bloggery

Bye Bye Blogger, Blogger Bye Bye

2008-06-18T20:23:00.003+02:00

Just to keep you all on your toes, I am moving.
My new cyber residence is http://meinaphase.wordpress.com.
Please update all links and memories.

Rügen

2008-06-03T21:56:00.004+02:00

A last minute decision and before I knew it I was driving a Smart car up the A20 Autobahn, Richtung Rügen. I had been wanted to pay a visit to the German island in the Baltic Sea for a while and so we took the plunge and treated ourselves to a weekend break. Beautiful beaches, forests and cliffs and a gorgeous laid-back holiday atmosphere. The perfect weekend retreat and one that we hope to return to.

Norway should have won!!!

2008-05-25T10:48:00.002+02:00

Another Eurovision scandal.
And to all those Britons who voted for Latvia: you should be ashamed of yourselves!!!
Check out the best song of the night here. What a tune!

Dance then, wherever you may be...

2008-04-19T13:09:00.002+02:00

I have just started listening to Stephen Fry's podgram and I must say, my journey to work has never been so enjoyable. There have only been three so far but already I am eager for more. In his second podgram he discusses his allergy to dancing. It is a rant and rave that had me smiling on the tram, smiling over Lola's bridge, and smiling as I entered the office - no mean feat. Of the song that we all sang our hearts out to in school, "Lord of the Dance", he says: "If ever a song were guaranteed to create a generation of atheists and non-dancers it is that one." The lyrics, in case you are not familiar with this classic piece of Christian songwriting go:

Dance then, wherever you may be
For I am the Lord of the dance said he
And I'll lead you all wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the dance said he

I have an image in my head of the whole of Heslington Primary School sitting in assembly, singing Lord of the Dance. I can even see myself being swept up in the fun of it all. How it makes me smile!!!

I listened to the podgram a second time with Ragil - it was too good not to share - and, just a few hours later, headed out to Quasimodo jazz bar for a concert by the South American Pescadores de Ventanas. It was a great venue, a great band and a great gig and by the end of the night everyone was dancing.

I have had issues with dancing in the past and can fully empathise with Stephen when he talks about standing in a disco/dance hall and just wanting to get out. Sometimes I watch other people dance and feel so distance from them and from the whole atmosphere that I want nothing more than to disappear into the wallpaper. I have, however, come to realise that with me it is often a confidence issue too and I have acted on this reasoning to see dancing as a way to just let go and, for a few moments, to forget about everyone else. If I am in the right mood I find it can actually be quite liberating and if I am in the wrong mood, then I know I just shouldn't even try.

Post script:
Plans for the summer? In my head there is no longer a "summer holiday". My current employers are kind enough to offer me a whopping 20 days holiday a year, somewhat limiting my options. But I am looking forward to the flowers blooming, the birds singing, the lawn mowers rumbling, and sitting in the park every afternoon after work with a good book and my showerproof sun hat :) Berlin is supposed to be an amazing place to be during the summer months and that is enough for me at the moment. My life is such that it could suddenly take a big turn, so making plans seems somewhat nonsensical at the moment. A nice roundabout answer to a straightforward question. The simple answer reads: at the moment, no plans.

Reblog

2008-04-17T19:30:00.002+02:00

I have been inspired to reblog by Bec who has managed to recover "Life According To..." from some blogger abyss and is now, much to my delight, posting regularly. I have narcissism issues with blogging and they have prevented me from writing meaningless posts about my seemingly meaningless life for a while. However, I love to write and this seems like a good place to do it, even if it means making my thoughts and my life reading material for everyone who bothers to read. I have to somehow convince myself that I am not doing this for my ego, rather for fun, for writing practice and for lots of other altruistic reasons :)

The sky was blue today...

2008-02-15T21:04:00.002+01:00

The sky was blue today
My fingers too today
And what did I do today?
I sat in an office and typed,
Oh yay.

Seriously though, what a lovely day. Clear blue skies, full-on winter sunshine and my first spot of blossom for 2008. Lovely.
I also had my first "knitting with Nafisa" sesh, in a cafe near the Mauerpark that was just full of young children. It felt a bit like we had gatecrashed a creche, armed only with knitting needles. We managed to survive the ordeal and by the time we left the place had emptied. Even the staff had disappeared... It's a funny place this Berlin. But I am growing to love it.

Photologgery Update

2007-11-30T22:32:00.000+01:00

Our pictures from Bali are now on Photologgery. Hope they are worth the wait!

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia waved at me...

2007-11-10T11:45:00.001+01:00

I am not a stranger to brushing shoulders with celebrities. Why, off the top of my head I can recall the time Lulu personally wished me a happy 22nd birthday; sitting in a cafe in Bristol and watching Jeremy Paxman, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh walk across the road in front of me and enter the university building opposite; Sven from Berlin Berlin standing just a few yards away from me in the Sony Centre; and, one of my highlights, the time Hunter from Gladiators leaned over me in Tescos. Foreign Heads of State have, admittedly, been a little thin on the ground, until now that is.

On Thursday 8th November, Ragil and myself were enjoying a celebratory day off (2 years to the day). We had wandered through Berlin's humungous Tiergarten park and were heading to Friedrichstrasse via Berlin's main tourist street, Unter den Linden. As we approached the street we saw swarms of police, standing, sitting on motorbikes, sitting in cars; crowds of people gathering; and, in front of the Hotel Adlon (of Michael Jackson dangling baby fame) lots of black Mercedes and, interestingly, one black Audi. After some good detective work, we deduced that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was the cause of the kafuffle. We joined the waiting crowds and soon saw action: lots of Arabs sporting tasteful pink headwear and then, the King himself, wearing a gold tunic and a white headscarf. He got into his car and then the convoy set off. We were less than 2 metres from his car as he drove past and were pleased to see him acknowledge our presence with a "Queen-style" wave.

An hour or so later, after we had discovered what is possibly my new favourite shop in the whole of Germany (cds, dvds and ENGLISH books galore!) we happened to walk past the town hall on our way to our tram stop. What should we find, but King Abdullah and his gang leaving the building. I had been a little disappointed by the lack of protest at our first meeting with the Saudi and I was equally disappointed this time, although some people had made an effort: 20 or so protesters stood 100 metres from the building with banners and a megaphone chanting "Wahabiism is terrorism" and "Saudi Arabia is the source of terrorism". Old Abdullah and his crew were however separated from the protesters by a great expanse of space, a crowd of people wanting to see royalty, a road lined with cars and then lots of steps, so I doubt it got through. He seemed quite happy as he acknowledged the crowds and didn't look like he was at all bothered by the fact that he is a man greatly criticised for the human rights in his country (a place where women are not allowed passports or to leave their house without male accompaniment) and charged, by the 20 or so protestors, of being head of a state that is the source of terrorism. But, I suppose, in his world none of that matters. He has over 30 wives, over 35 children and, when he dies, he will die safe in the knowledge that 40 virgins will be waiting to greet him in his heaven. Really, it isn't surprising that he had a smile on his face...

2007-11-09T18:10:00.000+01:00

It's not that my mind has become closed, this blog's neglect is more due to the fact that I now spend most of my weekdays sitting in front of a computer and it is called work, so doing the same thing when I come home on an evening has lost its appeal somewhat.

Lots of things have changed since the last post. Myself and Ragil now live in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Prenzlauer Berg is one of the 'hip' districts with lots of nice restaurants, cafes and places to go out. It is also full of young families with prams and toddlers galore. Our flat is larger than our last one and we are slowly buying furniture and decorating it to our taste. Its location is truly excellent. Very quiet, in a safe area, loads of tasty looking restaurants just round the corner and the very large Volkspark Friedrichshain at the end of the street. It is very different to living in Fulda but we haven't looked back since our arrival in Berlin. The capital is bigger and more graffitied but it has everything Fulda had and then some.
We are taking the time to get to know our new home and visiting different areas and different sights each week. Although I had spent over 2 weeks in this city before just doing tourist stuff there is still a heck of a lot to discover and we are loving exploring the nooks and crannies of the place. We have also recently found out that the state museums are free after 6pm on Thursdays so we are planning to get a bit cultured over the weeks and months to come.

Other news: I am now a yoga practiser - or at least I try to be. Tuesday nights are yoga nights for me and Vicki, one of my British colleagues. I am not at all bendy so it is taking a bit of getting in to but as a sport that concludes its sessions with 10 minutes of lying in a dark room, under a blanket, it has a definite appeal to me.

And that is about it for now.
I don't feel like this has been a very inspiring post but at least you know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.
Hopefully the next post will be better and not such a long wait.

Love and hugs to all xx

2007-08-27T23:16:00.000+02:00

Yes yes, I have been rubbish, but I have spent the last three weeks hopping from place to place in Britain for weddings, comedy festivals, family holidays and birthday-filled bank holidays. It is just about time for a breather, good job all we have planned for tomorrow is packing. We head back to Germany on Wednesday and then it's flat finding and moving to Berlin where I will start my non-student and working life. Not sure how I will cope with the transition, I think my six years of studentdom will be hard to say goodbye to. But alas, life goes on and we must all grow up at some point (or at least pretend by working and stuff).

Along with the general excitement prompted by all those fun things we have done during our return to GB, I have started to become addicted to a new website community that I would like to share with all Bloggery's readers. The site is here or there and is a place where people who like travelling and writing about their experiences can swap stories and inspire each other with their words and photos. I am a member (lu) and have written five experiences up to now. If anyone reading this likes travelling or writing and is interested then have a look and make sure you check out my experiences and, if you do become a member, rate them too!

Righty ho, one last thing to say before I go:
Happy Birthday Mama!

Love to all, Lu

Flat Infiltrated: Update

2007-07-29T17:12:00.000+02:00

'The little [insert swearword of choice here]' as it had come to be known had upset me enough by our little cupboard tete-a-tete but it really took the biscuit when it once again jumped out on me later that day: I was in the kitchen, minding my own business, when the blighter charged across the room from one corner to the other, once again, making me jump and scream like a lunatic. As if that wasn't enough, the beast went on to keep me awake for most of the night as it banged about in OUR cupboards. I was lying in bed, too scared to go to sleep in case it decided to top our two previous rendezvous and pay a visit to the bedroom...

Understandably, I got up the next morning, wishing I hadn't been kept awake for most of the night by a pesky rodent, determined to put an end to the whole saga. Jumping out on me is bad enough, but robbing me of my sleep is a serious crime. That afternoon I headed to the supermarket to look for a humane mousetrap. Unfortunately all they had were 'traditional' mouse traps. So I bought two and headed back to the flat, feeling almost cold and calculating. Firdavs popped around at just the right moment to give me courage to open the cupboard doors and lay the traps. Gruyere cheese, bought in Geneva, was the bait of choice and it worked a treat. Just 10 minutes after we left the traps to do their stuff we heard a slightly gross bang and opened the door to find our prey caught in the trap. Impressively it had managed to eat both pieces of cheese so I guess it must have had a satisfying end. Ragil returned from work that afternoon to find the pleasant task of disposing of the body awaiting. I was left feeling like a cold-blooded murderer but despite the new, somewhat negative feelings this entailed, I felt an inner calm that had been missing since the beast first showed up...
Ah, but how cruel life is.
That should be the end of the story, but I fear someone, somewhere has been watching the whole episode and laughing, wanting nothing more than to let the drama continue. Or maybe I am just unlucky. Either way, with one mouse down our peace was only briefly restored. Yesterday we were greeted with that pleasant sound of 'mouse in flat'. No sign of the intruder, perhaps it is just the spirit of the deceased returning to haunt us, but this morning, after another sleepless night thanks to our new flatmate, we found a box in the middle of the kitchen floor and some chewed paper. No sightings of the culprit yet and no mouse traps left so we are currently at an empasse.
Let us see how the situation develops.

MAMAHons

2007-07-25T11:38:00.000+02:00

On Friday 13th July 2007 I graduated from the Hochschule Fulda with a MA in Intercultural Communication and European Studies (ICEUS). Amusingly, the letters following my name now spell Mama Hons :-) Below some photos to mark the event.

Lucy Robinson MA MA(Hons)

The flat has been infiltrated

2007-07-25T11:09:00.000+02:00

I am in shock.
This morning I experienced a, what can only be described as nightmarish, tete a tete with a mouse (or was it a rat), in OUR APARTMENT of all places. I am still shaking from the trauma.

I opened one of our kitchen cupboards and the little bugger was staring right back at me. The worst thing is, it didn't even seem scared. My fear on the other hand was quite obvious - I slammed the cupboard door let out a high-pitched "why must this happen to me?" kind of scream. Then I performed an all-over body shake, much like dogs do when they get out of water, to rid myself of any germs that might have jumped the two metres from the rodent to myself.

Too scared to be in the apartment now in case the little beast finds a way to break out of the cupboard and follow me around. Am currently taking refuge in the library, waiting for Ragil to get back from work so he can be all manly and remove the verminous creature. And if he can't manage that, to at least give me a calming 'it'll be alright' hug.

When I do get the courage to step back into my own home, I will be faced with the dilemma of dealing with the issue at hand (rather than just running away from it, which, it must be said, I am currently quite content to do):
Do we try and despose of it?
Do we just try and scare it away?
Or, do we adopt it as our pet? (thanks go to Chryssa for this storming suggestion. Of course, in my post-horrific-experience state it went down like a lead balloon. How about we package it up and give it to you as a pet?! Mwa ha ha)
Each of these options has its problems.
Killing it would make us mouse/rat (does anyone know the different between the two anyway?) murderers and would involve us purchasing evil, deathly substances, and, a lot more importantly, we would then have to deal with the mouse/rat corpse, which, quite frankly, isn't really my cup of tea.
I fear my initial reaction to seeing the beast has already seriously reduced our chances of scaring it away - I was the one that freaked out, it just sat there and nonchalantly returned my glare.
Adopting it as a pet would get over the problems of having to kill it, deal with its corpse and making it more scared of us than we are of it, but, we would then have a mouse/rat as a pet. My childhood experience with stick insects taught me a very important lesson that I am reminded of today - never keep pets that you are scared of.

I shall keep you informed of the situation as it develops.

Minibreak: Geneva

2007-07-06T15:57:00.000+02:00

It was with a twinkle in my eye and a spring in my step that I handed in my Master thesis. 100 pages and more than 3 months of reading, writing, thinking and going grey behind me. It was over.

Previous experience has taught me that such events, that seem so important when they lie in the future, actually prompt no strong emotions of any kind. When you hand in a Master thesis there is no real closure, no defining end point, you just suddenly don’t have to think about it anymore. Well, I like end points, I like closure, and I like celebrating my little victories life.

So I booked return flights to Geneva to leave on the day when I was originally going to hand in my thesis. Suddenly I had a deadline that if I missed, would have grave consequences for my own personal levels of happiness. That holiday was my reward and my last three months had definitely earned it. I am organised, some would say it is one of my strong points, and I didn’t miss my deadline, in fact I beat it and said farewell to my thesis a whole two days before I was due to take to the sky. As it happened I had to go through one day of anticlimax but that day was more than just the first day without a thesis, it was also the day I had to pack for my trip.

And so, on Friday 29th June 2007, I boarded Lufthansa flight 3666 and said goodbye to my Master thesis and smiled a very satisfied smile. My Master thesis was written, handed in and complete; my Master thesis suddenly became a thing of the past. I had the closure I desired.

Just over one hour later and I was in Geneva suddenly remembering that it really doesn’t matter how good you are at German in a French-speaking country. All of a sudden I was one of those irritating Brits abroad who just presumes that everyone will speak English and that there is absolutely no need to even bother trying to master the local tongue. Hmm. And I also realised I had forgotten my little ‘teach yourself French’ book. Oops.

Well, lucky for me, the words ‘billet’ and ‘jour’ came flooding back from the depths of my thesis-saturated head. I practised the sentence before reaching the ticket man: “deux billet du jour sil vous plait” and was feeling almost confident in my French skills. It turned out my confidence was misplaced: I got to the desk and looked at the Swiss ticket man and completely forgot the word for ticket and day, and by that point ‘sil vous plait’ wasn’t really much use. Luckily the ticket man spoke perfect English, and after trying to say my pre-prepared sentence twice and receiving only blank looks and a “day ticket?” response, I confidently said “two day tickets for Geneva, please” in my best English accent. We got the tickets and I only felt slightly embarrassed for making the man’s native tongue more difficult to understand than his second or third language.
We followed the helpful signs saying “Geneve centre” and found a train waiting on a platform, complete with sign saying where it was going – starting with Lausanne, ending with Milan. It looked like quite a big train and didn’t mention Geneva in its list of destinations. As we stood on the platform trying to decide whether or not to board the Milan-headed train, a man dressed in a blue and orange uniform, looking quite a lot like a guy that empties the bins on trains, walked by and was promptly asked whether the train in question did in fact go to Geneva. He seemed to think it did and we decided to trust his knowledge, despite the fact he really didn’t look like someone who would know or even care. Oh well, we thought, Lausanne is probably a nice place, and Milan wouldn’t be bad either…

The train rolled off with us on it and we were on our way to an unknown destination.

Lady Luck must have been smiling down upon us, or maybe we just got on the right train. Either way, just ten minutes of slightly stressful travelling later we disembarked and found ourselves in Geneva. We had arrived.
Ahead of me lay four days in which my sole aim was to have a jolly good time. Seda, my travelling buddy, was looking at three weeks of a UN conference on human rights. I know which one sounds more impressive, but I’ll save the UN conference for another occasion. My stay in Geneva, instead of being spent amongst diplomats and important international folk, was laced with whisky, wine and good food; there was beach volleyball, pedalo action and steak; sunshine, cheese and aperitifs; a daytrip to France and a night in Lausanne for more food and whisky, and even a bit of Westlife. If I were to sum it up in a few random words I guess I would say ‘sante’ and ‘bon one’ fit the bill. It was ace.

