And the countdown begins

Today my countdown to day 1001 starts. I’m think I’m more excited about that than I am about the fact that it’s my birthday! I’ve already made a practice birthday card in preparation for number 43 (I shall post a picture of it at some point, along with my failed attempts at making origami stars, then we can all have a good laugh). My photography challenge is underway – you might even get to see some of the results once I figure out where to put them – and Jan bought me season 3 of ER for my birthday (I already have seasons 1 and 2) so we can get started on that one pretty soon as well.

Jan and I are going for an Indian meal tonight. We’ve been to the restarant before, so unfortunately nothing for the list, but at least this way I know the food is going to be good. I love curry! And I haven’t had one in months. My mouth is already watering at the thought of it – mmmm! Then, after our meal, we’re going to the bar in my old student residence, so that should be fun. The only thing this birthday is missing is cake!

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All that you never wanted to know

I went to Maifest yesterday at my old student residence. That’s the Fest where the ex residents are invited to come back to meet the new residents and bore entertain them with tales of how things were back in the day. It was my first Maifest as a former resident, but seeing as I only moved out 2 months ago I didn’t have any back in the day stories to tell. Not that I would tell them if I did, but y’know. Mostly I spent the day telling people that I do not, in fact, still live there. I’m now wondering whether anybody actually noticed I was gone. I had planned to come home fairly early, but instead ended up sitting up all night drinking beer, finally making it home at 8am. I then went to bed, but only for a few hours. Seriously need curtains for the bedroom – the whole bright sun shining in on me thing makes daytime napping difficult. And now it’s 3:45pm. I’m still in my pyjamas and I’ve just eaten a whole 200g packet of chocolate raisins. You may decide for yourself what that says about me.

Anyway, I spotted this meme over at Home Office Mum’s blog and in the absence of other inspiration decided to steal it for today’s post.
So, what I have to do is answer the following questions. Oh, and I also have to replace one question and add one question. Fair enough.

1. What are your current obsessions?
Taking photographs. I took one of a purple tree on my way home this morning. Why? Because I could. Chocolate raisins. Adding books to my huge list of things I want to read some day. Facebook. And my blog of course, but that kind of goes without saying.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Black trousers. I wear them for work. Work is all I do. therefore I wear my black trousers all the flipping time. I seriously need to get a life.

3.Tell me your current most played song.
A Long December by Counting Crows. I am listening to it on repeat even as I type. no idea why I’m so into it at the moment. I just love it. I’m also listening to All For You by Sister Hazel a lot. “Words can’t say and I can’t do enough to prove it’s all for you“. Was this song written about me?

4. Last thing you bought?
Food actually, but I’m guessing that isn’t what you want to know. Other than that I believe it was 4 champagne glasses from Nanu Nana. They were 95 cents each. How could I possibly resist?

5. What are you listening to?
A Long December by Counting Crows. Still.

6. Wine or chocolate?

What do you mean or? Surely it has to be wine and chocolate!

7. Favourite holiday spots?
Somewhere that isn’t here. Anywhere. Please, just take me away.
Seriously? I adored Rome. Really want to go back. Also Austria. I miss looking at snow capped mountains. Just don’t ask me to climb the bloody things.

8. Reading right now?
On the tram: A Dragon Lance book. In German. At home: Nothing actually. How is that possible?

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Pretty much permanently confused. (Hence the title of the blog)

10. Guilty pleasure?
Naturals crisps in Balsamic Vinegar flavour. If I carry on like this I’ll be the size of a house by June.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
Katyboo‘s blog. Clue. Possibly the funniest film ever. Also Belgian Waffle. So two out of my three things are blogs. I’m sure that’s significant in some way.

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Eat icecream. Spend time outdoors before it becomes too hot for me to cope.

13. Planning to travel to next?
England. In July. For a friend’s wedding.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Baked potato with lashings of cheddar cheese. I rarely get to eat any cheddar cheese here so when I do it’s as if Christmas, Easter and my birthday have all come and once.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
Last night. First time in months.

