VOLKSWAGEN!

I met with Professor Balmer yesterday, to get some more information on the free bus passes and trolley passes we'll get as part of our enrollment at IWU. We'll be in Germany for two whole weekends, and two half weekends. (The two half-weekends are when we are coming and leaving, respectively; those days will be taken up with airport time!) Sara and I are trying to use one of the two full weekends to see Europe outside of Germany!

So she and I met last Friday, to put our heads together and pick one city. It was hard! I wanted to go to any city in Spain, Auschwitz (in Poland), Paris (France), Austria, and possibly Rome, if things were crazy enough!

She wanted to go to Prague, in the Czech Republic. Apparently it is like one of the richest cities in the world or something? I don't know; I gotta brush up on my social studies.

Anyway, we compromised and decided to go to PARIS! I am excited!! I really want to see the Eiffel Tower, how slick would that be?!

And from what I remember from Arch 100, there are a lot of architectural landmarks and marvels to see there, like La Defense, or Notre Dame, or the Glass Pyramids, etc. We're going to try to go on our second weekend there, which turns out to be our first full weekend between the two [full weekends].

ANYWAY, while I was meeting with Balmer, we also got to talking about the stuff to do within Germany.

You know all those surveys you've taken from time to time, with wild questions that always make you think? I know I've asked this before...but they're questions like

If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?
If you could have lunch with any one person, who would it be and why?
If you could have any magical power, what would it be?
What's your favorite memory?

The one question that always pops up, and the one that I always answer the same to, is "If you could travel to anywhere in this world, where would it be?" I've always answered "Germany" and my meeting with Balmer reinforced that! World War 2 histories (I've always liked reading or researching this war on my own time), old old castles, gorgeous sprawling countrysides, the AUTOBAHN, and cars cars cars, European CARS galore!

He told me about the for-sure, SCHEDULED trip to Volkswagen we are making (there is a plant right there in Kassel, yayayayayayay!), and I exploded and marveled about how in-love with Volkswagens I am.

I went into great detail, about how I've been a car buff ever since I was two days old, when my parents came out of the hospital with me and put me in the car. As the first thing we ever did as a family together, they took me for a Sunday drive through the countryside, before going home to start our new life. (I feel asleep during that ride, but who cares! The cars just lull me, they are an instant sanctuary!) I then told him how I fell smitten to the VW New Beetles when they first came out in 1998, when I was 15: right on that cusp of getting your temps, and itching with the chicken pox to drive anything with wheels! The saga continued with the Beetle being my first car and ultimate love, and my score of a job offer from them to work for them in Detroit, MI.

He grinned and giggled like the giant stuffed elf that he looks like, and admitted that he actually has a friend in Germany that works for Volkswagen. (Oooh??) He vowed to check in with this friend, to see if he was working at the particular facility we were going to tour, to see if I could get an even more inside track to the plant, and possibly "get something personalized." (I believe those were his exact wordes!)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! I love it! My life would now be 3/5 complete, to make this pilgrimage to VW, drop like $500 (no joke, I am saving up!) on various souvenirs and apparel and trinkets, as a way of taking the Mothership back home with me to America, and also get something personalized!!! A gift from the One Up Above!

WAH, what luck a person earns from being honest and meager! I am absolutely, positively, surely, definitely, ecstatic.

In other news, you can check out the facility I will be touring here.

Big smiles to go ALL around!