Travelling to Prague - take 1!

Sorry this has taken a while... just a little while... okay 3 weeks.. bums. but i'll do my best to remember everything that went on so that you can laugh at some of the awkward/funny things that i know happened!

After a really strenuous first week (ha) it was already time to leave Germany and go to the Czech Republic. And in true Pippa style, i didn't actually know who was going (2 teachers +me obvs), where exactly we were going or what we were going for until about the day before... and it took me a couple of days into the trip to actually work out what exactly the "Comenius Project" even is, and if you don't know what that is either then bear with me, i promise i will explain it at some point in the post. i can't promise when that will be though so if you're in a rush to find out (because you're that keen) it's probably better to google it!

 <-- that's Comenius

But anyway, let's start at the beginning of the trip. The taxi was booked for 4.15am with the train leaving at 4.40 so that gave me plenty of time to get there, i slept til about 3.50, got up, got dressed, did my teeth and out the door right? well yes there was that but there was also the typical me thing of packing the majority of the things i need in the morning... i had already packed the night before but there's just something in me that doesn't let me finish packing until i'm literally about to run out of the door... i don't know why, but i think it's damaging to my parents' health so i should probably try and break that habit, although while i'm here what they don't know can't hurt them?
anyway so i make it down to the taxi, going down 2 flights of creaky wooden stairs trying not to wake anyone and make it out the door to the waiting taxi who, on the 10 minute drive to the station spoke for about 97% of the trip with me adding the occasional "ja" or "nein" where appropriate.

amoung other things we (he) spoke about the fact that in Germany they turn off all the traffic lights at night, and he gave the reason that they were cost cutting... now this sounds a little fishy to me.. considering if any country should be able to afford the "luxury" of traffic lights 24/7 i imagine it would be Germany, but then there is the whole Germany efficiency argument, of "it iz unnecessary wastage to keep ze lights on when zere are only some cars on ze strassen"
(Dad and i have since come to the conclusion that it is probably a method of population control to turn the traffic lights off at night, which is probably especially effective at the weekends between the hours of 12am and 4am, and at the time of Oktoberfest...)

but anyway i made it to the station really early and got to the platform which i thought was the right one (after trying to go through a locked door and the taxi driver yelling at me from across the station to go round the side of the building... subtle)
the station was actually surprisingly busy for that time in the morning, i imagined it would be dead but there were about 4 or 5 other people on the platform too - their jobs suck.

Another thing i would like to comment on is the clocks they have at the station... i seem to remember that this was actually the same with the clocks in holland... now picture this, you're waiting at the station and it's cold, and you really want to train to come so that you can just sit down and relax till you have to change again another million times before you actually get to where you're going, so you look at the clock.. and after a while you just end up watching the clock (there really was nothing better to do) and it's an analogue clock so you can see the second hand moving and you just end up watching that. After 30 seconds it's almost at the 12 so you count in your head and it gets to the 12... and move to the 12.01 point... but does it? yes eventually, it takes about 2 seconds for it to move off of the 12.. what is that all about?! it seems more like the clock's just had a mini panic attack "this is the moment i've been preparing for for 59 moves, there's so much pressure i don't know what to do anymore, 12 was always my goal, what do i do with my life now?!" what's that all about?!!? german clocks need to get a grip and move when it's their time, because all that has done is made me lose faith in the whole blooming clock. how am i meant to know if the second hand is even moving every second?? i mean surely it's getting the extra time for it's "break" from somewhere... is that from a little bit each second? and if it isn't doesn't that mean that german minutes are actually 61 seconds long, which means that they're all out of time so all german station clocks are wrong? <-- this is what happens when you leave me at a station for too long too early. i develop trust issues apparently.