16. Favourite ever film?
Usually I say A League of Their Own, but really it’s a toss up between that and Edward Scissorhands.

17. Care to share some wisdom?
I have no wisdom of my own to impart so instead I give you a quote from the Dragonlance Chronicles, Volume 2. “If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be emptier, our loss greater“. Or, in other words, take a chance people. At least if it all goes wrong you’ll still have the memories.

18. Song you can’t get out of your head?
Before I chased it away with Counting crows I had that Umberella (ella ella) song in my head. It was playing in a shop the other day and it’s been haunting me ever since. I don’t even like the bloody song!

19. One thing you’d really like to do this year
Ugh. Why must you asked such difficult questions?
If you’d asked me three months ago I’d have said get a flat, but I’ve done that now and I can’t think of anything else.

20. What or who makes you irrationally rage and totally not proud of yourself at the same time?
Old people on trams. I hate the way they expect you to give up your seat for them, even if they’re only going one stop. And if you fail to stand up they just glare at you until you do. It drives me mad! And then I feel guilty because they are old people after all.

If you could have chosen your own name what would you be called?
When I was younger I always wanted my name to be Abigail. I’ve no idea why, or where I even got the name from, but I always thought it sounded so much more interesting than Beverley.

OK, now it’s over to you. I’m not actually going to name specific bloggers,  so anyone who wishes may consider themselves tagged.

Oh weekend, how do I love thee

This has been a long week. OK, officially it’s been the same length as every other week. It seemed much, much longer though. Who invented 5 day working weeks anyway? I would love to track whoever it was down and shoot him! (It has to have been a him, surely no woman would have come up with anything so insane?)

So yesterday was Friday. The end of the week. A night for meeting up with friends, having a few drinks and planning the weekend ahead. At least I seem to remember that’s what Friday evenings were meant to be like. I wouldn’t know. Last night, having tidied the living room (an event that practically deserves a blog post of its very own. Or a fanfare at least) I was in bed by 10:45. Not even in bed reading either – although that was what I had intended to do. I picked up some new books from my local bookcrossing zone last weekend and I was looking forward to getting started on Two Caravans. But I was too exhausted to even write a blog(!!) so it was straight out with the lights. I think I need a holiday. As in some actual time off work, not just a weekend away. Paris was nice but it wasn’t particularly relaxing.

God, it’s 25 past 10. Where does the time go? And I have so much to do this morning. Wash dishes (which have been sitting there since Tuesday!), finally post the present for my friend’s baby who was born 3 weeks ago! Make cakes for Fest at my old student residence this afternoon (will explain that later when I have more time), take out the rubbish which is staring at my accusingly even as I type. Washing – handwashing no less, for I have no washing machine and the boyfriend is in bloody America. Aaargh, so much to do! See, this is why 5 day weeks are a bloody crap idea!

The last night

It’s my last night in the student residence.
By this time tomorrow I’ll be moved in to my new flat. I’ll even have a little bit of furniture.
Wow. I can’t believe I’m actually moving out. 2 and a half years I’ve been here. It’s been a while since I’ve spent that long living in one place. Even at uni I lived in various different places (halls in first year, house with friends in second year, then year abroad in Germany and in final year a different house with different friends).

I still have soo much to do. I need to finish packing. I need to clean. I need to take out the rubbish, sort out which food is coming with me and what can be given away or binned. And I only have until 11:30 tomorrow to get it all done. So of course today had to be the Friday that I wasn’t able to leave work on time. Some of you may remember me mentioning that we get to leave work at 4pm on Fridays, provided we work til 5:15 every other day of the week…
Well,  today I was lucky to catch the 22 minutes past tram (I ran and reached the platform about 30 seconds before it did). Yesterday it was nearly 5:30 when I left. And on Tuesday I stayed for an extra 15 minutes so that I could leave early on Wednesday for Spanish. The one week that I would have liked to get home and get things done I’ve ended up spending more time at work than ever. The Law of Sod as my dad would say…

