Corr it ain't half hot

Hola from sunny Costa Calida!

The time I've spent here with my Aunt and Uncle has been great fun so far; we've karakoke'd, danced the night away to rock 'n' roll, swam in the Med, lounged by the pool and even spoken on the radio station. (Yes, you read that right, I'm famous here now and have the baseball cap to prove it.)

The view from Tia and Tio's rooftop

It was baking hot from the minute I arrived. It's 11.34 p.m. and I'm sweating like a pig.

Friday began with the drive through what looked like the Nevada desert to Camposol in Murcia, where my aunt and uncle live, the lucky buggers. It's a pretty surreal place, partly because it's as dry as Ghandi's flip-flop and partly because it's just like being down the social club back in Basildon. Talking about the social club, their local is a place called the Trevi across the road and we spent Friday night there singing and dancing along to an excellent entertainer called Suzy G. She did a fantastic Michael Jackson tribute.

After recovering on Saturday morning, we headed to the port of Mazzaron to the local market. Uncle Roger went off for a coffee, having realised that he's lived here long enough now to find the tourists irritating. That night we went to a different bar to see a rock 'n' roll band called the Red Tops, who were brilliant, even coming out in the dancing crowd with their instruments and singing with us.

Camposol

Sweaty smiles at Mazzaron Port

On Sunday evening, Auntie Julie and I went on a karaoke crawl. Auntie Julie is known as Ju-Bo round here, because pretty much everyone hear knows her voice. It was good fun that night, and although I chickened out of taking part myself, it was lovely to hear Julie sing again.

I slept in until 1 on Monday, wooops. It was a quiet day though, and we spent the afternoon in the Trevi and came home to bangers and mash. I tell you, I should have come here sooner as a lot of the homesickness would have been helped! Well, to do with food anyway. I've had several fry-ups, steak and kidney pie, propa sausages AND fish and chips. We watched the commemoration service for the beginning of WW1 and lit our candle outside. We nearly gave Uncle Roger nightmares- he was asleep in the armchair and Auntie Julie and I were sitting on the sofa behind him, in the dark for the service, so when he woke up and looked around... hahaha oh his face, it was amusing.

Yesterday evening was spent on the beach in Bolnuevo, which was just gorgeous. I haven't swum in the sea for years, and apart from nearly falling over in the rather large ripples, it was lovely.

Me in the Med (yes, I cropped this because I don't look half as good as the other ladies in the picture. but whatever)

So today I had my 15 minutes of fame! Ju-bo knows everyone round here, so we went up to the Costa Calida radio station to see DJ Eddie B, and I got to sit in the big chair and announce a couple of songs! I was so nervous beforehand, but it was all good. I'm obviously a natural radio star. I mean, people we bumped into the caff and at the pub said "Oh, you were on the radio earlier!". Ego x1000.

Eddie B, and me, watching how it's done

Cheesy but I love it

Me and Julie have just got back from quiz night up the Trevi. We did come last, but we won a bag of sweets for our trouble. I think we did pretty well considering it was just the two of us and that I was the youngest one there...

Anyway, not sure what we're doing tomorrow, maybe looking for some new shorts for me, and then having a quiet one round the pool.

I'll be off to Avignon on Saturday evening, but I'll see if I can check in before then. Whether you'll get any photos before I'm back in Berlin or Essex, I cannot say!

Adios amigos! (My Spanish is seriously limited. I'm sorry).

xxxx

Odds and ends

So my internship is over. I've had a brilliant six months in Berlin and know for definite now that I want to translate as a career. It was sad leaving on Thursday. My boss gave me a book about the history of the German language in German, and a nice card. There were a few tears on my part when I finally left, but he did say I was always welcome there. Careful, mister, because I may just have to take you up on that in a year or so.

I also realised that, despite sending a huge suitcase home, I still have far too much to take as hand luggage on the final flight back to England. I mentioned this to my boss and he gave me a suitcase that he had in the office. It's a perfect size, and yes I've had to pay for hold baggage, but I'm much less stressed now.

Though I have just realised that my trainers are white and brand new, so I'll look a bit like a dick. Might have to scrape them across the curbs or something, you know, to look cool and all that, because spanking white trainers are a bit too much. Perhaps I should have slept before my flight and not decided to stay up eating cheeseballs, because I'm chatting poop now.

Anyway, my rucksack is all packed and ready to leave for Spain in the morning. Can't believe it's come around so quick! It doesn't seem possible that in just a few weeks now I'll be at home in Essex.

