Problem Solved!

Quick Summary:
-It poured this morning which made finding a calling card a challenge.
-My great friends helped calm me down by taking me out to lunch.
-Talked to Bank of American and everything is great.
-Jumped rope, bought some wall decorations and hung out and ate dinner with Heidi.

As soon as I got ready this morning I began my search for a phone card. One thing made this process complicated and irritating: it was POURING! Even with my umbrella and rain jacket, I still got pretty wet! I went to two different stores that I thought sold phone cards, but they did not. At least not ones that you could use to call internationally. Instead of wandering around in the rain, I figured I might as well go to my program and ask Dr. Tracy if he had any suggestions. I was pretty flustered so my German was not the best, but he did tell me where to find what I needed. I went back out into the rain and bought a card. Turns out, it was only for cell phone minutes! It would have been insanely expensive to use my cell phone! But it worked out because I needed to buy more minutes anyway!

I was tired of the rain and was somewhat soaked, so I just went back to AJY to calm down. The opposite happened and when I got there I just broke down in tears. All of this doesn't sound like that big of a deal now, but in the moment I was really upset! I even emailed my dad saying that I wanted to just go home. That really isn't true, but at the time I was just really sad! Heidi showed up a little bit later and then came Katie Wachter. Katie was also crying because she had not passed the DSH, but thought that she did well enough on it. She went and talked to Dr. Tracy and everything was fine. Then she came in and we talked about my situation. She told me that I should just use Skype and that I could come to her place to call. But she wouldn't let me do that before taking Heidi and I out to lunch. I have plenty of food to cook with at my apartment and am trying to save money, but she insisted on paying. She said it wouldn't do any good to go back and call them while I was still upset. I'm so grateful to have such good friends here!

We went to the same place Caitlyn and I had gone for lunch this past Friday. It's Katie's favorite restaurant. I ordered an American Pita. I'm not really sure how it was American, but it tasted pretty good. It was messy though! Katie ordered tomato soup and some chicken strip-like things. Heidi and I thought her tomato soup was just tomato sauce that had been watered down. Katie loved it, but we were so sure! It was really nice to sit and talk with these two again. The three of us hadn't really been together for awhile.

Katie and I headed back to her place after lunch. She had changed a lot of things in her room since I had been there last. She even had a huge TV! Lucky! There is a German guy who lives in her building and he's helped her out a lot. He sold the TV to her for 70 Euros. Not too bad! She's staying for the whole year so she's trying to make her place as homey as possible. Pretty cool. So we got on Skype and found out that calling 1-800 numbers is free! I thought for sure that since it wasn't technically a land-line, they would charge something for it. I got everything all squared away with the bank. They said that they put a hold on my account because the plane ticket cost more than I usually spend. I am happy that they play close enough attention to catch something like that. At least now I know what to do if it happens again! My parents are right, it was a good experience to have, even though it was incredibly frustrating and stressful!!

When I got back I answered some emails and then did some more jump roping. I am so happy that I can do that here! And in the privacy of my own room! Even though I'm walking a ton here, I still like to break a nice sweat every now and then! I did about 2,500 jumps and then called it quits. My stomach hurt since I didn't wait long enough after eating lunch. I showered and got ready and then headed to AJY. I returned the fold-up mattress thing that I had borrowed for Caitlyn to sleep on. I was hoping that Dr. Tracy would still be there, but he was not. AJY bought our semester bus/train passes for us to make things easier. Now I just have to pay him back. But tomorrow is a holiday so I probably can't get the pass until Thursday. Oh well. Heidi was there when I got there and after talking and sending some emails, we decided to head out. I wanted to check out the Euro store to see if they had makers and poster boards. They did not, but they did have a German flag for 1 Euro! Finally! I bought something to hang on my wall! Of course we stopped and got some ice cream too. You just can't go somewhere with Heidi and not buy ice cream. LOVE that about her! We went to a store with school supplies next and they had the poster boards. I decided to make calendars to hang on my wall! I got three colors - a pretty green, blue and a nice orange.

Heidi was going to take a walk up to the castle, but decided against that when I asked her if she wanted to eat dinner with me. I made my favorite mozarella with tomatoes. Tonight we had it on Ciabatta bread. SO good! We decided that we would make sure we have dinner or lunch together at least two times a week after classes start. I can cook one day and she the other. I like that plan a lot! We just hung out and talked for awhile after that. She was meeting her language partner at 8 and left shortly before. To practice our German a little (and because we were being stupid!) she acted like she was my therapist and asked what problems I have. We just laughed and laughed and made things up here and there. I can't explain it too well, but it was a lot of fun. For my roommates at Elon, in my room here I have a chair sitting next to my desk. It reminds me of last year when I had that at Elon and you called it the interrogation chair! Good times!

I made my poster boards and cleaned and vaccumed my room after Heidi left. I had a lot of emails to answer and just kind of chilled for the rest of the night. I'm SO glad that all of the bank stuff is worked out and that I don't have to worry about it anymore (at least not until it happens again!)