Category: Life

Portland

I will be honest with you…

I have been having a hard time writing my thoughts on Portland.

One, because it is a literal shit hole (excuse my French)

Two, because the rest of Oregon is not.

Matthew and I stayed in a hotel exactly one night in downtown Portland. On the way to said hotel, I questioned Matthew on our safety. I know it may come as a shock to you, but lining the street all the way to the hotel were various tents and fire pits along the sidewalks next to boarded up, abandoned businesses.

In a sense, the only living things were living on the streets.

The next morning we took a walk to grab some coffee from a shop between the boards. Between the piles of human feces and needle-laid bushes. Behind the beautiful yet sad graffiti painted streets.

Don’t get me wrong, I think we should be doing something to help these drug addicted people. But allowing them freedom to shit and shoot up wherever they please is NOT the answer.

In one part of the city there is a parking lot full of tents that is set up JUST LIKE A NORMAL NEIGHBORHOOD… but….They literally have no laws. They pay no taxes. They have no rules.. and they have no toilets.

Portland is a giant toilet.

Why is it that they can parade around in the masses, sans face masks, while working folk in California are threatened with the turning off of water and power if they have the audacity to do such a thing?

We are SO divided.

Where is the help? Why are we relying on the politicians who line their pockets with OUR MONEY to do something about this? When all they do is turn the other cheek and let them keep on living this way.

But I’ll stop before I piss too many people off.

So…. anyway. The graffiti was unbelievable. It was BEAUTIFUL.

The city has this ominous yet gorgeous glow to it. While you walk around in the fog, slightly worried about your safety.

You can’t help but stop and stare at the intricate paintings on the wood nailed onto the expensive shops on the red brick sidewalks. You could see the damage behind the wood from all the rioting. The cracks in the windows above the barrier around the Apple store.

Portland is beautiful in a very sad way.

Needless to say, we checked out of our hotel and moved into the outskirts of Portland. Where the homeless still live in the trees but society is still moving.

We can do better.

Running in circles

The title says it all…

SIX more weeks to go now until lift off to Germany. And yesterday we crossed the biggest hurdle of all… we were finally officially approved for our visas by the German Consulate.

And let me tell you – they did not make this an easy hurdle. It felt like they kept moving it further back and we nearly fell flat on our faces.

First of all – crossing all the red tape means a ton of paperwork for the government. Lots of documents to sign, lots of ducks to put in a row.

Beyond that – they kept coming back at us and asking for things that we didn’t have to legally give them (thank the LORD for having an immigrations lawyer on our side). However, having the lawyer read them the law and correct them rubbed them the wrong way – and it showed in our meeting.

Let’s back up to Monday. As we are getting the papers printed off at home- trying to get everything they emailed us to have with us correct to a T – I notice Matthews diploma is just a printed sheet of paper. I worry that it will not be enough and that we will probably have to give them the actual diploma. Matthew isn’t worried but he emails the Consulate early in that morning about it… and no one replies.

So we take off and make the drive from Dallas to Houston.

We get in with plenty of day left and go eat a late leisurely dinner at a place called Hearsay Market Square. I got a pork chop with fried brussels and gouda mac and cheese. Delicious. If I were rating it I would give it 4.8 stars, the 0.2 is because I’ve have better pork – to be honest. But it still was really tasty.

The building itself is the second oldest in Houston and has had three fires over the years. If you look up (and I mean you really have to look UP because it is a three story high ceiling) you can see the smoke damage to the upper most bricks.

Staff was super friendly and it’s one of those places you want to work at because everyone seems to get along. What an atmosphere to make money in.

Anyway – we finish up and head back across the street to where we are staying, Hotel Icon. Now, I’m not sure how old this building is, but it is OLD. And COOL. Matthew and I secured a suite on the penthouse level (posh I know) and the room was roomy and FUNKY. There was a clawfoot bathtub in the bedroom, which I regret not using.

And the place is definitely haunted.

—___—-

The next morning at 7:23 (to be exact) Matthew, who is in the middle of a conference call, and me, who is finding a breakfast eatery place nearby when his cell phone PINGS with an email.

It’s the German Consulate.

They want the original hard copy of his diploma, no paper copies.

SHIT.

We sit dumbfounded for a second as our meeting is at 11:45, the consulate closes at noon for some reason and his diploma is four hours away in Whitney with his mom.

Of COURSE this would happen.