Before that though, it's the summer holidays and I intend to make the best of them!

Laters
xxx

One lone Muskeeter

So I'm pretty much getting ready to leave Berlin now! I'm pretty much packed for the next 3 weeks, and my big suitcase has been shipped back to England already. (Mum just text me to say she has it, relieeeef). Finishing up at work has been sad, but my boss gave me a glowing reference and I can safely say that I'm really proud of the last 6 months! Can't believe Thursday is my last day there. I really enjoy it and would quite happily stay if, well you know, I didn't have a degree to finish.

Last week, Sophie and I went for dinner on Tuesday evening at an Italian place that Hilary kept telling me to go to! It was definitely worth all of her hype and we were very impressed.

On Wednesday, it was Sophie's leaving thing and we all got pizza and sat in the Volkspark in Friedrichshain, which was really relaxed and lovely. Then we all headed to Seemanderstrasse for cocktails, obviously, and Sophie had her last falafel in Berlin. It was sad times. Got even sadder when Guy and I had to wait 30 minutes for a bus back to Kotti, then I had to get another bus back to Hermannplatz and walk home from there. Oh well!

I don't think anything else exciting has happened at all! I went for a nice walk along the canals on Saturday and sat in a cafe for 3 hours reading. I really should have contacted Lionel over the weekend, but no use crying about that now. I might see if I can meet him tomorrow evening.

Monday I was off work because, well, quite frankly, I couldn't stop vomiting everywhere. So I spent most of the day  watching True Blood and getting a bit too hooked.

And so we come to today, and my netbook is home again. For how long, I dare not even estimate. You may or not hear from me before I jet off to Spain on Friday!

Oh yes, and the teeth are sorted! I fully recommend German dentistry, seriously. Aside from the fact it's 1000% more intimidating, it was overall a rather okay experience, and I'm happy as larry with the result! (Let's just hope it's a while before I have to do anything else to them, hmm)

HELLO HOLLYWOOD

Off to have pizza, wine and tv with the flatmates now. Only got two more days left with them!

Bis bald (hopefully)

xxx

On Granddad's trail

I don't actually think that I mentioned where I was going the weekend before last, so you're all probably on the edge of your seats with suspense. If you're expecting some terrific adventure, stop here, because I stayed with an old lady in Büdelsdorf/Rendsburg in Schleswig-Holstein. No, this isn't one last desperate attempt to have a German tandem partner-she met my grandad when he was part of the occupying troops there after the war.

She and her sister were only young (10 and 4), but they remember him coming to their house with sweets and even reading them bedtime stories. I've known about them for a long time, as my Grandad wrote to them frequently. After he died, I wrote to tell them and they have always kept in contact with us, so I thought it would be lovely to meet them finally!

I took the train on Saturday afternoon and had an hour to have a little walk around Hamburg. I didn't see much, and it was so bloody hot that I'm surprised I didn't just melt. I saw the Alster which was gorgeous in the sun, with the sailing boats bobbing along.

A teensy weensy bit of Hamburg

I didn't get fantastic impressions about Hamburg, but come on, I was there for no time at all and didn't see a lot!

When the train pulled into Rendsburg station, there was a woman with a red rose on the platform and I knew it was Helga, because she'd told me on the phone she'd be carrying one. So cute.

So my weekend of solid German speaking began! Helga showed me around her house and garden and introduced me to her cat. Then we went for dinner at a little place on the high street.

The following day, we went to her sister Erika's house and we all went down to the canal to see the big ships. They have liveed in Büdelsdorf their entire lives, and their grandfather worked on the canals, so the water is in their blood. We spent Sunday in Erika's garden, drinking tea, eating ice-cream and having a very German cold supper. Helga and I went home and watched a Helene Fischer concert, and I learnt the verb 'naschen'. I nasched a lot of chocolates that evening. It was honestly great, as it brought back so many happy memories of spending time with grandparents.

I'm sorry, but this is awesome

On Monday, Helga took me on a proper little tour of everywhere. The house where they lived when my Grandad used to visit is still standing. It's now office space, and has a MacDonalds next door, but STILL. That was pretty eerie.

Their old house

The whole town of Rendsburg was lovely, and again, was just strange to think that my Granddad had been here all that time ago! We lit candles in the church for my grandparents, bought some postcards, saw the old site of the barracks where Granddad would have lived, and had a currywurst for dinner.