Geneva is a city of rich people, big banks and very expensive cars. But it is also the city where my good friend Ange The Whisky Ambassador resides and so for me, it doesn’t so much represent the filthy rich, as the best place to find good whisky outside of Scotland (here I mean Ange’s flat, rather than the overpriced pubs and bars of Geneva). Geneva is probably the most expensive place I have ever been to. I went to the local supermarket and my four items (a packet of crisps, some gruyere cheese, a pain au chocolat and some beef carpaccio) cost me 19 CHF, that’s about 14 Euro, although I prefer not to convert…

Despite the ridiculous cost of everything, we had large amounts of fun – the beach volleyball that we stumbled upon was free and one of those super random but also quite cool things that you sometimes get to experience in life. A bit gutted that it was women playing but just thinking of how jealous all my male friends would be when I told them got me through that minor negative. We ate some rather good steak at a cute little café in the old town and opposite us sat James Bond’s car. Unfortunately, the driver wasn’t Daniel Craig but the car looked pretty nice. We pedaloed around Lake Geneva, quite taken aback by how little effort was involved, until, halfway through our one hour, we turned around and realised that no matter how hard we pedalled the boat seemed to go backwards. I guess that had something to do with the wind or the current in the water, who knows. That evening we donned our mosquito repellent and headed out for a rather posh picnic (Geneva style) complete with red wine, lots of scrummy cheese, melon and freshly baked bread. Once we had eaten a worryingly large amount of cheese (we all dreamt well that night – I gained superpowers and had to defeat an evil Chinese man who was corrupting all my classmates) we thought it would be funny to take pictures of ourselves pulling stupid faces. As it turns out, it was rather hilarious. The next day we headed to the land of wine and awful drivers, France. On arrival in Annecy we turned into a car park to find every single car reversing. That was bizarre. Needless to say we chose to park somewhere else. Annecy was cute, lots of little streams, old buildings, smelly cheese and fairly stupid amounts of tourists. We had an aperitif and then some local cuisine and then a pretty weird cappuccino that was apparently a really strong black coffee with a bit of froth on top. Hmm. Then we walked to the lake for our second pedalo in as many days. Nice views and we made it to the car just in time for the downpour to start. Our journey back to Geneva was complete with thunderstorms and torrential rain.

Before I knew it, it was the final day and this was a day all about whisky tasting. Ange had an event in a restaurant in Lausanne so we went along in the afternoon to set up and then I sat back whilst Ange did her thing, en francais, and then we got merry on seven different whiskies and a three course meal in which each course was prepared with whisky: raw ostrich tart with Aberlour, king prawns sautéed in Scapa, and tiramisu with a 12 year old Glenlivet. All very good. Then I was introduced to the magic that is Chivas Regal 18 with dark chocolate. Seriously, trust me on this, it is amazing.

My long weekend ended with the trip from Lausanne to Geneva airport. It could have been a hungover, tired, mildly sad experience but we had Westlife on the stereo so it turned out to be a drive of loud, out of tune singing and reminiscing. A good way to end a jolly good minibreak.

2007-06-28T15:42:00.001+02:00

I've handed in my thesis.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Summer is officially here

2007-06-17T17:16:00.000+02:00

That's right. Summer is here. And it is official. And the reason? We went strawberry picking :D Unfortunately a couple of weeks premature for Wimbledon and we were too cheap to buy champagne, but the strawberries were very very good, especially the one's we ate before we left the picking fields... Just look at these beauties:

Other news. Last night we pretended to be cultured and headed to the Domplatz - the big square in front of Fulda's cathedral -for a Nacht der Poesie, or a night of poetry. And so, complete with sleeping bags and blankets, we found ourselves lying on the grass, starring up at the oversized cathedral, which was decorated with pretty lights, making it look rather like the evil bunny from Donnie Darko. Whilst in this state of relaxation, we were serenaded with some German bloke reciting German verse and sending us into a peaceful slumber. After about thirty minutes the novelty wore off and we started to feel a bit chilly, the Port helped us through though and we lived to tell the tale of our night of culture. Not sure I'd do it again. Like driving for 10 hours, having six hours sleep and then travelling by jeep up a mountain at 3am to watch the sunrise over a javanese volcano, it was one of those one off things that is good to have done but will probably not be repeated.

And to finish this summery mish-mash blog posting, news of my recent Berlin adventure. I headed up to our future home for a job interview, spent the time wandering around, admiring the main sights and then with Vicki in Friedrichshain, and then had a successful job interview which ended with a job offer. All good, means our move to Berlin is happening and we can start looking for flats in the big city :) And with that happy note I shall say farewell and until next time...

2007-06-10T16:16:00.000+02:00

My mind is still open and the thoughts are still flowing but I am suffering from the little-known disease of freenetitis. This disease has seen my ability to leave blogs or even use the internet at all disappear in a puff of smoke, leaving me feeling somewhat disconnected. Unfortunately the prognosis for freenetitis is pretty dire. All I can do is visit the library and internet cafes to minimise the pain and try and find a distraction from the suffering. My thesis is doing its best to provide some relief and my illness is, admittedly, having a very positive affect on my page count (47 and counting) but it is little consolation. Alas, it is looking like it is going to be life sans internet for the rest of our stay in Fulda. I hope Bloggery can cope...

A Night of European Oneness?

2007-05-13T18:28:00.000+02:00

The greatest Eurovision ever? Definitely the best I have ever seen. Usually it is amusing and entertaining because the songs are so bad but last night the music was of a surprisingly high standard. From Germany's swing song, to Hungary's blues to Russia's Girls Aloudesque rendition. I loved it. I was watching the event in Britain with one Eurosceptic and one ex-Eurovision lover turned cynic. My unbridled enthusiasm for the evening of European fun was somewhat outnumbered, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle and felt very happy to be European and to be able to witness such an entertaining event.

My Master thesis, which I will be starting to write soon, is all about European identity and I was wondering what Eurovision could offer on this topic. Can it be described as a night that brings Europe together? A night of true European culture? A demonstration of Europe's unity? Or is it more a case of lots of countries that happen to be quite close to each other choosing a song that may or may not represent their country (Scooch are NOT in anyway representative of Britain. I was truly embarrassed to be British last night. By far the worst song in the competition and fully deserving of the 'nul point' it would have received had it not been for the ex-colony of Malta and our darling neighbours Ireland) in the hope of beating or getting one up on their neighbours? The Eurosceptic on my sofa claimed that all those 'Eastern European' countries aren't really Europe at all. For a whole generation of Brits, ex-USSR countries apparently don't belong to their Europe. That surprised me. I'm not sure it helps the argument that Israel is also included in the Eurovision and Belarus is far more European than Israel. Probably not.

The other great controversy that accompanies Eurovision each year and that the British commentator goes on and on about is the so-called 'block voting'. This was wonderfully demonstrated by the Balkan countries - all the former Yugoslavian states voting for each other, as well as the Scandinavian countries. I actually think part of the reason the British commentator made such a big thing of it is that we get no votes from 'friendly voting' because we have two neighbours - one is Ireland, who we invaded several centuries ago and there has been a civil war there pretty much ever since; and the other is France, who everyone knows loves us about as much as we love them, which would be not very much at all. If it weren't for us having a former colony within Europe, or at least within Eurovision's definition of Europe, we would have been bottom last night. Granted, Serbia did win last night and they did get lots and lots of votes from the Balkan countries, just like Ukraine got lots of votes from ex-USSR states, but they didn't just get votes from their friends. For some reason, lots of other countries gave Serbia lots of points. Not sure why, but there you go. That is Eurovision for you.

I would like to make some meaningful conclusion about what all this means for European identity, but I'm not really sure there is one. I enjoyed Eurovision and was pleased to be European and to be a part of it. This may be to do with the fact that I live in Germany and that I have friends from various other countries represented. My two fellow Eurovision spectators certainly didn't express the same love for the event. Did it make me feel closer to other Europeans? I already feel quite European due to my living in another European country and studying with lots of people from other European countries. But for others Eurovision seemed to emphasis differences - it was all too easy for the Eurosceptic and the cynic to spend the whole time complaining about there not being enough Western European countries represented, about the rubbish songs from other countries and about the cheating during the voting. I think really it is one of those things that if you approach it with a smile, it will give you a lot back, but if you watch it determined to complain about how unfair it is that the Western European countries get no votes and the Eastern European countries all vote for themselves then you will never really get in the spirit.

So, Eurovision was a night of fun for all of Europe to share in, a night to come together and have a jolly fun time, but as a demonstration of a common European identity, of a European oneness, it has a long way to go...

2007-05-08T14:01:00.000+02:00

I am back on the island. It is a well needed break from the monotony of having nothing to do except read for my Master thesis. This monotony had been going on since my return from Indonesia, over a month without any structure, without any routine and with dwindling motivation. Back in Britain the motivation hasn't exactly come flooding back but I am appreciating the change of scenery, being back with the family and some structure, even if it is just relating to bus times into town.

Being at home also gives me time to reflect and I am subjected to opinions of people who care. It's a good time to work out what I want. Actually, being at home is simply reaffirming what I knew: that I want to stay with him, which means staying in Germany for a wee while; that I want to get a job, to become financially independent and to achieve something to be proud of; and that it could be a difficult year ahead.

I hope that in 12 months time I can look back on the year that has passed and smile.

Photologgery Update

2007-04-23T12:14:00.000+02:00

Our pictures from Java are now on Photologgery. Bali pictures will follow...

the small things

2007-04-17T14:24:00.000+02:00

I just got a free jar of strawberry jam with the margarine I bought. It made me so happy.
Just imagine if we learned to take pleasure in all sorts of little things that happen all the time, how happy we would be.
As of today, my mid-April resolution is this: learn to appreciate the small things, learn to enjoy everything, even if the sensible part of you is telling you it is not a fun experience.
Everything brings something, even if it is just a funny story about an experience you would rather not repeat, or a blog post about some free jam.

[image: me and my jam]

HAPPY FESTIVAL OF CHOCOLATE!!!

2007-04-07T15:24:00.000+02:00

Enjoy the magical, creamy, milky, dark stuff, that was sent down from heaven to save us on this day.
Lindt, Milka, Cadbury's, Mars, Galaxy; whatever your chocolate of choice, enjoy xx

Visitors of the Parental Kind

2007-03-31T12:25:00.000+02:00

The luggage arrived on Wednesday and guests arrived on Thursday. Mum and Bob popped across for four days of fun times in Fulda. And oh, it was fun :D

We met them in the big city (Frankfurt) for a day of big city life. We posed as an indie band in front of the Opera house. We went up a really high tower, which Mum hated, but we were impressed by. Bon views indeed. We found out that (almost) all restaurants in Old Sachsenhausen are seemingly shut at lunchtime, except one, which was well hidden through a garden and a long dark corridor. Quite a cute place, a bit smokey and mine and Mum’s drink of choice tasted like flat, gone off cider. Bob and Ragsy were very smug with their Binding beers. We were a bit tired after all the excitement so headed to the Zug back to Fuldatown. Ragsy whipped up a storm (and some very tasty food) in the kitchen and we all went to bed happy.

Day 2 was Fulda day and, despite the fact that it was the 23rd March, it was SNOWING. Snow everywhere. I thought we had done ingeniously well at timing our trip to Indonesia so we would miss all the soggy white stuff back in Deutschland, so imagine my dismay on waking up, the day before my birthday, and seeing everything covered in snow. Actually, I didn’t mind that much. It made Fulda look very pretty. Just look at the Dom – picture-postcard-stylee. We paid our respects to Bonifatius, the first Brit in Fulda, we trudged up the sludgy hill to Frauenberg to see another Catholic church and Fulda looking very wintry. Too much cold and white stuff so a cheeky coffee and cake at Café Palais before heading onwards to the Schlossgarten to continue our tour. In the afternoon we popped into Wiesenmühle for some of Fulda’s finest beer and then we watched the first half (as much as we could bear) of the quite atrocious Marie Antoinette. I think Bob was verging on suicidal when Mum finally suggested we stop the film…

Day 3 was MY BIRTHDAY! Mum and Bob came round bright and early for a breakfast present opening sesh (just like the old days). Lots of lovely cards and presents (thanks everyone!!!) and chocolate. Mmm. Then, the real excitement began. We headed to Europcar and took ourselves a VW Golf and headed to Marburg. What a pretty town. On a very steep hill but not a problem, cos Marburg has public lifts to take people from the bottom of the town to the top. How cool! We walked around, saw St Elisabeth’s big church (she was Hungarian and helped the poor and the sick. Saintly), me and Ragsy bought a very tasteful teapot (to brew our Indonesian tea in), we had a very quaint lunch and then, as the town clock struck 2pm, we stood in front of it and thought “24 years ago to this very hour, the world was made a better place!” Naturally, everyone was rejoicing. The very tuneful serenade from Mum, Bob and Ragil went down very well (with me, others seemed a little confused as to why they had chosen this time and this location to launch into song) and I was photographed in front of the clock to prove we got the time right :D Then we walked up a really really steep hill to the castle. A nice view. Mum was scared again, but we managed to capture her smiling (she is standing several metres from the edge), and look at the wonky church tower behind Ragil. Chesterfield eat your heart out. We returned from Marburg in one piece (good job Bob) and headed to Osteria del Mercato for some posh nosh. A very good birthday indeed.

Day 4 was the last. We went for a relaxing walk around Fulda lake and the sun almost came out. We also saw a swan, aw, go on…
Then the parentals left.
There was definitely a hole.
My thesis is trying valiantly to fill it.

Photos

2007-03-20T19:29:00.000+01:00

I started putting photos on photologgery but Ragil made the valid point that it makes little sense to have the photos of Indonesia in one place and the description in another so I am now endeavouring to put the photos in with the original posts. There is going to be some slight mismatching and terrible formatting due to the ridiculous amount of photos to go with each post but at least there will be some logic to the proceedings. Photologgery will be reserved for the very best pics.
So, to enjoy the photos, just scroll down (or go to my facebook or studivz page).

Back to life, back to reality

2007-03-18T16:45:00.000+01:00

So, we are back. Friday and Saturday were horrible days, made more horrible by the seven hours we gained travelling through the time zones. Gulf Air, who had served us so well on the outward journey, let us down big time on the return. First they cancelled our flight, meaning we had to fly with Etihad (who were actually far better) and fly via Abu Dhabi and Bahrain instead of via Muscat. In Abu Dhabi we boarded a Gulf Air plane heading to Bahrain. We sat on the plane, surrounded by coughing and spluttering people, feeling the air filling with bugs and infections, we were sat on the plane in the airport for so long that we got a full meal. After an hour the passengers travelling to Frankfurt, London and Paris were told to get off the plane. In a very last minute kind of way, we were given new tickets for a British Airways flight to London and ushered onto the very comfortable BA plane. On arrival in Heathrow we were subjected to ridiculously over the top security procedures - over the top for normal security procedures but for passengers getting onto connecting flights who have already been through security at the first airport it was just plain unnecessary. When we finally arrived in Frankfurt, 26 hours after we had left Jakarta airport, we discovered that our luggage had not made the journey with us. God knows where our stuff is. Looking on the bright side, it meant we didn't have to carry the 60 kilo on the two trains back to Fulda. But actually, it just means we don't have our clothes, our phone chargers, our toiletries, our shoes, or any of the presents that we bought. As the airport staff in Abu Dhabi appeared to not have a clue what they were doing, I would not be surprised if our bags are still tagged with the original tags sending them to Bahrain and Frankfurt, I would not be surprised if our luggage is taking the route we would have taken had we stayed on the broken plane to Bahrain. Hopefully when they arrive at Frankfurt someone will put two and two together and match the luggage with our missing baggage file from British Airways. Hopefully they will arrive in Frankfurt. We shall see.

Anyway, aside from the return journey, the trip was amazing. I wrote about Jakarta, about Yogya and about Bromo. After visiting those places we spent almost two weeks in Bali and it was the best part of the trip by far. The atmosphere was completely relaxed and totally comfortable. No stares from the locals for being the only white person within miles. No hassle from people trying to sell their goods to the gullible tourists. The reason for this is probably the sheer number of non-locals in Bali. Tourism has suffered a lot due to the 2002 bombings, meaning there is less traffic and less people around. The non-locals in Bali are mostly people who have moved to the island, a move I can fully understand. The Indonesian heat is compensated for by the sea breeze, the scenery is extremely diverse and from the beaches, to the rice fields, to the mountains, completely breath-taking. There are temples galore, monkey forests, fantastic restaurants, and so many things to buy at really cheap prices. During our stay in Bali we took a minibreak to Ubud - the cultural capital of the island complete with monkey forest, artists, silver, handicrafts, the spell-binding kacak dance and one very cool jazz cafe. The Kecak dance was completely amazing and an experience that I will never forget. From Ubud we travelled to see a temple balanced on the edge of a mountain, and not so cleverly chose to visit it on the day the remains of the Australian hurricane were passing through. Another unforgetable experience, but for quite different reasons! The temple is on a volcanic mountain that overlooks Lake Batur, again, super picturesque.

I was really sad to leave Bali and have vowed to go back soon. It is one very cool place.

2007-03-17T20:48:00.000+01:00

we made it home. our luggage didn't. so so tired.