Matthew immediately calls his mom and we make a plan to meet halfway in Hearne, TX at the Loves gas station. It is about a 1:40 hour drive for each party.

We take off – a relatively quiet ride while I try not to think about how fast we are going or what will happen if we miss our appointment. We make it with a very quick hello and throw the diploma in the back of the car. We grab a quick coffee and hightail it back towards Houston.

Obviously you know that we make it as I specified early that we were approved for our visa. 

And we do. We make it back with 30 minutes to spare for a cup of Starbucks coffee and a bit of time to sit outside and sip before heading into the consulate.

A family with two children is ahead of us and they are all smiles and laughs and happy “good days”. It’s cute, the children have little German flags on sticks they are waving around.

Then it’s our turn.

Now I wish we had this on tape (but they make you turn off your cell phones).

We are called up to the window and are immediately told to “sit back down over there”. The lady in charge points back to the waiting room chairs. So we both sit.

“No! Just her” she says loudly and immediately turns back to her computer.

So I sit and Matthew, who not only has his diploma but I should tell you that it is still in the large frame from hanging on the wall, sits down with her.

“Place your documents in two even piles in the bin” she says to him without turning away from her computer. Not even a glance in his direction.

He pauses for a second and splits his pile of paper in half and attempts to place it evenly in the bin. Though the bin is not wide enough for two even stacks but he tries anyway.

She pulls the bin through, looks down and practically screams “I said TWO EVEN STACKS”. The bin comes back through.

Again, Matthew pauses for a second and begins rearranging the documents in to two overlapping stacks.

She pulls the bin through again “I said two even stacks, you should have two copies of everything”

—-____—-

This was not in her instructions nor was it ever mentioned to us to bring TWO copies of everything. She looks at us and decides that “It’s Fine”. A moment of weakness for her I suppose.

She begins to swiftly go through the documents and is literally throwing them in the bin without looking. She throws our wedding certificate out like it’s trash. I mean, why did they make us bring half the documents that were “required” if they weren’t even kept?

She shoves the bin back to Matthew and asks for my papers. So he places mine in the bin and again pushes it back to her.

“Where’s your wedding certificate?! Didn’t you bring it!” She practically is yelling.

I can hardly keep from rolling my eyes.

He picks it back up and hands it through to her…. without a single word.

Then like that he was approved. Bad-da-bing

After I come up and do the fingerprint scan and sign a few papers Matthew asks her about the diploma which is lying on the floor behind him.

“Oh I don’t need that one, this paper copy if fine”

I could have exploded with laughter.

As it turns out, all governments are the same. We burned a tank of gas and gave ourselves stomach ulcers for nothing.

And to make it worse, I missed breakfast and didn’t get a single decent cup of coffee. No, not even the Starbucks was good. They only had dark roast and it was burnt.

But it is done. We cleared the hurdle. Now in two weeks the visas will be in our hands and we can solely focus on the trip over.

Thanks for reading.

Until next time,

Auf Wiedersehen

Time to…. wait

It’s almost time… starting today we have seven weeks until we can fly to Germany.

The Visa’s have been “pre-approved” and we have our meeting with the German Consulate coming up on Tuesday in Houston.

The process thus far has been LONG and TEDIOUS. It seems to be a lot of hurry up and wait. And if it weren’t for this second surge of COVID we would have booked tickets out and spent the better part of November and December exploring the European countryside/looking for housing/settling in.

As it stands, we cannot go until Matthew’s start date (that’s my amazing husband). Which is Jan 1. At which time we must quarantine for a minimum of 5 days. During that time we are not allowed to leave our place of residence for anything… including walking our dogs.

OUR DOGS.

Now this has been a headache in itself. I cannot leave them here. I just can’t. I will be unable to function especially as they are older and even leaving them with my parents is out of the question. They are my babies.

However, in Munich the real estate is so desired that having a dog (let alone two) is quite a challenge. We’ve had to write motivational letters including pictures of us and the dogs to send to possible land lords (is that a PC term anymore?) as well as letters from prior landlords backing us up in the fact that I have raised two well behaved, house trained and beautiful mongrels. (Jury is still out for Pepe, however, Zucker is a gem).

Then we are tasked with flying them out. American Air and various other airlines have currently discontinued their flight program for relocating animals and no animals are to be transported on any the flights. I nearly had a breakdown at work when I read this. Luckily Lufthansa still allows animal transportation, so that is who we are planning on flying with as of today.

