My day

Today was a pretty average day. I spent most of the day finding things to do, which is okay. I have adapted to this schedule anyway. 

The kitchen and I had a fight since I have to cook for myself here. Eventually, the end result was a nice spaghetti meal and the stove and cabinets covered in tomato sauce. The tomato sauce splattered out of the pot since I couldn't read the German instructions and followed the pictures. Okay, okay, the point is.. the food was edible.


I also finally finished plotting my comic novel. This thing has been my baby for a while now and I am finally pushing myself really hard to work on it. Its a big accomplishment that the plotting is done. Now, the next part is writing the script for it out which will be much easier now that I know where the story is going. :)

My room is also clean. This is a really big deal. Its been a wreck for about a month. The problem is that my room used to be a storage room.. in other words.. its really small. So when its messy its like living in a dirty closet.. Which is about right since my room is the size of a luxury walk in closet. My room is also right by the stairs. There are about 5 floors in the building I am in and all the residents use the stairs that my room is just off of. Since my room is small and there is no air conditioning I usually open up the window and my door to let air flow in. It freshens things up. Sometimes people walk down the stairs and see me in my tiny room and awkwardly say hi. It amuses me. Tonight I had my door and window open but my light off so bugs wouldn't get in my room. I am sure people think its strange to see me sitting in my room in the dark. When you live in a luxury walk in closet you have to make do..


After the great clean up I went for my bike ride. I can easily bike ride into the city if I want. I can also cross the Rhine River or go to the city park. Today I went to the park and watched all the random animals there. There are wild parakeets in the Stadtpark. They are called Rose-ringed parakeets. That's what I found researching them online anyways. They look a bit like a love bird. Its interesting that they are free or "feral" birds. They can somehow survive the winter in Mainz. Further research states that they are a "least concern" when it comes to endangered species. aka.. a pest. This is why I like them a lot. 
There are also about 8 flamingos in the park. They live in a water fountain. They like to "beep". When they first saw me they were all "beeping" at each other. I beeped back. There was one flamingo that was a foot shorter than the rest so I figured it was the baby. It had all its feathers, but its beak was almost black. There were some goats and they were all fighting. I kept hearing their horns clacking together. They were all having pecking order fights and I was surprised they didn't hurt each other. The sometimes stood on their hind legs and brought their head down on their opponents so they had more momentum. One of them was probably a teenager because it kept starting all the fights but it also lost all of them too. There are a lot of gardens in Stadtpark. One is full of roses of many colors. Yellow, pink, red, coral. They are all interesting. Some have trellises to climb up. 


Finally on the way home I stopped on my favorite bridge. It is one for walkers, bikes and trains. The sunset today was cloudy. The sun seemed to set early for here today. It can set at 10:30 but it set at 10:00. Summer days are very long in Germany. The clouds were big a deep purple. Behind the clouds was the gold, yellow, and peach colors of the sky. Below the clouds was the city sky line and the distant shape of mountains. The city sky line is one of my favorites. It is made up of a beautiful arched bridge with the Rhine shining silver, gold and green underneath. The buildings are old churches. My favorite, and the most famous, is the Dome (or cathedral). It looks like a castle with about six towers. The biggest central tower is being reconstructed so the top looks like half metal grid and half tower. The towers are all pointed and rose colored. I have mixed nostalgic feelings about the Dome. Its rose color reminds me of a children's series I used to read called Redwall. The animals in the book lived in a rose colored abbey. At night the lighting of the Dome reminds me of the Hogwarts castle.. so I have irreverently nicknamed it Hogwarts. There are also other old churches with softer outlines that make up the sky line. They have tops that look more like Jasmine's castle from Aladdin. I like them all.