INDONESIA, Part 2: Something in the water

2007-03-02T10:30:00.000+01:00

Well I guess I was speaking too soon when I said my stomach is coping fine with the food. 6 days of serious toilet troubles has left me feeling somewhat weak and tired, but I am soldiering on and now that we are in Bali I am hoping that my digestive system will return to normal.
So, last time I wrote we were still in Jakarta. Well, we have seen a lot and done a lot since then. Our next stop was Yogyakarta - Indonesia's cultural capital and the city where Ragil did his first degree. Our accommodation was a very nice hotel complete with outdoor swimming pool, tropical plants galore and a super relaxed feel (most welcome after stressful Jakarta). We spent 5 days in Yogya and during this time visited Borobudur (massive Buddhist temple), Prambanan (Hindu temple), a Batik museum charting the history of the Sultans of Yogya and Solo, the Sultan's palace and lots of yummy restaurants. Yogya is a student city, a city with a tourist infrastructure and sights but still very few non-Indonesians to be seen, and a city with a very cool transport system - the bejak. Bejaks are tricycles, with the cyclist sitting at the back and a mini carriage balanced on the two wheels at the front. I found travelling by bejak to be super relaxing (for me, not the driver!), peaceful and just thoroughly enjoyable.
From Yogya we took a minibreak to Mount Bromo - a very picturesque volcano in the South of Java. The drive was ridiculously long and we didn't arrive until after dark. We slept for 5 hours and then travelled by jeep across some fairly scary terrain to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise over Bromo. Once we had succeeded in giving ourselves frostbite (it is surprisingly cold that high up at that time in the morning when you are that tired, even in Indonesia) we returned to the jeep and went to the crater of Bromo. The volcano is very much active, and it gifted us with some fairly pungent sulphur gases drifting up from its crater. Apart from the smell is was a very cool experience to stand on the edge of an active volcano...
Now we are in Bali. We arrived last night, were met by Ragil's 2nd sister and her Italian husband (I've met all six siblings now) who drove us to their house and fed us a glorious meal of gnocchi and steak. Mmmmmmmmmm. We are going to be staying in Bali for about 10 days, living in Ragil's 4th sister's house. It is really amazing here, not too hot, a fresh sea breeze, a beach 5 minutes walk away, a gorgeous gorgeous house and one very cute dog. I have to say I am slightly more scared of being attacked by some tropical creature here and we had a close call last night - hearing a ridiculously loud noise that sounded like someone had broken in to the house and was stomping really loudly downstairs. After a few minutes of panic Ragil turned the light on to discover a tiny kitten cowering in the corner of the room - it had been charging at the glass doors, trying to get outside. Sounds can be deceiving! Amazing that a tiny little scared kitten could make us feel such fear! Later on in the night we were awoken again by a kitten meowing, it was also trapped inside the room. I saw the noisy culprits this morning with their mum, I guess they had been sleeping inside at night time and were caught by surprise when we arrived and shut the doors. Apart from fear-inducing kittens I have seen a frog, some turtles, big cockroaches and two huge dead fish on the beach - about 3 times the size of my sandal. Thankfully no snakes or big spiders to speak of yet, lets hope it stays that way.
Okay, that's all for now. The toilet is calling me...

INDONESIA!!!! Part 1

2007-02-21T10:11:00.000+01:00

Hellooooooooo,
We made it and we love it. The food is AMAZING, or enak as they say here. I am stuffing my face on all the local delicacies and my stomach is coping a treat, which is good news. We're in Jakarta at the mo, staying with Ragil's parents. The flooding has receded a lot, although traces remain - we passed a bunch of shelters the other day, people just sitting around waiting for their homes to dry out. There's a fair bit of mud and rubbish around too, but the pictures I saw on the internet a few weeks ago do not resemble what I am seeing at all.
I am having a really fab time. I was expecting to feel 'different' and to experience culture shock. I have been shocked by a few sights but apart from the odd stare and smiles at me, I don't notice our differences at all.
So the sights that have shocked include seeing a guy walking along with a pet monkey, the sheer vastness of Jakarta and the ridiculous traffic - the amount, the size of the roads - either ridiculously narrow, or crazily wide, with no road markings in sight. Everyone rides on mopeds here which means driving is a complete nightmare as bikes come at you from all angles. The lack of lanes on the main roads also mean that people drive pretty much however they want. It's pretty tiring being a passenger so I feel bad for Ragil when he's behind the wheel.
It is hard to describe what Jakarta is like but it is totally different to anything I have ever seen before. The density, the number of people and the size are all super large. The structure of the city is also pretty strange to me - not really much planning to be seen, or maybe that's just the way it looks to me.
I was scared of the wildlife before we arrived, but only lizards to be seen and they are fairly cute really, plus they eat mosquitos :)
We are planning on heading to Yogyakarta on friday and have just booked our flights, not with Adam Air... It's pretty cheap but fingers crossed it'll be fine. In Yogya we are staying in a hotel and I am very much looking forward to the warm shower/bath. I feel really happy here and in Ragil's house but after 4 days, I still have serious issues with the cold shower...
Erm, what else. The heat - well, it is pretty hot. About 32 degrees so nice and sweaty, but at night it's more like 20 degrees and lovely to sit outside in.
Sleeping habits - jetlag wasn't much of a problem but my sleep is still somewhat interrupted. At 4am every morning I am awoken by arabic bellowing out of the neighbourhood loud speakers, calling people to prayer. It sucks. It's like a neighbourhood alarm clock set to a ridiculous hour that it is impossible to avoid. I have usually just gotten back to sleep when the next noise starts - the bells/shouting/musical notes of the local 'takeaway service'. This is people walking the streets pushing pushcarts which are basically mini-restaurants. They offer everything from tofu to porridge to household brooms. Would be a good service if it wasn't so loud - they work from about 7am to about 11pm and every 10 mins or so between these hours you can here one go past. Anyway, enough complaining. It is all part of the parcel.
I am having a fab fab time and the irritating nighttime noises are but a small price to pay.
Ok, time to say farewell. Hope everyone is well. You can stop worrying about me now, cos it is ACE.
Hugs xx

Media Control

2007-02-14T13:31:00.000+01:00

I just read on the BBC that Anita Roddick (inspirational founder of the Body Shop) has Hepatitis C. Here official comment is: "I have Hepatitis C – it’s a bit of a bummer but you groan and move on" and she is now using her fame to promote awareness of the disease. She's a strong woman. Anyway, I visited her website and came across something interesting. I am currently revising for an oral this evening on intercultural communication, more specificially 'otherisation'. Otherisation is reducing the foreign other to less than what they are. It is linked to stereotyping and can be seen as a common phenomenon in the media. Everytime I go to the Guardian Online I find at least one article about Muslims in Britain, whether it be about the growth of extremism, their lack of integration, or a defence of Islam, in response to the negative discourse that is currently rife in the West. The extent of the media coverage of the activities of Muslims means that they no longer fit into British society. Muslims have a long history in Britain and they have never been the focus of attention before. Now, all of a sudden, they are the focus of everything and the fact that the focus is on 'Muslims', that is a set group of people, Muslims are now a separate group within society, a group that has certain characteristics (read: conservative, insular, extremist, unwilling to integrate), and a group that, due to the ridiculous amount of media coverage, the non-Muslims in British society are becoming increasingly suspicious of.
This is just one example of media's power to control discourse and the opinions and feelings of the public. The thing that I wanted to tell you about is linked to this. I found it on Anita's website. Before you visit the link though, I want you to think about all the images that spring to mind when you think of Iran. Think of the images created by the media, the way the country is currently being depicted, the comments by politicians about the country. Then watch THIS. Isn't the difference between the media representation and the actual reality frightening? It would be a lot harder to make a case for war if these were the images propagated by the media.

Counting down

2007-02-13T18:03:00.000+01:00

Not long to go now. Only two more full days before the off. Jobs are starting to get done: a money belt has been purchased, travel insurance arranged, clothes neatly piled and a humongous pile of ironing has been tackled and reduced. Indonesia here we come...

It still feels like there's lots to be done: an oral tomorrow, a job application to send off, irritating admin to be done at uni and a decision on the Master thesis to be taken. But, bla, that stuff just doesn't seem very important right now, we're going to INDONESIA!!! I have never been to Asia before. The furthest East I have ever been is Poland and I presume it will be quite different to Krakow.

I am starting to panic about important things like how you say "pleased to meet you" in Indonesian, which, incidentally, I have forgotten again. Sanang bertamu dengan anda. Ah, that's it. Just rolls of the tongue, doesn't it?! Also slightly worried about the old banjir - that's flooding to me and you (not including Ragil :P). Apparently the waters have been receding but it is still chucking it down and where the waters have gone, mud and rubbish remains. Our excellent timing thus means Jakarta will be a lot smellier and dirtier than usual, plus there will be more rats and disease issues. In case Mum wasn't worried enough... On to a happier note though, I can still say "not spicy please" and "I'm ill" and even "help" and I described my dream to Ragil in Indonesian this morning, albeit pigeon Indonesian or Engonesian (as my language for the next month shall now be known.)

So, that's how things are looking right now. Onto an unrelated topic: photologgery seems to be going down well. I have been updating it fairly recently so if you haven't returned for a while, check it out. Am hoping to take some good pics of Indonesia's magnificent scenery and those will be posted as soon as we return (March 17th). And, before I go, here's a picture I took today whilst I was playing and Ragil was cooking ;-)

Revising

2007-02-01T16:33:00.000+01:00

Well, it is that time again. Time to eat whole packets of biscuits without realising, time to drink copious amounts of tea and time to see doing the housework as a task that must be done without delay. Yes, exams are approaching. My case of revision trauma isn't that bad at the moment - I haven't gone down the housework route yet, although the tea and biscuits are being consumed with a scary velocity, or even ferocity. Current topic of revision: EU Economics. Yes, well, you can see why I am using consumption as an avoidance strategy.

Onto another unrelated matter. Has anyone ever seen, heard of, or eaten this fruit? I am just wondering if it has an English name. It is from Indonesia and can be literally translated as 'the hairy one'. It is basically a hairy lychee with a slightly rougher stone. I was quite disturbed by the hairiness but there is little doubt that I will be scoffing them down once in the tropical climes. Mmm, hairy lychees

photologgery

2007-01-18T19:21:00.000+01:00

At a time when the news is filled with Big Brother, I would like to officially announce Bloggery's little sister photologgery.
Photologgery is a site I have created; a place where I can display the photos I have taken in all their glory. My photography skills are extremely undeveloped but practice makes perfect and all that and it would be nice to have a record of my journey from super amateur to someone who can at least hold their own in a discussion about aperture and all the other photography jargon that is currently somewhat above my station. Take a look if you want to see my creative side trying to get out...
In the meantime I am sitting in the flat, listening to the roaring winds outside. Uni was closed this afternoon and I have been reading reports of the storm-induced chaos back in GB. I guess winter has finally arrived. Fingers crossed it doesn't leave too great a mark.

Blogging along

2007-01-16T14:31:00.000+01:00

After a slightly sagarific time, the internet has returned. We now have our own connection. It is wireless and fast so we are happy.
2007 is toddling along nicely. Plenty to do but a nice amount of time to do it in. We had a very interesting Blockseminar last weekend - it did mean having classes all day Saturday and all day Sunday, which is just wrong, but other than that fact it was rather enjoyable. The topic was the extreme right - skinheads, neo-nazis and all that jazz. It has got me thinking and perhaps given me some new inspiration in terms of my Master thesis. We shall see. Me and Ragil also did a presentation in the class and included some youtube videos - first time I have ever used youtube in a presentation but probably not the last. I have become somewhat addicted to youtube. There are some fairly fabulous videos on there.
Turning to some other new media. Me and Ragil went on a jolly to Frankfurt yesterday - we were supposed to be going to the Indonesian Consulate but turns out it was closed, so we ended up wandering around, taking lots of photographs and trying to be artsy. We're in training for our trip to Indonesia - we need to be profis in the photo-taking department so we can capture it in all it's glory. Here are a few of our photos from yesterday...

2007...

2007-01-09T14:42:00.000+01:00

...in with a bang and a pleasant covering of champagne, thanks to SJ and her decision to spray all her guests and her front room in bubbly. As the photo shows, we did not, however, let this deter us from killing the traditional Auld Lang Syme with our out of tune, raucous tones.

This New Year thing has, as is always the case, not changed much. It was a great opportunity for a reunion of sorts with school friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in way too long, but now that it is 2007, the only real difference I can see is that I have a new diary, a new calendar and lots of scribbling outs where I keep incorrectly writing 2006.

After the champers had dried, 2007 started rather quietly. I think my body has decided that a fun resolution would be to have me struck down with the lurgy for the year - there has not been a day of 2007 when I have felt 100%, or even above 60%. Still, things to be done, books to be read, essays to be written and presentations to be prepared. There's exams coming soon too and when that's all over, if I make it through, a rather exciting trip to Indonesia.

So, despite the stuffy head, popping ears, exhausting cough and gooey nose, spirits are high and whenever morale starts to drop, the Lonely Planet to Indonesia is pulled off the bookshelf and the smiles soon return.

I hope everyone else is smiling too. If not, I suggest chocolate, or the LP to Indonesia, it works for me :D

2006 - A Pictorial Highlight

2006-12-30T21:00:00.000+01:00

lots happened in 2006. these pictures don't cover it all. what they do cover is iceus parties, family in fulda, bamberg fun times, sunday dinners in our new flat, football iceus stylee, brussels, crazy family, riding bikes, being daft and a whole year with ragsy. there was of course lots more, a lot of that was fun too, but uploading pictures is only fun for so long...

I HAVE NO INTERNET (at home)

2006-11-16T15:32:00.000+01:00

I fear Bloggery may suffer.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

2006-10-30T16:49:00.000+01:00

Reference to Finding Nemo. No swimming involved.
Just excitement and jubilation at the fact that...

I ONLY HAVE ONE DAY OF BEING AN OVERWORKED AND UNDERPAID INTERN LEFT

(nb. I realise that the rest of my life is likely to be spent being overworked and underpaid, but at least then I won't be the lowly, bottom of the heap intern.)

Oh the joy.

Lucy in "I'm looking smart" shocker!

2006-10-17T11:51:00.000+02:00

As promised...

Let's bomb North Korea...

2006-10-12T17:39:00.000+02:00

I've got a great idea... let's bomb North Korea. Not only will this destroy their nuclear capacity, but it will mean that we can forget for a moment about that nightmare that is Iraq and Afghanistan AND, if we bomb them now, they won't be able to nuke the West. Sure, they might send a few missiles South Korea's way, but well, that doesn't matter does it? The West can be happy in the knowledge that one less country has nuclear capabilities (only we are allowed those), and once they have been stripped of their defence, the US (oops, I mean the coalition of the willing) can go in to liberate and give democracy to those poor North Koreans and the whole world will be a happier and safer place.
You disagree? But this article makes it sound like such a great idea...

And from this day forth, Löherstrasse shall be known as The Street of Culture

2006-10-09T12:57:00.000+02:00

Who ever said life in Fulda was boring? Well, maybe I did once, but no more. Fulda is a sleepy little town in the middle of vast amounts of countryside, but it is a sleepy little town that never fails to surprise. If you want wild nights out, lots of different clubs to choose from and an Irish pub and cinema showing films in their original version (i.e. not polluted with German dubbing) then, admittedly, Fulda probably isn't the place to be. But Fulda does have it's moments of greatness. The Stadtfest, with its Weinfest, 4 live stages, fashion shows, beer tents and great bands, showed a different side to Fulda. A side that we appreciated very much.

Just this weekend we were present at the grand opening of the Red Corridor gallery in Fulda. We stood amongst the high class society of Fulda, and listened to the artists and then to a local councillor. One of the artists and founders of the gallery explained his reasons for locating the gallery in Löherstrasse in Fulda: simply because everyone said it wouldn't work. The artists were extremely convincing in their motivation to want to stimulate debate, push boundaries and to make people think. Fulda is a very conservative town, I hope they succeed.

And, as if that wasn't enough for one weekend. On Sunday me and Ragil took my new bike (yes, Augusta has been replaced) out for a trip into the countryside. We made use of Fulda's excellent cycle paths and rode to the lake. We took some pictures, it was rather picturesque, and then, as we cycled on, noticed a strange, unmistakeable smell. Horses. Sure enough, in the distance stood a car park full of horse boxes and lots of jockey-like types walking around in jogpers. We wandered around the back of the barn and happily stumbled upon a show jumping competition. I have never been present at one of these events before and it was really quite an interesting experience for me. Once we had watched about 15 competitors and the presentation ceremony we cycled on home and proceeded to smoke out the flat and stairwell with our debut roast beef experience. Once the smoke had been fought, aluminium foil is apparently the key, we enjoyed a quite fabulous Sunday dinner of roast beef and yorkshire pudding, roast parsnips, mash, carrots, green beans and gravy. Washed down with a nice Riesling from the Black Forest region. Brilliant.

A smashing weekend in Fulda with art, pool, the Gemüsemarkt, posh, cultured types, show jumping and a great Sunday dinner.

n.b: pictures = Fulda during the Stadtfest

Hurray, today is a Bridge Day (lit. trans of Brückentag - see below)

2006-10-02T11:57:00.000+02:00

After criticism that I have been slacking on the blog front by making posts that contain no writing, I would like to right any wrongs that I may possibly have committed (although actually as this is my blog, I should really be able to do what I like with it, right?!) by leaving behind some scrawlings.

So, yesterday was the weekend. Usually I would be in low spirits today, it being Monday and all, but as tomorrow is (ba ba baaa) the Day of German Unity, today is known as a Brückentag which means, one day of work in between two days off :) So the fact that it is Monday is by no means getting me down today. Other reasons for merriment are that my weekend was rather pleasant and included some exciting activities such as:

* a night of pool in the local pool hall - me and Ragil vs Chryssa and Paul. Ragil is apparently a bit of a pool shark and we were all mightily impressed by his skills. I was also on fairly decent form, which happens occasionally, but all too rarely for my liking, and I didn't wrongly pot the black once (which is possibly a first). I also correctly potted the black on about 4 occasions (also a first). Ja, so that was fun fun fun and will have to be repeated.
* stumbling upon a mock Oktoberfest in Esperanto, the local hotel cum exhibition centre. We wandered in, uninvited, and found tables and benches (somewhat reminiscent of mine and Ange's Bierfest, but not as cool, obv.) and lots of merry Germans, drinking Oktoberfest beer and eating traditional Bavarian culinary delights. We bought ourselves a couple of Brezels and a Maß of beer (that's 1 litre/2 pints to me and you) and had ourselves a jolly time, singing along with the German MC, who was serenading the crowd with such classics as "Ein Prozit" and "A pizza hut, a pizza hut, kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut..." - No kidding. Lucky for me, my Brownie's education paid off and I was able to join in with both lyrics and dance routine for the latter.
* cooking and eating a delightful Sunday dinner, which included yummy lamb sausages, Ragil's mash potato (famous in these parts), veg, a fabulously stylish Yorkshire Pudding and some lumpy gravy. It was scrum diddly. Next week we are going for a roast. Mmm, mmm.
* discovering a laundrette that is open on a Sunday and does not charge €6 per load. Possibly the most useful achievement of the weekend meaning that we no longer need to sneak into our old Wohnheim (student halls) to borrow the washing machine. Hurray.
* I also watched the Fifth Element, which I loved, and Beauty Shop which was hilarious if you are in the mood for a silly, light, film that requires no thought at all.

