So, about three hours ago, Colm put in some towels, for a boil wash… This was a new concept for him - he didn’t know what a boil wash *was*, never mind whether or not his washing machine could provide one

Nothing happened. He assured me he’d done everything right, the machine was on the right setting, he’d pulled the bit that needs to be pulled in order to start a wash… But there was nothing. No washing machine noises, or anything.

After an hour or so, he went back to check it. Still nothing. So he resolved to leave it half an hour, and then have another look. He figured it’d take a long time to get the water up to 95C, you see… I thought that was a bit unlikely, but accepted that maybe he just had a really odd washing machine… Anyway, we sat down to watch ‘Signs’ (great movie), and forgot about the wash.

Once Signs was over, I went in to have a look at the washing machine, checked that it was on the right program, the necessary bit was pulled out, and the door was closed… Of course, as I pushed on the door, it clicked closed, and the wash started to run… What can I say!?

Boys!

And Saturday post… Got woken up this morning by the most fearful noise - it only lasted a second tho, and then it stopped. I figured it must be my door buzzer thing, so I put on my dressing gown & flipflops (thanks mum!), and headed out to see who it was… You’ll note that glasses weren’t on the list of things I put on, so when I saw someone else going down the corridor, I went back into my room, figuring the guy at the door had just pressed the wrong button… Then I heard him say something to the other person, so I poked my head back out, and he had come down the corridor a bit. By now, I could work out that he was the postman - he had an armful of things that didn’t look like they’d fit in our letterboxes, and he gave me one…

There aren’t many people who have my address, and I didn’t recognise the handwriting, which majorly narrowed down the list of potential senders. But there was no return address, so I just opened it anyway - turned out to be lots of good, Irish chocolate, courtesy of Conall - yay!

Its arrival was doubly welcome, because I had a bit of an icky experience on my way home last night I took the UBahn on my own, from town. It was pretty empty, so I took a seat. Then, four guys got on, and took seats around me… That was a bit uncomfortable, but I said nothing… Then, when I was getting off the UBahn (I live at the last stop, so everyone was getting off), they walked *really* *really* close behind me - not nice! The last straw was when, as I was walking up the stairs, one of them blew in my ear (ewww!) and leered “suuuuuss” (”sweet” in German)… Ewww! Thankfully, they went off in the direction I wasn’t going, and I walked down to the underground carpark - there was a guy I knew heading that way from the village, and I’m pretty sure there’s monitored CCTV stuff there. (I sure hope it’s monitored anyway!)

Guh, icky.

But chocolate good

I’m going to have various visitors over the year that I’m here (I hope!), so here’s just a post to keep some bits & pieces of information all in one place…

Schloss Nymphenburg - Bus 51 from Olympiazentrum
http://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/uebers/nymphbur.htm

Olympiaturm - don’t be so lazy, just walk
http://www.drehrestaurant.de/ (Restaurant)
(find website for the tower itself)

Deutsches Museum (German Museum - technology etc) - between Isartor & Rosenheimer Platz, all S-Bahns
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/e_index.htm

BMW Welt - find out more

Erdinger Brewery - likewise

Anything else ye want to visit?

I guess it’s a sign that I’m starting to get settled here, that I already have some in-jokes, and people to share them with. It *is* harder to get to know the German students - but for now, I’m just working on making friends, regardless of nationality! Classes here are a bit weird - aside from the language stuff, which I’m dealing with ok, they do other odd stuff, like knocking on the desks at the end of each class (it’s the equivalent of a round of applause for the lecturer, apparently)… They also begin all their classes at a quarter past the hour, and end at a quarter to - so “two hour” lectures (none of them are less than that) actually only last ninety minutes…

Had dinner with the Canadian girls last night - Antti and Jaime came over for a bit, but they went off to watch a soccer match before we actually ate. Pasta & sauce, with some yummy garlic bread (courtesy of Nicole’s grill-oven-thingy), and then a very girly tub of ice-cream to finish Bari, Katie and I managed to finish the whole thing by ourselves! Sorry Nicole!

Today wasn’t too bad - I’m absolutely skint, because all my money’s in my German bank account, but I don’t have a PIN to be able to take it out. (I have the card alright, PIN will *hopefully* arrive tomorrow!) Had the icky-scary-nasty lecture in the morning, went to the bank at lunchtime, and then hung around the uni, waiting for my German for Erasmus lecture… Only when time came for it, I discovered that it didn’t start until next week - gah!