but i'll get back to the more interesting things, the train arrived and i got on and found the other teachers i was travelling with, and discovered that i'm actually a better packer than everyone gives me credit for, all the packing for time in holland seems to have paid off as i only had my handluggage suitcase and a small handbag whereas they had a biiigggg suitcase each, a big bag and a handbag. but then i guess they had the presents for the czech school and breakfast.. but still!
the train that was so early was one to Magdeburg, where we then changed to a train to Dresden and the changed for a train to Praha, it actually all went pretty quickly, we had breakfast whilst on the train to Dresden (in first class i'll have you know, because that's just how teacher's trips work apparently) and it was so cute, one of the teachers, Simone had packed breakfast for the both of us, which consisted of cherry flavored water (odd but not bad..), sandwiches cut into tiny pieces, cherry tomatoes, and  boiled eggs - it was so cute ha! it felt like being a toddler at a birthday party again!

we then arrived at Dresden and had some time to waste but we just waited on the platform because of the crazy amount of stuff we had when it was all grouped together and i got bored and started taking pictures but i won't bore you with them all, i will put some in though so that you can have a break from my rambling about breakfast and clocks!

Standard DDR train still in use - if it aint broke and all that

then it was time to get on the next train which would take us to the lovely Prague, now i'm not going to lie, i'm not sure how much of this train journey i was awake for... but from what i remember it was a really nice train journey ha! it was however a very stuffy train, which got more and more full the closer we got to Prague and it was really funny to hear the announcements change from being just in German, to German and Czech to just Czech. i can now say that Czech is a lovely sounding language but it's also sooo confusing! it's so difficult to even guess what they're saying!
the countryside on the way to prague was lovely, it was like a painting in a lot of the places we saw, and i was expecting the buildings to looks more boring or uniform i think, i'm not entirely sure why... but i was definitely wrong! there's something i find quite beautiful about old buildings which show their age as.. that sounds really odd i know and i promise i won't go on about it but it just looks more lived in in a way, it's not like a museum it's just a real house, a home... and now i'll stop ha!

unfortunately this is the only picture i have from the train ride there... and it's not that great! but you get the idea. they have green trees there. 

so after a very stuffy train journey to prague we arrived, and managed to get all of our things off the crowded train and made it onto the platform where there was a bit of a confusion about where we were going to be meeting the czech teacher who were going to be picking us up and taking us to the hotel and after looking round the platform and realising that wherever we were being met it wasn't going to be there, we went towards the exit and he was there with another woman who turned out to be the teacher from the Greek school, who seemed to think for a little while that i was one of the students from the school... even though we were speaking in fluent english... and i'd already said i was english.... and that i'm helping at the school for a couple of months...right. 

but anyway, we made it to the hotel after a trip on the underground, the tram and a short walk. it was a pretty good hotel, and quite close to the center. the only thing i will say is, the german efficiency doesn't seem to have made it so far across the border, when we got in to the hotel we decided to have a bit of a rest before going out and exploring prague so i got to my room and went to turn on the tv and nothing happened, i thought that it might not have been plugged in so i crawled under the desk and had a look but it was plugged in, so i tried turning it on again and i heard a slight electrical sound this time so i kept trying but then i think i annoyed it and it made a sound slightly like it was about to explode or zap me or something, so i had a proper look at the cable between the tv and the wall and that did explain things slightly...

anyway, i then fell asleep (on the bed, not under the desk by the dodgy electrics) and woke up again in time to do a mini round of Prague, and have a cup of coffee with the teachers from my school before meeting all the other teachers who had arrived by now for dinner. they were all pretty cool actually, there was one from Greece, one from Portugal, one from Romania, two from Spain, two from Martinique, two from Turkey, two from the Czech Republic and us so quite a big group all in all. 

for dinner we went to a restaurant that was away from the touristy area and it was really nice, good to have a good meal after a long day, and they really do like to give you a lot of food! i had goulash with dumplings and it probably could have fed at least 2 people - i have a theory that the dumplings expanded after you ate them because i was sooo full by the end of it and i hadn't eaten half of it i don't think! but either way it was tasty. we then wandered back through the town and to the hotel to have a proper rest before doing another tour and then heading to Uherske Hradiste the next day. 

