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