Summer Plans and March update

I now know that I will be returning to the UK for good sometime about 10th Sept. I finish here in Germany on 31st May.
You might be asking yourselves: Where will he be and what will he be doing for the summer?
Well, I'll be in the sunny south of France - working. I found the website of a woman who finds work placements in France for students. I gave her a call and she quickly arranged this placement in Carcassonne for me. I only had to pay her £150. The placement is in a youth hostel working in its bar for 35 hours a week. I'll have a room provided by the hostel nearby to the hostel. I'll get 3 meals a day, 7 days a week and about 400 euros to go in my wallet every month - Sounds amazing, right?

It is an amazing deal and I will be doing it. One thing, though: It's not in a city! I may sound like a big baby but, it's a BIG THING to me; however, I've decided to step outside my comfort zone and 'try something new today.'
Toulouse is not too far. It'll be warm there and everyone I've told about this says the town is very nice. I believe them. Come and see me, people!

So, when I'm finished here in Hamburg it looks like I won't have long before I'll have have to be in France. I will book DIRECT flights from Hamburg to Paris soon. No coming home to London. I'll get back to you with the date.

I was back in London for almost two weeks at the beginning of March. Didn't do much apart from spending time with my boyfriend, watching a lot of Judge Judy with him in the mornings, and doing whatever in the evenings.
The weather was nice!
I didn't want to leave to come back to Germany but I know I'll be sad to leave here when the time comes.

There's just 2 months to go. It really has gone fast. And one of the things I'll be most sad to leave is the school...

School started again on Monday and even the first lesson was eventful. As usual it was Monday morning with 4a. Remember those lovely 10/11 year olds?
One fight took place in the room (it wasn't serious). Then I witnessed a girl showing the boy sitting next to me, Nic, her middle finger. At least it wasn't aimed at me this time. But insults were, from Nic himself during the break when the teacher and I decided to keep him in to write out the class rules. Not just him - but he was by far the rudest and it wasn't the first time.

He ended up in front of the Deputy Head after he ran out the class twice, refused to do the work, insulted my German and even tried to be rude in English to me. She gave him a talking to and reminded him that his Italian dad's German would have been a bit shit back in the day. She didn't forget to praise my German too. We all know it needs improving though ;)

Same old, same old with that class. Now, the teachers and I are discussing what new action to take against the main trouble makers future lessons. I'll keep you updated.

The rest of the week was great with the kids, as usual. On Wednesday evening a few of the teachers and I visited a teacher off-sick with a broken leg. We sat around a table and played a German word game. I thought to myself: 'There's no way I can do this.' It was actually quite funny in the end. They went easy on me, allowing me to say it in English if I couldn't say it in Deutsch.

This is Delroy Grant (such a typical Jamaican name). He was convicted to life in prison today with a minimum of 27 years. He's the man who raped numerous OLD women (and some men) all over South London and beyond for almost 20 years.

I know I've gone on about this on Facebook and Twitter today but, for me this case feels quite close to home. The first area in which he struck and also one of his favourites was Shirley, Croydon (where I'm from). They appealed for him three times on Crimewatch so I was always aware of him. I remember thinking about him when walking home from the night bus stop along Shirley's empty streets at about 4am after a Central London night out.
Obviously he wouldn't have wanted me but what if I'd seen him in the street like this CCTV camera saw him here in Honor Oak Park, SE London :



Just the sight of him would have freaked me out.

I can't believe they it took them so long to catch him. Those poor women. What's the point of the police going to Crimewatch if they're going to ignore some of the names given to them?

Full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8404565/Night-Stalker-Delroy-Grant-
profile.html

Anyway, folks, I hope you all have a great weekend. I'll try to. Drum 'n' Bass night tomorrow night from 11pm at Juice Club in Stresemannstrasse in Hamburg tomorrow. If you like DnB - be there!

Until next time!

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.