Pfingsten

Monday was the Pfingsten holiday in Germany. Whitsun in the UK. It meant another day off in May which is something I'm all for. It happened also to coincide with Tina's dad's birthday and we got ourselves on a bus from Berlin to Hamburg on Friday morning to join in the celebrations. My German is seemingly flawless after five bottles of Pils: must bring some with me to class tomorrow ;-) We also managed to get to meet up with Tina's newest niece, Enid. All of six weeks old so still incredibly new to the world and looking incredibly delicate and pickled the way that new babies tend to do. I can't deny feeling broody over the little thing and I get the feeling that Tina was clucking away too. I must be getting old.

Back to school again yesterday then - I really can't believe that I've only been there a week so far. I've been thrown in so deep that every day really has been stretched out so much, and whilst I find myself struggling to keep up with what is seemingly fundamental information (vocabulary, verb prepositions etc.) I don't feel so crippled that I hyperventilate. I've basically got my sights set high and just need to spend another two or three hours on top of the class every day trying to assimilate new information. Incredibly tiring.

Luckily enough though, Tina has a niece and nephew living nearby so it's hard to get too serious with all of my language worries - a couple of hours with them and everything finds a nice level. My only problem is taking their language with me to class the next day: I swear I'm going to ask the teacher if I can "go pee pee" some time soon.

Dropout?

Woke up this morning feeling slightly guilty about having now been wilfully out of work for over three months. Granted, over two of these months were spent preparing for the move to Berlin and trecking around Patagonia, but I still can't help feeling that I'm having an easy ride here and one which for some reason I don't deserve.

Thing is, I spent a long time saving the money to travel and to move to spottbillig Berlin. I get the feeling that there's more to the discomfort than this. Perhaps the teutonic work ethic is rubbing off as me in the same way that the language is. Or perhaps I have some need to feel that unless I'm stressed to death that I'm not living a "proper" life (whatever that may mean!). In any case, I know I need to get this sorted but I guess it'll take longer than three months to get the insanity of London out of my veins. And spending the best part of seven hours a day learning German isn't exactly kicking back on the Spree with a few jugs of Hefeweiß.

For what it's worth, I am actively looking for work as a ColdFusion web developer :-)

Back to school

Today will be day 3 of my German language course. Somehow or other I've dropped into level B1 at the Tandem language school. I completed an online assessment and they got back to me pretty quickly giving me their opinion on where they though I should start. I must say that at the time I was rather chuffed, especially given the fact that I still have a very limited vocabulary. Then again, I have enough French language knowledge to be aware that absorbing the principles of a language is different from having a fully-kitted toolbox as it were.

I went straight into relative pronouns and how they change depending on the prepositions connected to the nouns within the relative sentence and to what the noun refers to in the main sentence(?!). I guess it all sounds a bit scary when it's defined like this. A practical example in English would be as follows:

That is my teacher, with whom I am learning German.
I love the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh, within which there are some comfy red seats.

I have plenty more to be getting my teeth into, but for now I'm feeling happy swimming in the deep end.

Asparagus

Thex have this fantastic white asparagus here in Germany. Not something I'd really ever have wanted to ever get to know if it wasn't for the fact that people go potty for the stuff over here. Like the French to truffles or the Scots to anything battered. Had a plateful today with some Black Forest ham and sauce. Lecker.

Wir haben eine Wohnung!

Looks like we've finally got a flat sorted out in Berlin. I say "we" but Tina's been the engine with this, having all the necessary requirements (such as speaking the language and knowing about the finer aspects of German etiquette). This is all obviously fantastic news and makes everything so much easier from this point on. Saying all of this, I can't help but feel a little sad about the fact that after ten weeks of nomadic existence in Argentina, Chile, London and Berlin that we are now about to put roots down.