This Christmas

I know, I know...some of you are looking at the title of this post and yelling because you think it's entirely too early to be writing a post about Christmas. Keep in mind though, the official Christmas music season (according to Miriam and myself) kicks off in exactly 19 days. Yes, you heard correctly! On October 1st, I will play an assortment of my Christmas favorites, just because I can. But that's totally not what this post is about!

Anyone who knows me knows that I.love.Christmas. Last year, I bought the very first Christmas tree from Lowes. In fact, it didn't have the price tag on it, and they were still unloading half of the shipment from the truck. If you look in our spare closet and wonder what could possibly be in the 6 blue rubbermaid tubs, I'll give you one guess! Yep, they're full of Christmas decorations! 6 tubs, huh? And we live in a 1100 square foot apartment. I love walking through stores and hotel lobbies and houses decorated for the season. There's just something magical and wonderful about Christmas. But my favorite part has always been the Christmas Eve church service. I love walking through the cold into a warm church to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

This year, I am especially excited about Christmas because Charlie and I will be spending it in GERMANY! This has been a dream for Charlie and I to visit. His mom's family is from Germany, so he has always wanted to visit the "vaterland." I, of course, am drawn to the castles, cuckoo clocks, chocolate cake, and Christmas decorations!!!! (Wow...I just noticed my incredible use of alliteration in that last sentence!) It is so exciting for us to finally be able to travel to a place that we have yearned to see for so long, and at Christmas, nonetheless. Does it really get any better than that?!?

I thought I would give you a little taste of some of the must-see-because-I-have-dreamed-about-this-for-years sights:

Neuschwanstein Castle, which will hopefully be covered in snow!

The largest cuckoo clock in the world in Triberg

The Kristkindlmarkt in Munich

My mom is the greatest. I told her last week that we would be gone over Christmas, and she was so excited for us, even though we wouldn't be with the family. When Charlie and I went to their house last weekend, we had an early Christmas present waiting for us. Mom had bought me a German Christmas carousel after Christmas last year, and she was intending to give it to me for Christmas this year. I brought it home and decided that I would keep it out until we left for our adventure! I couldn't get a very good picture of mine, but it looks something like this:

This is a traditional German Christmas decoration that is powered from the heat of the candles. Just like cuckoo clocks, they can be simple or VERY elaborate:

We are also planning on doing a little passport stamping by doing a quick drive through Austria, Italy, Liechenstein, Switzerland, and France. I am furiously devouring Rick Steve's travel guide as we plan and plot our adventure. I still can't believe that we're actually going! So now that I've rambled long enough, gute Nacht!

Crime Blotter

Fridays at school are my earliest mornings. I have anatomy lab at 7:30 a.m., so I'm on my way about 6:15. Nonetheless, it's pretty quiet on the PT Penthouse (that's the 7th floor of Kell, for those of you none-DPT people). Yesterday morning, I arrived exceptionally early and found myself in the lounge with the GSU paper. I was flipping through and happened upon the CrimeBlotter. It chronicled the incidents from the week of August 21st. Mind you, it's a whole page of various incidents for just ONE week. As I read, I discovered 2 recuring themes. People are stupid. And people are mean.

Here's a quick recount of this week's events/incidences/violations of moral standards:

2 cases of students noticing various items were missing from their wallets.

2 criminal trespassing charges (apparently you can't be in GSU buildings if you're not a student).

3 cases of students locking their bikes and returning to find them missing.

1 girl left her cell phone unattended for 2 hours and was surprised to find it missing when she returned.

1 girl dropped her Crackberry over a rail and it was gone when she went down to get it. I don't know how it survived the fall.

1 man arrested for sleeping in a car that wasn't his. He broke the window to get in.

1 girl reported that someone entered the bathroom and took a picture of her in the stall.

1 idiot left his backpack and books unattended in the library. They too disappeared while he was gone.

1 well-intending individual had his wallet snatched when he took it out to give money to a panhandler.

And the icing on the cake (I must quote this one)
A non-Georgia State individual was charged with Theft. The individual placed a laptop computer in his pants and left the University Bookstore. Officers apprehended the man after a brief foot chase ensued [because everyone knows you can't run very well with a computer in your pants].

For the sake of brevity, I left out the individuals impeding traffic, selling alcohol to minors, dealing drugs, possessing drugs, harrasing students, and vandalizing cars, which accounted for a total of 13 incidents. :-)

And that, my friends, is why you don't leave your stuff lying around, carry pink pepper spray, walk with friends, and don't buy drugs. Duh. Be smart. The end.