These are the teachers i went with

The first week

Right then, this is where we get to the - probably vital - first week in Wernigerode/Ilsenburg, and typically this is where my memory starts to get a little fuzzy... it was over 2 weeks ago and a LOT has happened since then so it's not old age yet right...

Anyway (there will probably be a lot of "anyway"s in here, my brain's all over the place so god only knows what order everything will come out in and how many tangents i will go off on - a lot like this one..) So, in an attempt to follow on from the last entry i'll talk about what happened at the station in Cologne, well that's not really a lot from what i remember... it was a pretty unremarkable bus ride back, at least i think it was. I don't remember now but i probably did fall asleep again and that would be why it was unremarkable.

I arrived in Ilsenburg after a nice train journey through a pretty huge chunk of Germany (at least that's what it felt like!) The first stretch was from Cologne to Hanover which was nice, I was on the train with Poppy, Sophie (another girl from the course in case you couldn't already guess that..) and one of the former assistants whose name i actually can't remember right now, i hope she doesn't read this because 1) that would be awkward for the obvious reason that i forgot her name and 2) because that would mean she found my blog somehow which would be creepy soooo if you are reading this whatever your name is; i'm sorry i forgot your name but now you're stalking me which is not normal behavior so i think we can call it quits? and if she's not reading this then it's fine because you don't know that i don't know your name. So either way we're good. I told you my head's all over the place!

back to the train journey...! i don't have any pictures from the train trip, mainly because i was too tired to actually think about getting my camera out but also because it's really difficult to take pictures when you're going really fast through the countryside! - it must suck to be the roadrunner, you could never take pictures on the go... meep meep.

but anyway, soon enough we got to Hanover and it was time for me to struggle off the train and the others were all staying on the train for at least a little longer but thankfully the trains in Germany wait for a lot longer at the stations than English trains do, this was useful due to the fact, in case you've forgotten, i have a suitcase the size of a small planet. Poppy was also nice enough to help me lug it all off before half of my belongings were left to continue the journey to wherever the train was going to end up. 

From here on out I was on my own, at least for a little bit, so after deciding it would be stupid to lug said planet down the stairs on my own i went towards the lift, simple enough i hear you say. oh no. you haven't taken into account the fact that some germans just like to use the lift as a way of perusing the platforms but they don't get out. I'll explain, I was waiting politely for the lift and after an unusually long time, it finally comes up to the platform, completely full, but that's okay i thought to myself, this is the top level so they are obviously all going to get out here, right? wrong! they just stood in the lift, chilling and waiting for someone to try and get in, and seeing as i had my planet, and i am of the opinion that personal space is something i value, especially around people who use lifts like a london eye pod, i didn't get in and after a little while it went back down again. now this happened again, after about 5 minutes of waiting (they have to clean the pods on the london eye so i presume this is what they were doing in this time) and another group of sightseers came up and went down and by this point, i was considering just walking down, as some of the other people who had been in the queue had done but i braved it for slightly longer and it paid off, i was down in 30seconds. Score. 

But i then knew i would have to brave it again for the next platform, well apparently not, i had clearly moved down in the sightseeing scale of things as this lift was completely deserted - clearly they knew something about the other platform that i didn't... 

So anyway i get to the platform, and i think i was at least 20minutes early, i don't really remember but i just waited there as planets don't really allow you to have a tour of any other possibly sight worthy platforms or the like. And as i was waiting there, one of the teachers from the course turned up and stood waiting for the same train as me. Now this is a slight mystery to me, as he wasn't on the train before, i would have noticed him there on the platform, odd. He is also a slight mystery himself, as he was our Sachsen Anhalt teacher as it were, and he was an English teacher, however... he said he was only going to speak to us in German as we were there to practice our language bla bla yeah very good, but when we asked him something in English if we didn't know how to say it in German or it was just quicker in English, he definitely didn't understand what we were saying... at all... he'd try and cover it by giving an answer (in German) but it definitely didn't have anything to do with what we had asked.. interesting. - well probably not for you, and probably not for me when/if i read this back but hey.

