minute. Now, note how everything is majorly confusing and just screams subway exhaust, headache, stuffy air, and GOOD GOD GIVE ME TIME AND SPACE TO BREATH.

Everyone has probably seen one of those public transportation plans, most likely on a school trip or a vacation to The Big City. I remember these from London, Paris, and Berlin.

Paris, especially, because I was caught riding le métro without a ticket since the ticket scanner ate my ticket upon checking in and my friends all still had theirs and so I decided to crawl in through the exit doors since, come on, people like me never do illegal things and surely I woouldn’t get caught, anyway. It’s not like they check each and every métro exit in Paris 24/7.

Turns out, that night they did. We walked right into a freakin’ wall of huge, black Frenchmen who immediately started checking everybody. Now, my French is good when I’m at home reading a text, it’s okay in class. But, as everybody found out soon, it sucks during crisis.

I kept telling one of the policeman - who really looked more like a Turkish nightclub bouncer - that, l’automat, il a mangé mon ticket!, il l’a mangé!, while gesturing wildly. And then I started yelling at my friend S who actually speaks French quite fluently to tell the swell French guy that THE SCANNER ATE MY GODDAMNED TICKET AND SO WHAT WAS A GIRL SUPPOSED TO DO?

I ended up being heavily scorned and, well, bitched at by what seriously appeared to be the French army and paying a fine of 36 euros ($56) which, as should be added, was all the money I had on me for my trip to Paris. This, I had realized long before, was an ridiculously small amount to begin with but that’s another story for another time.

This is where Aachen is on our lovely map. It’s in Germany and very likely going to be my future home town. It has 260,000 inhabitants and I can’t think of anything it is famous for right now except for the fact that it is located right there, smack dab in the middle of, uhm, the aorta of Europe. Or something to that effect. People in Aachen, as I’m certain you have guessed already, speak German.

This is Maastricht. Look very closely and you will find that it’s more or less across from Aachen, it’s on the same latitude as Aachen, only moved a couple of inches to the left. Or the west, actually. And not inches but kilometers. But I don’t have time for those kinda details tonight.

Maastricht is in the Netherlands and has 120,000 inhabitants and is famous for being the center of Europe. There’s a pattern here, I’m sure you can tell. Obviously, people here speak Dutch. It is also home to Maastricht University where I will enrol as a full-time student as of next fall.

Now, to avoid confusion on anyone’s part and clarify what in tarnation I’m talking about when I repeatedly mention the heart of Europe, I blanked out the complicated public transportation part. Only now, one can tell what a crazy place this really is.

There we have Maastricht and Aachen again. Aachen is really close to the Dutch/German border. Maastricht is close to the Belgian/Dutch border but it is also close to Germany because that weird little piece of land belonging to the Netherlands as seen above? It’s only 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) wide. With all this going on, we shouldn’t forget, though, that Aachen is also close to Belgium because it is actually situated right within that Dutch/Belgian/German triangle. And, you know, the Dutch speak Dutch, the Germans speak German and the Belgians speak French.

So, either way you look at it, you feel very unprepared.

But - WILD, right? Fascinatingly perfect and international, to say the least. And convenient, because from Maastricht Brussels (which is Belgium’s capital as any third grader knows) is only a short train ride away. France is a little farther than that but it’s close enough.

If only I will manage to figure out how to get from point A to point B using public transportation, I’ll be good to go.

Picture source for images used in graphics: here.

My former best friend N, who has become more of a real friend to me again over the past couple of months because we had to do a lot of work together, came over today because she had asked me to help her prepare for an interview for an apprenticeship/studying grant.

She originally applied for this very popular system of being an apprentice, while also attending classes at university at the same time, at the company’s headquarters based in Germany. Her application was rejected but they offered her a place - well, not so much the actual spot but the opportunity for an interview - at the company’s Scottish headquarters. I know, Scottland, of all places! - right?

However, I am really excited about this because for some reason when I think Scottland I automatically think Ireland and in my head both are about the same thing as far as landscape, language and national quirks go. I am aware that that may upset true Scotts but, I’m sorry, that’s the way I feel and besides, it’s more a compliment, really, than anything else.

Because when I think Ireland, I think of a wild ocean, an open sky, gorgeous cliffs and endless plains. Ireland, in my head, equals beauty. Ergo, Scottland is a beautiful, magical place.

When N thinks Scottland, she thinks Scotch, drinking games, pubs. She thinks grey cities, oil rigs, chemicals. Which is fine, I guess, because that’s what she’s looking for: a future job in the general field of anything chemical and this apprenticeship combined with studying is her perfect chance.

Thing is, her English is not the best. When I say that, I really mean this: she has trouble putting together an actual sentence and while she’s not bad at all at understanding written texts in English, she will have trouble getting through a whole interview. I have wondered whether it’s a smart move to even consider applying for this thing because if her English isn’t good enough for an interview, how is she going to manage university classes in English? I have told her this but at the same time I encouraged her to go through with it. It’s definitely worth a try and, after all, when in life will one ever get a chance like this again?

Going off to Scottland when you’re first moving away from home? Sure does sound like the perfect dream to me.