Liljumper’s Adventures

I was thinking about a couple more things last night regarding cultural differences.

1) Gift Receipts

I asked one of my friends if we should include a gift receipt in a gift for a friend the other day and they looked at me as if I had two heads. After I explained what one was, they remarked that that isn’t done here. There is, apparently, a market for gift exchange (somewhere except I have no idea where). Additionally if you get a gift you have the same of or have no desire for, people don’t return it, they might try to regift it or, in rarer cases, tell the gift giver, because it’s the thought that counts. I get that, I do, but I also get that the person, the gift giver, wants to give the gift receiver something they truly want, shouldn’t they want to make sure the person gets that?

2) Returns

To start with, the US has a much more expansive return policy than here. For example, I could return my pair of tights or nail polish bottle or lipstick if, upon returning home, I find I have the exact same by accident. Not the case here, not to mention I have no idea where I would even find a return counter to do this. Perhaps you can return at the normal registers, but I don’t even know because it’s not really done here. For some items, due to hygienic reasons, you cannot really return here and are mostly rejected. But for example, I bought hair styling wax the other day and came home to find it had two gigantic finger holes in it from someone else! If hygiene is a concern, which it should be, there should be assurances to the quality. Such as a seal or sufficient watchfullness of staff to make sure that such a thing doesn’t happen. I think it’s just a cultural thing. In the US the idea, the customer is always right, may just not fly here.

Hi everyone,

I recently changed the subscription app for this site, so if you get lots of emails or something today, that’s why. I had to iron out a lot of kinks in the other site (emails going to spam, never sending, not sending when I have a post scheduled, etc). Hopefully this works a lot better. I have converted everyone’s emails from the last app to this one, so no work on your part. Feel free to leave feedback below or in an email to me if things don’t work out.

Hopefully this one works much better than the last!

Happy Monday 😛

 

Yesterday I had my first encounter with Oktoberfest. It was super crowded to get there, there, and leaving there, but I figured it would be. It’s a huge tourist attraction and this past weekend was famous for being Italian Weekend, where lots of Italian people usually come up for Oktoberfest. There was a large variety of dress, those wearing traditional dress, those wearing newly and inexpensively purchased dress, and those wearing normal clothes. I was able to go into two tents, at 11am it wasn’t that full, and saw them singing drinking songs. To be clear, you could still get into tents, so it wasn’t that full, but the tables were all packed. They were lavishly decorated with a theme for specific tents. There was the “fest” part where it was mostly like a mini amusement park, or a fair where there are temporary rides. We went on the Wild Mouse, which is quite similar to other Mouse rides I encountered in the US.

All in all, it was definitely something I had to see. I don’t drink Beer because I don’t enjoy the taste, but besides that, it’s just a general atmosphere that’s nice to have experienced. And, due to the prices, you are mostly paying for that atmosphere and experience.

There’s just something so relaxing about having a calender. Knowing, or seeing perhaps, the days ahead and the day in front of you. It’s relaxing for me. It makes me feel like there’s an order, a rhythm, to my current life. It’s nice to plan things and to have a sense of where you’re going. It’s just something that’s so little, but that makes me happy.

I had some horrible sleep last night where I kept waking up thinking I would get stung by a wasp/bee. For some reason wherever I was in my dreams there were wasps. I’ve had a couple dreams where this was the case within the month. What might this mean? It’s a bit eerie. I wonder what the bee/wasp might symbolize….

There has been a lot going on this summer and a lot of studying, not really on my part, but that’s another story. But it’s now finally the time for day trips now that studying is over! I want to go so many places, but there’s not enough time for the most part. I want to go to Innsbruck, Switzerland, France, London, Italy, Croatia, so many places! I won’t get to go to all of them this time before the semester starts, for the most part it will be mostly day trips, but hopefully I can achieve all of this before I leave Europe! I think first on the list is Dachau and Innsbruck. I’ll write about those when they happen!

I think Autumn might be here! It’s been a long time coming and I’ve missed it since last year. I love autumn and winter. To me, they’re the epitome of cozy. It’s the time of hot chocolate, mittens, scarfs, snow, and boots. I love sweaters and boots and scarfs. I love seeing my breath in the morning fog in front of my face. I love carrying a cup of coco on my commute. I love boots and knee high socks. I love the feeling of wrapping myself in a sweater, of covering my face with a scarf. I love sharing mittens. There are so many things I love about autumn and winter. I am beyond excited. It’s always a bit up and down when the transition begins, some days where it’s so cold. I actually brought out my winter clothes a week or so before, but there’s been some days where it was forecasted to be warm again. But it’s slowly moving there and I am so excited. So to autumn! To snuggly nights and snow!

Yesterday I went around the city for a while, shopping, getting lunch, a haircut. It was really nice to get out for a while, around six hours, with great company. I also got a haircut! Nothing fancy or intense, just added some layers. It’s really cool how getting a haircut makes you feel a bit newer and shinier, if it goes well of course. I didn’t take any photos, but it was nice to be out of the house and engaged in the moment. I didn’t realize how late it was until later later. Living in the moment!

With the summer almost at an end (certainly the weather has been telling me this), I’ve thought a lot about how I felt this summer. This summer has been really hard for me, not only did I suffer some extreme burn out and mild depression, I felt like parts of myself and my identity were dissolving. Things I thought were essential to who I was were gone, or radically changed. It felt the same to me this summer. It took me a while to get back on my feet and find the things I thought were gone. But it felt like I didn’t know who I was, like I had to motivate myself to get up in the morning, and want things. It was so easy for me to just not want, to not change, and to just sit here. I was in a rut majorly. I thought I should snap out of this, if I can, which I couldn’t, and move forward. But I couldn’t and the more I tried to, the more I couldn’t and the deeper I sunk. So I thought, I’m just going to ride this out, let myself feel this for as long as I do. I won’t rush myself, I’ll just let it happen. And so I did. It was incredibly hard to withstand, but worthwhile. I allowed myself to process to digest on my own time schedule. I didn’t push myself to heal or change or bounce back faster and I can say I am feeling a lot better now. I was so used to pushing to keep going on despite anything, that not pushing almost brought me to a stand still. It was incredibly hard to voice and talk about and even make sense of myself, so it was really hard. There are still numerous things I get upset about that aren’t right and billions of things I still have to work out, but it’s getting better. I felt as if when I looked in the mirror it was really fuzzy and fading, almost like I was a blurred image, but slowly it’s coming into focus again. It was a period of immense emotional learning, and it’s certainly not over yet, but it’s starting to work itself out now.

I’ve been doing some experimentation lately. I know it’s nothing major, just trying out different looks and hairstyles, but for some reason it feels like something. It feels good to try new things. While it doesn’t take a whole lot of courage, it takes time and patience, it gives me hope that I’ll be able to try new things in my life here. Maybe it’s all part of a reinvention. I’ve felt, sometimes here, that I’ve been dissolving, losing parts of myself I thought were essential. It’s been really hard, I’ll do a different post on that later, but it gives me hope that slowly, little by little, change is coming. It may only be something on the surface, but maybe that’s how it will start for me, looking like I’m feeling on the inside.