Friday letters

Hello! I’m off work today (using up some holiday from last year that needs to be taken before the end of March) and we’re hopefully going to look at a flat or two in Basel this weekend. We’ve definitely got one to view tomorrow anyway. Exciting! I hope you’re all having a nice Friday and not working too hard 😉 Now for today’s letters.

Dear Deutsche Bahn. In the last two weeks, you’ve managed to pull straight into the station in the morning exactly twice. On every other day, we’ve been on time throughout the entire journey only to stop immediately before our detination because the section of track at our platform was still occupied by another train. This kind of thing should not be happening 3 days in a row! Sort it out! I’m tired of missing my tram to work and having to walk (and arrive later).

Dear guy eating a chocolate muffin on the train. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks cake is a suitable breakfast!

Dear flat advertisers. I wish you would just get back to me already! Also, automated replies saying “phone the current tenant” are annoying. Does nobody out there do e-mail? How am I supposed to find the time to make phone calls?!

Dear fellow bloggers. Sorry if I haven’t visited your blog recently. I’ve been trying to get round to everybody but life (or, more accurately, work) keeps getting in the way!

Dear readers. Thanks for all the congratulations yesterday.

Now here are some links.

Cecilia in the Rain recommended this blog and it’s amazing! basically, this person takes her favourite books and creates food based on them. If you like cooking, books, or both you must check this blog out!

Are any of my readers Doctor Who fans? How about Lego fans? Then this will interest you: Doctor Who is getting its own Lego set later this year.

I recently came across this news article and I’m fascinated by it! This woman – going by the name of Lori Erica Ruff – committed suicide in 2010. When her husband and his family were going through her stuff, they found out that she had stolen the identity of a dead baby then legally changed her name from the baby’s name to another. Nobody seems to know who she really is. It sounds like the start of a mystery/thriller, except it’s real life. What?!

 Have a great weekend everyone! I’m off to try and track down some more flats to enquire about…

Advertisement

Friday letters

Good morning! I do hope it is a good morning where you are. It’s pretty cold here – I switched to my winter jacket this morning – but it’s not raining at least, which makes a nice change.
Normally this little introduction bit before my Friday letters would be where I talk about my week, but quite honestly I have nothing to say! I have worked, I have cleaned the flat and I have bought a turkey for Christmas dinner day, which is taking place tomorrow. That’s about all. Jan is taking me out for a meal tonight though – he suggested it to make up for seeing pretty much nothing of me last week, so that’s nice. And now on with the letters!

Dear Deutsche Bahn. I know it’s getting cold outside now, but there’s really no need to turn the inside of your trains into ovens!

Dear nails. Stop bloody breaking all the time! I find it unfair that I’ve managed not to bite you for over a year but half of you still look as though I had chewed you to death.

Dear turkey. I’m pretty sure I say this every year but… please defrost in time!

Dear pay day. Hurry up! I need to get on with buying Christmas presents.

Dear people in my life. Speaking of Christmas presents, why are so many of you so difficult to shop for?!

That’s all for today. I don’t even have any links to share with you this week, but Charlotte does, so check out her Friday links post instead. have a great weekend, everyone.

Friday letters (the train strike edition)

Good morning! I am currently working from home for the second day in a row thanks to the German train drivers’ strike. Surely you must have heard about it? It even made BBC news! For those that haven’t, a brief summary: goods train drivers have been on strike since Wednesday, those on passenger services since 2 a.m. yesterday. The strike will continue until 4 a.m. Monday, which has meant those who commute had to find alternative ways to get to work… or been forced to use holiday days (not exactly a fun prospect this close to Christmas!). Luckily I have an employer who set up a remote server and allows us to work from home for a few days when such things happen.
Other than that, this week has been fairly uneventful. We got back from Paris on Sunday to find bright sunshine and temperatures of 22°C… which then promptly changed to around 13°C and rain the next morning. I cannot keep up with these constant about faces! I’ve been working hard again and managed to add some more overtime to my tally – soon I’ll have enough to take a day off! And when I haven’t been working I’ve managed to complete another few Christmas-themed cross stitch pictures for cards and read the first two books for the winter reading challenge. I’d be halfway through the third by now if I hadn’t been denied my commute yesterday and this morning! Also, it was pub quiz on Tuesday and my team managed to come second with a mere 53 points! The questions were really difficult this month!
And now, letters.

Dear GDL/Deutsche Bahn. I really hope you agree on something soon, because after a four-day strike I’m a little worried about what the next step might be. Striking for an entire week? No trains right when people want to head home for Christmas? The possibilities are endless (and scary!).