i ramble too much! 

i'll give gold stars to people who read to the end ;)

So anyway, the train comes and with only a tiny bit of an issue (and two trips) i managed to get all of my stuff on the train and find a place. Now i don't know about you guys but i get quite stressed when i'm on a train or a bus and i know where i have to get off but i don't know what order the stops are in. I like to prepare myself for when to get off (especially with as much stuff as i had), and while i knew the time it was due to arrive in Ilsenburg, that only helps so much!

I do know that it was, again, a lovely trip, but i couldn't really tell you much about what i saw apart from the bit near the end when i knew i had enough time for my stop not to be too close but that it was coming up, and there are a lot of huge hills(mountains) round here! i think it would be even nicer to go through it now actually seeing as all the trees are changing/have changed colour by now. 

I think we're going to have to speed this whole week up a little bit or this is going to turn into a very long, very disjointed novel! 

I arrived in Ilsenburg and had a slight issue with getting everything off because this train had massively steep steps and was quite narrow so it was a slight issue but it's okay guys, i got off, i'm not writing this from a train. Waiting at the platform was Heidi, who's my sponsor teacher, and after a slightly awkward hello on both parts we put my stuff in her car and then went for an awkward coffee, with awkward conversation as i think she was pretty nervous and even though we started the conversation in English she really didn't understand a lot of what i was saying so then i was forced to do what i came here to do, which is speak German... woo! but that went okay and it was still a halted conversation but mainly because i'd just been picked up by a stranger. And that boys and girls is weird. 

Enough blabbing, we went to the school and had a quick tour while nobody was there, which is soo different from when it's full! and then went to see a possible house to live in which is with a family and they have 5 kids i think, but there's only one who still lives at home so they let out the room in the attic and by this point i was pretty shattered so after that and without making a final decision about it we went to the holiday apartment where i was going to be staying which was in Wernigerode (as was the house) and that's the next, bigger, village/town to Ilsenburg pretty much. And then Heidi went home, it was then that i realised that i had no food... which is great when you're shattered and in a completely new place, in a new country. so i was a massive girl and called my parents and had a minor break down, because, you might not understand this, but shops in foreign countries want to eat you, so going shopping isn't a fun idea. but i got a little kick up the bum from my parents, and got out of the house and found my way into the center of town and tried to look for a supermarket. Now if you don't know this place, it's really very difficult to find a normal supermarket, if you want to buy shoes however, the possibilities are endless.. but long story short, i found a little fancy ass supermarket and spent a crazy amount of money on milk, cereal (amazing cereal), tomato puree and gluten free pasta. now those last 2 things were accidental... i thought it was standard pasta... and i thought it was tomato sauce... who puts puree in a jar anyway!? and in case anyone is wondering, gluten is the best thing that ever happened to pasta. Ever. 

good cereal!!! + the new German brick!

i keep trying to cut this short but it keeps growing anyway!!! 

first weekend, i didn't do a lot, saw another house, it was further away from everything and had a crazy cat lady and a bathroom the size of a midgets cupboard where if you fell off the loo you would smack your head on the opposite wall which was also the end of the shower... now that was small. - before anyone says anything i've never fallen off the loo, but i'm going to put it out there, i would quite like to know that should i feel the need to fall off, or should anything happen, i'm not going to die.