Paradeplatz (Granddad lived just off this square)

It all went very quickly though, and it wasn't long before they were seeing me off at the train station, and loading me up with peaches, sweets and cartons of orange juice. Bless them! I did take a picture with them, but I don't know how'd they feel about being thrown around the internet on my blog, so I'll be keeping that one to myself, also, it's a disgusting photo of me. So everyone's happy.

It was a lovely break from the city as well. I'm glad I went to see them! I also think that my German has actually improved since then? Maybe I'm imagining it, but three days solid of speaking German has definitely improved my confidence, if nothing else. It was also quite strange to hear a different dialect: the first time someone said 'moin' to me, I just stared at them in wonder. Plaadeutsch was quite fun though, it sounds like a mix of Dutch and English really, but I couldn't really understand what Helga was saying when she spoke so fast on the phone to Erika.

Anyway, it was lovely! I feel like it was definitely worth doing.

One Musketeer down

I meant to update this before I went away for the weekend but unfortunately my latpop is back at the repair shop, because apparently it just does not like me or anything I try and do with it. Ugh.

Let's get some boring updates out of the way first: I still don't have a bridge! I have to wear this plastic one until Thursday 24th (I've had it now for a week). As long as it's sorted by August, I guess it's ok. Secondly, I managed to get the pill here, even though it cost 36 €!

So the Saturday before last was nice, I met up with Sophie and Hilary in Charlottenburg, where we wandered around the gardens and took in some scenery. Then we went back to Hilary's for tea (and pistachios) before heading onto Bergmanstraße for dinner. There was a very peculiar parade going on, as in people in extremely bizarre outfits shouting to what sounded a bit like the Sex Pistols. We met up with Hilary's Belgian friend at a Vietnamese and sat nattering away for hours.

Hilary's mad photo skills

On Sunday, I was actually quite productive. I woke up at 9 (I know, maybe I'm not well), did some yoga and updated my CV. Then I spent the afternoon watching Endeavour with my flatmates and having to explain some very British phrases. It was time for the World Cup final that night! We met up and went to the Kulturbrauerei, after having our faces painted with the German flag by Kate. It was such a good atmosphere and when Götze scored in extra time, the place just went mental. There were showers of beers and fireworks, flags in people's faces, shouting and chanting. Basically, it was superb. After we watched Angie hug her boys, we started home. People were gathered in the streets, everyone on the U-Bahn was shouting and when I got into bed I could still hear fireworks.

So sieht Sieger aus! (Sophie's picture)

Looking like a right chubster, but rather happy to be alive

Merkel hugging her boys

On Tuesday evening, I met the girls at the Tränenpalast after work. I'd been planning to go for some time, since Sia recommended it to me. I will now recommend it too! Tränenpalast literally means 'Palace of tears', and it's what the locals came to call this building as it was a check point, and obviously many miserable memories happened here. I think one of the most interesting things there was some newsreel footage about the 1953 uprising. They had footage from both the West and the East and it was incredible how differently they spun the stories. I also read some documents chronicling the movements of an author as he regularly went East and it was horrible. There were photos of him, just labelled with 'Objekt' and a number. If you ever find yourself with an hour to spare on Friedrichstraße, you should go.

We had dinner together and sat talking for hours, my favourite type of evening!

On Wednesday evening, I met up with Lionel, for the first time since May! It was really nice to see him again. Obviously we went to Italo for coffee and cake, and he told me all about his holiday and his new job. I told him about my series of unfortunate events. I also think my French was okay, considering I hadn't spoken it in so long, but for whatever reason, my language was co-operating with me!

I did however tell a woman that she was on her way to Neukölln, when she was in fact, not. I was too busy reading to notice I was on the wrong side of the platform. I hope she made it wherever she was going. Oops.

Thursday night was Hilary's leaving meal :( We had dinner at White Trash near Schlessi, and it was a really good night, you know, aside from the fact I won't see Hilary for a while! I'm planning to go to Edinburgh in their freshers week and harrass them all, so it won't be long really. We've had some exellent times in Berlin together though, some good friendships have been made! (These are yet more of Hilary's photos!)

On Friday, Sophie, Guy and some other people went to the Freiluftkino in Friedrichshain Volkspark and it was great fun! The film boasted a rather tasty main character and we all understood enough to laugh along with everybody else, which was obviously great.

The open air cinema, excuse the stupid speaker in the way



And then I went away for the weekend, but I'll write about that when I get my laptop back, otherwise there will be no pictures at all! 

Tonight is Sophie's last night, boo! We're all going to chill in Volkspark Friedrichshain with pizza and beers. It should be good.

Something about the weather to finish? BERLIN IS A SAUNA.

