I haven't abandoned you, I promise...

Fear not fellow bloggers I haven't abandoned you just yet, just been swamped with fun fun fun!

I know it has been a long time since my last post, just over a month to be precise, and I am disgraced at myself for abandoning you like that but its all good now, I'M BACK!

Ok so apparently the last thing I talked about was Oktoberfest in Munster...Wow that really was a long time ago! So much has happened since then not to mention having to teach a translation class without any glasses on which I can promise you was definitely an experience... But as you can tell, I did survive to tell the tale and so did all of my students so its not all bad! Anyway, I think I am going to have to skip over some of my more boring exploits over the past month otherwise we are going to be here forever!

First of all, lets start at the beginning of the month and tackle my move into my new abode... As of 1st October I became an official Seppenrade resident. Now don't get me wrong, I now live on a lovely little farm just outside the 'village' of Seppenrade, my room is lovely, my landlady is very charming and helpful and the canine company, although a little attention seeking/chaotic/loud at times, are sweet which is great, it really is in the middle of nowhere (my last bus from town in the week leaves at 6.41!) and I'm not going to lie, the lack of oven is beginning to become less of a novelty and more of a burden but for 250 Euros a month I am happy to take the good with the bad.

My new front door...

Back garden...

New bedroom

My moving day was a little hectic and my head was close to exploding with the amount of German I had to speak but seemed to pass without too many problems. Actually I am kind of hoping that now half term has passed and I will be spending more time here rather that travelling around Germany, I will be able to get back to speaking that much German again... I swear sometimes I forget that I am living in Germany because when we are together all of us Munster lot speak English and when that happens, shop assistants like to 'English us' (as Rachel has affectionately termed it).

Next up for discussion would be the following day, the eve of der Tag der Deutschen Einheit. During the day I experienced my first Lehrerausflug, basically school finishes early so that all the teachers can head into town to do a fun activity together and then go out for a meal (I have never been aware of this happening in England but then again I have never been a teacher in England so what do I know!). Having heard all about Rachel's boozy Ausflug a week previous, I was quite excited about it but sadly it didn't quite live up to my expectations. Turns out the 'KrimiTour' around Munster was ridiculously difficult to follow and that my teachers are very tame in comparison to Rachel's as once it hit about 8.30/9 they all decided to head off home. No matter, I had other plans anyway...a Munster Massive meet up!

Since the German's themselves (apart from the lovely folk over in Berlin itself) seem to treat this public holiday as just an excuse to have the day off work, we down at Munster Massive HQ, decided that we should take it upon ourselves to celebrate the day in style for them. After an unnecessarily complicated trip across Munster, involving a detour via the 'coffin' we arrived at Melissa's flat. Cue a gathering of about 15 MM members squished into Melissa's flat with gallons of alcohol and a packet of cards - let me tell you now (and I'm sure our lovely friend Miss Katie Maloney can vouch for this too) that is a volatile mix! At about midnight, after a group of us had put the most drunken member of our party to bed while the others proceeded to get ridiculously drunk, we set off on the freezing cold walk across town in search of our clubbing destination, Die Eule. We arrived in typical 'Brits abroad style' singing Oasis at the tops of our voices and being scolded by the bouncers for being too noisy in a 'residential' area. Countless TEQUILA's and hours of listening to some questionable 'tunage' later, a group of us stumbled upon the club's other room where the DJ proceeded to play The Cure and Morrissey one after the other... Needless to say that was the climax of the evening and next time we enter the smokey bowels of Die Eule that will be my hideout for the entire night!

Very soon after that it was half term! 2 whole weeks of freedom stretching ahead of us...what to do? Well in typical student fashion we decided that our first night of freedom required a trip out to celebrate. We gave it our best shot but we can't deny it, our plans were foiled by public transport (and possibly Rachel and Matt's incredible sense of direction problems!) and so after a few cocktails we decided to give in and head home early.

Over the next week we took a trip to Duesseldorf to see Muriel, a trip to the cinema and countless other trips to town for Kaffee und Kuchen. I am beginning to worry that I might have a Kaffe und Kuchen addiction...

Then, on the first Friday of the hols it was time for us to set off for what henceforth will be known as the 'Triangle Trip'. The first morning of the trip cannot be described as a complete success. The plan was for us all to wake up all bright and early ready to meet at the Munster Hbf at around 7.30 nice and early for the 8 o'clock train, however that is certainly not the way the morning panned out... Without my new phone (because I had managed to leave it at Hannah's the day before) I was forced to set the alarm on my old phone which turned out to be a very bad plan as I somehow managed to sleep through the alarm/turn off the alarm and only woke up at 6.16, 2 minutes late for the bus - CHAOS!! I was forced to wake up my landlady and beg her to drive me to Ludinghausen bus station so that I could get the later bus and still be in Munster in time for our train as I had no way of contacting the other girls. On finally making it to the station I was greeted by none of the group, they were nowhere to be seen... When I finally found Hannah, I was informed that Rachel had had a similar problem and was going to be getting into Munster later too so we would have to get the train an hour later anyway. Regardless, as the clock struck 9.03 we began our trip to Bremen, Hamburg and Hannover!