Ja, und das war's. Love and hugs to all from a rainy Frankfurt.

Picture of the Day

2006-09-22T11:18:00.002+02:00

[from www.banksy.co.uk]

Life, in the words of Dolly Parton

2006-09-21T13:50:00.000+02:00

I tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawn and stretch and try to come to life
Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumping
Out on the streets the traffic starts jumping
With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead but the boss won't seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me

They let you dream just to watch them shatter
You're just a step on the boss man's ladder
But you've got dreams he'll never take away
In the same boat as a lot of your friends
Waiting for the day your ship will come in
And the tide's gonna turn and it's all gonna roll your way

Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely getting by it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind and you never get the credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you
There's a better life and you think about it, don't you
It's a rich man's game, no matter what they call it
And you spend your life putting money in his wallet

Plodding along

2006-09-19T13:25:00.000+02:00

Thank you for the reaction to the 'cheese' post. It pleases me greatly that so many of you see it as the big issue that it clearly is. To put your minds at rest we have since invested in some mature gouda which bears a pleasing similarity to mature cheddar. We also paid a visit to Fulda's very own French Market and purchased some quality French cheese (hard stuff that was very tasty). Plus my fellow Brit in Fulda is homeward bound and has promised to buy me some wensleydale and Branston Pickle. All in all, things are looking up.

On to other, non-cheese news. We had a nice weekend, albeit (once again) far too short. Saturday morning was, as usual, spent wandering around the Gemüsemarkt (vegetable market) and stocking up our cupboards with fresh produce from the region. We also succumbed to the plant stall (which is becoming a bit of a bad habit of ours) and bought another plant for the flat. Green hands or not, we are loving our plants and, it would seem, our love is requited for not one of our 11 (and counting) plants has passed away yet. Needless to say, we are very proud parents :-)

On Sunday, after a jolly nice and long-overdue phone call to Bec in Oz, we took a trip to Frankfurt to meet up with two of my colleagues. We had a nice lunch in Sachsenhausen and then settled down in the nearby Irish with John Smith's in hand (a beer brewed a mere 20 mins away from my home in GB) to watch Liverpool take on Chelsea. A bit of a disappointing match, largely because it was fairly even and Chelsea won anyway but jolly nice to spend a Sunday with Vicki and Lottie. I was completely exhausted when we got back to Fulda (not til 9pm due to slow slow train) and not at all rejuvenated for another week at work.

Now I am at my desk, enjoying the fact that my inbox contains no emails "Zur Nachverfolgung" and taking some time out from the hectic life that is that of a KERN intern. The sun is shining outside and in just three days it will be the weekend again. Life is tiring at the moment (I blame the trains) but when I think about it, not that bad at all.

Love and hugs to all xx

No cheese, Gromit?

2006-08-30T13:36:00.000+02:00

I just went into a German cheese shop. I was looking for English cheese. German supermarkets don't stock it. They seem to go in for processed cheese and brie. I asked the cheesemonger and he told me that they had 200 different sorts of cheese but no English cheese. His 200-strong assortment is mostly made up of French cheese. He told me that it is important to specialise. I was rather shocked. He offered an explanation: they used to sell cheddar but there wasn’t enough demand. I mentioned Wensleydale. All he had to offer was a blank face.

Work and Wine Festivals

2006-08-24T16:40:00.000+02:00

40 minutes to go at work.
It is amazing how much time drags when you are not having fun.
No work to do and I am bored of surfing the internet (have spent the last 3 weeks filling in my time doing just that).
Looking for interesting websites of note.
Frank informed me of a cracker: the best 80’s video website. Dolly Parton and The Bangles deserve special note.
Any more ideas?
One good thing about this placement is that I am reading the Guardian Online from cover to cover (metaphorically speaking) every day so I am full of useful facts and pieces of information. A proof reading text today all about Christina Aguilera also proved educational. Did you know that she used to be on the Disney Channel, alongside Britney and Justin Timberlake? So that’s why they all love each other so much…
Looking forward to the clock hitting 5pm and getting out of here.
And tomorrow it is Friday :-)
And this Friday is the start of the Fulda Wine Festival. Looking forward to that. Never been to a wine festival before. Not sure whether to expect many inebriated people, as at a beer fest, or whether there will a more classy air, with lots of people sniffing their beverages and trying to distinguish hidden subtle flavours. Not sure which one I fit into best. Am determined to try my hand at the wine festival this weekend though. I'll let you know whether I manage to pull it off. Going for some practice tonight with a few girls from work. I'm taking it seriously you see...

Eye Eye

2006-08-17T13:00:00.000+02:00

It’s time for the next update and just so you know, I am doing this one in ‘stealth mode’ – under the guise of a work email in Outlook. Yes, I am writing a blog at work. In my defence, I have been here since 8am and have had only one task to complete – a proof reading that took me a whopping 15 minutes. So I think it is justifiable. The way I see it, if I don’t do anything then I will fall asleep at my desk. If I am asleep I won’t notice when someone emails me with work so I will be slower to react. Therefore, it must be in the interest of everybody to keep myself occupied, and more importantly awake, by doing important tasks like writing blogs.

It has been an eventful and at times exhausting and excruciatingly painful week. So the fun started on Friday with Ragil’s birthday, complete with cake, candles and my own very unique version of Happy Birthday. I think he liked it, even if it was slightly out of tune… The pain started during the birthday meal and didn’t end until well, yesterday/today, still to be confirmed. My wonderful contact lenses apparently thought it would be a good idea to grow some bacteria and thus, on insertion into my eye, gave my eye a bit of an unwelcome shock and visitor. The bacteria soon took affect and caused an almighty pain in my eye. By Saturday lunchtime I was screaming in pain, my left eye too swollen and painful to open and my right eye similarly shut. An eye doctor was sought. Apparently German hospitals are weird, eerily quiet and empty places. We went to one in the morning, when my eye was just disconcertingly cloudy, and found no people and the casualty hidden away on the 2nd floor with only one doctor/nurse in attendance. She informed us that they don’t have an eye doctor at the hospital and that I would have to go into town and seek one. It being Saturday, they were all shut, so the emergency eye doctor, a Dr Maus, came to my rescue, gave me vision for 40 minutes, patched me up, prescribed eye creams and pain killers and sent us on our way. The next 36hrs were spent with me being effectively blind, limited to such exciting and varied activities as sleeping and, when awake, sitting or lying with both my eyes shut, listening to music. The patch came off on Monday and my vision was magically restored. My eye continued to look extremely unsavoury for a while but it is fully fit now, hence I am back at work, with nothing to do…

Onto rather happier pastures, the flat mentioned in previous blog entry is ours. We signed the lease, paid the deposit, got the keys, moved most our stuff and last night, most excitingly of all, started to paint. This is quite a big thing for me. I have never had a place to renovate and paint before. The excitement did temporarily wear off when we had to cycle ridiculously far and up a huge hill to get to the DIY store, but once back at the flat complete with paint, rollers and brush, I was beaming. Unfortunately you couldn’t see me beaming because we had no electricity. We managed to paint most of the living room in the light of dusk and just as we started packing up our stuff, the electricity was fixed. Hurrah. Can’t wait to see the place today. Ragil is going on ahead after work to apply some finishing touches. It is probably safer with me not there. I did a very good job last night of covering my skin, t-shirt, trousers and socks, as well as large amounts of newspaper, in paint. Luckily, in fact, miraculously, no paint on carpet or furniture. How good are we?! (I got quite a bit on the walls too!)

Don't count your chickens...

2006-08-09T21:25:00.000+02:00

Without wanting to jinx the whole situation, I wish to report some good news. It must have been all the fingers being crossed from everyone (thanks) but today Lady Luck shined down on us and we not only found a flat, but found a landlady who liked us and a reasonably priced, centrally located abode complete with furniture. Hurray! All this only happened a few hours ago so I really hope I'm not counting my chickens here, but YEAHHHHH!!! We're meeting on Saturday to sign the lease and then moving in the weekend after next. It's going to be ace.

On to the other thing. Getting up at 6am everyday sucks beyond belief. Going to bed at 10pm doesn't make it any easier. Getting the train with all the business people is quite fun and means I'm getting a fair bit of reading done and the work itself is fine - just translating and proof-reading - although a bit anti-social and a lot like exploitation. Was expecting more from the company, which has thus far proven itself to be very profit-orientated with staff-satisfaction appearing to be bottom of their list. On my first day I was briefly introduced to all the employees (about 20 sat upstairs) and then taken downstairs where the other interns sit behind their computers, churning out proof-readings and translations if they're English native speakers (that's three of us) or twiddling their thumbs if they're Germans (four of them) as they have no work to do because everyone who works for the company is German so they can do their own proof-reading. Yeah, it's very much a case of hamsters in the wheel, oil in the machine. This naturally gives us interns a great sense of motivation and pride. If they paid us anything close to the minimum wage I think we'd maybe find a little more motivation, as it is, we just feel like their means to a greater profit margin. Still, when there's no work for me to do I get to do my translations for the uni, which is paid work, so in a funny way I feel quite smug. Plus, as we're in our own room, away from all the 'action' (read action as employees, phones that ring more than once a day and coffee machine) it means when the work dries up we can pretty much entertain ourselves on the computers. Still waiting for the guilt feeling to go away when I check and write emails though... Although am pretty confident it won't stick around for long.

Into the unknown...

2006-08-06T21:53:00.000+02:00

So the 'Lucy being a business woman' outfit has been chosen. The smart bag has been dusted off and packed with important, business-like items - posh pen, file complete with important forms, umbrella, you know the sort of things. And I am preparing to go to bed at an outrageous time of 10pm.
Got to be up early tomorrow, 6am to be precise.
KERN AG, 'global communications company', Frankfurt, awaits.

Some Rather Upsetting News

2006-08-04T21:14:00.000+02:00

Hmm. So I'm back in Fulda (after a fab time at home) and I have a problem... I AM OFFICIALLY HOMELESS :-(
It is indeed a sad sad situation and, after our experiences today, it is in fact getting more and more absurd. (Song ref, 10 points for 1st correct answer!) Our hunt for somewhere to live has been rather rollercoaster-esque. We have found several suitable flats but all have come with problems ranging from current tenants wanting over 700€ for their furniture, to today's extremely unfortunate incident which can be roughly summarised as follows: we find a great, reasonably cheap flat in the centre of town with balcony, we sign the lease and are just about to 'close the deal' when Mr Letting Agent gives us his bill for 500€. This fee covers the cost of him walking 200m from his office to the flat, spending 30mins of his day showing us the flat and talking about it and then printing out the lease and going through it with us. A bit steep ain't it? Well we thought so, so had to do a rather embarrassing RETREAT manoeuvre that now means we are back to square one. The only consolation is that we have now been here many times before, so at least we have some experience. There is lots of bad news that probably outweighs this consolation - namely that as we now know that letting agents seem to find it justifiable to charge a ridiculously inflated figure for their services, they can no longer be relied upon to help us in our quest to find a flat (2ZKB if anyone has any ideas or handy hints). And so, we must continue alone, using the internet and hoping that we stumble upon somewhere that (a) is free, (b) we can afford, (c) is in Fulda, (d) doesn't throw another spanner in the works.
In the meantime, I am crashing at Ragil's appartement, my worldly belongings are crashing in a friendly German's basement and the situation remains somewhat suboptimal. Welcome back to life in Fulda.

Pack Up Your Troubles In An Old Kit Bag And Smile, Smile, Smile

2006-07-10T13:18:00.000+02:00

Well, actually, it is not so much troubles as a heck of a lot of stuff, and not so much an old kit bag as suitcases, bags and boxes. But the smiling is definitely correct, or it will be when I'm done packing! So my first year in Fulda is coming to an end. Exams on Thursday and Friday (no more EU law, ever - a wohoo!!!!) and celebration on Friday night as we gatecrashed the ICEUS seniors' graduation bash. Now the ICEUS juniors have departed to all corners of the globe, to either go home for the summer or to do an internship. My flat is now minus the greek and minus the frenchie and the german has gone AWOL so it's just me and lots of stuff (that needs packing...) So to Britain I go on Wednesday, Ragil following a week later. Relaxing at home, to Newcastle to see BB and Cat, to the Lakes for some more relaxation (if the weather is good) and long walks in the rain (if it's not), then to Edinburgh for some reminiscing. Back to Fulda at the beginning of August and then internship in Frankfurt until November...
Anyway, have finally added photos from the last two months to pBee, here's a selection from the DAAD meeting in Bayreuth, England supporting in Frankfurt, with Ragil's family in the Black Forest and then the end of term party.

Typical

2006-07-05T12:34:00.000+02:00

Ok, so Ghana going out I could cope with. Although they had style and pezaz, they were more entertaining than good. England going out hit me somewhat harder. There was always the hope that they would start playing better and then actually score a victory that they deserved. As it happened they did start playing well but in typical England fashion one of the players metamorphed into an imbecile and got himself sent-off leaving the other 10 players to continue to outplay the other team but alas, the lack of the 11th man proved too much and then, well, penalties. With England, it's a foregone conclusion. According to my Dad, you may as well watch the players rolling a dice. According to me, if it's England you may as well just save the heartache and declare victory to the other team.
Anyway, all this is beside the point. Up until yesterday I had found it rather difficult to support Germany (see earlier blog) but since England's departure they have become my team of choice. Last night they had my full support. I guess I should have supported Italy, for the sake of the German population. Germany did an England (England of other World Cups, this one they have just been poor) - they played really well but got cruelly beaten anyway. Gutted. Now I am left to hope that France thrash Portugal, that Germany then thrash Portugal (I really don't like Portugal - bunch of Schweiber and cheaters and all those words you're not supposed to say) and then that Thierry Henry scores a stunning hat-trick in the final and maybe Gino Ginelli (hot Italian striker with complicated Italian name) scores a goal too - from now on it's all about the close-ups :-)
So come on France and come on Germany. Let's kick some Mediterranean ass!!!
Actually thinking about it, maybe I should support Portugal tonight, it's about time they had some of the luck that I seem to bring to teams I support (i.e. BAD LUCK!!!)

Keeping a Low Profile

2006-07-03T19:13:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone...
Just a wee note to explain my lack of recent presence in bloggery.
Things are currently a tad hectic here what with the semester coming to a close and exams and then trying to sort out my summer plans at the same time. On that point, I have finally found myself an internship - in a communications company in Frankfurt. So I'll be staying in Fulda and commuting to Frankfurt. Heading back to Britain first though (12th July-2nd Aug) to recharge the batteries.
I don't really want to comment on England's poor world cup run. Sod's Law that the one match they deserve to win they lose on penalties. Two words: bloody typical.
Yeah, my St George's flag has been taken down. My patriotism will have to be put on hold for a while...
Hmm, okay, well that's all for now.
Supposed to be reading all about EU Immigration Policy.
Oh the joy.

The Team of Choice

2006-06-18T16:09:00.000+02:00

Oh, it is just getting too exciting. Now that I've found my second (or maybe third - see previous post) team things are hotting up a treat. GHANA are the team of choice and what a team they are. They are clearly the coolest team in the tournament. According to the German commentator, they have the happiest bench in the World Cup and the supporters were dancing from the word go in their match against the Czech Republic. As if all this wasn't enough, they play with such style and finesse that it is impossible not to love them. And then, the icing on the cake... they have a player called PIMPONG. Pimpong is usually brought on 10 mins before the end to run a bit and mess up seemingly simple chances. He looks overweight but is surprisingly quick, although his ball control leaves a little to be desired. Still, his skill level is irrelevant. He is called Pimpong, he has a very cool hairdo and he provides endless amounts of amusement. And so, to everyone reading this, watch Ghana, support them and love every minute of Pimpong's time on the pitch. Those are my words of wisdom for today. Oh, and COME ON YOU AUSSIES:-)

Supporting Germany

2006-06-16T20:50:00.000+02:00

The other day I had a rather strange experience. The day of the Germany-Poland game - massive amounts of hype had even reached Fulda and the sleepy town found itself in a state of excitement and expectation. I was somewhat caught up in the excitement, looking forward to seeing a good game and supporting Germany. We watched the game at the uni, as part of the Hochschultage (a sort of mid-semester Freshers' Week - basically a chance to sit in the sun, with a beer in hand, accompanied by live music if you're lucky and drunken Germans if you're not) - in between some improvised theatre and some live music (we were lucky!) We had front row seats in the main hall at the uni. Behind us sat rows and rows of Germans, eagerly awaiting kickoff. When the whistle went I was excited as any of the Germans. I enjoyed supporting the German players, groaning when one of their passes went astray, cheering when they did a good move. This was pretty much how it went until the game started drawing to a close. One of Poland's players got sent off and I had a feeling Poland were going down. Then, in injury time, Germany scored the winning goal. The whole hall went crazy - people jumped, hugged one another, spilled beer, shouted in jubilation. I found myself in a state of confusion. I wasn't happy at all. In fact, I was rather disappointed. I felt the word "typical" creep into my thoughts. I realised that actually I didn't want Germany to win. I thought I had been supporting them. I had managed to not only fool all the Germans in the room, but myself as well. Since the event I have come up with the following conclusion: as an English football fan it is impossible to support a winning Germany, They have "unfairly" knocked us out too many times on penalties. Lady Luck is always on their side. When they win it is "typical", when they lose it is "about time". No matter how long you live in Germany, no matter how affiliated you feel to the country, if you have grown up supporting England, you can never truly have your heart behind Germany, It is just the way it is.

