Iceland were right......

..........Mums are heroes.

I had a fab weekend, got to see duesseldorf, koeln and remscheid and show mum around. She also brought my birthday gifts from the family (thanks guys they're all brill) and some jelly tots as well :). I'm so glad she came out to see me, I really don't feel half as homesick now and went into school today smiling and thinking 'monday is the start of a new week'.

Thanks for coming out mum, made me feel tonnes better :) x.

Nathalie, who is a student teacher of English and German at school also baked a couple of cakes for me and brought them into the staff room for everyone to share. She bought me a book called 'Immer dieser Michel' by Astrid Lindgren, who is supposed to be a really well known children's author, thought that was really nice of her.

The other language assistant also arrived at school today, she's called Duygu and comes from Turkey. She doesn't speak any German. She's already ridiculously upset and homesick and apparently spent most of the weekend crying on the phone to her dad. I feel really bad for her, considering how difficult I've found my first few weeks and I can get by speaking the lingo to ze Germans.

Me and Nathalie have also been to see 'Oben' (or 'Up') tonight, it's brilliant! I really enjoyed it even though there were bits of speech I didn't understand (thanks to them trying to fit the german with the characters mouths, therefore making it lightspeed in some places). The story is really sweet and there are some really funny moments.

So all in all, I've had a really good birthday weekend. Thanks everyone for the birthday messages and gifts. Getting some visitors next weekend to celebrate my birthday some more, although apparently there's nowhere to go in the 'Scheid, so it's looking a bit like we'll have to go to wuppertal. I'm sure that wherever we end up it's going to be a fab weekend :) x x x

The Honeymoon's over, it seems.

Truth is, this week's been so difficult!

Homesickness has officially set in, I find myself thinking 'I'm so sick of Germans' and also thinking of how much easier situations would be if I could just speak English!

On Monday I went to Wuppertal Uni to register, only to get fobbed off by the (very rude) woman, who simply said 'I don't know why you're here, I can't help you'. Cheers Love.

For some reason they don't seem all too happy about there being a person wanting to do lectures without getting credits in return, somehow other Unis in the area seem to have the idea, Dortmund ,Duesseldorf, Koeln.

After spending all of Monday frustrated and upset, I also found this week that even really tiny stupid things have the potential to annoy me, makes me very pleasant to be around :).

Today a teacher fell out with me in a rather serious way because I used her tip-ex without asking.

In the staff room at school there's bits of stationary in little pots everywhere, which I honestly thought were for the staff, in general. Anyway this woman sits and watches me take it, and use it without saying a word. I go off to photocopy something, come back and she was stood, ready and raring holding her tip-ex. She then proceeded to make a scene, in front of the entire teaching staff in the room. 'This is mine and you just took it. Then I have to get up and put it back myself' (for the record I left it on the table with the intention of returning it to it's place once I had returned from the photocopier)

The question I ask here, is why watch someone take your stuff and use it, before saying anything? and why make a massive scene? All she needed to do when I picked it up was say 'oh, that's mine' and I would have apologised and put it back. She basically made me look a sodding idiot in front of everyone. How German of her.

Anyway on the upside, it's my birthday on Sunday. and mum's coming to visit, I'm so excited to see her, not only because I'm super homesick, but also because she comes bearing gifts :). We're going to see Duesseldorf, Koeln and Remscheid in all it's glory this weekend, Deutsche Bahn's definitely getting some cash out of me this weekend.

Oh and on a random note, aspirin is only available at the chemist and costs 5.20 Euros! this is something you can get in Asda for 13p.

God I miss Asda. and orange cordial.

F is for Fabelhaft....

So here it is. I have a blog, because I just have so many things I need to share.

It's been just over two weeks in the old Deutschland and so far so good.

Spent the weekend in Dortmund, had a top laugh with the guys getting ridiculously sweaty in a nightclub that was about a million degrees, plenty of swift dance moves and laughter, which is the standard now for our group when we meet.

It can't be helped though, what with all the alter egos, robot dance moves and songs. (Beef and Gravy will be on a music channel near you very soon).

Things at school have been a little difficult though, my confidence speaking German took a bit of a battering when many people couldn't understand me. It's pretty difficult to feel comfortable when you're not only by yourself but also not being understood by the people around you. I'm also hoping the incessant staring from the students will subside soon.

Today however, Maturnus Honnen (who is now most definitely my favourite teacher) told me that my German is good (including my accent) which has literally done wonders for my mood, and I could speak English at a fairly natural speed to the year 12 class and still have them understand me. If teaching is for me, at the moment I feel like I may have to opt for the older classes.

I've also started my Dutch course, I genuinely struggled for the first hour or so, couldn't remember most of the things I'd learnt but as time went on it all came flooding back and I still love it! Especially the part when the teacher (whose name is Wiesje) said 'We're going to sing a song' and then broke out her guitar for us to sing along to. Awesome.

Though I must admit, I miss classes with Marjolijn.

Speaking of things I miss, care packets containing copious amounts of Jelly Tots would be greatly appreciated. :) xxx