Yup, finals are over. My late German homework is done and turned in. All of my big packing and hauling of heavy trunks up four high fucking flights of stairs to summer storage is done. Tomorrow, at last, I leave Minnesota for home—Portland. The train heads out at 23.15.
God, do we have an ugly train station here in the Twin Cities. It's a 1970's monstrosity located in the middle of a dull industrial area halfway between Minneapolis and St. Paul. It's depressing. I'm used to the beautiful Union Station in Portland, made of brick, very well maintained, with clock tower and a large, echoey cavernous lobby. It shall be a treat when I arrive there.
35 hours on the train. Yeah, it's a long time. I leave Sunday night, as I said, and arrive in Portland at 10 in the morning on Tuesday. And I don't have a sleeper—too expensive. So I get to sleep half-reclined in coach. Ah well, the scenery of western Montana makes the whole ride worth it. Eastern Montana, on the other hand, is so dull that a few more hours of it than you get on the train would drive the best of us to desperate suicide. Better not take a razor.
Today I woke up at 13.00, after being up late on my last Friday night here. Dragged myself out of bed, browsed E2 a bit, then found the energy to finally finish my German workbook. I headed over to the Humanities building and turned it in. Bumbled around, ate some dinner.
Then the fun began.
Ahh, packing. Hard not to love it. Seriously. Sure, yeah, it's a big fucking hassle and involves discovering just how much crap fills your closets. But the whole time you feel productive—everything goes in a box or the trash can. The little victories of proper arrangement of books in a box so they fit just right, the marvelous feeling you get when you finish disassembling some shelves and putting all their little parts in a ziploc bag—it's magic!
But then, alas, you have to put the boxes and trunks into storage.
I'm going to live in the German House next year rather than the dorms. It's a real house, and you speak German all the time. It has a real kitchen, and you eat communal meals often. I get a single. It's gonna rock. It's also halfway across campus. And... it has no secure storage. So where do I put it? In the attic of Wallace Hall. Up four flights of stairs. Without an elevator. Damn, was that fun.
Sarah helped me carry my shit into storage, and I helped her carry her shit into storage. Made things a lot easier. Afterwards we headed to the Grille and chatted over onion rings and Coke.