So what now? Well, I will watch Germany play Ecuador and probably pretend to support the former but secretly want the latter. I will look forward to England having the chance to knock Germany out and start getting very excited about the fixture when it comes around. Oh and I will be 100% behind England for the Sweden fixture and hope that they don't get knocked out of the World Cup before we face Germany :-) Oh, and I will continue to point out my St George's flag to as many people as possible. Come on ENGLAND! (ps - hope you like the picture :P)

Feeling hot hot HOT

2006-06-13T13:59:00.000+02:00

Well, surprise surprise, I'm supposed to be working, or rather translating, but, man, it's just too HOT. 26 degrees according to my thermometer. I tell you, what with a winter that saw unmeltable snow cover the ground from November through to March, and my country of residence being Great Britain (apparently whilst the rest of Europe is melting, Edinburgh has temperatures of 17-7 degrees - here the range is 28-18 degrees), well, I'm just not used to this kind of heat. So I'm doing a jolly fine job of using the sun as an excuse to do far less than I should be doing, to buy overpriced exotic fruits like melons and to make the highlight of my day sitting outside, in front of Sven's telly, watching the World Cup (although I am limiting myself to 1 match per day, so as to keep things in proportion.) Another favourite activitiy of mine at the moment is to sit on my balcony and watch my St George's Flag blow about in the wind, and then watch the faces of the bemused Germans walking past... Ah, such fun.
I shall leave you with a picture that oozes summertime: One of several goats that me and Ange encountered on a bikeride in the Hessen countryside. We thought they were rather cute until they came a little too close and we got scared. This photo was taken just before I jumped backwards in surprise, and possibly horror too, at the tameness of the animal.

Big City Life

2006-05-25T12:58:00.000+02:00

"Big city life, bla bla bla bla bla" - I had this song in my head for the duration of our 4 day trip to Brussels. Unfortunately I only know the first 3 words so it became rather repetitive and slightly tedious too. It was the only thing about the study visit that was repetitive and tedious though, the latter perhaps surprising considering it was a study visit but no, Brussels treated us very well indeed.

It's a strange city. Every other building is decorated with the EU flag; all signs are in both French and Flemish; no-one seems to know which language to speak (or was that just me); from my experience it is more common to drive your car backwards than forwards, perhaps one reason why we saw two crashes before our very eyes in the 4 days we were there; there are lots of strange buildings inspired by China and Japan and even the Scott's Monument in Edinburgh (get in!).

Brussels welcomed us with open arms. Our somewhat scabby hotel - in which the rooms were nearly all complete with TV and shower, but for some unfortunate souls the shower was a fairly see-through box in the corner of the room - had a perfect location. 5 minute walk from Grand Place (the picture-postcard area), a 0 minute walk from some very cool bars and restaurants. Our days were filled with lectures from various EU players - from the institutions themselves to lobby groups - and our nights were left open. On night 1, after our entertaining Stadttour, we ate in a fairly disappointing Egyptian restaurant (food wasn't ace, service was poor and free stuff promised was later denied, although we did get complimentary mint tea) but me and Ragil then stumbled upon an über cool Blues Bar that just happened to be having a live jam session that night. Well that was our entertainment sorted. Brilliant musicians and fab music. Night 2 we ate scrummy Thai and then found a fairly cosy bar and disturbed the locals by being obnoxiously loud and playing silly games (wink murder, etc.). Night 3 was Champions League Final night. Me and Ragil wandered around town looking for a Deutsche Bank and then, after we'd covered most of the city, popped into Quick (local fastfood chain) for a quick cheeseburger and fries before finding an uncomfortably full irish pub and then relocating to a Greek bar. So we watched Arsenal's defeat in Brussels on a tv with Greek commentary. After the game we ate Greek food and then found a nice free jazz bar with some rather good live jazz. After discussions about homosexuality with the homosexual bar owner we were all given his card and left for bed. Day 4 was left for us to explore the city. We headed to the art gallery. Felt extremely cultured then found a rather nice restaurant and ate a 3 course meal with complimentary fizz to continue our sophisticated mood. Then we had a super long bus ride back to Fulda and we passed the time by singing along to Ragil's guitar. Fun for us, not sure about the rest of the bus.

All in all an excellent trip. A perfect combination of fun and learning in a very cool city.

An Ode To Bec

2006-05-19T21:13:00.000+02:00

There once was a girl from Oz
And we called her ace because
She made Fulda great
And was a fab mate
And now she's gone back to Oz...

Fulda will not be the same without you Bec. Fulda, ICEUS and the Fuldamentalists miss you. Make sure you make it back, okay?
All the best for your future adventures,
-The British One-

Champions :-)

2006-05-14T11:42:00.000+02:00

Wow, not sure I've ever seen an FA Cup Final like that before. Both teams seeming to have forgotten how to defend, neither team seeming to care too much about conceding. A ridiculously open game for a cup final and well, it was end to end stuff from the start to the finish. Admittedly West Ham were the better team for the most part of the 90 mins - Xabi had apparently forgotten how to play football during his injured spell, Kewell couldn't get in the game and even Stevie G made a few mistakes. Carragher's own goal was definitely not the start Liverpool wanted and a second goal by West Ham brought a cloud of depression over our section of the Irish Pub in Frankfurt. Alas, with Liverpool nothing is ever easy and it took going 2-0 behind to get them to start playing decent football. Anyway, before we knew it it was 2-2 and we were happy again. Then a fairly ridiculous goal put West Ham in front AGAIN and it took a wonderstrike from Stevie G in the 91st minute to win extra time. Extra time was rather comical as both teams had used all their subs and all players were exhausted (except one West Ham player who looked disturbingly like Gary Neville from 10 yrs ago) and it became normal to see players suddenly fall on the ground with cramp. One West Ham player injured his ankle and could hardly walk, never mind kick the ball. Lucky for Liverpool, it was him who West Ham's last gasp chance to win the game came to - 12 yards from the goal, the injured ankle made contact but the ball bounced off and went wide. Penalties it was and Reina's previous goalkeeping errors were soon ancient history as he made 3 saves and won the cup for Liverpool. Ah, what a match. It was exhausting, a rollercoaster ride and definitely worth the trip to Frankfurt :-) The Indian food at lunch was also very pleasing and it was tres cool to be in the big city, in an Irish pub and amongst British people... Fun times.

Pictures and Few Words

2006-04-30T18:59:00.000+02:00

I don't really have anything to say. Not feeling particularly inspired on the word front - think the homework I've just done killed all that. Anyway, I have pictures to share so I am going to follow Firdavs' lead and let the pictures do the talking. Most are from when Dad, My and Kate came to Deutschland, but there's also one of me, fellow ICEUS peeps and two random kids during an afternoon of footie fun - I got it from the ICEUS blog but wanted to reproduce it, partly because it's a cool pic, but admittedly also to prove that I'm not as lazy as people often believe me to be. Enjoy xx

Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea

2006-04-23T11:30:00.000+02:00

What a beautiful day. Liverpool's deserved victory over Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final was not only a very sweet victory, but also a very good moment in a very good day. A 6am start. A 4hr train ride to Karlsruhe that passed without tedium. An Indonesian Sportsfest with a lot of Indonesians and only two non-Indonesians (me and a German guy - slightly bizarre feeling). Scrummy Indonesian food. Ragil rocking the basketball court. A leisurely walk around Karlsruhe in the sunshine with Ragil, his sister, Atiek, and his 3yr old nephew. Ice cream in the sunshine and holiday-esque feelings. A run to the station and dismay at missing the train. Beer in the sunshine whilst waiting for the next train. A train to Mannheim. To the Irish pub for the game - Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool - enjoyably watched on the BBC. Train to Frankfurt. Maccie D's and lots of weirdos. Train to Fulda. Bedtime.

An Ode To Spring

2006-04-10T20:39:00.002+02:00

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

[Home Thoughts From Abroad, Robert Browning]

Behold, Spring is here :-) This poem often springs to mind (if you don't mind the pun!) when Spring arrives. Largely because I always remember the wrong words and think it starts 'Oh to be in England, now that Spring is here' but it still fits the occasion. The occasion is in fact not me missing Spring days back in England (April showers is a very British concept, that thankfully doesn't seem to exist in Germany, wohoo!), rather I am feeling very 'springy' (in the seasonal sense of the word.) Yes, trees that have looked dead for the past few months are starting to show signs of life again, buds are growing on bushes and flowers are everywhere. Plus, in case nature's contribution were to prove insufficient, there has also been some human contribution to this lets-enjoy-spring feeling. In one week there has been football on the field (hugely enjoyable and justified post-football beer a treat) not once, but twice, 4 aside footie with six 7yr old obnoxious little German boys (we sure showed them) and then, to compensate for excessive activity, strawberries and ice cream, ice cream without strawberries and beer in a beer garden.

All that's missing is a bit of lawn tennis with strawberries and cream and some champers on ice for the spectators. Ah, now that would be the perfect Spring :-) Until that little fantasy of mine becomes reality, I will continue perfecting my McManamanesque footie skills and stuffing my face with ice cream. Nice job if you can get it :-)

[photo courtesy of Miss Rebecca James]

I'm Not Materialistic But...

2006-03-31T19:34:00.000+02:00

...new things have arrived to enhance my life :-) First there was my birthday. A day of relaxation, followed by a night of fun fun fun. Yep, it was lovely to wake up and have lots of cards to open (thanks to everyone) and some presents too (thanks again!) It was a normal day really, spent doing very little, but me and Ragil did grace Cafe Ideal (my favourite Fulda haunt) with our presence in the afternoon. Then it was time to don our gladrags before heading out for one of the nicest meals I think I've ever had. Thanks Mama for covering the bill and Ragil for your delightful company :D After we had drunk a few glasses of rather good wine and stuffed ourselves silly we headed to a bar (the name of which I still don't know for sure) and met friends for a somewhat less sophisticated (but very fun) time. At first the bar was full, but our hoard soon scared most people off and before we knew it, we had the bar to ourselves. Pressies from friends, gemütliches Zusammensein, a ridiculous mixing of drinks (Prosecco and wine at meal, martini, beer, whisky and cocktails at the bar) and a jolly good time. The night ended with a visit to Zum Löwen and us strutting our stuff on the makeshift dancefloor (small area ohne tables and chairs). The next day my birthday was a distant memory and my head was sore...

So that was exciting. I am now 23 - older and definitely wiser. Ha, or maybe not.

Birthdays are definitely cause for excitement, but my excitement was by no means over. Just 4 days after mon anniversaire (see New Year's Resolution!) more joy occured. It was a day of new stuff. Firstly a German tradition needs to be explained, namely Sperrmüll day. On this day, Germans put all stuff that they no longer want on the street outside their houses. Fellow Germans are then invited to shift through the unwanted items and grab anything that takes their fancy (before the next person does). The remaining stuff is then taken away two days later. Anyway, since moving into my new place I have noticed a 'coffee table space' distinctly lacking a coffee table. Sperrmüll day seemed the perfect opportunity to get me one of those. Unfortunately I was either too slow, or no-one wanted rid of one decent enough for my room. No matter, I was determined to acquire a coffee table and so I thought I'd create my own. A few pieces of wood, a drill, some screws and a handy boyfriend later and I had the coffee table of my dreams. (see attached photos if you don't believe me!) As if gaining a brand new, original coffee table is not enough excitement for one day, shortly afterwards iBee's successor arrived. pBee is here and she is beautifully metallic and, perhaps more importantly, fully functional. Wohey! All is well in the world :-)

In Mourning

2006-03-19T21:11:00.001+01:00

It is a sad sad day. iBee has died. She has been my constant companion since August 2003. She has been with me through my time in Bamberg, including accompanying me on trips to the States, Spain and Sardinia. I am indebted to her for help during my final year at Edinburgh and she has been my connection to Britain, my TV, my stereo, my dictionary, my notebook and my lifeline since being in Fulda. I will truly miss you iBee.
Here is a picture of iBee as I would like her to be remembered - chilling with two iBook friends (and Bec) in Fulda. (iBee is the one in the middle) R.I.P. iBee.

Don't worry too much about me though folks. The period of mourning has been short and sweet. Sadness has now been replaced by excitement and anticipation of iBee's successor (yet to be christened. Name and photo to follow).

Watching the English

2006-03-12T22:04:00.000+01:00

Has my life taken a melancholy turn? Admittedly, my recent blog updates may be interpreted as evidence in favour of this supposition. I am, however, feeling fine and dandy and put the perhaps slightly more melancholy tone of my recent updates down to the fact that it is the holidays. Although being on holiday usually has a positive, uplifting affect on people, I instead see it as a lot of time in which to do very little. As I spend most of my days drifting in and out of thought, even when I am engaged in some other activity, it comes as little surprise that for me having large amounts of time and very little to do means that I spend lots of time philosophising about life, the universe and everything. My melancholy tone should in fact be interpreted as a philosophical one. I remain as happy and upbeat as ever, I am definitely in a transitionary phase, but I am rather enjoying my current 'soul searching' and 'life redefining'. So, as the aussies say, no worries. There's no need for Prozac just yet.

Anyway, here's some book talk...

As a lone English person in a small German town (there is one other Brit in Fulda, but as she is a middle-aged wife and mother we don't cross each others paths much), studying intercultural communication with a group of 20-somethings from every corner of the globe, Kate Fox's book Watching the English couldn't be more perfect for me. It is essentially an attempted analysis of the hidden rules of English behaviour; a description of how the English act and a quest to formulate a set of rules defining the behaviour of the English. The book appealed to me for multiple reasons ranging from the fact that it felt good to read something that can be described as 'vaguely relating to my studies', to Fox's enjoyable writing style and sense of humour (both of which are not too dissimilar to my own) , to the fact that as the only English person in my current setup is me, it is rather fascinating to read how my fellow people act and to analyse whether I am the same, especially when alienated from my natural habitat and surrounded by people from different cultures. I can confirm that in fact, Fox's claims about English behaviour ring very true with my own experiences back in England and that I also sub-consciously follow a large number of these rules. Until reading this book I thought it was just me that finds that socialising with people I don't know very well can often be a trial, that introductions and goodbyes are often somewhat embarrassingly stilted (and the communication that goes on inbetween is often no different), and who frequently invokes 'weather chat' to open conversations, or to fill awkward silences. According to Fox these are all phenomenons that affect English people, all examples that demonstrate what she calls our 'social dis-ease'. She also talks about English humour, claiming that it underlies everything we do and say: we rarely make an utterance without using irony or sarcasm and very little that we say can be taken literally at face value. I know full well that most things I say are said with an undercurrent of humour. I've never really considered before how people from other cultures react to this, to my lack of telling things straight without using any form of understatement, irony, sarcasm etc. It is unlikely that I am going to start speaking in a non-English manner, and stop invoking subtle humour at every opportunity, but I will certainly now be more aware when I do and will assess my counterpart's reactions accordingly. There is only one place where I found Fox's writing a bit off the mark; where she talks about class. According to Fox, class permeates everything within English society. I do not wish to argue this point, what I have issue with is more the fact that she takes certain aspects of peoples' lives and uses them to put them under a class heading (either working class, lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle class, or upper class). For example, according to Fox you can tell what class a person comes from by whether or not their car is dirty or by the contents of their gardens (to name but two examples). For some reason this class-giving reminded me somewhat of a very much more negative version of the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, which may be a good way of splitting people up into houses at Hogwarts, but which seems wholly unnecessary to do to the English population, especially in a book aiming to explain why the English behave in the manner they do. Apart from my slight quibble with the Fox's dealings with the class issue though, I found the book extremely enlightening, highly entertaining and, in a funny kind of way, inspiring (PhD in Anthropology here I come...)

This time it's personal

2006-03-09T22:00:00.000+01:00

A new photo, a new layout, a new start? Well I am nearly 23, maybe it's time for me to start being me. To have a blog that I designed (rather than a standard template) and to have a photo that doesn't show me hiding behind the 'student beer thing'. My attitude to a lot of things has definitely been changing. I feel like I am maturing, although it is admittedly a slow process. Going out and getting wasted doesn't really appeal to me that much anymore. Although a quiet drink with a few mates, or a bit of a boogie once in a while is a lot of fun. I haven't renounced beer altogether. To be perfectly honest, I have a bottle of Beck's sat next to iBee as I'm writing this so I'm not claiming to be above drinking or anything. I just don't really want to get hungover anymore.

I've always seen my life as a process of me gaining knowledge and increasing what I know has always been a day to day motivation for me. I used to direct this towards mastering German. That was my driving force, from the age of 16 it gave me a focus at school and then through university. Now I am studying for a Masters in Germany and I am left feeling like this motivation doesn't really exist for me anymore. I have certainly not mastered the language. I still have a long way to go, I would be the first to admit that, but I have an A* in German at GCSE, an A at A-Level and a 2:1 degree in the subject from Edinburgh Uni. I am a DAAD scholarship holder and I am doing a post-graduate degree in Germany. Mastering the language can no longer be a force to drive me onwards. Where would I go? I need to find something else. At university my interest in German was coupled with philosophy. I have always thought a lot (often too much). Studying philosophy allowed me to indulge in this character trait. Since graduating from the subject I have stopped reading the heavy stuff. I will probably go back to it one day, but for now I am happy to apply what I learnt to everyday life, to my own thoughts, to things that I read and to experiences I encounter in the day to day. In Bamberg I emersed myself in politics, in hating the terrorist American government and the oppressive Israelis. I remain interested in world affairs, although my political focus has since been directed more towards Brussels than Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. I fell into my current degree. I wanted to return to Germany, studying seemed like a good option, European politics interested me, it seemed to make some kind of sense. Ironically it is the intercultural communication part of the ICEUS course that is stimulating my mind at the moment. I think it will be this that will dictate where my life next takes me. I still have vague hopes of one day being Dr Robinson (just in case there aren't already enough Doctors in the family...), maybe a PhD in anthropology or intercultural communication could be an option. The major decisions in my life always seem to be taken with an attitude of 'well, why not?'. I like to think of myself as a fatalist, a follower of the 'let fate decide' philosophy. If I end up doing a PhD in social sciences, it is likely to be the result of a decision made following this line of thinking. Life's too short to ponder over one's future. We've just got to live it right?