Dear Christmas markets. I can’t believe you will be starting in a mere two weeks! It’s only just started to feel like autumn… I can’t possibly get my head around the idea of winter! I am looking forward to the Glühwein though.

Dear Welcome to Night Vale. I’m glad your live show was just as amazing as I had been anticipating! Please come back to Europe soon.

Dear self. Stop spending money on things you don’t need!! Christmas is really not far away and many, many gifts need to be purchased!

Dear stomach. After weekes of seeming just fine, you hurt again yesterday after I ate some sheep’s cheese. Please don’t let your problem be with sheep’s/goat’s cheese. I love that stuff!

And now here are some links:

Lucy went to see the poppy exhibition at the Tower of London and took some great pictures. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t go so I’m having to live through all the bloggers who did make it.

This recipe for Chorizo, Parmesan and Sun-dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Thighs with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Mediterranean Vegetables and mozzarella looks amazing! Just the thought of it is making me feel hungry.

This article about learning to speak German and having to send verbs to the end of a sentence amused me greatly. So many times I’ve joked that by the time you get to the verb you’ve already forgotten what it was you were trying to say!

I love my job, but sometimes the unexpected overtime and requests from customers to “just quickly translate this tiny file (which isn’t really tiny at all) by the end of today” can get tiring. This post on 5 things translators do better is the perfect antidote to a long and frustrating work day!

I thought I had more links for you but I can’t actually remember any more/find where I’ve saved them so that’s just going to have to do. Have a great weekend everyone!

*I’m linking up with Kate for Daily Diaries.*

Friday letters and links

Good morning! I’m working from home again this morning as I have an appointment with the gastroentologist at 12:30 so it wasn’t worth going in to the office. I’m getting a gastroscopy, which involves the doctor sticking a tube down my throat and having a look inside my stomach, so I was told not to eat at all today and I’ve now had my last drink as well – at least I was allowed to have some water this morning! Hopefully they’ll discover there’s something very simple wrong with me, give me some tablets and within a few days I’ll be eating normally again. Fingers crossed! Now lets have some letters.

Dear Deutsche Bahn. I hope Wednesday was your last strike for a while. If you mess up my trip to Paris at the end of the month I shall be very annoyed!

Dear pumpkin. I am really enjoying cooking with you! I just wish you weren’t so annoying to cut up.

Dear stomach problems. I hope you turn out to be nothing serious. Although if the doctor’s fail to find any explanation that would kind of suck.

Dear work. I am so lucky to have a flexible employer who allows me to work from home when trains aren’t running and leave early for appointments, and also to have a job I love I will forever be grateful to you for the past few weeks!

Dear future. Things are so up in the air at the moment, but I’m really hoping a decision will be made soon so I can start to plan!

Now here are some links to things I’ve come across on the Internet lately and want to share with everyone:

• This real-time map of births and deaths throughout the world is fascinating!
• Somebody used their dogs’s fur to make a mini-version of said pet. It’s actually kind of cute, but also kind of disturbing. Like a voodoo puppy or something.
• Speaking of pumpkins (well I was earlier), Kiki made pumpkin rolls and they look divine! Now to figure out how to do this without canned pumpkin…
• It’s nearly Christmas market time and I can’t wait to get my Glühwein on! Here’s a Telegraph article on the best Christmas markets in Europe for 2014.

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend everyone!

 

 

 

 

Friday letters and links

I didn’t do Friday letters last week because my brother was here and we were very busy exploring the local area. I actually didn’t write a single blog post last week… all the ones that appeared had been scheduled in advance 😉 But I’m back to reality now (at least for a few weeks… before I go to Taiwan at the end of month), so letters can be written again.

Dear August. How is it possible that you’re here already? I haven’t even got over my shock that it’s already July yet!

Dear Deutsche Bahn. I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating… if I have to put on a coat/cardigan just to travel in your trains, you’ve got the air con up to high! There is no need. Really.

Dear weather. Please make up your mind what you want! Rain, sun, hot, slightly less hot. Which is it?! I’m tired of carrying several layers around with me just in case.

Dear trees. Don’t think I can’t see you turning brown and dropping leaves. Please stop it. It’s still summer! Enough with the autumn shenanigans.

Dear Amazon. Thanks to your recommendations, I now want star-shaped cupcake forms. And also ones shaped like teacups (with little saucers!). Quit making me spend money!

And now have some links.