Then we met with a few pet relocation service providers… the average cost to ship them came out to be around 4k…. so! we are planning on doing it ourselves. We already purchased the approved kennels and have been working on the correct shots and approvals with vets and what have you… I won’t go into all the nitty gritty but just know it’s been stressful.

On top of that! I quit my job prematurely due to our original plan being us leaving this month (November). So I’ve got lots of time to do lots of things – all of which I haven’t been doing.

I spend my days working out, writing Matthew and I’s workouts, still buying and selling second hand clothes (due to COVID this has decreased substantially) and playing dress up. I practice German with Duolingo and I plan on starting language classes with Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich on Jan 7. I won’t be working when we get over there so I plan to just immerse myself in the culture and try to learn the language. Deutsch ist schwer.

For now I cross my fingers that I can go on our trip to Portland/Seattle in two weeks. The consulate meeting goes well next week. And we make it overseas with the dogs in tow with little to no more hurdles… who am I kidding, we are going to have tons to jump over.

Until my next post,

Auf Wiedersehen

I’m bbaaaccckkkk

Guess what interwebs??!?

I’m soon to be unemployed!!!

(don’t worry – I am quitting my job, I wasn’t terminated).

Why? You probably are asking yourself…. Why? In the middle of a pandemic am I quitting my job.

Well, if you haven’t read or don’t know me, my husband and I are MOVING TO GERMANY – hopefully before the end of 2020.

It’s finally happening. I can finally focus on what makes Tracie Tic. And let me tell you, there are a lot of things going on in my head.

For the past four or five years I have juggled a full time job working as a dietitian in a dialysis center, a part time job working with private clients (writing meal plans, checking in, setting goals and  giving seminars) on my weekends/scattered throughout the week, buying and selling used clothing online, attempting to start my Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) online and trying to keep up my blog. The latter two I did a horrible job of… I just couldn’t keep my motivation and I felt constantly burnt out (plus I had another surgery which put things on the back burner).

Work work work work work.

I worked on vacations. I worked after work. And then I worked some more.

However, I never worked in my sleep.

But now!

NOW I have some free time. NOW I get to focus on fun.

My plan?

I’m going to finish my YTT certification and play with that.

I’m going to learn German. I’ve already tried to start via Duolingo, however, I signed up for a German Language course for two semesters through a university in Munich. Yay school!

I’m going to continue buying, selling and wearing new clothes.

And maybe, when I am ready – dip my toes back into private nutrition consulting…. I mean I did start an LLC. But in the meantime… I’m going to blog. I am going to travel!!! I am going to move to a new country!!!!

I’ll learn a new language, new recipes, new lifestyle.

Until then…

Danke und bis spater!!!

 

Meal Prep like a pro

I personally am not a person who preps. I like to make quick meals at night and eat the leftovers for lunch or with dinner the next day.

But that doesn’t work for everyone. That doesn’t work for really really busy people. That doesn’t work for people who don’t enjoy cooking.

So instead of trying to give you tips on how to meal prep, I approached a friend of mine, a Mrs. Lauren Baxley (know to me as miss Lauren Falleur when we lived together in college) who is the MASTER of meal prepping. I have watching her posts on social media about meal prepping for a few years now. So here are meal prep tips from a master: Continue reading “Meal Prep like a pro”

Diet, Lifestyle and Anxiety

Anxiety – the mental beast many of us cannot tame.

Or we feel like we do – only for it to creep up on us later and attack us by surprise.

It may be hard to for us to admit, but anxiety is a mental health problem. And NO having some anxiety is not a bad thing – but when it becomes crippling or interferes with your life it becomes a “mental health issue”

The answer for all of us is different. Just as our minds respond to different stimuli our bodies respond differently as well. Where one person can completely overhear the ringing of a phone or the alarm clock going off another one can feel the anxiety of either one of these and are quick to make the sound stop.

So not all these points I am going to share with you today are going to be your answer.. heck.. the answer does not lie in the diet. It lies in your head. You will never get past it if you cannot control your thoughts and actions. But beyond that there are some things you can do to help lessen the severity of an anxiety attack or a period of depression.
Continue reading “Diet, Lifestyle and Anxiety”

Don’t panic – Tales of a standby flyer

Could always be worse right? At least that’s what we tell ourselves when things go south… But I was too chipper this past weekend to let anything stand in my way. 