On sunday i moved into the first house i looked at with the family and they also have an american english teacher who lives in their annex and that was pretty cool to meet her.

here below is a picture of one of the views i had from the holiday apartment...naiiiceee -not the man. 

the rest of the week was pretty good, i didn't actually do that much in the school, i had 2 music classes on the monday and i have learnt something from that - never give 11 year olds instruments... EVER. but they were cute... so maybe occasionally...

the tuesday i had a few english classes and while the 12 year olds had loads of questions the 16 year olds are demons... that's going to be fun. 

wednesday i had the day off for Germany unification day so that was good and then thursday i had a few classes and on friday i had the day off so everything went pretty quickly actually! 

i know the first few days are in crazy detail and then the actually week days are in pretty much no detail at all but i'm getting a little tired of typing now and i'm pretty sure anyone who's reading this is pretty tired of doing that too! I may come back to these few days and fill in some more detail about everything, including the bus links which are pretty awful! Now that i think about it i do have a few more things to fill in the gaps but right now i'm going to take a break! 

Just to leave you with something, this is the view from my room, ya know, standard castle.

Mini teacher training - try not to get too pregnant too fast

I'm going to start this post with having to disappoint some of you, this isn't actually about teaching "little people" (or whatever you're meant to call snow white's friends) how to teach.. it's just about 3 days of letting us pretend to not speak English. I understand if you've lost interest in this post now, can't say they'll be making an appearance in the post at all, panto time's almost here though..?

Anyway, I thought i'd break the posts up a little bit, partly to make it easier to read but partly also so that i don't go on rambling about things nobody really wants to hear about!
So on the first night of the course our first task was to put our massive suitcases into the storage room, now this seems easy enough, but if you think it was easy i think i'm going to have to refer you to one of the previous posts where i said how massive my suitcase is. I'TS HUGE. But still, this in itself wouldn't have been an issue, had the storage room not been down a flight of stairs which just made the whole thing more like a game of "who can get a injure themselves first". Well, that suitcase got stored and the next morning my shoulders killed, but that could have also been due to all the odd sleeping and lugging stuff round all day... but anyway back to the first night.

i'm really sorry if this is confusing, but on the plus side in a way you're time travelling.. you can thank me later.

I can't actually remember what they told us in the meeting on the first night.. good sign i know! but i'm fairly sure it was just an introduction and "Welcome to Germany" thingy, anyway i do remember that they then let us know who we were going to be sharing rooms with. The way they split it was actually pretty good, they did it by putting us with the people we were going to be closest to when we finally got to where we were going to teach, and we were in rooms of 1s 2s or 3s - i'm not sure why they had single rooms, because surely there would have been people close to the person in the single room.. but then again maybe the numbers just didn't add up. I'm really going to have to stop typing the random thoughts that come into my head or we're never going to make it to the present day!!

My name was called out in the long list of room allocations and it was called out with another girl's name which was Poppy, have a good giggle now - Pip and Pop laavely! but yes, so we went to find our room and had a bit of a chat before dinner time and i also managed to fall asleep - again.

but Poppy woke me up when it was time to go to dinner and by this point i think everyone was pretty hungry, including myself. So when they brought the dishes round and i saw the rice i thought that was good, and then they brought the mushrooms round.. and personally mushrooms are NOT my best friends, i actually think they're pretty gross and sluggy but there was no escaping them with this dish, as one of the other people said it was effectively mushrooms in mushroom soup, mmmmmmmm! but i wasn't about to turn down food so i ate it, and as you can tell i'm still alive to tell the tale, and i haven't turned into a slug, you can tell this from the typing - slugs can't type.

and the rest of the 3 days went on in pretty much the same way, Poppy and i got on really well and i met quite a few new people who were also lavely and i didn't have to eat mushrooms ever againnnn! (unfortunately not true but you'll have to wait for another post for that one, i'm not letting you time travel too much)
We had several talks while we were there, about living in Germany, the school systems, who to talk to if something's wrong and also one about the health insurance we receive and what is and isn't covered. this is where the sentence from the title comes in! Among other things, pregnancy isn't covered by the insurance and as the guy in charge put it "it costs thousands of pounds to give birth, so try not to get too pregnant too quickly"
We also did a practice class where we were in a group of 4 and taught parts of the body, a class which also featured simon says which was surprisingly entertaining.
Now if all else fails, the other people who are teaching in Sachsen Anhalt definitely have a future in foreign student imitation, they were very good at knowing nothing, including asking if the "ear" was called "leg".
I almost broke a finger in a particularly violent game of Irish snap, we ate some goood food - the cake at coffee time was amazing, chatted and laughed a lot, slept more, looked round the grounds, and then had a very entertaining quiz on the last night where we came in joint first... at one point in the rounds...ha!