Some of the items on this list of the funniest things overheard at British universities are truly hilarious.

This test, entitled “Do you actually know English?” has been going round Facebook lately. I got 14 out of 15. Woo hoo!

My colleague sent me this Babbel article about favourite German words. It’s excellent and you should read it.

Alex at Speaking Denglish recently swapped her U.S. driving licence for a German one, and she’s written a great step-by-step guide on how to do it. (I don’t drive, and even if I did I’d have an EU licence, but I’m sure there are others out there who will find her post useful).

And finally, a newspaper article about the Sunderland fans who are raising money in memory of two Newcastle United fans who died when the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over Ukraine, proving that some things transcend football rivalries. Well played Mackems, you’re a credit to the North East!

That’s all from me for today. My lunch break is over and I have a tonne of work to get through before home time. Have a great weekend, everyone!

~With this post, I’m linking up to Daily Diaries with Kate at The Lotus Creative~

Friday letters

It only seems like two minutes since I came back from Vienna… and yet next week I have more time off! I’m working Monday then picking my brother up from the airport that evening, after which I have the rest of the week off. So far plans include a trip to Basel and a trip to Frankfurt (we’ve discovered there’s a Dialog im Dunkeln there too, so we’re doing that, and also going to the German Film Musem). What else we do will be up to my bro. But before that it’s the weeeeekend… and also about time I reintroduced Friday letters. It seems to have been a while.

Dear Deutsche Bahn. I realise technical errors happen and it’s not necessarily your fault, but having to take a regional (aka slow!) train to work the other day after every long-distance train going in my direction was delayed by 30 minutes and more would have been much less annoying if you’d just provided some information! I assume you know what’s going on, so tell people! Trust me, it will make your staff’s lives a lot easier. Oh, and while I’m at it, I do agree that air conditioning is a wonderful thing on a hot day, but if I need to bring a cardigan with me just for the train you’re probably overdoing it a bit!

Dear Good Reads. I was told you were fun, so I joined up. But nobody mentioned that being on your site would be very bad for my bank account. I get enough temptation from Amazon without your newsletters being added to the mix!

Dear Germany. Well done on your World Cup win! It’s nice to have a good team to fall back on since England are obviously never going to get their act together!

Dear weather. Pleeeeease stay exactly as you are and don’t return to the endless rain of last week. I want to actually do stuff outdoors while my brother is here!

Dear boyfriend. Thanks for buying teabags before I even realised we were almost out. You’re obviously a keeper 😉

Dear brother. Can’t wait to see you on Monday!

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you have a great weekend. I have plans to go with a friend to an event of an English-speaking meetup group tonight. I don’t often go out of my way to meet English speakers so we’ll see what happens there…

p.s. If you like writing/receiving snail mail, check out Charlotte’s new project.

Friday Letters and Daily Diaries: 19–25 April 2014

There were no Friday letters or Daily Diaries last week because I decided to start my Easter long weekend by being lazy and not doing anything… including walking to the other room to switch on the computer! We then ended up spontaneously having friends over to watch films in the evening, so I didn’t do any blogging then either. But today I’m linking up with Kate again.

Dear nails. I don’t know what your problem is, but I wish you would stop splitting and breaking all the time! Not only do I find it very unfair that most of you are now shorter than when I used to bite them… your sharp edges and rough bits are ruining all my tights! Please stop it.

Dear Deutsche Bahn. Thank you sooo much for sending a train with one carriage missing on a Friday when loads of people who are going away for the weekend are catching said train. //End of sarcasm.

Dear healthy eating. I promise I will start you again soon, but there was no possible way I could resist my colleague’s cake. I mean, the base tastes like Forrero Rocher! How could I not take a slice for breakfast this morning before it was all gone?

Dear Germans. There is no such word as advices! And while we’re on the subject, informations is not a word either.

Daily Diaries

Saturday/Sunday. As I’ve said above, we hosted a movie night on Good Friday (Hmm, I always insist on saying film because I am not American, but somehow movie night sounds better…). Everyone left pretty late, so I didn’t exactly get up early on Saturday! Once I was awake, I don’t really remember what I did, other than have a cup of tea and some toast. In the afternoon, I did a gorcery shop then, once I’d unpacked the shopping, Jan and I went over to our friends’ place to check on their birds, who we were looking after for a few days. They seemed pretty happy, so we gave them some fresh water and a bit of food then left them to it. On the way home, we finally tried out a little Italian café near us. We each had a delicious pastry and a coffee – espresso for Jan and cappucino for me. Back at home, we watched the Newcastle vs Swansea match (wish I hadn’t bothered!) then Jan got on with some work while I made sausage rolls to eat for lunch the next day. Then I made tea and we ate it while watching the first two episodes of Fawlty Towers (I got Jan the boxset for his birthday). And that was Saturday. As for Sunday, well I’ve already told you we went to the zoo in France. In case you missed that post, you can read all about it here.

