Not kidding anymore.

You know, I was always half joking when I would talk about how much I hated Baltimore. Apparently the Gods of Baltimore can't take a joke, though, and I have now moved from a general sort of tolerable dislike to full blown loathing.

Last Thursday, the 30th, I was packing to move out of Baltimore and RHHP forever, which I was pretty excited about. "Oh boy!" I thought as I put things into boxes, "I'm ready to move on. Sure, Belgrade is another economically depressed city with a lot of violence, but I'm sure it will be great!" Later I thought, "Gee, I wonder my stomach hurts! Oh well, haha! I'm sure it's fine!". About an hour after that I thought, "WOW! My intense stomach pain now has a friend, Sharp Stabbing Pain in my Side! OW!". At this point I had stopped packing and was, instead, lying on the floor crying. I called our local program coordinator and couldn't get a hold of her, and I called my housemate who had the credit card (which is also our only form of health insurance) and couldn't get a hold of HER. I lay on the floor and cried for a while more, and then started throwing up. The intense stomach pain plus the sensation of being stabbed in the side with a dull, rusty knife, plus the vomiting didn't seem like a great combination, so I did what any self-respecting 23 year old college graduate pretending to be an adult would do: I called my mom. Then I called another housemate and asked if she could leave work to take me to the er, which she did (THANKS, ANNA!).

Long story short, I was admitted to the hospital for three days for kidney stones- IN BOTH KIDNEYS- and a badly infected left kidney. It was a pretty miserable few days, as I'm sure you can imagine, although I'm fine now. The cause? Stress. Everyone knew I hated my job and had a tough time with some of my housemates and hated my neighborhood, but even I didn't know I was so unhappy and dealing so poorly with the stress that I would actually get sick from it. Quite frankly, next time I get sick from stress I would prefer a cold to calcium deposits in my organs, but no one asked.

I eventually was released and got to go back to my parents' house for a few days to prepare for Serbia. I didn't want my last memories of Baltimore to be of being in intense pain, though, so last night I went to finish cleaning my room and to say goodbye to some friends. We had a great evening, it was wonderful to be able to spend one last night with the people who made the year tolerable (and even good at several points) and I was quite satisfied with the experience. I was pleased to be able to leave the city- and the country- on a good note.

And then I got a parking ticket.

Kind of irritating, kind of hilarious, but mostly just a fitting way to end this year. I'm ready for new challenges. I promise you, though, if there is an ice cream truck in Belgrade that drives around at 11:00 PM playing Christmas songs and selling crack, I am moving back to Vienna so fast you won't even get a souvenir.