London one-way!

Heute ich fahre in die Schule mit dem Fahrrad fahren. Die Reisen machen mir sehr gut und frisch fuhlen. Wir kommen in die Schule nach eins uhr und funf minuten fahren. Besser als unsere erste Zeit.

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Today was a big mish-mash made worse by the fact the S bahn isn’t working, which means major delays on public transport or big detours, and people didn’t get out of bed till late.

We were supposed to all meet downstairs at 8am, and the last annoying people didn’t get down until 8.45, when our lessons began at 9am. So we were all late, but Elizabeth and I rode to school. We are in the outer east, and school seems to be in the lower south, so it took just over an hour. But it was really fun and the majority of Berlin is quite flat. We saw heaps of funky street art on the way,rode next to the river for a while.

For some reason they thought my German test was good enough to put me in the higher group – there are three beginner classes and one higher class, although ours seems to have different standards within it. I felt totally overwhelmed getting into the whole study thing again, but my teacher Saeeda said it might take a few days to get back into it, so not to worry (yet)!

After class a bunch of us met up in the Kreuzberg area to find somewhere for lunch and somehow made our way back down close-by for dinner. We had our orientation meeting which only began at 6pm and went till just after 7pm but didn’t seem to answer many of our questions. Dinner we didn’t have till quite late, plus a few wines – easy to order – ein weiss vino bitte.

We did get homework however so that’ll be done in the am.

That’s right, I’m here in the gorgeous city of Berlin, enjoying a Melbourne mix of sun, rain, heat and wind all in the same day. My arrival wasn’t too bad, following a half an hour delay by easyJet for having to change planes due to a technical problem. Lutz met me at the airport and brought me back to our accomodation and then head out to pick up the next ones.

We share one flat with four people, two in each room, plus we have a spacey lounge with a balcony, kitchen and bathroom. From the balcony, I’m sitting here on the couch and I can see the lights of the TV tower – it doesn’t look too far away. We haven’t bothered with the TV yet, last night we had a few people around to get to know each other and been hanging out.

There’s my flatmate Elizabeth, she’s from south-east London and studying English Lit at Goldsmith’s university, David from San Diego but he’s lived in LA the last five years and is moving to New York on return to the US. He moved to LA as part of a punk rock band but gave that up for uni. Matt, in the flat below us is from Edinburgh, he wants to stay and live in Berlin indefinitely after the program. Katie, from Glasgow and Michael, who lives in Islington – north london.

Since then, today, we’ve had a host of new arrivals, the latest wont get here till 2am and we have to be ready at 8am to go to our language class orientation and then orientation for the guide.

Today, the six of us went out to a fleamarket at Eberswalder Strasse, and David, Elizabeth and I bought bikes. I haggled (yes, in German) with the guys to get 10 euros off Elizabeth’s bike and 5euros off mine, we both paid 40euros in the end. Then I got us three locks for 13euros (they were 4.50 each).

We had lunch at this retro cafe/bar, which would be nice to go to for drinks, but the food took an hour. A whole hour. We were starving but we weren’t in a hurry so we enjoyed what we had.

Then we rode home, through rain, and then sun again – it was great fun and will be good exercise for us 🙂

I’m about to go and check in with the others…time for a Pimms nightcap.

Tchuss!

What a week! This has to be one of the maddest things I’ve ever done with an absolutely fantastic group of people 🙂

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The last few weeks have been a lot of hard work, including weekends while Lija has been in Australia (three times in the last three months!!!) so I was more than ready to have last weekend off and get out of London to visit the seaside town of Liverpool, up north.
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Spring has sprung and May is soon to be over. We are heading into the summer months at lightning speed, and I can’t wait!

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Mid-May we went up to Chingford, half an hour from the city on the national rail north-east of London. Being travellers we have opened up a can of worms, but a lovely one at that.

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I’ve had a very busy week of work this week, so busy it’s 6.20am and I’m sitting here waiting for the train to take me to Hammersmith. I seem to be spending a lot of time with clients who live around Hammersmith so the area is becoming familiar and fancied to me. There are a lot of the shops that reside on Oxford Street without all the crazy hustle and bustle, and the main station services three tube lines and over 50 different buses.

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Wales is to England what New Zealand is to Australia. It is a community that mostly thrives and survives on farming and tourism. The Welsh are a very lovely people, if not a little quiet at times.

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It’s another three hours on the train until I get to London. I’ve finished my week in Prussia Cove with a grand finale at the Maestri concert.

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