Monday. It was Easter Monday, so no work. Hooray! To be honest, I have no idea what I actually did all day though. We went to check on the birds again and I did some cross stitch (a new baby card this time) but that’s all I remember…

Tuesday. Back to work… not much to tell. I made sweet potato and chickpea curry for tea and we watched more Fawlty Towers.

Wednesday. Work. In honour of St George’s Day, tea was bangers and mash followed by home made apple crumble. Jan was home late so there was no time to watch anything before my bed time. I also discovered downloading Welcome to Night Vale onto my BlackBerry actually works. Woop!

Thursday. Woke up with a sore throat (booo!). Tried to listen to Welceom to Night Vale on the way to work and discovered that an episode is about five minutes too long for my commute. Noooo! My colleague brought cake into work with a base that tasted like crushed up Ferrero Rocher (see letter above). The middle layer was cream and the top consisted of sour cherries. Soooo tasty! After work, I took a package to the post office, popped to the supermarket then came home for food. Jan had choir practice (not at my place this time) so I downloaded another episode of Wlecome to Night Vale and listened to it in bed while sipping on Beechams hot blackcurrant (which I’m sure tasted less horrible when I was a kid!).

Friday. That would be today. I’m at work, obviously 😉 I ate some more of my colleague’s cake for breakfast, then got on with some proofreading. Currently I’m on my lunch break eating a Thai chickpea curry ready meal (I may have developed an obsession with chick peas…). Tonight I’m invited to a leaving party, but before that I have two more jobs to complete this afternoon. Annnd tomorrow I’m off to Heidelberg to meet up with some other expat bloggers in Germany. I’m both excited and terrified (what if they don’t like meeee)! And now I’m off to finish my lunch… have a great weekend everyone!

If you too would like to tell us all about your week, you can join the linkup by clicking the picture above or this link. Please don’t think your life is too uninteresting – this is the linkup where anything goes! To quote Kate herself: “NEVER think something isn’t interesting enough to share. Did you get a Starbucks on Thursday? AWESOME! What flavour did you get? I. Want. To. Know.“

Reinstating Friday letters

I haven’t done this in a while for various reasons – spontaneous trip to England, nothing to say, being too busy to post… but now I think it’s time to reinstate Friday letters!

Dear Deutsche Bahn. I really don’t appreciate you suddenly reversing the order of my train after I’ve been taking it for nearly 5 years! Now, instead of going straight into  carriage and taking a seat, I have to walk through half the train to find one that’s free. And when I arrive at my destination, I’m so far down the train that I have to walk half the length of the platform to reach the stairs – previously, the door I got out of was right next to them so I could go straight down and out of the train station. It may seem trivial to you, but it’s greatly annoying to me. Not cool, DB, not cool.

Dear weather. So, you’ve been beautiful all week while I was working, and now the forecast for tomorrow is cloudy with a chance of rain. I was planning on taking my March trip for the 12 trips challenge, but I’m not sure I’ll bother now. Thanks so much, weather gods!

Dear Sunday morning. I’m very much looking forward to you. Full Irish breakfast at the pub? Yes please!

Dear work. I would much rather be busy than have nothing to do, but I would appreciate it if next week could be just a little less full! The last few days have been crazy.

Dear tea. Once again, you have been my saviour this week. I ♥ tea!

Dear readers. Have a fabulous weekend… and I hope the weather where you are is better than ours is forecast to be!

29 December 2013: The adventure begins

We decided to fly to Madeira from Zurich because it was cheaper than either of the airports close to us… I’m talking roughly €200 per person cheaper even after buying train tickets to get to Zurich! Unfortunately, that also meant a 3 hour train ride to get to the airport… and the flight out was at noon. So we reserved seats on the 5:50 a.m. train and I dragged myself out of bed ridiculously early to have my shower. It was so early that I couldn’t even bring myself to eat breakfast… too tired. We then left for the train station with plenty of time to spare. So far, so good! On arriving at the station, we dicovered that our train apparantly did not exist. No listing for it on the main departures board, and no train on the screen on our platform. It was listed on the printed timetables though and we had been sold the tickets at the train station, so we knew there should have been a train! Of course, the service desk was closed… but we went there with another family who had tickets for the same train and eventually managed to get the person behind the desk to open up for us (after he pointed at his watch a few times. Yes, we know it’s too early… but we can’t hang around til 9 a.m. when you finally decide to open for business!). The service desk person told us there appeared to be a delayed train arriving at that platform in a few minutes, but under a different number, so back we went to find no train. With only two minutes before the alternative connection Jan had found left, we decided not to risk it and headed off to catch a regional train. Just as the new train pulled out, we saw a train arrive on our original platform, and the family who had been with us running to get on through the only door that had actually been opened. Typical! But if we hadn’t gone for the regional train, we would probably have missed both…

