Germany, Travel

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I’m home again and guess what, the grass here is greener than that in Ireland so I’ll keep the green layout until I find something better. 🙂

The trip was fine. I didn’t sleep much the night before because I had drank some wine my roommate the night before instead of packing my bags and cleaning my room so I still had quite a bit to do in the morning and was worried I’d sleep in or not get everything done or that the taxi wouldn’t show up and what not. I got everything more or less done though and the taxi driver carried my suitcases downstairs (good, strong man).
At the airport SAS was nice enough to only charge me for 25kg instead of 30kg excess weight but then they only gave me one baggage ticket at check-in. That resulted in me asking about that at the gate coutner and then they had to take all bags out of the plane again to make sure both my bags were in there. Ah well, not my fault ;-).
In Copenhagen I ate some Smörrebröd for lunch and then walked around the shops a bit, bought an American Cosmo and read that at a cafe with a nice cafe americano. Yum! I love Copenhagen’s airport, it’s so light and they have these cool trolleys for your carry-on. Otherwise my shoulder would have been dead with lappy’s bag filled to the brim. The flight to Hanover was alright, too. I had this lady next to me who had horrible breath and she kept looking out of the window where I was sitting. Yuk! Nasty breadth!

Now I’m back home and it’s alright. Almost feels like I’ve never been gone. I did manage to put all my stuff away – sooo happy about that! I still feel super cluttered in so I guess I’m gonna have to ebay some things off this summer.
Wrote some words for my thesis today. Yay! Chapter 5 is almost finished now and hopefully I’ll get that done in the next two or three days. Wish me luck!
Oh I also planted the shamrock that Kathi had given me for Christmas today so hopefully it’ll provide me with lots of luck. I really do need some in regards to a job right now so keep your fingers crossed, pretty please!!
Well, time to snuggle up in my nice, big bed with the nice smooth sheets. Though I do have to admit, I miss my pillows from Ireland. These 40x80cm pillows are much more comfortable than the 80x80cm ones we have here.
Night night!

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Boys, Culture, Friends, Germany, Travel

I Love Germany

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Being back in Germany was so exciting! Everything was in this luscious spring green and the temperatures were much higher than in Ireland. Ok so when I landed in Frankfurt the clouds were hanging so low they were touching the trees in little cloudstrings and people don’t say sorry when they bump into you but they do try not to run you over unlike people on sidewalks here in Ireland. 😉 Having made it to the central station in Frankfurt, my mouth almost dropped because lunch rolls/bagels etc. cost about half of what they are here. I hadn’t been able to get a reservation for the train seeing that it was a holiday and probably booked out months earlier but I was lucky enough to get a tiny seat even though coach 7 (the one without reservations) wasn’t there. I had a group of fathers on their way to Berlin for father’s day sitting around me and they happily offered to share their beer and sausages with me and we chatted all the way to my town. And they were German! Nice! That was actually the second time I got free beer on the train – seems like Germans aren’t as unfriendly as I always always make us out to be.
So I got home fine and on time(!) and I relaxed a bit at my parents’ house and then my step-dad and I visited my Grand-Ma who was in hospital (she’s fine and back home now). We came back and cooked a delicious dinner of porkroast, asparagus and potatoes. Yum!
Friday I took the train to Hanover for the wood working trade show Ligna. I met up with my friend and we walked around for a bit until he had to take care of some customers. So I explored a bit more myself, looked at some artsy things made from wood, had some lunch and watched timber sports. I definitely need to remember the Ligna fair as a great place to find guys, there were maybe 20 women in total that I saw (other than the hostesses of course). 😉 Anyways, met up with my friend again and talked to a couple of his bosses and then we headed to Bad Nenndorf where their hotel was. Hung out for a bit and then went out to eat some weird Italian food for dinner. It was supposed to be Spaghetti Carbonara but was more like Spaghetti with half-raw eggs. The pizza was yummy though.
Saturday I slept in and then we headed to Hannover, checked my friend in his new hotel and then started looking for some breakfast/lunch at 2pm. Luckily there was an Alex right outside the hotel. We were too late for breakfast (wahh) but lunch was fine, too. We walked around the city for a bit but the stores were so hot and I was feeling kind of weak from the weatherchange and lack of sleep so we headed back quite soon. Hung out a bit more and then Massimo drove me home where we had a quick dinner and I gave him a tiny tour of my city. Had a cup of wine with my parents and then I just fell asleep like a stone. So tired!
Sunday I slept in a bit and then packed my bags and tried to sort through some of my things. I don’t know why, but every time I come back from a trip, my closet is still full. A pile of mail is also awaiting me and I don’t even know where I’m supposed to put all my things. Arg! I go through my clothes every time I come back from somewhere and still no space! I’m at a point where I don’t want to give away any more of my things because I’m only left with the ones I like. Ebay…. big bag full of Beany Babies, books, CDs,…
My Mom made a rhubarb cake for me (yay!) and we sat on the porch in 26C sunshine and ate it with whipped cream. Oh so nice! I just caught my train in time (they closed the Autobahn and the cars were blocking the city) and this time coach 7 was there and I got a seat all the way to Frankfurt. Got into the S-Bahn (commuter train) and some British guy sitting opposite of me asked me if it was the one to the airport. I said yeah and we chatted for a bit. So we get to the airport and he asks me to show him Terminal 2 and bla. Then he’s like can I give you my card and nice girl that I am I of course say yeah. Well, he doesn’t hand it over, he sticks it into the backpocket of my jeans. Yikes! Weirdo. Also very nice that it’s one of those free to print out cards and looks really weird. Well, ego boost nonetheless. 😉
Made it back to Dublin and now I’m working working working. Seems like my to-do list is getting longer by the minute.
So overall, I had a lovely weekend and had a great time with my friend. We still get along super great even though he’s not the nice, good guy he used to be anymore. Talk about Americanization!