Money matters

I spent an hour at the bank this morning. I am now officially skint. I had to open a very specific bank account, a Mietkautionskonto, into which I paid the deposit for my flat. The point in this account is that it belongs to me but I am not allowed to take any money out of it. The owner of the flat is allowed to take money out of it, to repair any damage I cause to the flat, for example. I could just have given the money to the housing association directly, but the advantages of doing it this way are a) I am informed if she requests to take money from the account, so she can’t spend any without me knowing why and b) I get to keep any interest that is earned on the money. Good stuff – if anyone out there ever plans to live in Germany you might want to make a note of it. But of course I couldn’t just open the account. In order to get the keys for my flat I have to prove that the deposit is actually in the account. So I handed over all the money that I had taken from my English bank account plus an extra 50 that Jan lent me. Then, having borrowed another hundred euros from Jan to pay into my normal account, I headed to the other bit of the bank, where the machines are, and transferred the rent for March to the housing association’s bank account. So I now have a total of 70 euros left in my German account. I just hope my wages go in before the student residence takes the rent for March out…

And now, having taken today off to sort out flat stuff, I’m going to have to arrange to leave work early one day next week so I can go back to the bank. You see, before the account with my deposit in can be opened properly I have to get some forms signed by my landlady then bring said forms back so that the bank can countersign them. And of course the bank closes before I get home from work every single day (and isn’t open on Saturdays – what’s that all about?). And since the only appointments you can make to see someone at the bank are for a whole hour (even if you only need 10 minutes!) I’m going to have to leave work about an hour early. Provided I manage to get an appointment on Monday or Thursday, when the bank is open til 6pm. The rest of the week they close at 4pm. I’m sure work are going to be really impressed with me…

Back to reality

Just a quick blog post today cos I have to go out in a minute. I’m meeting Jan and some friends to go the cinema.

So, I disappeared for a few days there. Here’s why:
On Thursday I went to the bar here in my student residence for the first time in.. oh, I don’t even know how many months. I got incredibly drunk on way less alcohol than it used to take me to get incredibly drunk. Clearly I am becoming a light weight in my old age. *Sigh*. I finally made it to bed at 5:30am, waking up poor Jan in the process. Actually it’s entirely his own fault – nobody made him stay here that night! I then slept until about 1:30 yesterday afternoon, ate a huge bowl of potato croquettes and spent the rest of the afternoon lying around with a book. In the evening I headed over to Jan’s where we ate spaghetti bolognese and watched a film with his flatmate. I have no idea what the film was called. This random group of people who wanted to be profilers have been sent to an island to complete a test. Something to do with simulations of murders and they’re supposed to try and make a profile of the killer. Except there turns out to be a real murderer on the island, and members of the group gradually start dying. It was… interesting. Weird and confusing but definitely interesting.
And today I went to look at a flat. One room for sleeping/living, a separate but very small kitchen and a tiny bathroom (no bath, just a shower. Does it still count as a bathroom then I wonder). The landlady is supposed to make a decision tonight because the girl who’s moving out wants to hand over the key tomorrow, so we’ll see. If all goes well I may have a flat by this time tomorrow. Fingers crossed please…
And now my time off is pretty much over. Tomorrow is Sunday and the day after that I’m back at work. The four days have gone by so fast.
But it’s February tomorrow so no more January blues. Hurray for that!

Is it bedtime yet?

This day seems to have gone on forever, and unfortunately it’s still far from being over.
Soo… on the advice of my boyfriend I went into work this morning and told my boss I wanted to take the job he offered me but still go to Stuttgart for the interview. He said he was busy then, but we would need to talk anyway and he would come and get me. About half an hour later I went back to his office and thus followed the longest 20 minutes of my life.
I won’t bore you with details, but basically the outcome was that if I couldn’t persuade him then and there that I want to stay in my current job his offer would be withdrawn. So it seems I’m taking his offer and not going to the interview on Thursday. I’ve just written the woamn from the Stuttgart company an email and feel horribly guilty for messing her around.  But I just couldn’t risk taking Thursday afternoon off for the interview, having the boss telling me that by going I’d blown my chance and then the Stuttgart people not wanting me either. I would probably have ended up taking my current job anyway, but it would have been nice to at least feel it was my choice. Hmm, ah well. As Jan pointed out my contract is only for one year (for now). It’ll be over soon enough and if I discover I really don’t like this job there’ll be plenty of time to look around for a new one then. Still all a bit weird and awkward though. Ick.