Karlsruhe train station, not at 5:30 a.m.!

We then settled down for an even longer than planned journey through Germany and part of Switzerland, following an entirely different route. We were supposed to go via Basel, but the new connections took us to Singen with the Schwarzwaldbahn, then to Schaffhausen and finally to Zurich Aiport with one change in Zurich Oerlikon. Phew! The conductor on the Schwarzwaldbahn had no problem with us staying on his train, but remarked that he had no idea what the Swiss colleagues would do, so on arrival in Singen Jan called the Deutsche Bahn hotline to ask what to do. We were told to find someone in Schaffhausen who would write on our ticket, so in Schaffhausen we headed to the service desk (it as late enough for that one to be open!) to find out our options. It turned out to be surprisingly easy… the Swiss train service person said “Oh, you need a “change of route ticket” (I don’t remember the German word)” and printed out two tickets for the new train which contained the sentence “Statt Hauptfahrausweis” (Instead of main ticket). We were then told to show both our original tickets and the new ones then sent on our way, no fuss and nothing extra to pay. Well done, Schweizerische Bundesbahn! You beat the Germans on that occasion, at least. After that, we were at the airport fairly quickly, where we dropped off our suitcase and made it through security quickly and easily. Stage one, complete! We then boarded our first plane, a Swiss Airways flight headed for Lisbon.

Somewhere over Portugal

Lisbon from above

We had a roughly four-hour layover at Lisbon airport, so after looking around all the shops what else was I to do but indulge in some pastéis de nata, Portuguese custard tart. Lady of the Cakes assures me the ones at the airport aren’t that good, but I was pleasantly surprised by how nice mine was. I expected to find it horribly sweet, but it actually wasn’t… and because it was still slightly warm, I wasn’t subjected to the texture and taste of cold custard, which I detest!

Eating pasteis de nata in Lisbon airport

The sunset outside Lisbon airport

Luckily our onward flight to Madeira was on time (Lisbon airport is one of the better ones I’ve been too, but I definitely didn’t need any more time there!) and everything went smoothly, so we landed in Madeira as planned, collected our suitcase and picked up or rental car ready for the drive to the hotel. Despite the slightly annoying beginning, we had made it! And as for our time in Madeira… you’ll just have to come back tomorrow to start reading about that!

~ I am counting Madeira as my January 2014 trip for the Take 12 Trips challenge, even though part of the holiday was actually in December! ~

Friday letters

I can’t believe it’s Friday again! This week seems to have both dragged and flown by. Dragged because I had so much work and all of it was on the same looooong translation. It gets a little repetetive after a while. But the time also seems to have flown by thanks to the same translation – I lost about four hours last week due to server issues so I’ve spent most of the week panicking that there was no way I could the translation done in time. So that was fun. (In case anyone’s wondering, I did actually get the translation done, but it took me about 8 hours longer than it was supposed to.) As you can probably guess, the weekend is very welcome this week…

A happy post box (Photo: shaggy359)

Dear sleep. I hope you’ll be around this weekend – you and I have some serious catching up to do!

Dear boyfriend. Thank you for being so supportive of my healthy eating thing… and helping me log the calories when I couldn’t do the maths myself! (41% of 250 expressed as a decimal anyone? It’s beyond my capabilities!)

Dear England. This time next week I’ll be preparing to leave for the airport and catch a flight to you. Very, very excited (especially about the christening)!

Dear Deutsche Bahn. Air conditioning is all well and good, but does it really have to be freezing on my train in the morning? I know it’s hot outside, but that doesn’t mean it has to be like winter inside!

Dear readers. Please could you all sign this petition against the closure of the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences at Salford University. Salford is one of the few UK universities that offers a Bachelor’s in translation, and too many institutions have already closed their language departments. The petition still needs 400 signatures, otherwise I wouldn’t ask you…