bureaucracy.

Tried enrolling at Bonn Uni today. Emphasis on tried. Ahha what a palava, luckily I had Jula with me, but basically we went to the wrong floor at first and was sent upstairs after waiting an hour and then told they can't accept me as a Fremdsprachassistentin and must go to the International Office. Eeee, nothings simple.

Emailed lots of people about flats today, so hopefully I'll get a reply!

I have Thursday and Friday off this week :D because there is a staff excursion on Thursday which I am not taking part in and then on Friday there is a sponsored walk, I believe. I might go depending on whether they need me or not.

Been at school a few days now and everyone is lovely, but it is still scary. I went to a 5. Klasse Mathe lesson yesterday, which was fun. The little ones are so cute and very intrigued about me. The 9. Klasse are fun too. The 13. Klasse is a bit different because I am such a similar age, I feel as if I should be a pupil with them rather than a teaching aid... That's definitely going to take some getting used to! I have my own place in the staffroom now and also received my username and password after 1 day; there are staff that have been waiting over a year for a password and I got mine before them ahahah ooops! I think I may have left the paper that it was written on at the computer and then someone (hopefully) threw it away thinking it was rubbish, instead of stealing my details ahaha. Luckily I had memorised the information.

Etwas interessant?

1. Totally got lost walking to the train station today! What should have taken 10mins took 30...hahaha ooops, JUST managed to get the train in time, I really thought I was going to miss it.
2. People talk to you on the train, when they sit down they say Morgen or whatevers appropriate and then say bye! At least they have to me anyway XD
3. German teenagers are very good at English
4. Everyone wants to speak English to me, but I must practise German!
5. I think my appetite is coming back, but I still cannot do breakfast at 7am.
6. I think I've put on weight, wahhhhh. Not even eaten that much! Damn beer.
7. I need a new watch; my keeps dying even though the battery is new! 

Things to do:

• Enrol at Köln/Bonn Uni
• Find somewhere to live
• Contact Postbank and tell them my phone number is english so they need to add +44
• Email PAD and ask for a letter allowing me to attend uni.
• Pick lessons I want to join and help with
• Speak more German!
• Paint my nails

Ein paar Fotos:

 Köln

 Kölner Dom

Aliiiiina!

pizza.

I had pizza, it was huge. Tasty but huge. Here's my leftovers, this is just over quarter of the pizza left and it's a normal size pizza box for size comparison. HUGE.

Omg well nearly embarrassed myself, but I didn't which is the important part XD. I bought a cocktail at the Klangwelle (amazingggggggggggg) which was 4€ and I paid with a 10€ but he only gave me 5€ back, but I left it thinking ah well he must think I'm English and stupid so obvs I was thinking of giving him a piece of my mind (in my head of course, not out loud that would be crazy!) until half way through the first show at the Klangwelle I remember PFAND, the 1€ was for pfand, duh. So I took my glass back and received my euro :) Happy ending.

Klangwelle:

School tomorrow, must be out of the house my 7.10am wahhhhhhhhhh.

few thoughts.

Jägermeister is cheap here: yay
I'm def going to get a beer belly D:
They eat a lot of bread. I thought we ate lots of bread...nuh-uh
My stomach can not get used to the food, I have to force it down.
German pupils are very good at English.

Kulturnacht.

Today has been lovely. I have had a mini tour of Euskirchen and I am pleasantly surprised at how big the centre is, despite everyone saying how small it is. And there is a traditional english telephone box that their twin-town Basingstoke gave them, but instead of using it as a phone they use it as somewhere to swap books. Can you imagine doing that in a tiny telephone box? Such an amazing idea! Everyone just goes and takes a book and puts one back in it's place. I must take photos!

Tonight I have been to the 5. euskirchener Kulturnacht and really enjoyed myself. I will confirm here that Germans can do comedy and are so funny! Eva Eiselt (above) was hilarious! I also saw Tunc Denzier and Ozan Akhan, if you're interested watch them on youtube, so funny.  We also went to see a clown who did some tricks and then proceeded to put a woman on his shoulders and ride a unicycle, eeeep! There was some flamethrowers who were really good, nothing like I have ever seen before! To end we went to a jazz concert by the Römer-Schmitz-Quintett "Two Generations of Tenors", which was a-mazing. Absolutely loved it! Plus one of the saxophone players was beautiful ;p

Tomorrow I'm going to Bonn with another teacher from the school and we're going to 'the best Italian' restaurant and then to look around at the nightlife. Should be fun :)

New things I've learned today:

1. Bonjour is tasty. It can't be found in Germany, but rather in the Netherlands. Kindly though Angelika's best friend has given me a whole jar full! Wie schön :)
2. Euskirchen is a town which makes sugar. 
3. I really love Germany.
4. The internet knows where I am in the world and it's freaky.

der Zimmermann.

So, I'm here! I'm written now in the cellar of my mentor's house, she has kindly taken me in (hopefully) until I find accommodation. They have a dog (Alina) where I'm staying and she's been bitten by a Rottweiler in recent weeks so has to wear a nappy and underpants, it's so cute and also funny, but I mustn't laugh, otherwise she's gets embarrassed ahaha, bless her.
I have registered and got a bank account and have pretty much done everything important, thanks to the wonderful Angelika!

Today I went to the school for the first time. It was scary! Angelika took me into her first two periods, which was the 13. Klasse. I felt like I should have been in the lesson, because the pupils are a similar age to me, instead of 'assisting' the teacher. Everyone in the staffroom was friendly, which was good. Very weird to be on the other side of the door though, going to take some getting used to! This afternoon was spent looking for accommodation with Willem, another english teacher at the school. I went back to his and met his wife and gorgeous little boy Nick (i want to squish his face), he is so adorable! Then Willem took me into Köln Innenstadt and we had falafel and beer, naturally. It was fun. Everyone is being so nice and helpful, thank god, I wouldn't know what to do if everyone was awful and just ignored me...luckily that is not the case.

New things I have learnt about Germany:

1. On stag nights the stag is made to dress up, which is also like here, but they also sell things like kisses, alcohol, little trinkets, games etcetc to get money to fund the night! How genius is that?! There was a man dressed in a bed sheet with a hole cut in it and he was asking if anyone wanted to try and score for 1€, pretty funny to watch!
2. Der Zimmermann: or a carpenter is someone who travels around Germany to get work for accommodation and food. He works for free and often receives free beer in pubs as everyone knows who he is and appreciate what he does. Also interesting is that they can never be any closer than 100km to their hometown.
3. Germans knock on the table instead of clap. You can imagine how awkward I felt doing it at first, it just felt wrong to me, but I guess it's normal here ahaha!
4. 2 words: Becks Lemon.
5. I love the way Germans say Rebecca ;D Re-bec-ca, sounds much nicer than Beckie.
6. I love Cologne <3

oh.

Oh bloody hell. I can't believe how close I am to leaving for a foreign country for almost a year! Waaaah why do I get myself in these situations.  When I first applied to uni my year abroad felt like it was light years away. It so isn't.

Still no luck on the accommodation front, but luckily my mentor has offered to give me a place to stay for the weekend. Also need to start packing, will do that tomorrow. Promise.

Finally getting my hair cut and maybe coloured tomorrow! I'm really liking the look of these colours.

Fingers crossed I like my hair when I leave the hairdressers tomorrow... Ahahah one day it will happen!