I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog. I'm not sure where I started. Like I said at the beginning; I think it is time to start just being me. All my blog entries up to this point have read like a diary for the masses. I suppose in a way that is what a blog is. But when I write, I find myself describing events rather than my feelings. I feel myself censoring the words that flow from my inner consciousness and I know that I am not writing half of what I should be writing. I have redesigned my blog according to what I like. I can now be proud of it because it is something of my own making. Now I need to tackle my entries. I want them to be a reflection of me, not a description of experiences that anyone could be having. This is my life. I find it insatiably interesting. I can sit and ponder it for hours on end and smile the whole time. I am going to try and do it justice in this blog. Maybe in the process I can make someone else smile too.

Ancient German Fire Engines and the Pilgrimage.

2006-03-08T11:19:00.000+01:00

A new dawn, a new day here in Fulda. The seventh since my return. I will be the first to admit that not much as been achieved. I am still in the process of moving house and have stuff waiting to be sorted in both flats. My visions of not only reading all about EU law (and gaining a whole new understanding of it in the process) but also reading many novels, have been somewhat put on the slow-burner. I have managed to read one book since returning to Fulda - Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage. Definitely an interesting book and a nice accompaniment to my 'lets take it easy and do very little' attitude to my first week back in Fulda. I must admit though, despite enjoying the read, I remain somewhat sceptical of the contents. Some of the mind exercises seem intriguing and I think it would be interesting to give them a go, but some of the things he describes - the incident with the dog being a key example - remain a little beyond my perceived scope of reality. It could easily be a fictional novel he has written and in some ways, I think I read it as more of a novel than an autobiographical book. Anyway, next on my list is Watching the English - a book that will fit very nicely into my studies (intercultural communication) and that should prove pretty interesting for an English person living in a foreign culture, totally alienated from all other English folk. Hmm, we shall see if I agree with the author's observations about the English...

Other things of note before I prepare myself for another day of very little. Over the past few days me, Ragil and Firdavs have discovered that there is more to Fulda than we first thought, but ironically, part of this newly discovered bit of town feels so completely villagey that I feel really at home - birds, fields, no noise. It's really peaceful and not far away at all. There is absolutely nothing to do in this villagey part of town. The only thing we found was a peaceful (naturally) cemetary, but it is nice just to wander around. Whilst heading en-route to 'the village' and then continuing our walk we discovered further things of interest - most notably, the German Fire Engine Museum. I know! Pretty cool. Who'd have thought such an institution would be hidden in sleepy little Fulda?! It looked like they had shut up shop for the day (must have heard we were coming) but they had kindly left a tankesque German fire engine of old outside for Ragil and Firdavs to climb on and for me to admire from the ground level. There was also a fire ship standing in the middle of the car park. Hmm, yes. Suitably random... We also, eventually, found the 'lake' although it was totally frozen over. But nearby there's a reasonably large sports complex where we whiled away an hour or so watching football training and then borrowing a ball and showing them how it's done (ahem!). We got back and all felt utterly exhausted. Far too much physical exertion for one day...

Yes, today I plan to do some more packing/unpacking (depending on my location at the time) and then me and Ragil are going to head back to the village. I might make it to the library to get the book on EU law, but I might not. And lets face it, even if I do, I probably won't start reading it for another few days. Still, any day now I am going to wake up determined to achieve lots. I will let you know when it happens. But don't hold your breath...

@home

2006-02-26T22:16:00.000+01:00

My time at home is almost up and I must say it has been as eventful as ever. I am particularly proud of my achievements of fitting not one, not two, but three family parties in and of having met up with a very large portion of my very large family (and very nice to see them all is was too). It has been 2 weeks of slightly random activities - a 9-man pond liner offensive, a ridiculous amount of appointments (doctor, dentist, hairdresser, glasses, contact lense etc. etc.), lots of tea and cake in english tea rooms, a spontaneous trip to Nottingham to watch the Brits and eat Indian takeaway and then spend money I don't have, an über windy trip to Scarborough beach, a slap up meal (family party no.1), an engagement party (no.2), a 21st complete with darts competition and Glenfiddich (no.3), funtimes in Liverpool with scouse cab drivers and their jokes (what do you call a mid-wife reluctant to deliver scouse babies? A crime prevention officer:-). I've shown an Aussie around the place I call home, I've eaten lots and I've even managed to take a few photos to record my time. You can see a selection below...

ps - HUGE congratulations to Ellen and Si and to Hannah and John :-)

à Genève

2006-02-15T12:07:00.000+01:00

6.5hrs on the train and then arrival. To Les Brasseurs pub for a quick one and then a "bonjour" to Ange. Excitedness and joy on both sides due to reunion in foreign lands. A walk fighting the arctic wind lakeside and then to the swanky studio apartment complete with leather sofa, four-poster bed and huge window avec lake view. Not bad.

Hunger strikes. Only fondue would do. Bread and melted cheese - bizarre idea for a meal but surprisingly pleasing. The £6 per drink bar seemed rather overpriced (but the Ferrari parked outside was exciting) and so to a more lively (and more bon marché) bar until tiredness set in. Next day was the LP walking tour around la vieille ville. Cute streets. A cathedral that wants to be a Greek temple (#1) but with a high tower and gorge views (#2&3). Coffee. Chicken salad cravings and, low and behold, a Poulet restaurant with just 5 meals on offer, 2 of which being chicken salads. Some nice vin to wash it down and then mousse au chocolat and espresso for an energy boost. To la voiture for a roadtrip to Evian - pourquoi? Well, pourquoi pas. Plus, they make famous water there. A rather slow but super picturesque drive along Lake Geneva with some super cheesy tunes and fairly terrible but highly enjoyable singing along. Peaceful lake time in Evian and a nice looking Corvette and then back in the car. Westlife, Take That and ABBA had done a cracking job on the first leg and it was now the turn of Steps and Madonna to take us from Evian, around the lake, past Montrieux and back into Switzerland to Lausanne. Lausanne gave us the best steak I think I've ever had with a very nice red wine to go with it. Mmm mmm. Then it was Romeo and Juliet and a drive back to Geneva, completing the circle around the lake. Pickwick's Pub provided the evening's entertainment, which included England vs Germany darts competition. It was a satisfying victory for the Brits :-)

Day 3 was the mountain day. A mini road trip to France and Chamonix (#4)- an über posh ski resort. Up 2 cable cars to reach the summit of Mont Blanc, some 3800m high. Lots of photos and calls of admiration. Despite ski jacket, gloves, scarf and many layers, I have never felt so cold. Brrr. Felt like we were on top of the world though, and well, I guess we were pretty close.

After the descent down the hillside, we returned to Geneva to chill (or defrost even), fajitas, chats, pink champagne and then back to Pickwick's for a night of karaoke. We were shocked to find the pub had been taken over by a large group of drunken, yellow-tshirt wearing Ozzies. Davis Cup victory against the Swiss and heroic Oz tennis player soon turned up too to be praised by everyone, except the slightly befuddled Brits and German. Said German even managed to unwittingly ask his coach who he was and what all the fuss was about. The presence of celebrity didn't stop the karaoke though. We killed Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, as well as Bitch by Meredith Brooks. A German guy requested mine and Ange's presence on Bohemian Rhapsody and we killed that one too. Still, lots of fun to do karaoke to that one - from opera to air guitar and headbanging. Great stuff. Where our voices failed us, our stage presence filled the gap and we had the Aussies singing and dancing along...

Sore head the next morning but the UN was waiting. Trams, wanderings, steak and Euro Millions tickets and then to the UN for a walking tour. Pretty cool building. Interesting tour, especially when we heard Switzerland only joined in 2002 - interesting fact for you. After UN had shown us its stuff and we had seen diplomats from all over the world roaming the corridors, we headed back to the apartment for last minute packing and then to the station. Farewell over tea (how english) and then dans l'avion.

What a weekend.

Away with the negativity

2006-02-03T14:26:00.000+01:00

My last blog entry was so overwhelmingly negative that it needs an almost instant reply. I am not a negative person and I very much dislike dwelling on negativity.

Today I am feeling happy. I made some progress yesterday and had a nice evening in with Ragil as a reward (we watched the film Ray, v good btw, and we've been hooked on Ray Charles' music ever since :-) Today I am plugging away and slowly getting through the mounds of reading and translations.

Anyway, enough about the work, enough progress reports. Here's a photo of me doing a chicken jig at my cousin's 21st Ceilidh, alongside Pops, Matt and Cat.

Happy days to one and all xx

Zeitdruck

2006-02-02T18:29:00.000+01:00

Well, as Marie quite rightly pointed out this morning, I have been über slack in the blog department recently.

It is not as if there has been nothing to report, rather that my head is so full at the moment that there is simply no room in it for blog entries.

Classes finished today. Only 2 exams to revise for and sit (Monday and Tuesday) and 21 course descriptions to translate (for financial not altruistic reasons I hasten to add) and then the semester is over. As I formally started my revision today, and began translating yesterday, I am having slight time issues, like THERE ISN'T ENOUGH of the stuff. I am trying to remain motivated, pushing myself, drinking copious amounts of Darjeeling and eating copious amounts of chocolate (for the energy obv) and to get reasonable amounts of sleep so that I am as fresh as possible for the next day of translating and revising.

As you can see. My life is one big party at the moment - the kind of party where no alcohol is allowed, music has to be kept down and general interaction with other people should be kept to a minimum. Sounds like fun, non?!

Not that I am looking for sympathy. I happily accepted the translation job (what can I say, I'm a student considering a career in translation post-2nd graduation...) and it is my own dumb fault for not having started revising earlier.

I still haven't gotten over the feeling that because I am in a foreign country, I am an exchange student, here for the cultural experience rather than to get a degree. This makes motivation rather difficult as I always have the excuse in the back of my mind that it is in a foreign language so it doesn't matter if I don't get amazing results. I reckon at 9am on Tuesday morning this feeling will disappear into a puff of invisible smoke and it will suddenly dawn on me that I am here for real. That I am a Masters student in Intercultural Communication and European Studies and that I really should know something about the subject. The exam could be a rude awakening...

Still, 4 days remain to make myself an expert on the subject. If only I didn't have to translate 3 course descriptions a day at the same time.

Oh well, chin up as they say. At least it is so cold that staying inside remains the more appealing option...

Baby, it's cold outside

2006-01-24T20:10:00.000+01:00

Brr, it's minus 15 degrees here in Fulda. I think this is the coldest weather I have ever experienced. I'm just pleased that I was organised enough to buy a woolly jumper and some fleecy boots back in November.
Here are some cute penguins to make myself and the fellow Fulda crew feel better. Roll on Spring I say xx

le weekend

2006-01-19T16:01:00.000+01:00

* This weekend I am looking forward to:
- Heidi's 'last supper' (before her return to Oz 2moro morning)
- an ICEUS house party on Friday
- Liverpool beating Man Utd on Sunday :-)

* My aims are to:
- get over my third cold in as many months
- find a new song lyric for my tag line (suggestions on a postcard/comment)
- and to learn more French and read all about EU enlargement

* I will mostly be listening to:
- Thea Gilmore, David Gray and Alanis Morrissette

* And I will mostly be eating:
- Thornton's European Inspired Continental Collection (scrum diddly)

Bon weekend mes amis xx

Life...

2006-01-17T19:05:00.000+01:00

It is update on my life time... Several things have happened since my last shall we say 'normal' blog entry. Not least, that I now have a fairly smashing Nietzsche card on my desk, inspiring me to great thoughts (see previous chicken entry).

I guess the main thing is that I have decided to move out. The room is nicer, although admittedly the flat isn't. Still, I will be living in the ICEUS-Gebäude, in a flat with a good mate, plus I will have a couch, an armchair AND a balcony, and any day now it's going to stop snowing and the temperature is going to reach positive figures again, and so a balcony will def come in handy. (I'm imagining relaxing in my armchair, sipping chilled sparkling wine/beer in the sun...) Yeah, my current flat has advantages but my relationship with my flatmates is certainly not improving and I am looking forward to a new start.

On to the academics. Well, I did my presentation. Unfortunately myself and Chryssa chose the day of our presentation to discover that the uni has only 2 projectors. Needless to say, they were both hiding when we needed one and so we had to present ohne our amazing powerpoint presentation. In case we weren't mad enough at this fact, Prof Ott decided to lay into us saying it was our fault for not being more organised. The fact that there has been one in the room every other Monday seems to have slipped his mind, and the time we spent in between class searching for the projector was apparently not satisfactory enough. Anywy, we did our presentation. It could have been a whole lot better. I know I am terrible at doing presentations, and no matter how hard I try, I don't seem to get any better. Well, I basically just read out my 10-page essay, without managing to engage the audience at all and without any real eye-contact. I am not pleased with myself and I'm not happy with my presentation. But at least it is over. If Ott had acknowledged my request to do a dissertation instead of a presentation, rather than ignoring it, then I think, he, myself and the class would have been a lot happier. Needless to say, he is not my favourite professor at the moment. Anyway, it's over now.

Finally to address my progress on sticking to my resolutions. I am not very proud to announce that I have not done any exercise since 2005 and that I have only today started actively learning French. I am however drinking less, although studying more remains questionable. The motivation is more present than it was before Christmas. Unfortunately it has a tendency to disappear at the key moment, i.e. when the time comes to do the work. Still, it's a work in progress.

ps - As if wishing to counter my own claim, here are a couple of pictures from the first (and only one that I have attended so far) party of January - Heidi's leaving party. There's me, Ragil and Chryssa, Susi and Heidi and then Toby, Ajay, Arne and Bec.

New Lead In Apple Juice Case

2006-01-16T22:28:00.000+01:00

Detectives working on the case of the stolen apple juice [see Stormy Skies blog] have informed me that new evidence has arisen. The key suspect, known as "The Elephant Upstairs" or "Victor", has been caught on camera... Don't let his innocent face fool you. This is a wanted man...

The Mystery of the Headless Chickens

2006-01-14T22:21:00.000+01:00

Fact 1: Chickens need heads to live.
Fact 2: Dead chickens can't run.
Fact 3: 'Running around like a headless chicken' must mean 'running around like a dead chicken' and as dead chickens cannot run, it seems to me wholly appropriate to replace the traditional meaning of this metaphor (having a hectic time) with 'lying still and doing nothing'.

I have been running around like a headless chicken all day.

Normality just packed its bags...

2006-01-09T21:54:00.000+01:00

The presentation didn't go well. In fact, it didn't go at all. I spent my first hour awake mentally psyching myself up to prepare for the presentation of my paper. When I was nearing the end of the psyching up process I was rudely interrupted by my flatmate Matthias (of 'assistant to toilet-dismantler' fame), who requested a look at my Mietvertrag (rent contract? can't think of correct translation). He then pointed out that it finished on the 31st March (news to me, I thought it ended on the 1st March) and went on to suggest that he would probably be moving out at the end of the semester and that I could therefore have his room. His room is about 3 times the size of mine and sun-facing, therefore several degrees warmer and pleasanter. This news took me rather by surprise. I have recently been doing some research into flats and almost set my mind on moving into a large room complete with balcony, sofa and armchair in Chryssa's flat. Only moments before Matthias' interruption, I had infact read an email from the International Office regarding this room in Chryssa's flat saying that I could have it from 1st February.
The dilemma is as follows: rely on Matthias moving out, take his unfurnished room, pay €10 more per month but save having to pay 2 rents in Feb and/or March OR agree to move into Chryssa's flat with her and 2 other new inhabitants (could be anyone...), where the rent will be about the same, there is more than adequate furnishings and a friend, but where I will have to pay 2 rents for at least 1 month (and maybe 2). The flat I am living in at the moment is more aesthetically pleasing with a nicer kitchen and nicer bathroom, plus a larger hallway. The locations are pretty similar. My relationship with my current flatmate could be described as cordial but probs nothing more and although I have exchanged a few emails with the girl whose room I am currently occupying, she will be as unknown as the 2 others who move into Chryssa's.
This dilemma has been troubling me all day. Any suggestions, thoughts, solutions would be most welcome...

By the time it came to me leaving my flat, my head was rather all over the place. I then walked outside to find my gorgeous pink beauty of a bike had disappeared. I cursed for a wee while and then accepted it had been nicked. I was in a rather distraught but equally bemused state due the bizarreness of my day thus far (it was only 10.40am by this point) when I received a phonecall from Chryssa saying class had been cancelled and that we therefore didn't have to do our presentation until next week. Unsure whether to be overjoyed or very cross, or infact, what to do with myself in general, I continued walking in the direction of the uni. I soon decided to head to Ragil's place to tell him all about my quite remarkable morning. By the time I arrived I had decided that I was indeed annoyed at the Professor's mysterious absence. I had gone to the trouble of psyching myself up and was as ready as I was ever going to be to do the presentation and now the misery had been prolonged for another 7 days. Anyway, I walked through the building and out the back door. I was about to turn left to go down the stairs to Ragil's apartment, when what should I see infront of me but the magnificent pink of Augusta, chilling in the bikeshed of Blücherstasse 18. A wry smile was all I could manage. She hadn't been stolen after all, just borrowed and moved by Ragil.

