Birthday and end of Feb!

Finished school 4 hours ago meaning that my 18 days of holidays have now started. Today's a good day.

I guess you'll want to know whether I'm staying here in Hamburg for the time or bolting to sunnier climates.
Answer: Yes, I will be returning to London on Tuesday.

Let me update you on the goings-on since last time.

I saw 'The King's Speech' - finally! And in English too. My flatmate took me as a kind of birthday present. My boyfriend called it 'our date.' She bought the tickets, I bought the bucket of popcorn even though she only had two hand fulls out of it. In fact, I've just finished the bucket now - we went on Tuesday evening.

I thought it was a good film like almost everyone else did but noticed the outbursts of laughter at almost every line from the German audience. Something that Chris and Kasia warned about. It came down to them not really understanding the light humour of that kind of British drama. Although some lines certainly were loud-out-loud funny.

Back to my flatmate and she and I had a long discussion after the cinema. Very interesting. I learnt more about her relationships past and present and her temper (which explained her throwing the boyfriend out of the flat last week).

She spoke English but suddenly reverted back to German.

We moved on to talk about the Turkish in Germany. I've found myself in the middle of countless immigration discussion recently - about the situation in Germany and in the UK. What she had to say about Turkish people in Germany interested me because it was the same opinion I've been hearing from many Germans.

The gay discussion came up to. Yes, she already knew about me. No, she has absolutely no problem.

Chris B left Hamburg for a sunnier Spanish life. It seemed to hit him in his last week of being here that his time was coming to an end. We went for drinks etc. to see him off.
His main drink up was on Saturday before his departure on Sunday. Unfortunately, due to Emma B's leaving do the night before, many people were too hungover to go.

I turned 22 this week and it was a calmer affair this time, but still amazing. Boyfriend came from London late on Friday - He was back in Germany visiting me after 2 months.
We were soon out of Hamburg early on Saturday morning and en route to Berlin. I didn't reserve seats so we almost ended up like cattle by the doors of the train. That angered my baby, but soon we found seats together and then we were kissing.

The journey was only two hours and I saw the German capital for the first time. It didn't feel like a capital to me and there were a lack of maps and clear signs for tourists.

Our appartment was amazing! A long open plan loft with patio doors which went the lenght of the flat, allowing the sun to shine through. The sun was shining there but it was FREEZING. We had to stop to warm up whilst sightseeing.

Despite the city not having a capital city aura about it (in a way) and the bad sign posting, I found it to be a cool city, very interesting. Especially the history. You can actually feel it when you're around the wall, I would say.

The best part was my birthday suprise arranged by my boyfriend - I love the man! I guessed it would be some sort of city tour but I didn't expect it to be a self-drive tour - in old East German cars known as 'Trabis.' They're so famous that people waved and took pictures as we passed. Of course, we kissed for those pictures. And we got the thumbs up from one woman.

I can't drive so that allowed me to sit back and enjoy the ride. Working out the insane gear stick also wasn't something I needed to concern myself with.

So that was Berlin.

Back in Hamburg, school hadn't gone anywhere. In fact, I forgot all about it on my actual birthday, I had the day off - it was a Monday.
To be honest, I hardly did a thing in school this week apart from stay awake. I got a two bottles of alcohol as a birthday present from the Deputy Head and from my mentor - a lovely card went with the Deputy's bottle and some Marzipan came with my mentor's. They're both darlings!

And they've sorted out this weekend's pre-drink, that's for sure.