It all started with the “storm of the century”.. insert eye-roll.  If you ask me, we always think a bad storm is the worst we’ve ever seen.. and then the “if you like our weather just wait a few minutes, it’ll change” spiel I hear in EVERY TOWN of EVERY STATE I’ve ever been to. 

Catchy, but the world is just a place of unknown and unpredictable.. Your corner of the world isn’t much different from most others corners (crazy weather wise…)… though I’ve been some places where the weather is a perfect sunny and 75 year round… it’s the people that are the reason I am not trying to move there.

Pick your poison I guess.

Okay – rant over.

Anyway – the day started off nicely. I got to the airport (on my way to a bachelorette weekend in Savannah, GA) and got a parking spot on a lower level. I get through the security check point within ten minutes and my gate is right there so I stroll on over.

The airport is slow – not many people at the gate, I find a seat, pull out my phone, check the app for standbys….

I panic.

I had been religiously checking my spot in line daily up to this moment.. I even checked my spot in line A FEW MINUTES before I drove off to the airport.

I went from 5th in line with 35 or so open seats to 50th or so and an overbooked flight by at least 20. If you’re counting – thats about 50 new people seemingly out of nowhere trying to make this flight. Of course I didn’t make it on. The storm of the century grounded or diverted over 60 airplanes the night before. So all those people dispersed onto other open flights.

Panic ensues more. I try to contact my flight attendant sister who I assumed was in Hawaii and sound asleep so I call my mom. No Answer.

My palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy…

Then Stefanie (flight attendant sister) texts me letting me know that she has landed at DFW and is about to sprint to her second gate to catch her flight to Hawaii… She jokingly invites me along as her flight has plenty of seats open.

But she calls me when she gets off the plane and talks me through it. It was such an easy process and it just put me in the best mood. I could just find a flight that was open and practically hop on.

So I catch a flight to Memphis. Have a seat assignment before I even get to the gate. Walk right on. No problem.

Land in Memphis… where there was a nice little group of us waiting to catch the next flight. Nice, friendly people and we all stood together just out of the way to watch the charades that ensued.

It started with an elderly lady and her son who just NEEDED to board that flight. Apparently she had called earlier to see if she could catch a flight a few hours before her actual flight. I’m not sure where the miscommunication came from but they gave her a standby ticket and she thought it was a guaranteed seat. After a half an hour of explanations and with her stating numerous times to “just give me someone else’s seat” and repeatedly being told that legally they cannot do that… and then her still insisting… she somehow got on that aircraft.

Whoofta.

A few flyers behind her in line was a young, wispy, straight haired, red-head being that comes marching up in these outrageous green platform shoes, torn hiking clothes and a quite large purple hiking backpack on… she scans her ticket and is told she cannot take that bag on and that it must be checked.

Arguments are really dumb when you’re sitting out watching them.

But she argues and argues and argues, saying “I always fly with this and never have to check it” and “Just let me on and I’ll show you”.

GOD FORBID she has to wait for her baggage like the rest of us peasants.

They offer to let her stick it in the size box, she won’t, they push her aside and a couple walks up… same story.. bag too big.

Suddenly the entire gate seams to be arguing (given the only people arguing was just the family, the two gate agents and the red haired alien screaming and making hand gestures while the others ignore her). Finally one agent says “fine, this is now a matter of you either check your bag or you don’t get on the flight”.

Family gives in. Runs down the runway. Alien still standing there but now shoving her bag into the size box. The bag obviously does not fit, but she is shoving and shoving chanting “yes it fits see”… the agents aren’t amused and give her the ultimatum again.

It gets dead quiet. She stares them down… they break the stare and calmly begin letting other people on. The other agent turns and prints off her baggage check ticket and turns towards her again. She finds that she has not won, she gives in with a huff a three year old would do when they don’t get their way. She takes the ticket for the bag and stomps her green platforms to the runway while flipping everyone the bird.

So I miss that flight but was sort of happy to… and the small group of us hang out until the next flight to Charlotte. (I can’t make it into Savannah so I rented a car the night before so I could tour the countryside)

The Memphis airport is small – not much to do nor much time to venture out. So I find the only really acceptable eatery on my side of the terminal, a BBQ place called “Jim Neely’s Interstate BBW”. And OMG – surprisingly delicious.

I’m pretty sure I sent my boyfriend numerous texts about how good the beans were (I hate BBQ beans) they put brisket in them. But the ribs, OH THE RIBS, those were the fall off the bone kind of ribs that even us Texans can’t perfect… and I LOVE a good rib.

