Bye Bye Blogger, Blogger Bye Bye

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

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!!!

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...

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

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...

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

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

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia waved at me...

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...

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

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

'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

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

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

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.

I've handed in my thesis.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Summer is officially here

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...

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?

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...

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

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