The excitement and eventfulness of the first part of my day has meant that the remainder has been dictated by sheer emotional exhaustion. I am pleased to know that Augusta still remains in my possession, I am frustrated that I have still not done my presentation and I am confused about my future living arrangements. On top of this, I have excitement about rapidly approaching 5 week holiday (which now includes cheeky weekend in Geneva and 2.5wks in Britain) coupled with stress about 2 presentations and unknown quantity of exams that need to be dealt with before this holiday commences, plus several random and extremely pointless homeworks that need to be completed in the near future.

Yes, emotional exhaustion is my current state. Sitting in bed, writing this, I am struck by the thought that there is only one way to end this blog; with a picture that I am hereby naming 'exhaustion'

Pre-Presentation Nerves

2006-01-09T10:05:00.001+01:00

langsam und deutlich
langsam und deutlich
langsam und deutlich

2006

2006-01-06T18:29:00.001+01:00

Welcome back and Happy 2006!

So it’s back to life, back to reality here in Fulda. After a cracking festive period (thanks to all family members for presents and for all those family and friends who I managed to see for making my 9 days in Britain fandabbydosey) I could have returned to Fulda sad that it was over so fast. I didn’t however, in fact, I was excited to go back and see Ragil and my other friends again.

2006 has given me a new kind of optimism. I feel it is going to be a good year. My resolutions all centre round getting the best from life and actively doing positive things to achieve my goals. For example, ‘drink and sleep less, study more’ is a key one. I’m going to organise my time and be as disciplined as I was before I got to Fulda (and that part of my personality evaporated). I’m going to start doing regular exercise and I’m going to learn French properly (not just attend French class once a week).

I can’t guarantee I’ll stick to these, in fact I haven’t done any exercise since before New Year and although I’ve bought a ‘French Starter Kit’, I am putting it off until my horrific presentation is over. I have also slept far too long today and spent the rest of the day procrastinating. However, my optimism remains, interrupted only by occasional anxiety attacks about Monday’s presentation and even these don’t keep me down for long.
It will be interesting to see if the optimism lasts and if I can stick to any of my New Year’s Resolutions.

Time will tell…

Christmas Comes This Time Each Year

2005-12-26T16:30:00.000+01:00

Points to anyone who can name the festive tune. Well, hope everyone is full of festive cheer and that lots of fun was had yesterday. It's rather strange writing a blog from home. In fact, it's rather strange to be home. Left Fulda in a bit of a mad rush. Not really sure what has happened to the last few months, well apart from the fact that they have flown by faster than a flock of geese (had goose for lunch, got the bird on my mind...) It's all been totally mad but a whole lot of fun. Now I'm back home, trying to get my breath back. Not sure I'll manage to be honest judging by the last few days. Arrived back in York on Thursday night. Had one hour to unpack, say hello to family and cats and then Matt and Cat descended on us. Had a lovely big meal and lots of fun. Matt gave me a cracking present, 4 months in the making. A highly original version of Top Trumps based on all things English. Will enjoy educating my Fulda mates when I return! The next day it was in to town to meet my York mates for coffee and cake, then back home to have a meal with Auntie Julie, Uncle Rog and cousin Alex. They left and it was catch-up with Jules and James before heading to church for my one service of the year. As those of you who know me will know, I don't do church, or Christianity, or in fact religion in general but I tend to make an exception for the Crib Service on Christmas Eve. Imagine a village church, lit with candles, full of infants (ranging from a few months to 10yrs in age) and their parents trying to keep them under control. The vicar is more like a primary teacher than a vicar and the service is highly entertaining and always involves a good sing-song and lots of audience participation, although sadly I am now too old to join in myself... After church it was back home for more yummy food, crackers and family fun and then the traditional dictation of 'Lucy and Tom's Christmas' and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' by Mum before bed.

Christmas day involved lots of presents (thank you!), a visit to the neighbours' house for scrummy nibbles and lots of sparkling wine with Sandra, John and their 4 little girls:-) We returned home to find the oven hadn't worked so Christmas Dinner was delayed by a few hours. The Queen kept us entertained for 10mins of the intervening period (although her stress on religious and faith groups was a little too strong for my liking), we had a walk around the village and saw several families enjoying Christmas, complete with party hats. Christmas Dinner was worth the wait and we all went to bed feeling content. Today is Boxing Day. Me and Kate drove over to Dad's where we are now. Hellos and hugs, then more presents, food, a walk, Liverpool 2-0 Newcastle (half time score) and a nice log fire. Once again feeling content and my pulse is almost back to normal. Need a few days of relaxation now to prepare for New Years in Ed and then the return trip to Fulda on the 2nd. It's all go I tell you.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

ICEUS On Tour

2005-12-15T19:27:00.000+01:00

Just returned from a fun-filled 4 days spent with my course people. Our location was the spa town (village) of Bad Liebenzell, located somewhere in the Black Forest. Our purpose was 3 days of seminars on European Law and 1 day in Strasbourg visiting the European Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament. Our accommodation was some 16th Century (at a guess) castle with gorge views over the town as well as fairly decent grub and a v cute little pub with self-service bar, which last night hosted our mini Christmas party (imagine candles, Glühwein, homemade German Christmas biscuits and Silent Night being sung in 7 or so different languages simultaneously.) It was all jolly good fun and really informative. Amongst other things, I learnt the decision-making processes in the EU, all about international courts of law (did you know that the European Court of Human Rights is the only international court which citizens themselves can file complaints to?), the opinions of a German Green EMP, that the European Parliament is a v cool building, that the standard of interpreters in the parliament varies a great deal, that the Council of Europe is an extremely ugly building, that the tastiness of Pfammkuchen is limited to the initial impressions and that I still can't speak French or ice-skate...
I have returned to Fulda feeling invigorated and experiencing new-found motivation to read more, study more, speak more and learn more French. It is my New Year's Resolution come early. Unfortunately right now I am very tired (still suffering from sore throat and a v attractive chesty cough) and so, guess what, it starts tomorrow :-)

[photo index (from top): Alberto&Yu at the European Court of Human Rights, Ragil,Bec,Firdavs&Ramona, me&Ragil in Heidelberg, Alberto,Chryssa,Bec&Ragil in Strasbourg, Bec&Ragil at Council of Europe and mini ICEUS Christmas party]

mmm, vitamin c

2005-12-11T15:51:00.000+01:00

What would December be without illness? Well, better probably. I have been struck down by the dreaded lurgy. Have spent the whole of my 3-day weekend in bed, feeling sorry for myself. I have left the flat once since thursday night - me and Ragil went for a wander around christmassy Fulda, bought a christmas pressie, ate a beef döner (unbelievably good), went to a Glühwein stall and drank warm juice (you know I am ill when I choose juice over mulled wine). Exhaustion soon set in and so we came home and I haven't left since. Anyway, just to reassure you all. Ragil has been looking after me (thankyou:-) and I'm eating lots of oranges, and healthy foods and drinking lots of liquid. Hopefully it'll pass soon,..

On to more exciting things... Ruth has kindly provided us with a photo of the key suspect in the 'apple juice mystery' (see Stormy Skies comments) and I must say, he does look like he could have it in him to be an apple juice thief... Photos of any more suspects will be warmly welcomed. Don't want to bias the case by only naming and shaming one suspect.

Other things to note before I go and lie down again: Went to Karlsruhe last weekend with Ragil and a few others to visit an Indonesia evening of culture. There was Indonesian dancing, music, as well as a film about the country and lots of yummy yummy food. Mmm. Was v impressed by the whole event and Karlsruhe was pretty nice too. All in all it was a v enjoyable day, apart from maybe the fifteen or so minutes when we thought we were going to miss the last train home. But all's well that ends well as they say.
Oh and then last week a guy from the British embassy in Berlin came to Fulda to talk about Britain's Presidency of the EU. V interesting, for me especially. Never really heard the government's stance on all the EU issues and he did a v good job of towing the party line. It was actually quite propagandaesque. Spoke to him a bit afterwards. He was of the opinion that Britain has a diff attitude to the EU than say France and Germany because they joined later: When the EU project started it was about building peace in Europe and by the time Britain joined this had been achieved. Britain joined for economic reasons only, hence the lack of 'Euro-feeling" in GB. He also said that he felt he had more in common with say an Australian or a South Afrtican than with a German or a French person. This kind of surprised me actually. Personally I disagree. Maybe it's a generational thing, I am from Generation E after all...

One last thing. Can someone please let me know what Hannah's blog address is? Want to know what she's up to...
Ta muchly.
Take care one and all xx

Christmas is coming...

2005-12-01T18:28:00.000+01:00

Christmas is coming
The geese are getting fat
Please put a penny
In the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny
A ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny
God bless you...

Woo. Am feeling very christmassy and have been for a whole week now. It's amazing what a little snow can do! Yep, last thursday it snowed and snowed and snowed, leaving Fulda covered in a blanket of white. The snow has remained, none of this Britainesque turning to slush after a couple of hours nonsense. The staying power of the white stuff is perhaps a good indication of current Fulda temperatures. It is in fact so cold that I have been forced to buy two pairs of thick woolly tights and a second winter jumper/long cardy thing (yes, Gate & BB, a coolie :-) Tights under jeans, Doc Marten's, winter coat, hat, gloves and scarf are all essential items that must be remembered before leaving the flat. Failure to do so results in acute coldness and prompt numbness to fairly useful body parts, such as fingers, toes, nose, lips, face, etc. etc.

In case the snow wasn't enough to make me feel like I should be singing carols, eating chocolate daily (isn't December excellent?!) and starting to get excited about 'Lucy and Tom's Christmas', salmon on Christmas Eve, stockings, presents, the best meal of the year, family, friends, general festivities and the Queen's Speech (or rather the sigh on everyone's faces when I insist on watching it, he he), the Christmas Markets have opened for business. This means, whenever a spare moment is found, it is to the Weihnachtsmarkt that we head to drink some Glühwein (absolute necessity to fight arctic temperatures) and enjoy the unique atmosphere of a German Christmas Market. Many enjoyable experiences have already been had at a Weihnachtsmarkt. We had an inpromptu international Christmas carol moment last week, where we all sang carols in our languages - english, german, spanish, slovakian, chinese and laughed at each other's attempts to sing along. The faction of Fulda's population who happened to be frequenting the Weihnachtsmarkt at the same time as us crazy ICEUS people were most impressed...
Then, on Sunday we had a whole day dedicated to the great German Weihnachtsmarkt tradition. A day trip to Nuremberg organised by the international office. Unfortunately Glühwein and two parties the night before meant the 9am departure was rather sub-optimal. But as Nuremberg is located only 40mins away from Bamberg, it is a place I have visited many times before and I was extremely excited about returning to the city. We had a tour of the town and then traditional German grub (in the restaurant we went to Mama) and then we hit the Weihnachtsmarkt. Glühwein, Eierlikor, more sausage, roasted chestnuts and lots of German Christmas Market offerings that were clearly made in China. It was a very cool day spent in the very good company of Ragil, Bec, Seda, Chryssa and Heidi amongst others. The snow and adverse weather conditions meant the coach journey back took 3hrs instead of 1.5. When I got back to my apartment, I could barely keep my eyes open, let alone speak (as Mum will confirm). I would like to take this opportunity to thank whatever force made it so that 2 out of my 4 classes on Monday were cancelled :-) Perfect timing.

Anyway, I have got to wrap this blog up. Got less than an hour to eat tea and make myself look beautiful for the party tonight. No rest for the wicked...
Take care one and all xx

Stormy Skies

2005-11-22T09:06:00.000+01:00

My apple juice is gone. It is not in the fridge where I left it. There is no sign of it in the bin. It has disappeared without a trace. I am not impressed...

Fulda, die Stadt, wo die Zeit im Fluge vergeht

2005-11-21T09:29:00.000+01:00

Time doesn't wait for anybody or anything in Fulda. It flies right past you and before you know it it's the 21st November and there's talk of Weihnachtsmärkte (christmas markets), snow and Christmas arrangements. A lot has happened since the last post, too much for one blog entry really but I'm going to try and fit it all in anyway. Take a deep breath now...

Thurs 10th Nov was Kate's bday and I felt kinda sad being so far away from my lil sis, especially when I spoke to her on the phone and found she had been replaced by a bedridden ill person :-( Anyway, no time to dwell on being away from home, I had a visitor. Hannah, a Yorkie, came for a fleeting visit - thurs night til sat morn - 2 nights of parties, german food, german beer, german clubs, and 1.5 days of sleep with a wee tour of Fulda thrown in for good measure. Hannah left and life in Fulda returned to its normal abnormal self. If you can say anything about my time in Fulda it's that it is blooming unpredictable.

This last week has included a rice and water detox diet, followed by binge eating on Snickers bars, an unusually quiet Desperate Housewives Night with aussie burgers (burgers, beetroot, egg, pineapple, tomato, salad, onions etc. etc.) and 7 v tired gals lacking in party spirit. Then I played mediator at a fairly emotional discussion, then there was a totally wild and random night that included going to Wiesbaden (capital of Hessen) to see an out of this world band called Stereo Total (www.stereototal.de), then eating a really good Turkish meal at midnight before heading back to the train station to find no trains for 4 hrs and freezing temperatures and then taxiing it to Frankfurt to find somewhere warm to spend the next few hrs before the first train back to Fulda. A fairly dodgy club called Cookies was our chosen haunt but as we were all exhausted it wasn't the best clubbing experience I've ever had. Arriving back in Fulda at 6.30am was amazing. Never thought Fulda would be such a welcoming prospect... Slept Friday to be fit for the party that night - organised by BASIB, the Batchelor equivalent of ICEUS so it was my duty as an ICEUS student to be there. Was called World Beat and was basically a party with music from all over the world that no-one had ever heard before. V cool. Work on the Beer Project was done on Saturday, and v aptly, we were all hungover... Since then there's been snow, studying, yummy food and Harry Potter in German (I had to see it but it pained me to hear all the voices replaced by random Germans who sound nothing like the originals), oh and Burger King at 23.45 as post cinema snack. Amongst all that there's been 23hrs of class and a lot of time spent with a certain Indonesian called Ragil :-D

Salsa, Sunsets and Shepherd's Pie

2005-11-09T18:06:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I had a low point. Still not come up with an explanation as to why, but am pleased to announce that it didn't last long. As the main cause was probably tiredness, the best solution would probably have been to get an early night. But, all those years of studying Philosophy has taught me that logic often gets you nowhere very fast. So, I didn't get an early night, I went round to Bec's, cooked some shepherd's pie (damn good btw), had a jolly time eating it with Ragil, Heidi and Anne and then went to a salsa party and proceeded to dance the night away. It was an ace time and I am pleased to announce that after 4hrs of dancing to latino music I can almost salsa :-) I woke up this morning feeling emotionally fine and dandy if a little sore in the head (and the legs actually - my body just ain't used to those salsa moves.) Eggy bread and fried tomatoes with plenty of OJ to wash it down proved a v enjoyable breakfast (ta Bec) and then our Introduction to Communication Theory class was almost interesting, although I missed my note-writing buddy...

Just been on Bec's roof, watching the sun go down over Fulda (pretty gorge hey?!) and now I'm going to start getting ready for tonight's entertainment. Yes, ok, I was going to have a very early night to prepare myself for Hannah's visit (fellow Yorkie who's going to be here from tomorrow til Saturday) but got a text from Uli saying there's a group of English-speaking folk going to a swanky Italian restaurant and the food and drink are on the rich American Prof (of legendary belly dancing night fame). Well, an invitation like that is hard to turn down (I may be on a scholarship but I am still a student after all) and so I shall be joining the Professor, a British lady who is randomly in Fulda, Sam (a West Virginian) and Uli (a German who spent a year in Glasgow) for a posh Italian meal. Excellent.

Bonne Soiree one and all,
xx

I didn't lose my mind...

2005-11-08T17:43:00.000+01:00

"I didn't lose my mind, it was mine to give away" I've got this line stuck in my head. It might give some indication of my current mental state. Am feeling emotional, stressed, down. There is no real reason why I should feel like this. I'm just tired I guess.

In an attempt to cheer myself up have been reading some prose and poetry I've written in the past. Might put some of it on here one day. Anyway, found two poems which I thought I'd share with you. Enjoy xx

Poem 1
I always look forward confidently
With the innate belief
That everything will flow
Or at least go
As it should
It is only occasionally
That I think
Why?

Poem 2
i think
i am
better at prose

oh those Russians... (Boney M stylee)

2005-11-06T16:58:00.000+01:00

5 weeks in small town Fulda. It was starting to feel a bit wee. "To Frankfurt I'm going" Bec cried, "What a cracking idea" I soon replied. And so it was, sort of. Yesterday me, Bec and Heidi boarded one of Deutsche Bahn's fleet and headed to the big city. I had grand designs of an über geeky visit: an art gallery and a British bookshop but as is often the case I was sat still for a long enough period of time for thoughts of food to creep into my head (5 mins usually does it). We decided a visit to the aussie pub was in order for some kangaroo or crocodile or whatever it is they eat down under (burgers with beetroot apparently...) Aussie beer, cricket, aussie rum and coke, oh and a big fat lamb burger with mozzarella and pesto (mmm) and we were all feeling rather happy with our lot.

Before we knew it it was 3pm and we had meetings to attend. Bec and Heidi with someone from their uni and me with Vladimir, a russian guy who had put me up the last time I was in Frankfurt. We went our separate ways; me, Vladimir and his girlf on a wee walk around Frankfurt before ending up in a v swanky Pizza Hut and Bec, Heidi and Liani to a rather more classy rooftop cafe. After an hour or so of convo and an invite to a party with a bunch of russians that evening, I said farewell to Vladimir and met up with the aussies. We hit the shops, or rather H&M (find it v rude that Frankfurt seems to have one on every street and Fulda has a grand total of ZERO H&Ms.) Bec needed jeans and tried on pretty much the whole shop but didn't buy any. I didn't need jumpers, but tried on two and bought them both. Energy levels were lagging, it was Red Bull time. We bought said energy drink, and some ham and sat ourselves down on some benches on a big, fat, v busy street in Frankfurt and ate and drank. From there to the U-Bahn to the Südbahnhof to meet Vladimir, to the russian party.