Before we knew it, it was time to lug our stuff out of the store room and back up the stairs of doom (more injuries followed) to get back on the coaches and go on to wherever we were each going to be teaching. But i'm going to leave that for the next post!

I'll leave you with some random pictures from the 3 days so feel free to close this tab now! it just looks so boring otherwise...

 <-- the view from our window!

the weather was not wet at all.. -->

Getting to Altenberg..

Right then, so where we left off was getting to the coaches, and I say coaches but personally i hadn't realised that there was more than one, but then seeing as there were 95 people at the course it does make sense...

Anyway, we got on the coaches after making sure our luggage was all being stored in the hold bit of the coach - what do you even call that?! And then found a seat for the next hour or so. I was next to the window and was admiring the view of Cologne and thinking how nice it all looked for all of about 5 minutes before i fell asleep... good one! anyway i think i woke up on time and then fell asleep again, it's difficult to know as it was one of those cunning naps where you don't really realise when you fell asleep. But i definitely know i woke up again once more as the coach had stopped, so i looked out of the window to see that we were on a main looking road in the middle of nowhere, which fitted with my mental image of where we were staying but the only building was something that looked more like an old harvesters pub that hadn't been entered in about 15 years with a rusty and creepy looking playground. Not exactly what i had in mind for where i was going to spend the next 3 days but who am i?!

But it was fine because as I soon, (not that soon - my brain was still half asleep and was more captivated with working out why they'd choose a harvester to show us the wonders of Germany..) discovered we hadn't actually stopped there to get out, we'd only stopped because the coach had been pulled over - not to check our travel plans or whatever the coaches on school trips used to be stopped for - but because we'd been speeding... I don't think i've ever heard of a coach being stopped for speeding, i didn't even know coaches could speed! and personally i think the driver should have got a bonus for being able to reach a high speed with a full coach(+trailer) of people (not in the trailer..) and, presuming a coach carries 40(?) people, it was also carrying at least 30 years worth of clothes, now i think that's pretty impressive!

But back to the journey, we were soon allowed to carry on, and i'm not sure if the driver got a ticket or anything in the end. I'm pretty sure i fell asleep again... I don't know though, you'd have to ask Lawrie. We soon got to the old monastery - better than the harvester!

Germany here I come!

Right then!

Things have been moving on (very) quickly since I set up the blog, I've had the 3 day introduction course, traveled across Germany for pretty much a whole day to get to Ilsenburg, seen the school twice, moved into a holiday apartment, had to hunt for food in a completely new place, met the teachers, bought a German phone, and then moved out of the holiday house and into the attic of a family's house. All in just under a week!

So lets start at the beginning shall we?

Before we even get to Monday morning there was already the stress of Sunday and Sunday night... trying to get 6 months worth of trousers, jumpers, coat and boots to fit into a suitcase wasn't actually the main issue here... the fact that we'd bought a suitcase big enough to fit me as well as about as many jumpers as i'd need into it meant that there was plenty of room... the weight however was the thing that got me! After struggling, stressing and moaning I managed to take out everything that wasn't completely necessary to get it down to easyjet's 20kl limit. Ergh!