I am also bloody tired as a result of sleeping badly last night. I kept dreaming about spreadsheets (thanks to a horrible proofread I had to do yesterday that was in Excel) and waking up roughly every hour. Ugh! All I want to do is curl up in bed with Eeyore in my arms (since the boyfriend isn’t here tonight) but instead I have to go to a Heimvollversammlung (full house meeting) in my building. There are two per semester and we get to decide on things to do with the residence, for example at one we decided on whether to buy a new photocopier and at another the decision to have a roof terace built was made. None of the decisions are really relevant to me this time since I’ll probably have moved out by the time anything happens anyway, but everone in the building has to go – unless they hand in a written excuse beforehand. Those who don’t how up without a good reason are fined 15 euros. So guess where I’ll be tonight. Ooh the excitement is killing me! The meeting starts in half an hour so I’ll be off now. Need to email the photographs I took of my contract to the boyfriend so he can give it a read through for me. Oh to have a scanner!

Organising my brain

There is so much going on this week and I have so many things to do and think about, both right now and over the next few months, that my brain feels as if it might explode. The only way to deal with this I feel is to misuse my blog to write a list of all the things that I keep forgetting then remembering again. Hopefully it will all seem much more manageable when I can see it all written down (or rather typed up).

• Cleaning. My floor has to be cleaned this week. (Not floor as in thing you walk on but as in thing you live in, ie. in my case ground floor). I am unavailable on the 2 nights they’ve chosen for us all to do together (Tuesday and Wednesday) so I will be given an individual task. This must be completed before I fly to England on Friday. I would also like to sort out my room before I leave. Yet more cleaning.
• Work Christmas meal. This is on Tuesday evening after work. We’re going to a hotel/restaurant in Ettlingen.
• Spanish homework & Spanish course. My last Spanish lesson before Christmas is on Wednesday evening. Before that I have homework to do. Must not forget.
• Job hunting. I still don’t know whether I’m going to have a job after January, and even if they do decide to keep me I’m not 100% sure yet whether I want to accept. Either way it would probably be a good idea to have another option open to me. Must update CV and send out job applications before going home for Christmas…
• Flat hunting. I have decided I am definitely moving out in March whether I have a job or not. If I don’t have a job I won’t be able to afford the rent here anyway, so I’m either moving into a flat or moving to England. Hopefully I will have a job, which means I’ll be needing somewhere new to live. Only 3 months to go… definitely about time I started trying to find a flat!
• Floor Christmas party. Taking place on Thursday. There will be food, Christmas biscuits and Feuerzangenbowle (sort of likeGlühwein (mulled wine), except after making up the wine they put it in a big pan, stick a cone of sugar over the top pf it on a metal thing, pour run over the sugar and set it on fire. The sugar/rum mixture then melts into the Glühwein. It’s pretty good and very, very strong!)
• Buy last few Christmas presents. Nearly there. I only have 3 more to buy. Phew!
• Finish wrapping Christmas presents… and then hope I can actually get them all in the suitcase without going over the weight limit
• Write and send Christmas cards. Some of them have already been posted but I do still have one or two more to write. If any of you would like one I’ll be needing your address…
• Pack. This will probably be done in a massive rush on Thursday night/Friday morning, after the Christmas party and before catching the train. I will most likely be shoving in last minute items as I’m rushing out of the door…
• Sort out fridge. I’m going to be gone for almost three weeks! Better make sure there are no stray vegetables or out of date cartons of milk lurking around while I’m away…

OK, I think that’s it. The plan didn’t work though. I still think it’s going to be an exhausting week!
Oh well, only 4 more days then I’ll finally have some time to relax.