When we arrived in Bremen we were greeted by some absolutely atrocious weather but being British we braved the wind and rain and did some serious sightseeing followed by some serious consuming of Kaffee und Kuchen to cheer us up after our through soaking! :P 

After an eventful night in the hostel (which consisted of cotton wool pillows, scary staring room mates and a naked man) it was off bright and early to Hamburg where we met with Lukas and Sebastian (a student from Rachel's school and his friend). We took a walk around the Hafen in the sunshine before we headed off to Minitaur Wunderland. There are no words to describe Miniatur Wunderland, it was amazing! They have moving minatures of Switzerland, Hamburg, Austria and Las Vegas, etc, not to mention a working Flughafen where model planes actually take off and land in accordance with a timetable...AMAZING! That evening we headed back to the hostel to beautify ourselves and don our Dirndls in preparation for that evenings festivities at the Hamburg Oktoberfest.

The following morning we awoke (perhaps not quite as early as we had originally planned), found that drunk Rachel had decided to shower her only pair of shoes the night before, hair-drying said shoes and heading down to meet the 'men' at breakfast. From there we decided that we should get a Stadtrundfahrt bus around the town so that we would be able to cover all of the main sights in Hamburg in such a small space of time (not to mention being able to use the bus as our very own method of public transport without any further costs :P) and so that is what we did. It was definitely a successful venture as we made friends with the lovely tour man, won a Hamburg pencil and successfully saw all of the main sights in Hamburg (some of them more than once when we later decided to use the bus for public transport means...). That evening was much more uneventful, we ate tea in what seemed to be the ONLY gluten free and vegetarian restaurant in town and had an early night - hard core travellers right there!

The following morning we dragged ourselves out of bed a bit earlier than the previous morning (but still later than we had originally planned) and prepared ourselves for our trip to Hannover. Since we got to Hannover a bit later than we had originally wanted, our plans for the day were somewhat limited so we decided to just spend a few hours walking round the city (oh and Rachel and I took some time out to play on the children's playground) before heading back to our beloved Munster.

The next week was once again filled with meets, Kaffee und Kuchen and cinema excursions because that seemed to be the main week when everyone's parents were coming over or people had made their own plans to see friends. On Saturday night, Rachel and I took a trip to Cologne in the day before returning to Munster to listen to a German radio play adaptation of Orwell's '1984' (which I hate to admit wasn't all that great because everything seemed to be in the wrong order and loads of the important stuff was missed out) and then went out for what was originally going to be a couple of cocktails with Holly and Tom in town but in fact ended up with the four of us staying in the pub until 6 in the morning and then getting the first trains home.

As of Monday, school started again so the fun levels plummeted slightly :( Though it was Katie's 21st birthday on the Tuesday so a few of us girls met up in town after school for a girlie shopping trip followed by a trip to what can only be described as the cutest cake shop in Munster. We had a lovely time and I also got to try my first ever gluten free cake which I can certainly recommend because it was divine :D

And finally to this weekend... On Friday night the MM decided that there was no better way to let our hair down after the first week back at school after the hols than a trip to the Kirmes (funfare for those lovely people out there who aren't down with the lingo) :) Cue hours of us running between rides screaming like small children, ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at the incredible fireworks display before heading back for a bit for screaming and shrieking! One thing the German's certainly know how to do (other than drinking and beer making of course!) is a good Kirmes - AMAZING! Honestly felt like we had been transported into an American film where they all go out when the funfare is in town...

So last night 'us girlies' figured that we would have yet another celebration for Katie's 21st birthday so we all headed to hers to cook ourselves pumpkin risotto (which I have to add, even if I do say it myself, was DIVINE!) followed by a trip to the aforementioned cocktail bar for more fun, frolics and of course COCKTAILS!

And so here we are, its Sunday afternoon, I am sitting in bed, relaxing, having finally finished my blog entry after being distracted by three episodes of The Mighty Boosh and three episodes of Eastenders and so I will let you all go back to your exciting lives and I will sign off...

Bis bald bloggers!

P.s I HAVE MY NEW GLASSES !! I can now officially see even if they were delayed and I had to wait 12 days in total :D