Tschau! 

xxx

p.s yes I posted this at work, but I wrote it on my phone last night and did the pictures on my break, don't tell on me

Me, myself, and my sister

It's been nearly 2 weeks since my sister visited so I reckon I should probably pull my finger out and write a blog post about it! I left work early to fetch her from the airport and found out her flight was delayed which was a fabulous start, but we were soon reunited with a bear hug and headed straight to my place for a cuppa. I gave her the tour of my flat and then we headed off to our hotel-weirdly opposite the place I was taking my language classes. Weirder still was that our room directly faced it!

The room was gorgeous and although we were both tired, we headed to Kotti for a burger. It was really strange sitting opposite my sister at the same table I'd sat with Sophie a few weeks ago. We decided we'd get some sweets at the supermarket and chill back at the hotel and talk into the small hours, which we did, and it was so lovely to have some sister time again.


The next day was sightseeing, but a lot less strenuous than mum's visit. We walked to the Brandenburg Gate, saw the Reichstag and couldn't really see the Tiergarten properly because of the Fanmeile.

Then the walk to Potsdamer Platz and the Jewish and Homosexual memorials on the way. We stopped for some baked goods, before setting off again and saw the remains of the wall at Topography of Terror. Joy was horrified by it all and couldn't believe that she was 8 when the wall fell. She just couldn't get her head around it! Then we walked on towards Checkpoint Charlie and stopped at the old-fashioned photo booth to get our photos done. I did this with mum and it is adorable! It costs 2 euros for 4 photos, they're black and white and like the old photo booths where you could change your pose every picture. We did it twice so we could each have a strip, then realised a queue was forming and the photos took like 10 minutes to develop. Ooops.

The paps caught me

After Checkpoint Charlie, I showed Joy the currywurst museum where we got samples to try, then declared it was time for coffee so we sat outside Coffeefellows for like 2 hours, putting the world to rights and nattering away. Then we took a walk down Unter den Linden, seeing the Berliner Dom, before going to the Nikolai Quarter. We wandered around for a bit, and I acquired a new friend! Thank you Joy!

Meet Müller (after the footballer, NOT the yoghurt. Joy, I am looking at you!)

We sat and had a beer, then we had dinner at a nice little restaurant, and thought the food was nice, but the guy on the table next to us was, quite frankly, a complete tit and shouted the place down about how awfuk his schnitzel was. He even called the waiter a 'fucking idiot'. What confused me though was that when he was ordering he asked what 'Kalb' was (it's veal) and then after the whole incident we heard him say to his friend that he'd been coming to Germany since he was 3 and that was the worst schnitzel he'd ever had... well, how did he not know what Kalbschnitzel was then?! In the succint words of Rik Mayall, he was an "utter, utter bastard".







After that, we headed to Alexander Platz (by the end of her visit, Joy was also calling it 'Alex' and I am very proud). We were up there a couple of hours, enjoying the views as the sun went down. I tried my best to look for where I live, but just couldn't spot it, even with the binocular things. It was a bit cloudy on the horizon so we'll blame that. We took a stroll home, going past several prositutes very suddenly, and finished off our sweets in the hotel.

Elephant selfie!

We allowed ourselves a bit of a lie in on Saturday and we toddled off to the zoo at about 11. The Zoologischer Garten is home to the most exotic species in the world, and, because there is more than one zoo in the city, Berlin has the most zoo animals in the world. I know right? It was pretty awesome. We saw an Asian elephant rub her eye with her trunk, a baby elephant, POLAR BEARS, grizzly bears, hippos, Melmans (giraffes), lots and lots of monkeys, wolves... I could go on and on. We went into the lion house and were horrified though. One lioness was outside and the other lioness and lion were inside. They were boiling hot- the lion was pacing and panting, and the lioness was sitting on her haunches scratching the hell out of the door. It was horrible. Then all of a sudden, they began to growl and whine. I have never heard a lion make a noise before, and it was pretty insane. The whole building was just echoing with these poor lions. I probably would have wet myself if they had actually roared... We tried to put it behind us, but it definitely made us uncomfortable. We sat for a bit at the restaurant and then went to the aquarium which was fun-I've never seen so many jellyfish!

Sorry but I love this

This was just too adorable not to post.

I tried to grow up once. It failed.