So home it was, and went over to visit Alexandra, a lovely Romanian girl. She’s an absolute sweetheart, and so generous! She lent me two books on Romania, and gave me a *gorgeous* calendar, with pictures of Romania. It’s a really pretty country. Home then, to clear all my furniture into the middle of my room (the walls are getting painted tomorrow), and talk to mum & dad. Skype rocks

Dad went flying today, not entirely sure where - he said it was lots of fun, and a little like using an outboard motor! Grandad went into hospital last night (dad rang me last night, shortly after I’d fallen asleep, to say hi - at that stage, he was on his way home from the hospital, having gone in to see Grandad), and was due out today, but he’s been kept in for an angiogram.

So that’s all my news really - tomorrow’s another slightly-killer day, but hopefully won’t be too bad! G’night!
(PS, I’m going to be back in Dublin Oct 29th - Nov 2nd. Anyone who didn’t say goodbye to me last time, here’s your chance )

So, I’ve done all the legal administrivia (still working on some of the college bits), been to the opera (very modern, but great seat, good music, and for 8EUR, can’t complain!), and finished my introduction course… After a weekend that seemed to last forever (including a party, watching of brilliant Canadian comedy, drilling holes in cement walls, French toast, baked camembert, and Haagen Dazs, amongst other things) I also had my first day of college.

The Mathematische Methoden lecture was good - nice lecturer, spoke as he wrote, explained things clearly, used as much whiteboard as was available, and took a little pause at the end of his paragraphs. I never realised how important some of these things are. I’m used to being able to read (from the whiteboard), write (into my notebook) and listen (to a lecturer) all at the same time… Here, I can do one of these things. I can read the board OR listen to the lecturer. I can write in my notebook OR read the board… Thankfully, I can still take dictation. So if the lecturer is talking slowly (like, for example, when reading aloud what he’s writing as he writes it), I can write it down. Still - the whole thing was fairly stressful, fight-or-flight’ish, and I was very glad to be walking out into the calm of the English Gardens, once it was all done. After that lecture, I went to the computer rooms, checked my mail, discovered that the internet should be working again in my building (a switch died on Sunday morning, so it wasn’t working til Monday afternoon), and went home…

A brief mail-check and a handful of grapes later, it was time to go back into town for my computational linguistics lecture. It was awful. I cried. I could hardly understand a thing, the lecturer had doctor-writing and was hard to understand verbally, the class just wouldn’t stop whispering and making noise, and the content was terrifying. I took some notes, tried to stop crying, and texted Colm a bit. Then, the lecturer stopped talking about scary, incomprehensible stuff, and gave a brief introduction to Prolog. It’s been a while since I’ve gone near the stuff, but it was familiar enough that I calmed down a bit. Eventually got home, talked to friends, calmed down, and even heard from mum, via Skype

That, and later talking to Colm, made my day. Mum just started a new job today, so we both commiserated a bit, and offered each other lots of moral support for tomorrow I have eight hours of lectures (compared with today’s four), so anyone who wants to send prayers, chocolate, or good vibes is most appreciated

I’ve also just had the yummiest dinner ever to come out of a microwave. Swedish meatballs (Ikea, you rock), Italian tomato/basil pasta sauce (being a student also rocks - no way would I find that in the cupboard at home!), and German ‘Butterkase’ grilled on top… Mmmm. It’s hard, stressy, scary here - absolutely everything is foreign, and even the stuff I’ve brought from home is in such a different environment that it really isn’t familiar anymore. But it’s also a very fun place, and a great experience. Here’s hoping it’s not my last!

Well - just as I thought I’d gotten all my bureaucracy done, another bit popped up I went to the Hausverwaltung (accommodation managment ppl) this morning, to show them my Anmeldungsbescheinigung (proof of registration with the Kreisverwaltung, or local authority kinda folk), and my Immatrikulationsbescheinigung (proof of registration with the college). They were happy with the Anmeldungbescheinigung, but they didn’t want my Immatrikulationsbescheinigung. Currently, I just have a temporary one - they want the real one, but they don’t need to see it until mid-November.

What they did want, however, was my rent. Turns out that in Germany, “within 12 days of moving in” actually means “within 12 days (weekends included) of when you could, in theory, have moved in, if our office had been open to give you your keys, which it wasn’t”. See, they do like things complicated. So I went to the bank, to try and put some money into my account - no such luck, my account number didn’t exist. The lady who’d helped me open the account had told me that it might take a day or so, and that I could come in anytime this week and it would be fine. What she actually meant was that it could take three to five days, and I could come in anytime after this Thursday, and it would be fine. Aargh! She was halfway through dealing with another customer, but promised to come back to me.