And now we can go to Monday! Monday morning was an early start.. now for me 7 is already an early start but that would have been a lie-in. Dad woke me up at what felt like about 1am but it was only 3.30, I then had to get dressed into more clothes than were really necessary, and pack the last few things (yes, typical me to not have packed everything till the morning of departure...) and then jump in the car with a bread roll for breakfast, whenever that would be!
After saying goodbye it was time for Dad to drive me to the airport, i'm sure I rambled on about a million things that definitely weren't necessary or particularly interesting but hey, when you're traveling to a different country you want to know everything about everything before you leave right?
So anyway... back to the point, we got to the airport in plenty of time, and I then proceeded to stress out in the queue for bag drop as it was taking so long, longer than people who were actually checking in! So time passes, people drop their stuff and finally it's my turn, put the suitcase on the scales and... 21.3kl bums. But then the woman says I need to take out .3kl or i'll have to pay £10 now I do not want to pay sleazy jet any more money than I have to, so the suitcase is opened, right there, and I dig out a jumper. The woman then says if I buy something when I get to the other side of the security check I can just put the jumper in that bag and everything's fine and dandy, cool! So we go up the escalator to the security area and meet Lawrie and his dad, before it's time for me to unpack the little suitcase in order to fish out my laptop and shampoo etc (there really was little point in me packing), and then say the final goodbye to Dad before going through the strange high-tech barriers to security, and when you're holding as many things as i was it's not easy to hold up your boarding pass to a robot/camera gatwick! - didn't think that one through did you...

anywho i get through security (3 trays ahem) with no issues and proceed to re-pack everything so now i have my handbag, mini suitcase, and jumper.. time to go buy a drink from whsmiths so that i can stop carrying that blooming jumper round like it's a security blanket. I clearly already look like I have enough issues due to the number of layers i'm wearing when it looks like everyone else in Gatwick is going to Spain, I don't need to add to them.

So I buy the drink, pack the jumper, and the coat in the plastic bag because I want to look slightly less awkward and everything's fine, the gate opens and we head to check in there, and that's when the lady in front of us gets asked to put her handbag into her handluggage suitcase... ah.
At this point i'm fairly sure that mine is just not going to fit into my suitcase so I tried to hid my bag, not obviously, just push it behind my back and put my hair over the strap. No no, he's on to me. There were 2 major floors in my plan in hindsight; 1. I've just cut my hair! it's now not long enough to even half cover it! and 2. This is his job, I bet he get's a bonus for bag spotting.
But I accept his challenge and open the suitcase and squish everything inside it so that i can fit the handbag in and it manages... just... but I was worried about the strength of the zip. The guy then checks and see's it's in and it's fine, good.      Then it occurs to me that my phone is still in my handbag, and on.
Open the suitcase again. take the bag out. turn off the phone. squish everything again. zip it all shut again. and make 3 prayers. 1. that the zip holds 2. that i haven't just cracked my laptop and 3. that he doesn't make me put the bag into the measurer thingy... it would not have made it...  but god loves me and everything turns out finneeeeee.

So then, get to the other end of the flight, not much to say about that... it was a standard flight, went up and came down (on land, not water), what more could you want?
We then made it onto the train with our suitcases (my big one bigger than Lawrie's even though he doubted it) and get to Cologne main train station.
By then it was definitely coffee time! after coffee we decided to see something of Cologne as we're here. So we sussed out the suitcase store things and saw that it was 3 euros for 2 hours or 6 for 24 hours... 2 was a slightly awkward amount of time but who really wants to spend 12euros on leaving your suitcase behind?
Then comes the part where you put the suitcases in and go for a wander.. if only it were that easy.. now Lawrie's big suitcase fits in fine but he can't put the little suitcase in there at the same time so we decided to split a locker for the small ones as they will fit in together and why pay more when you don't have to? good, 3 down one to go. So remember how i said my suitcase is massive... well Cologne trainstation agreed with me on that one and the electronic locker thing would not close because of it's size... discrimination if you ask me, but who am i.. so we treck down to the human operated luggage store thing, where the shortest amount of time they do is 24hours for 6euros, i did ask if they could make it cheaper but no... you win this one Cologne.