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Culture, Germany, Travel

Sonata for a Good Man

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… or in my case, a Good Woman. Thursday night I hung around the world’s third busiest airport, London Heathrow, waiting for my connecting flight to Dublin. Anyone who’s been there knows it’s huge and involes a lot of walking. I was pretty hot and knowing that Aerlingus doesn’t serve free drinks, I went about and looked for a little shoppe to buy me some H2O. Naturally I didn’t have any Sterling on me but you can normally pay in Euro or with credit card. Well, turned out you had to pay with Euro bills and then got pound coins back (and this was in Terminal 1’s Ireland and UK departures area). I can totally understand that they want bills to exchange them back to Pounds but I’m sure they’d be fine accepting coins with all these people travelling to and fro’ Ireland. I obviously didn’t want to break one of my bills and get back a handful of British coins especially since they always seem to screw you over with the exchange rate. So I was standing at the till a bit gobsmacked after not being able to pay him the exact amount in Euro coins when this lady who had been in front of me was just like “Ah come here I’m sure I have it” and she just handed the cashier 1.60pounds. I was pretty amazed by that! You know how people are normally kind of stressed out at airports and seem to be ruder than normal. Well, this complete stranger just bought me a bottle of water just like that. How nice was that?! I’m totally meaning to pass on this kindness and be really kind to some random stranger.

The flight thereafter was really nice, I had this cute Italian investment banker Piedro sitting next to me, which was cool because I got to practice my Italian and got to listen to il suo accento italiano – sexy! I also had a really nice cab driver from the airport to my apartment (yeah I’m not waiting for a bus that late at night and then walk 15 minutes with high-heels). He lives an hour away from Dublin and just comes to the city every day to drive his cab – and that’s his main (and only) job! Wow!

But anyways, the title of this entry is of course from the movie The Lives of Others. My co-worker Andreína had invited me to come along with a couple of friends of hers and of course I wanted to see this one! I was honestly quite surprised that it was showing here, in German even. Definitely an excellent movie!! I really like most of the recent movies about East Germany (think Good-bye Lenin, Sonnenallee) as obvisouly I don’t really remember a lot from back then (I was 7 when the wall fell) but I studied in the East and am fascinated by what people say about life back then. Almost always sounds like a bad joke (to quote my friend Doreen: “I was only allowed to buy 4 bananas because we were only 4 in the family” etc.).
I remember once visiting relatives in Thuringia for a wedding. I was maybe 5 or so and I helped getting the empty glasses from the tables and to the bar at this big pre-wedding party and everyone gave me little coins. I had a HUGE pile of GDR coins but they weighed nothing! I also remember that we had to wait ages at the border control and that they searched the whole car oh and! I broke a glass when I set my teeth to hard on it. Argh! 🙂 So I obviously don’t remember much, just bits and pieces and I guess it didn’t seem so different to me than home then but I was oh so little. Even better that there are all these movies out now and that I know there’s a happy ending to the GDR (even though a lot of people probably don’t find it a happy ending but that might just be the German’s love for complaining about everything).

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