Jennifer Anne: The Jet's a Laggin'

I don't understand it. I slept so well my first night here. I mean, 14 hours, does it get any better than that? And then, there's tonight; I just can't sleep for the life of me. It's almost 2 AM and I'm wide awake. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten chocolate before bed--yeah, that would do it, that delicious stuff is loaded with energy. I've tried everything from counting my blessings like sheep hoppin' over that non-proverbial picket fence, watching lame German TV for about two seconds before realizing I can't understand a thing, reading a book, organizing my photos from today, listening to David Nail on repeat, showering, drinking bottled Evian water, watching an episode of Gilmore Girls...nothing works. I've often wondered what the lake looks like at night, maybe I should...nah. I may be adventurous, but I'm not stupid. So I then decided that a blog is in order.
Today was a fun day. I woke up this morning not having a CLUE of what I was going to do. I literally walked out the door with my feet leading me along. I can't even describe how cool it is to travel by yourself. It's as if you're on nobody's schedule but your own...or God's, but you know what I mean. You can do whatever you want; leave when you want, eat what you want, act how you want...it's really all up to you.
With my feet pulling me along, I explored the residential streets of the city and also walked the lake once again. On impulse, I bought a ticket for the Katamaran, which is a large boat, to sail me across Lake Bodensee to the city of Konstanz. With a few minutes to kill before my boat left, I climbed the 115-step Friedrichshafen look-out tower. Boy, I'm seriously outta shape. My legs are actually sore right now; how sad is that?

Konstanz was interesting. This was my second time there; my first time being five years ago. And once again, my geographical memory never fails me. I remember exactly where everything was! After walking the streets and soaking up all of the extraordinary architecture, I decided there was only one thing left to do: McDonalds. And it was sure excellent. Personally, I gave it a 9/10, only because the McChicken sauce had a different taste to it. I would have given it as low as an 8/10 had they not LOADED the McChicken burger with fresh, uber green lettuce! Mmm... Oh, and I always forget that their idea of water is sparkling mineral water, so I'm inevitably a little surprised everytime I take a sip.

After that life changing McDonalds experience, I decided to walk some more, you know, burn off some of those calories. In front of me I see a crowd, and I hear a man yelling, so I look to find a magician/entertainer guy speaking both German and English in mixed sentences. He seemed pretty funny, so I decided to watch. Suddenly, he spots me and takes my right arm, everyone watching, and holding it high in the air with my index finger pointed to the sky. "Hold it like that for awhile." He says.
He walks away and starts telling jokes and introducing himself to the crowd, and a few minutes later he says, "so, any volunteers?" Immediately I understand what just happened and my arm bolted down to my side. "Nooooo..." I say.
But alas, I'm pulled into the centre of the stage, and of course, the number of people in the crowd increases. He asks for my name,
"Jenni."
"Jenni! Where are you from?"
"Canada."
"WOW. Where in Canada?"
Replying with heavy hesitance, because there's no way he's ever heard of this place "...Manitoba..."
"Manitoba! No way!!!"
I nod, laughing.
"I actually have no idea where that is..." (crowd practically dies laughing)
So for the rest of the hour I was known as "Jenni from Manitoba, Canada!"
After soaking three torches in nitro-glycerin, he lights them on fire and makes me hold them. Now, I'm actually extremely terrified of fire. I thought my hair was going to light up. Cringing the whole time, he instructed me on my job, "throw one torch at his left hand, the second at his right hand, and the third at his chest." Ohh crap...the last thing I wanna do before school starts is ignite somebody and kill them. Oh, and did I mention we played this game of catch while he was riding a unicycle? Geez! It was pretty awesome; and for being his "volunteer" I made 5 euros in the process, also known as $7 Canadian, and a little girl gave me her Kinder-schokolade! "danke schon!!" I thanked her.

After, I went to H&M and went a little crazy once again. I love that store! My second favorite part of the day (the first being me throwing torches in Konstanz), was my boat ride back to Friedrichshafen. As soon as I sit down on the Katamaran, I pull out my iPod and turn it to "Strangers on a Train". Suddenly this...good looking, really good looking, guy sits down right across from me. And if you knew the lyrics to that song, Strangers on a Train, you'd understand why all I could think was, "oh my goodness, am I in a music video?!" Yes, it was a wonderful trip back.

When I got back to Friedrichshafen, I went to the market and bought myself two North American products. I'm in Germany and I buy such things, super lame, I know. But hey, mini Bounty-bites and 1.5L of Evian still-water is a good investment.