That night I took Joysie to the Oberbaumbrücke and East Side Gallery briefly, before we headed to the Mexican that Joe and I had been too before. It was better than I remembered. Mainly because we were watching the Brazil-Chile game, we had cocktails, and then a strange ruccus happened outside with a man and his bike. He was shouting all up the street and at one point threw his bike in the middle of the road. a lady got out of her car to move it, it was in her way, and the man shouted 'no you leave my fucking bike there'.  Sorry, what?  The police turned up and he eventually sidled away, with his bike in tow. Odd.

Next day was our last day sadly. We checked out of the hotel and headed to mine, where we had lots of baked goods and tea for breakfast. We spent the day looking at my photos and watching YouTube videos. It was good to just hang out! Time went too fast as usual, and suddenly we were back at the airport. We had a coffee together and then about 30 million hugs. There was a girl saying goodbye to her mum there, and we figured she might be a Year Abroader as well, which was making me well up!

This is me and the Bear outside Rathaus Neukölln

And my favourite selfie 

All in all, it was so lovely having Joy here, and I'm glad I got her the chance to show her this brilliant city. Everyone that has visited has said I am less stressed and more comfortable which is great to hear, since I've informed them all that I will be returning at some point!

Tschau xx

How's life?

The last couple of weeks have been a bit mixed really. I've felt a bit down since Joy left, and have been really stressed about the whole tooth thing but things are coming together! On Monday, I had my teeth prepared for the bridge, which was sore for a while afterwards and I'm feeling quite hideous with the temporary plastic bridge in, but on Monday I will finally have a full ceramic bridge! If you want an idea of how hideous my teeth have become for this bridge, just google 'teeth prepared for crowns' (or something) and you'll get the idea...

Last week, Sophie, Hilary, Gayle and I went for a spa evening which was lovely. I spent most of it outside reading, but we all had prosecco in the bubbly pool thing and felt very posh. Germans have no issue with nakedness, so we saw some sights but didn't join in. I love Germany, but I'm not sure I'm ready to embrace their complete nonchalance about nudity.

My brother is in Berlin at the moment, for the launch of their new store in Berlin and for the Bread and Butter fashion exhibition at Tempelhof. I've seen him a couple of times briefly, and was meant to see him at a party last night but just could not get hold of him. So I ended up staying at home and watching the Germany-Brazil game, which was insane! You could hear shouts everywhere and fireworks went off right outside our window. I am 100% watching the final at a public viewing. Even if they don't win (but they are machines), the atmosphere will be amazing and I can't believe Germany has got to the final while I'm here!

In other news, I've not seen Lionel for a couple of weeks as he was on holiday, then Joy was here and then we couldn't sort out a time last week. Now my language classes are over (I know, it went so quickly), we should be able to meet on Tuesdays again. If not, we'll add him to the missing tandem partners list.

I wish I could sign up for another 4 weeks of classes, but I don't have the time left now. I'm still going to work through the textbook though because a) I'm keen and b) it cost me 14 euros.

Work has been going well and I've been doing a lot of SEO translation and copy-editing, which has been interesting and something different! I'm quite sick of the word 'keyword' for the moment though. I've done some more translations and it's been a consistently positive response from my boss. He read one last week and said the quality was brilliant. I was incredibly smug with myself for the rest of the day.

I'm also sorting out my travels for August, which has been a bit stressful but mostly plain sailing. I think I mentioned it in a previous blog post but didn't explain so here are the details! I'm heading to Alicante to stay with my aunt for a week, before I get a bus to Avignon and spend 2 nights there. Then it's on to Grenoble for 3 nights and I may take a daytrip to Lyon. From there, I'm taking a train to Geneva for the night, and I'll try and squeeze as much in as I can before I fly to Split in Croatia to meet Sia! We're staying in Split for the night, then we're going to Zagreb to spend time in the beautiful national parks. We'll get a bus back to Vienna and two days later, I'll be back in Berlin for one final night before my flight to England the next morning.

It's going to be quite a month! I had to ring Eurolines about my ticket (they didn't send me one) and forced myself to speak French. Now I have all my tickets and reservations booked. I just need to print them...

I ordered a rucksack from Amazon but it doesn't seem big enough which is a shame, but the rest of the holiday buying is going okay so I'm getting quite excited. Obviously, I am sad about leaving Berlin, but I just wanted to see more and I'm sure I won't regret it!

Berlin has been muggy and stormy the last couple of days. So much so, that it was almost pitch dark in my room at the office yesterday, save for my lamp. The rain was incredible and I thought the windows were going to smash at any given moment. The whole place smells like a rainforest.

Apparently I have run out of things to say, because I'm now talking about the weather....

Bis bald! xxx

p.s. I'm sorry for the zero pictures!!