Paid my dues – back to my gate. Happy and full.

The flight starts boarding… I am not so sure I’ll make this one either. No crazy riders though so I cross my fingers… plus my plans to drive across South Caroline in the daylight and to catch a little hike somewhere along the way are already gone… So I don’t mind, too much.

At this point I’d like to set the stage and tell you that all the surrounding gates are empty. No people, no agents, nothing. Just our gaggle of people pushing to get to their seat first. There are probably five standby riders… They start calling us on – I watch as they board standby flyer number one, number two, number three…. four and I look at each other. I recognize him from missing the earlier flight, we nod knowingly. They call his name…

So I’m left standing there, almost completely alone with the agent and out of no where a woman shows up with a ticket in her hand.

I am doomed.

She approaches the agent right as flyer number four disappears into the walk way and they start talking. I am not paying attention as I don’t want to hear her say she is just late.

Agent types, doesn’t look up, says “Blair”.

My heart jumps out of my chest and I take three large steps forward. I’m now one step away and before I can take that last step the agent looks up, makes eye contact with me and sternly (and little too loudly in my opinion) says “STAND BY”

OooOOoooOoohhh

That’s why they call us that. I snap to attention and take my big three steps backwards and stand there like a cadet. “MA’AM YES MA’AM”

So there I am again, trying not to panic, I didn’t sleep the night before and I’m afraid a drive at midnight would be a bad idea… while I ponder this for a few she repeats my name and tells new flyer number six “you don’t have a seat on this flight”

BUT I DO. I am giddy and I gallop down the runway as if the airplane is going to leave me there.

I get on, I’ve got the last seat in the very back right night to standby flyer number four. He smiles surprised to see me but states he is very happy to see I made it on. It was a nice flight and he was very pleasant, so I didn’t mind the cramped quarters.

Land on the tarmac – depart the plane on the tarmac, which was cool, I always feel like a celebrity when that happens. Letting my hair snap around in the wind, I always want to pause like they make the president do to take his picture.

I didn’t get to pause because I wasn’t the last one off. Next time though.

I grab my bag and march on down to the car rental building.

Things are going smoothly.

I take the elevator up to the car lot and approach the teller station. Standing there is a foreign couple who seamed to have been waiting quite some time.. they do speak English and they move aside so I can get my car.

The lady behind the counter, though pleasant and helpful to me, is rude to just about everyone else. And some man keeps popping in out of no where like Sonic the hedgehog.

As he is flying by he is telling the foreigners “no worries, your car is just now being vacuumed”. He stops once to put a piece of paper behind the couple who are faced away, walks around to the front of them says “sign this” to no one in particular and proceeds to start an argument with the lady who is helping me.

PTSD from a few hours earlier and the terminal fiasco.

This time I jet into action. I get the couples attention, point to the paper, mimic me signing a piece of paper. They look around, no pens.

I spot a bouquet of pens… you know, the ones with the flowers on the end. It’s sitting between the arguing employees. I reach through and barely grab one by its petals and pull it out… this wasn’t easy as you would think as the man was leaned through the window of the tellers box and moving almost violently with each word that was said.

The foreigners laugh, but they laugh in that way that tells me that they are not impressed with America. Scoff would probably be the better word. I want to apologize to them but at this point the lady has thrust keys into my hand and is telling me to go to stall 40.

I find the little Kia Rio. Cute. Economic. Clean. I feel good about it. I sign off and get in.

I start adjusting things… I am lead to believe a very tall very large man was driving this car before me. The seats pushed all the way back and is leaned almost as far back as it will go.

I adjust, adjust, adjust and find the leaver to pull up the seat up so it’s sitting upright.

Nothing happens.

I grab the leaver while grabbing the back of the seat and ppuuuuullllll.

Nothing.

I get out, get behind the seat (not easy as it’s leaned so far back) grab the leaver and push my body into the seat.

Notta.

I walk up to the tellers station.

Everyone is gone.

Time is wasting… so I decide to drive to Georgia in the little car practically lying down, in the dark playing all the gangster music I can find (so maybe people will think the lean back is on purpose) to make the drive more pleasurable.

I made it there and back without issue. But a lot of fun in between!

There are worse things that can happen, right?

Thanks for reading! I’ll post separate blogs about my time in Savannah, Charleston and my stop in Congaree national park soon!