As a young hamster bred on the West Coast of Florida, I learned early and often to curse the oppressive sun.

Not only did it greet you, it stole your joy with it’s glaring beams and then zapped your eyesight and then burnt your epidermis and then turned your soul into soiled cardboard.

OK so the sun and the humidity were kissing cousins killin’ dat oppression game, but I tell you, it was the sun we cursed at 1pm PE just after lunch in 99 degree heat in our Wharton Wildcat uniforms which were shorts sewn out of canvas. Seriously, the shorts brand was “Dali’s Scraps.”

But today when I, self-commendably, awoke at a decent hour, I noticed a bright orb in the distance that could only be one thing: that old dirty bastard taking a nap since I got to Germany decided to make an appearance.

Immediately a cheesy Starbucks song played on repeat in my mind: one of those inane Jack Johnson’s or one-hit-wonders by bands with names like ‘Leah and the Toothpick.’

And immediately I was warmed with a sunshine that nearly righted 9th grade PE. The sun!! The people bopped below the window, sans umbrellas, and though they wore jackets, I imposed a happy mood on them and they danced with smiley faces plastered to their hair, from my birds’ eye perch.

I’m at Starbucks waiting for Nobie. She had a job interview this morning! Wahoo!! My thought is that it went way longer than she expected, which is fine because I need to catch up on SNL.

Last night, my couchsurfing host Frank S got home from work travel and greeted me in my half-sleep. He confirmed my departure time for today and “let me go back to sleep.”

What followed was 3 hours of pillow/blanket/body rotation. Jet-lag/life-lag taking it’s toll on my sleep, per usual.

I slept in yesterday (until 3pm, which is embarrassing) but the night before involved an unending soundtrack of carousing drunks on the sidewalk below the window. But it did sound like they were standing outside the window screaming on the glass when they starting singing a German fight song, in repertoire with the same German fight song, unending. Eventually I found the fortuitous ear buds gifted to me by Delta Air Lines. Quiet buds, they did help even though I lost one mid-sleep. I awoke to an impenetrable gray canvas for a sky, piercing through all 6 bay windows like a sad, sad forecast. Then at 4am they started setting up the fischmarkt down below, which consisted of loud booths that sell..fisch? I wouldn’t know, I woke up and peered out of one of my six windows and saw the tents, they looked almost as glorious as my eyelids.

So at 3:45pm I reemerged and got on the subway heading to nowhere. I was just glad to be out of bed and walking around in the rain. Manny texted me to turn around so I hoped that no subway officiant would come check on my ticket. I made it out drama free and drank a beer at the table.

Nobie, Manny and I wandered through the Reeperbahn (it’s the red light district of Hamburg, ridiculous, entertaining, and also sobering..) We passed a ‘condomerie’ which legitimately sold condoms, and plush condoms for.. couch pillows?

So I headed home, ate an entirely mostly baked pizza and went to sleep, waking up to greet my host at his return home and proceeded to toss and turn as previously mentioned.

I awake today to sun like I’ve never felt it and make it to Starbucks (a 32 minute walk and yes it’s the closest one) and a sign declares to me that the reward for work is life, “and isn’t that enough?” and I wanted to say to that quote- well let’s ask the Germans who are slowly killing themselves in a cloud of cigarette smoke or myself who eats too much peanut butter on the regular. We’re clearly compensating for SOMETHING.

By the time I get to Starbucks, I re-message our AirBnb host for November who responds that she is moving to Berlin ASAP and has to cancel our reservation. And my heart plummets.

I worry how to tell Nobie and how we will find another place at this time. It’s just a small bump. I tell her that I may not stay here much longer because I cannot live without sun. She understands and I start searching for English teaching jobs in other parts of the world.

I don’t really know where I’ll go next. But I feel more homeless than usual (though, there is no such thing as MORE or LESS homeless. ‘Less’ is in the word).

You win sun, you lose some.

As my sistahs in Atlanta say, Keep it moving, and as Jack Kerouac says “The Road is Life.”