13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson - Book Review

Ginny in 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson has the adventure that I probably need. She receives a package of letters from her dead aunt encouraging her to follow instructions blindly. She travels across Europe on her own and grows into a different person.

I've been to most of the places she went, and it was like a trip down memory lane. I was surprised at her bravery but also the lack of being told that she was a brave person. Maureen showed me the bravery instead of knocking me on the head with it like some sort of Latin lecture I'd be too stupid to understand.

 
I was frustrated and confused by it being written in third person. Every time I read a letter and it went back to the narrative, I had to remind myself that Ginny was not the narrator. It was unsettling and threw me out of the story a few times.

This book is old enough that I think I can talk about it without spoiling suprises, but if you haven't read it, please stop here.

I absolutely could not believe that the final letter was lost. There had to be a way for her to find it. Or the thief was going to mail it to her somehow. She was a good tourist and had written her address in the backpack in case it got lost and she would return home to find the letter waiting for her. It couldn't be lost! But, alas, it was.

I'm usually ok when a character dies, but the fact that she didn't get to read the last letter was the most morbid, disgusting death of a character I have ever felt. It might just have to do with the fact that I personally hate losing things, but it could also be that I really felt the death of her aunt at that moment.

I wish someone would compel me to travel on my own and find myself. I need a good dose of being completely alone and helpless.

Mein Armes Auto - My Poor Car

To continue the adventure...

We drove to Heilbronn to get a part for the Porsche on Friday night. It's about a half-an-hour away. Sad thing was, when we got there and looked at the distributor cap, it looked the same as the one we had only cleaner. So we were 98% sure it wouldn't fix the car. We went to Ikea. Put it on the car. No luck.

So we shopped for a few other things we needed, and we filled up the van we had driven so we didn't have to come back to Ikea more than once. On the up side, we have furniture now! On the down side, we called a tow truck. But it gets worse from there.

The car was in the parking garage, and tow trucks don't fit in parking garages. So with me steering, and making car noises, and Albert pushing we rolled through the garage. Thank God their exit is a big curly cue thing that I could just coast down. We got down to the outdoor parking lot and a nice German guy thought he could help us. I tried to explain that we knew what was wrong, but he didn't speak a lick of English and I don't speak car in German. He checked it out, asked if we had called for a tow, and we said thanks very much.

The tow truck got the car and followed us home. But our street is tiny. So they stopped at the beginning and took the car off. Another plus, it was cheap! Even cheaper than getting a locksmith to let us into our apartment. But then we had to push the car down our road. Which is ok, except it dips down and then has a slight incline for like 100 feet before our garage. Our neighbors have a driveway that is up, ours is down. Gotta keep looking at the positive here. We finally got it up to the garage and in, it's a tad crooked but that's ok.

Then, our poor muscles had to deal with a little more because we needed to unload the furniture. But we have furniture now! And I can unpack our suitcases!

We were sorely wishing for a hot tub that night. But the car is home and everything is settled. And I have furniture!

Adventures in Deutschland

I'm going to have to write a book about our disastrous adventures here in Germany. Last night, we went shopping at Ikea. We had a lot of stuff and piled it all into our Porsche. Then, Albert turned the key, the car started, and died. We ended up closing Ikea, so there was no one around, and even if there was they couldn't help. The rotor cap is broken, the engine wasn't getting any spark.

Luckily, there was a cart man nearby and I asked him in German if we could leave our broken car there overnight. He said it should be fine, but I needed to go speak with security. Another stroke of luck, a security guard happened to be walking by. He didn't speak English either so I asked again in German if it was ok to leave the car, we would come back in the morning. He said it was fine. I thought I had stretched my German enough for one night, but it doesn't stop there.

Thanks to my friend for checking on the internet where the nearest train was, we walked to the S-Bahn and were two minutes late for the train. We had to wait a half-an-hour for the next one on a very cold night. The only trains that go directly to our apartment are U-Bahns, so we took the S-Bahn to a main train station, Bahnhof. But, our luck had ended there. The U-Bahns and buses were on strike yesterday. No U-Bahns to ride home and it was way too far to walk. There's a hotel nearby with a taxi line, we caught a taxi.

I have really been wanting to practice my German, so I had a conversation with the driver. I asked him if he had made a lot of money that day because of the strike. He said he had only had time all day for one cigarette. But then he said, "Geld ist nicht alles im Leben." "Money isn't everything in life." I agreed.

We finally reached the apartment two hours after leaving Ikea. It was quite the adventure. And I'm so excited that I was able to carry on a small conversation.

Albert is working on finding parts and going back to the car today. Hopefully it's just the spark and not something else, and hopefully we don't have to have it towed.