Carrying on, we then left that station and started our wander round the lovely (in some parts) Cologne and of course there were a few compulsory pictures of this ^ there are more but i don't want to bore you with them and i really need to keep writing or i'll completely forget what i meant to say and this will just turn into one big post of nothing!!

Well done if you're still reading this though, i'm going to be honest i'm not even sure i'll read it through...

Anyway, so we wandered round the town(city?) and saw about a 10 - i'm not joking - h&ms, now that is keen. and then we found somewhere to eat, which to me seemed more like some kind of strange gym shop when i saw the sign but there you go...

(Jen - you'd love it, it was like a Gregs but with sandwiches and bakery things, not sure if they had a sausage bean and cheese melt though...ha)

After grabbing some breakfast/lunch we then headed back to the train station and with Lawrie's impeccable sense of direction we got there in about 10 minutes - a walk that would probably have taken me about 45 minutes with 23 wrong turns...

So we made it back to the station in time to pick up our luggage from the robots, who had taken very good care of everything, and to meet a whole group of the other language assistants who were all huddled in a huge group. We then discovered that we were huddled in the wrong place and so had to move near to the main entrance, which if you ask me was probably a worse place as we were like that heard of sheep you see in the middle of the road when you want to get through, and one sheep moves out of the way and about 5 get in the way... so i'm sorry for anyone who was in a rush in Cologne station between 2.30 and 3....oops

Anyway, after this things were pretty straight forward, make our way to the coaches whilst chatting and trying to meet people who may be going to the same places as you and trying not to trip up anybody who was in a rush!

I'm going to leave everything else to the next post seeing as i'm getting pretty tired of typing and no doubt anyone who's reading this is getting pretty tired of reading my ramblings so i'm going to leave it here.

although as an incentive for you to come back and read some more...  here's a picture of where we're going and there's a promise that the police will be involved... now if that doesn't spark your interest I don't know what will..!

Good night for now! 

Introductory Post & Preparing to leave for Germany

So... I haven't really had the best record for keeping in contact with most people... but this is me trying to make things easier! 

This is - fingers crossed - going to be the start of a blog that I will actually be able to keep up to date with everything that's going on.. provided I have internet.. which still has yet to be seen but that's just a minor detail right? 

I'll try and post on here as much as possible, sometimes they may be small posts but please bear with me and if I am particularly rubbish feel free to contact me and give me a kick up the bum to write more! 

Right then on to the slightly more interesting side of things...

Preparing to leave for Germany


So... in typical Pippa style I was/am late with organising everything... surprise surprise! (yes mum you were right - sorry!)

I received information about the school i'm going to (Goethe Schule) just before going to Holland and then pretty much forgot all about it.. good!
But anyway, the most important thing is that everything's done now!
I got a reply from the German/English/Home Economics teacher (Heidi) yesterday - good to know the Germans know how to multitask - and she's going to look for somewhere for me for the first few days.. which is at least something! 
The next thing is to look for somewhere more permanent, and find out how much that's going to take out of my pay!

Anyway, I say that's the next thing but I think i'm getting ahead of myself with that statement. The next step is really to sort out how i'm even going to get to Ilsenburg from the train station in Cologne which is where I will be deposited following the 3 day course I have to do, which starts on the 24th. 
For this I have done something, which is look up the cost of a train ticket - Its bad, as in bad bad, but there you go, I need to get there so it'll be have to be done! I'm still putting it off anyway though. 

On the whole i'm very excited about going, Heidi seems lovely and she's the one who'll be "responsible" for me while i'm there so that's all good to me!

I just need to make sure the English I use is actually proper English and not slang with rubbish grammar, (which this whole post is probably full of!) although I may just go for the whole "it's genuine English" excuse, not so sure how the German efficiency will take that though... one way to find out!


I think that's about all the interesting stuff I have for you now, but I will update it again as soon as anything else noteworthy happens... shopping might be included in this.. after all, a girl needs new clothes for a (relatively) new climate right?