Then and now

I used to blog on msn spaces. This was a few years ago, before it changed to windows live spaces, stopped working properly on this computer and generally became incredibly annoying.
A while ago the boyfriend asked me what had happened to that blog. I told him it still exists, I just don’t use it any more. So he suggested I should think about backing it up before msn decide to get rid of it. Today in a fit of nothing better to do I remembered his suggestion and went to have a look at my old blog.
My original, very first msn blog from my final year at uni was deleted when I changed email address. The one that’s still out there starts about half way through my year in Austria and finishes with two one paragraph entry in October 2007, written after a break of 2 months.

And… oh my god, it’s terrible. The first few entries are all “boo hoo, my boyfriend lives in another country and nobody ever invites me to anything and I’m so lo-ooo-nee-lyy”. OK, there’s a few positive ones in between but that’s the gist of it. Then there’s the two months that I spent in England between finishing in Austria and moving to Germany. Mostly filled with getting drunk and talk of how annoying parents are. Then we get to my first year in Germany. Jan and I are now in the same country, so no more moaning about that. Instead we have “I don’t like the school I’m working at, they’re making me go with younger kids when I prefer older ones and I’m sure my mentor teacher hates me. Oh, and the other language assistants don’t like me either. Boo hoo, I’m sooo unpopular”. Reading through them all I could think was christ woman, did you do anything but whinge? Then my thoughts turned to this blog. And what have we here…

1. Bev complains about hardly seeing her boyfriend even though we’re actually in the same country now.
2. Bev complains about having to live in a student residence full of *gasp* students when all she really wants is a place of her own with actual space of for all her stuff, and how come the boyfriend gets to live in a flat anyway?
3. Bev complains about work and how she has no social skills whatsoever and just can’t please the bosses or get her head round the project management side of things. Boo hoo.
4. Once in a while Bev stops complaining about work and switches to talking about how she reeeally doesn’t want to do any studying either. More boo hoo.

Seriously people, something’s got to change!

The trouble with turkeys…

Tomorrow I have to go and buy a turkey. You see, for some reason I decided it would be a really great idea if I were to make an English Christmas dinner for my friends here in Germany. So that’s what I’ll be doing on Saturday.

I went by Rewe today to look at turkeys. I found one that was 3800g. That’s 8.3 pounds. That’ll be enough to feed 12 people right? I mean, there’ll be plenty of other stuff to eat… mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, bread pudding, stuffing (home made I might add!), veg, pigs in blankets… the works. Anyway, where was I? Oh, turkey.

So, 8.3 pound turkey. Marvellous. Now, the things is, it’s absolutely impossible to buy a whole fresh turkey in Germany, unless you know a farmer and get him to personally wring it’s neck for you and make sure nobody tries to take it away and turn it into turkey breasts and legs and wings and… basically anything but a whole turkey. So I have to buy a frozen turkey. (Actually I’m quite lucky to get that – I found exactly 2 supermarkets in Karlsruhe that sell frozen turkeys and the only reason they even have them is because we’re so close to the French border! That’s right, they’re French turkeys –  Germany is not a turkey country, apparantly). The problem with the ginormous frozen turkey is that it’s, well… frozen. And a huge 3.8 pound turkey takes a long time to defrost. A very long time. Waaay longer than I was expecting. According to the internet a turkey of that size will take around 48 hours to defrost in the fridge. Yes, I said Fourty-eight. Hours. That’s madness! And brings us to problem number two…

Exactly where am I supposed to defrost this giant turkey? I do not own a whole fridge. I have one measly little shelf in a small fridge that I share with 2 other people. There’s no way on Earth I’m going to get that turkey on my shelf. Even if I had no other food in the fridge I’d probably struggle to get the turkey in there. So I’m now going with the stick the turkey in my floor’s drinks fridge option as suggested by Jan. I just hope none of the people I live with objects. Currently there are exactly 2 bottles of water in the drinks fridge so it should be ok, but knowing my luck this will be the week that everyone decides they desperately need cold beverages or else the world will come to an end.
Wish me luck?