Just little old me: Ich habe Freunde

So I’m coming to the realisation that my life in Germany so far has turned into that Carly Ray Jenson, Call me maybe, with every person I’ve met who has any English on them, I am literally quoting the lyrics to the chorus! Although, in saying that I have gained a social life beyond the family and have somehow manage to make a friend who lives a 5 min bike ride from me! YES, SUCCESS, A FRIEND IN VOLKSDORF!! She is from Karliningrad, Russia, she can speak English but prefers to speak Deutsch. This has both its advantages and disadvantages Yay I’m learning Deutsch and now have to use it which means I will improve! Boooo I’ve just started learning Deutsch and have very limited vocabulary and don’t understand half of the conversation! With her help and tolerance I’ll hopefully be able to contribute to a conversation in Deutsch that won’t involve me saying “Ich möchte” (I want), “Ich mag” (I like) or “Ich Kann” (I can) and hopefully there will come a time that when I say aber (but) it won’t come out sounding like A BEER! Another word fulfilling my Irish stereotype.

look, there's two beers not one! and the other isn't even mines!

In regards to my social life I have been to the Reeperbahn twice now, it is claimed to be the largest red light district in Germany! I haven’t had any experiences of red light districts before (shocking , I know) but this one seem bright and crazy enough to me. Hopefully many more fun filled experiences to be had there. Then there is the Sternschanze, it’s more a bar atmosphere with less of the glitz (aka strip bars) of the Reeperbahn and according to one of my friends, “it’s where all the cool indie kids hang out”. My first time at the Sternchanze and was a test of how poor my Irish drinking stamina has become! The Lack of time spent in bars over the past 5 weeks has brought me down to getting very drunk after only just 4/5 bottles!

Perhaps the biggest event that has happened since my last blog involves me and my bike. Every Saturday morning at half 8, I have to go to the bakery and buy some bread rolls for breakfast (German’s love their bread!!!). Admittedly I was out the previous night and had little sleep on me, but I did not think much of it as the bakery is not far away and the road rarely sees any cars. BOY WAS I WRONG! Whilst cycling home still chuffed by ordering the bread rolls in German, I got slightly distracted by a hole that was being pierced into the bag of rolls by my bike’s breaks, the next thing I knew I was on the ground! Although there were no moving cars, there were plenty of parked cars and me being me found a way to stupidly crash into a parked car without even knowing it! I gained a few ugly bruises on my legs but I was more concerned about the car. Luckily the owner was very nice and did not mind new additional scratches as there were already quite a few scratches on the car. PRAISE THE LORD!

Other things have happened but I feel this is getting too long now and I don’t want to bore you too much (that’s if you have gotten this far in reading it) so here is the short form list of other things I have done;

Celebrated Ella’s (the eldest daughter) and steffi’s (the mother) birthday on the same day, broke an A string on a cello (whoops), slept in till 2:30pm (a beautiful day indeed!!), watched the sunset at the Alster (the lake in the centre of the city), got stalked by a man who kept persisting in trying to get me back to his place (it’s the ginger hair I think that brings the creeps out!) lost weight, gained too many holes in my jeans from playing with the boys, watched a movie in an open air cinema on the Alster, went to Miniatur Wunderland; a mini model city thing which was FREAKING AWESOME! (got to see a mini plane take off!!!) made my famous lasagne twice (because it is just that good) HAD MY FIRST PINT OF GUINESS IN HAMBURG! (it wasn’t as bad as it could have been) and wrote this blog which took nearly two weeks to complete. There is other things but I’m too lazy to remember and I’m sure you probably don’t care that much.