More random an event is kaum vorstellbar (hardly imaginable). We found ourselves in a suburb of Frankfurt, in an apartment with a bunch of random russians, at a party celebrating the birthday of one of the flatmates, who happened to be in Moscow. A birthday party by proxy. I suppose it was slightly less random for me than for Heidi and Bec. At least I had met Vladimir before and bizarrely enough I knew another guy there too - he had randomly picked me and Adelheid up from Frankfurt Airport in March 2004 and allowed us to sleep on his floor for 3hrs before taking us to Frankfurt Hahn Airport for our flights to Barcelona. Hmm, anyway. I find random events highly enjoyable and this party was no exception. We talked about such deep subjects as what comes first, thought or language? (Answers on a postcard please!), drank cocktails and beer and listened to some über camp german music. At 11.15pm we were escorted to the train station by Vladimir, airport guy and another party bloke. We had time for a group shot and promises of a night out in Fulda as well as an all-nighter in Frankfurt and then we boarded the train and headed back to small town Fulda. It was good to get out for a day.

There's an awful lot of weirdos in our neighbourhood

2005-11-04T20:09:00.000+01:00

Enough of the academic stuff (see that's what happens when you keep asking me about my studies!)

I got back from uni the other day, busting for the toilet, to find the flushing mechanism in a dismantled state, various parts of the toilet spread around the bathroom and a strong smell of vinegar. Hmm, I thought. What on earth have my crazy German flatmates done now. Well, Matthias didn't know anything about it (incidentally his befuddled response didn't surprise me one bit). We hunted Kathi down (well, knocked on her door) and demanded an explanation (well, asked her what the deal with the toilet was). We walked en masse to the bathroom and stood around the toilet. Kathi then proceeded to give a rather complex and incomprehensible explanation as to why she had dismantled the toilet and poured vinegar down it and then explained how now, whenever we used the toilet we would need to turn the water flow on and make a note of the time and level showing on the water meter. Needless to say, I returned to my room in a rather dazed and confused state. What on earth had happened to normality and why, oh why, am I living with people who find it normal behaviour to request that everyone makes a note everytime they use the toilet?

Well, when I returned to the flat today I found Matthias in the bathroom with a puzzled look on his face. It would seem he had taken it upon himself to be Mr DIY and to put the toilet back together. 30 mins later there was little sign of progress and I was starting to get impatient. He said he's be 5 mins and sure enough, 5 mins later he was done and the toilet seemed to have returned to normal. 5 mins later, I found out (5 mins too late) that the flush was in fact still not functioning properly. Well, I had an appointment with Chryssa about our presentation on Poland (don't ask) and so had to explain the situation to Matthias and leave him to deal with it. I made it back home a few hours later (after having emailed our Prof and having gotten 4 books our of the library :-) I'm v proud of my achievement) to find everything back to normal and a clean toilet. Thank God for that. I am now wondering what's going to happen next. Living with Germans is very different to living with Helen and Ruth (my über cool and über laidback flatmates from Edinburgh). We certainly had no dismantling of toilets in our flat in Ed, in fact, mere cleaning of the toilet was deemed almost too OTT...

Anyways, enough about toilets. Last night was Thursday night and alternate Thursday nights is party night at the FH. The night started with Ragil cooking up some scrummy (if somewhat spicy) Indonesian food for us which was accompanied by the standard amaretto and apple juice. From there we hit a house party and then went to Halle 8 for the main event. It wasn't a patch on the last Halle 8 party but got some photos... First pic is the house party peeps walking/stumbling to Halle 8 (Stelios, Solange, Lalang, Katia and Bec), then there's me, Bec and Ragil, then me with Saskia and Susi, 2 German mates of Bec's, then a group mug shot of Anne, Chryssa, Bec and me and then finally, Anne and Chryssa doing a cracking ad for Becks beer and FH parties.

Intercultural Communication?

2005-11-04T19:38:00.000+01:00

My course is Intercultural Communication and European Studies and, as the title would suggest, a large part of it deals with communication between cultures. I find it quite an unacademic academic subject really - surely the best way to learn about intercultural communication is to do it. Well, I am certainly learning to communicate interculturally - I am the only British person at the Fachhochschule in Fulda, so whoever I talk to, wave to, smile at, is someone from a different culture, whether they be from somewhere as close to home as Germany, or as far away as Indonesia or Uzbekistan.

I'm actually in two minds about all this talk of intercultural communication. I think it places too much emphasis on cultures. It is almost highlighting the differences between different people. Is it possible to draw any real lines between different cultures? Can we generalise to enough of a degree to actually get anywhere? I mean, say I am talking to Ragil, a guy in my class from Indonesia. Does it make any sense at all to describe the situation as the interaction of two different cultures? British culture communicating with Indonesian culture or Western with Far Eastern culture or non-Muslim with Muslim? I find it quite artificial to put people into 'cultural' boxes. I am British, European, non-religious, Western etc. etc. Are the defining factors of these different cultures not similar to the defining factors of being Indonesian, Muslim, etc.? Cultures, if possible to define at all, overlap and people who originate from different cultures are individuals with common ground that I feel is almost ignored as soon as this talk of culture starts. When I talk to Ragil it is one ICEUS student talking to another, two people with similar interests, studying the same subject. As far as I can see, focusing on the differences between different cultures is a divisive way of viewing communication.

in the words of John Lennon: "I'm so tired..."

2005-11-02T19:05:00.000+01:00

Hello Peeps,

Wie geht's euch? Hope all is good. I actually have nothing of interest to report apart from the fact that I am so exhausted I don't have the energy to do anything but sit in front of my computer, hence the blog. Before people start telling me it's because of all the late nights, I want to inform you all that I went to bed at 8.30pm last night. So there ;-) Emotions are running high in Fulda at the moment, have been since Friday. Emotions concerned aren't mine, but it's having an affect anyway and I think it's a contributing factor to my current somnambulic state (thank ETA Hoffmann and his über weird Sandman story for the vocab.) Plus, uni is tiring me out. It is so difficult having 6hrs of lessons a day, the majority of which are in German. I get back from uni and have no energy to do anything. Good job the only homework we get can be put off until the weekend. Don't get me wrong, am still thoroughly enjoying everything here, I am just SO tired...

On a more exciting note, we had a film crew in our class yesterday. Was actually at a German house party on Monday night (doing my bit for intercultural relations, you know) and so turned up to class in a slightly sore (actually still slightly merry) state (the soreness soon hit though), to find the lesson in full swing, complete with a fairly oversized tv camera, a soundman complete with furry microphone and another guy. Wasn't until 40mins later when they stopped filming that I found out what on earth was going on: Filming for a show that is being aired in exactly 8mins time about the scholarships Hessen has given to people from the hurricane-hit places of the US. We have a girl in our class from Louisiana so it was mainly focused on her, but our lecturer was filmed speaking his dodgy English about European Integration and the camera was pointed straight at me on a few occasions. They will probs have edited this out though, cos despite the fact that I was still fully made-up from night before (oops) and had slick straight hair, therefore looking far cooler than I usually do for class, I was obviously not paying any attention to the lesson in hand, more wondering what on earth had happened to normality.

30 mins later: Just watched the show, and low and behold, they have edited me out! You can just see the back of me walking away from the camera but that's it. Lucky escape that one... Anyway, if you are interested in seeing the report you can watch it online at http://www.hr-online.de/website/fernsehen/sendungen/index.jsp?rubrik=5300. Unfortunately it's in German, and you will have to fastforward or sit through the first 15mins or so. But you can see a bit of Fulda, our student cafeteria, our class, oh and my back...

Viel Spaß,
love Lu xx

ps - Have added 2 pics to balance out the text for those of you who get scared at the sight of too many words. They're from Monday night. The first to prove I do eat kinda healthy and cos it's rather an amusing photo of Bec's bodiless head and neck and the second from the party, of Bec, Anne and Yu (a fellow ICEUS student).

The European Dream

2005-10-30T16:17:00.000+01:00

Just finished reading a fairly fabulous book called The European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. He's an American with v agreeable views on Europe. Anyway, thought the last few lines were worth sharing:
"Much of the world is going dark, leaving many human beings without clear direction. The European Dream is a beacon of light in a troubled world. It beckons us to a new age of inclusivity, diversity, quality of life, deep play, sustainability, universal human rights, the rights of nature, and peace on Earth. We Americans used to say that the American Dream is worth dying for. The new European Dream is worth living for."

Love to all,
xx

ps - on a slightly lighter note; if you haven't seen Pride&Pred yet then I recommend you go see it. I saw it last night and despite it being overdubbed in German, thought it was wunderbar! The only negative I could think of was the lack of Mr Darcy emerging from the lake, but you get to see him walking across a field at dawn instead, so all is not lost! Plus, Mr Bingley is über cute in this one too :-)

A Sunny Post for a Sunny Day

2005-10-28T16:03:00.000+02:00

It's such a gorgeous day! it's the 28th October and it is so hot - 20 degrees. Just been wandering around Fulda in the sunshine, bought myself a döner kebab (they are so good here. I mean, you don't have to be drunk to enjoy them, unlike in Britain) and then sat and ate it in the Schlossgarten. The gardens were full of people chatting, sunbathing, reading, lazing around, even juggling. And they are so nice at the moment - golden leaves everywhere. It was ace :-)

Anyway, just wanted to share my current smiley state with you. Thought it might be good to have a non-alcohol related post too. Worried people might start to get the wrong idea about my activities here in Fulda and Bec's comments aren't helping...

Big hugs xx

Lust auf dem Studium

2005-10-27T17:13:00.000+02:00

Hey Peeps,

How's life? I'm feeling a rather strange combination of contentedness and uncertainty (Unsicherheit - can't find correct translation). Content because it's the weekend - hurrah for having Fridays off :-) Uncertain because it is the weekend and I am looking at a blank canvas. I have no plans at all and I don't like it. Surely the parties can't have dried up already. I think it's just because it is the first Thursday night without a big party at the uni :-( Still, life isn't all about partying. I am here to study.

I tried really hard to make the upcoming weekend a studious one today. I went to the library with the aim of getting books out (feeling rather proud of my achievement.) I found 3 books that would have been perfect for the job, took them down to the electronic machine, and proceeded to be shown how to get them out using the new electronic machine (think the FH library is v proud of its new technology). The woman showing me how to use the machine was almost as bemused as I was when the machine refused to check them out. The reason for the machine's refusal to comply was soon discovered; apparently the 3 books I had chosen were all unausleihbar (non-get-out-able). I had found them in the Semesterapparat - the section of the library where the Professors put all the important books. Yep, the books that are of most use cannot be borrowed. I suppose it makes sense in that if one person had them for 4 weeks (the standard borrowing time) then no-one else could access them, but why not have a reserve section like Edinburgh where you can borrow books for 2hrs or even a short loan section where you have to return them after a week. It seems they do things differently here. Well I'm rather cross at the whole system and have taken it as a (probably successful) attempt by the authorities that be to prevent me from having the studious weekend that I vaguely thought about.

On the bright side, there is some work I can do. As part of our Xenology seminar we have to do group projects on an aspect of German culture that we find strange, different or intriguing. Bec and I came up with an ingenious idea, found 3 others who expressed an equally large interest in the subject and then had to positively refuse other ICEUS-Leute from joining our group. Our chosen topic to investigate is, wait for it... German Beer Culture! Pretty cool hey?! So we are going to investigate such important issues as when it is appropriate to drink (what time of day and in what situations - we are going to drink a beer or two in class and see how our fellow students and teachers react), where it is appropriate to drink (again, in class, and then, on the street, at the bus stop, etc. etc.), also how society reacts to people drinking beer and then all the different rules and norms that go with German beer drinking. So, for our research we get to drink beer, record the reactions of others to our beer drinking, and investigate various different types of pubs, bars and parties. Beer drinking in the name of uni-work. Brilliant.

Hmm, so I guess where the library failed me, my Xenology project may prove to be the saviour. I can do some research after all :-)

Love to all,
xx

Frosch im Loch

2005-10-26T15:46:00.000+02:00

Being the kind of person who likes to try and please everyone, I have done my utmost to satisfy the photo requests. To the left you can see a photo of myself with my rather sexy bike, Augusta, and, low and behold, I am holding my homework diary, thus 'studying' :-) Hope that keeps you happy My! And I hope you all approve of my new set of wheels. I like to think that where she is lacking in functionability (lack of lights, bizarre clunking noises etc. etc.) she makes up for in style.

So it is autumn here in Fulda (and probs everywhere else actually come to think about it) and the trees are all looking stunning. For those of you who don't know, my flat is located v near to the Schlossgarten (palace gardens). Yesterday me and Bec went for a walk through the park and took a few pics. (Note the self-portrait Ruth!) Yep, Fulda is looking gorge at the mo, shame it's a sign of the impending winter. Brr, feeling cold just thinking about it. Have started preparing myself for the cold temperatures though and have invested in some highly impractical shoes that are highly unsuitable for the winter months, apart from the fact that they have sheepskin fur inside them. Excellent :-)

To the title of this post. Some of you may be wondering what crazy words I have chosen this time. Well, they literally translate as 'frog in the hole'. Can you tell what it is yet? (Rolf Harris stylee) Last night was Desperate Housewives Night. Basically a group of girls of various nationalities (we had German, Brit, Aussie, French, Swedish, Vietnamese and Belarussian last night) meet up, eat food from one of the represented countries, drink red wine, watch Desperate Housewives (overdubbed in German, grrr) and have a girly night in. Last night was my turn to cook. Me and Bec created what can only be described as a meal fit for kings (or queens perhaps). Two big toad in the holes, one giant veggie yorkshire pudding, mashed potato and swede, peas and gravy (made from Bisto's finest gravy granules). I have noticed some rather unfair stereotypes about British culinery delights, namely that all foreigners think our food is tasteless rubbish. Anyway, I saw this as my opportunity to prove everyone wrong. The pressure was high but I am pleased to announce I did not crack. The meal was a roaring success, the shock on everyone's face at tasting 'yummy' British food was priceless :-) And I got to eat yorkshire pud. Mmm mmm. Everyone was happy. The wine was good too. My 8am Europarecht (European Law) lecture wasn't...

Decademia

2005-10-23T14:02:00.000+02:00

Hello, hello, hello. Hope everyone is fine and dandy. I'm having a day of studying (a first for me since arriving here) and I have reached the point where I need a break. George Dubya is still making his UN World Summit speech in the background (have to research summit for a 2-day long block seminar on the UN next week). Needless to say, he's being as insightful as ever. But enough about politics...

I have been in Fulda for 4 whole weeks now and it has gone so so fast. Since leaving York everything has fallen almost perfectly into place. The trip over with Paul went without a hitch (apart from one minor driving error where we almost drove the wrong way down the dual carriageway. Was quickly rectified by a handily placed sliproad that actually took us to the road we were looking for in the first place...) Our trips to Bonn and Bamberg were spot-on (was lovely being back in Bammers, visiting all the key places - Zum Weidenhof, Spezi Brewery and Biergarten, Eiscafe, COE, irish pub, steak restaurant, mmm, steak...) and Paul even got to visit Fulda's Turkish bar for some belly dancing fun with an American Professor before he left :-)

Then it was the orientation week - 7 days of sorting out the admin stuff, getting to know international students (wie heißt du? woher kommst du? was studierst du? wo wohnst du? etc. etc. etc.). It also included an overnight stay in the Rhön - a national park near Fulda. We stayed in a YH on the top of the highest mountain in Hessen (the Wasserkuppe) and had a night of silly games, alcohol and a torchlit walk in horizontal rain. All good fun.

As soon as the orientation week ended, classes began. My course is a 2 year masters in Intercultural Communication and European Studies (ICEUS). Our class has about 25 people in it and it is a pretty impressive mix of nationalities, ranging from China and Taiwan to Uzbekistan, to Indonesia, to Australia, to Spain, to Bosnia, to Slovakia and the Czech Republic, to Belarus, to Turkey, to the USA, oh and to Germany and GB. We have all our classes together (that's 24hrs a week) and so we are getting to know each other pretty well through our studies and then the social events help too. The course is a mix of politics, law, communication and cultural studies. It's pretty interesting having such a diverse group of people studying together - we are learning so much just from hanging out together.

Apart from the studies all is good. Despite Fulda being a small small town (60 000 peeps) there seems to be a lot going on. There's always a party to go to and over the past week or so I've found someone who finds it almost as hard as me to say no to a party! Yep, Bec is pretty crazy, I guess it's probs those Aussie genes. Anyway, am making the most of the start of the term and small quantities of work. This Thursday was a student party at the uni. Played drinking games and drank amaretto and apple juice at Bec's place with a group of international students then we headed to the party and met lots of ICEUS people there. Danced the night away, right to the last song, which, bizarrely was Robbie Williams' Road to Mandalay. Yep, the pictures on the right are from the party (Bec&Alberto, Seda,Ragil&Chia-Lin and Me,Bec&Ragil). The next night was Anne's 21st (Bec's french flatmate). Flat party with lots of people, lots of cool music, lots of alcohol, some more crazy dancing and an estimated time of arrival in bed of 6am. Yesterday I slept, today I am studying (kinda) and tomorrow lectures start again... No rest for the wicked!

Love to all xx

Greetings one and all!

2005-10-22T13:59:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the unique insight into my slightly mad life and totally insane mind that is this blog.
Hmm, yes. So as I am now in foreign lands (schon wieder), I thought it would be a cracking idea to get myself one of these blog things so my various relatives and mates from home, from Ed and from Bammers can see what I am up to.
So here it is. I hope it will interest, entertain and maybe even bring a wee smile every once in a while...