The Saga of Mein Zimmer...

It begins quite simply.  There were a few unidentified bites that appeared on my hands and feet one morning in September.  I IMMEDIATELY thought it was bedbugs, but upon a small, informal, conference with a professor, I was informed that it was more likely to be mosquitoes instead, and as I was sleeping with my window wide open, it was very likely that that was the case.  So, I started closing my window at night and the number of bites diminished, for a bit.  So, life went on, regular classes started and things were as they were supposed to be.  Or so I thought.

Then, one fateful morning, I woke up with a bug literally inches away from my face on my pillow.  Somehow I had the foresight to NOT squish it, but instead capture and drown it.  I was able to keep this specimen and then compare to pictures on the internet and realize that I did, in fact, have bedbugs.  This made me QUITE upset.  I had a LOT of trips that I was going to be going on shortly, and who knew where the buggies were living!  So, in a mental frenzy, I went to the Hausmeister.  And he wasn't in.  It took me a week to finally get a hold of him and explain the problem.  He said he would call in an exterminator to look around and see what could be done.  It took him until Monday (the 2nd of NOVEMBER) to finally call and have an appointment set up with the exterminator.

On Tuesday, November 3rd, while I was cooking dinner, Herr Kiefer, the owner of the building, and the only “Hausmeister” that I had had to deal with (minus the “German Pirate” that I encountered on the first day of my life at Kepler) came to the kitchen where I was cooking and informed me that the exterminator had found bedbugs and needed to fumigate the room immediately.  As in, tomorrow.  Which meant that I had to move rooms, as mine would be taped off for two days.  But, I was only allowed to bring necessary items and NO clothing.  This little adventure led to me borrowing two of Bank's shirts and washing my underthings in the sink every night before I went to bed.  Talk about “roughing it.”   However, I was able to take my laptop and books for school, which was a relief.

On Friday, I was told that by Saturday morning I would be able to get back into my room and start cleaning everything.  I would have to wash absolutely EVERYTHING to rid it of the residue fumigation and make sure that there were no leftover buggies.  On the bright side, Herr Kiefer was going to let me do that for free.

So, here I am, doing laundry, moving back into my newly fumigated room, and getting the icky recently-fumigated smell out of everything that I own.  Including my yarn...  Poor yarn... But it's ok, because now I am fully sure that it is BUG FREE!!!

That's one of the reasons why I've been relatively quiet lately, I didn't want to scare people about the buggies especially when I was just waiting for Herr Kiefer to get back to me.

In other news: I'm going to Portugal on Thursday!!!! Our flight leaves Karlsruhe airport at 10:30am and we'll arrive in Porto around 12:45pm.  We'll be there for two nights and come back REALLY EARLY on Saturday morning.  We booked the flight and the hostel for less than 25€ combined.  Talk about a deal!!!  Though, due to the Portugal trip, we'll be missing one of the biggest parties of the year... But I think it's totally worth it, considering that the round-trip ticket to Porto, Portugal costs about the same as the entrance fee to the party... =D

I'm SO incredibly excited about this adventure.  It's going to be a blast, I can just tell.  =D

Pictures will, of course,  be taken and uploaded here as soon as the adventure is complete.  =D

Love and (bug-free!) hugs!!