I just couldn’t take it any more. It’s hard being in a new country, with so many formalities to sort out, all in a foreign language, and with none of your friends around. Being scolded like a stupid child really doesn’t make it any easy, and my bottom lip started to wobble. A much younger bank staff guy came over, asked was I ok. I started to explain that the older lady would be helping me in a second, and she snapped at him words to the effect of “she’s just stupid and doesn’t know how it works. I’ll explain to her in a minute” - I just started crying. So then the nice man brought me over to the desks at the back of the bank (where you can open an account/deal with large sums of money/do stuff with a bit more privacy than just standing at the counter), sat me down, told me he’d sort it all out. He took all the details, and rang my Hausverwaltung. They didn’t answer, so he promised to try them again, and took their fax number too, in case. He took my mobile number, and sent me off with a promise that he’d sort it, all would be ok.

In the end, he had to fax them, and then he got to speak to them. They wanted an official fax from the bank, to say that I’d opened an account, and would have it within a few days, which he gave them. He then rang me back to explain all this - he was so lovely, and patient, and just a tonic. He completely restored my faith in humanity, and a brief cry just levelled out some of the stress of the last week or so. It’s been an awful lot of fun, but it has been stressful too.

After class (banks open at half eight in the morning here. I find this an *eminently* sensible idea, and recommend it to any non-German bank managers who may be reading. Do this. Customers will love you), we went out to Erding. It’s pretty far away, but a very scenic journey. We got a bus straight from the uni to the Erdinger brewery, where we watched a brief video, then went on a tour. It’s a fairly standard factory tour really. But I learnt some new words - Hefe is yeast

After the tour, we came back to the brewery pub, where we were given pots of weisswurst (no, I can’t remember what’s in it, but I remember enough that I know I don’t want to know!), holders full of Brez’n (pretzels), and more or less free run of the drinks (We weren’t allowed to self-serve, but we could have as many, of any of the different varieties of Erdinger, as we wanted.) I stuck to the weissbier, although I tried sips of all the other ones - I just didn’t like them much. I also had some Apfelschorle (apple juice with fizzy water), cos the Brez’n make you *really* thirsty! The walk back to the S-Bahn station was pretty far, but I don’t *think* we lost anyone!

All in all, it was a good, fun afternoon, with excellent company There’s a party on tonight (again!), but I think it’ll (hopefully) be an early night for me…

The first week is over - I can’t really believe it. Someways, it feels like I’ve been here forever… Others, it seems like only a few hours. I’m still not sleeping quite properly, but I’m managing all the same. Technology is great - Colm & I have done a bit of webconferencing, and Skype has enabled several long phonecalls home.

I’ve done all the official stuff now - thank God it’s all done, at least for now! I’ve started to get a timetable together - it’s a bit annoying, because although intradepartmental stuff seems well organised (allowing you to do several courses), interdepartmentally there doesn’t seem to be anything - so everything clashes Ahh, I’ll sort it out in the end!

Went to a lovely concert tonight - Kathleen Loughnane, with her son & nephew. Was great to hear some Irish music, and just go out and do something Absolutely wrecked now tho, so going to sleep G’night all!

So - the first week (at least of the introduction course) is over - I’m doing pretty well. I’ve registered with the police and the college, I’ve got the right to move freely around Germany, I’ve opened a bank account and sorted out student-tickets for the transport system. I’ve even bought a new phone! (Ok, only a SIM-card, but still.)

My phone is pretty cool - while I’m within 500m of my apartment, it works as a landline. I have a landline number, and when I call people, it costs me the same as if I’d callen from a landline. (Actually, because of an ‘extra’ I also bought, it costs me nothing to ring German landlines, or German O2 mobiles when I’m in my ‘Homezone’.) If I’m outside that, and someone rings my landline number, it just goes to my voicemail - which I can pick up for free when I get back into my Homezone, or if I think it’s urgent, I can pick up (and pay for the mailbox-call) as soon as I notice.

A bunch of us had planned to do the 3rd Reich Tour of Munich this evening, but unfortunately we read the “What’s On” wrong, so that didn’t work out in the end. It sounds interesting tho, so I’ll probably do it sometime during the week. It’s a bit weird writing in English - I’ve been speaking so much German, that it’s hard to remember all the rules of English!

I’ve also spent a while going through the list of available lectures - there’s plenty that I’m looking forward to doing! Tomorrow is shopping-day, in the Olympia-Einkaufzentrum (probably mostly window-shopping - I don’t need anything, and the only things I’m vaguely on the lookout for are a few posters, and a clothes-horse), but otherwise it’ll be a quiet weekend - take it easy, euch!

Well. I’ve been here three days now, and am gradually getting settled in. First day was ok - got safely to Munich, and then to Thalkirchen. Nearly killed ourselves dragging the suitcases to the hostel, but got there eventually. I was *so* glad it wasn’t snowy, although the village didn’t look quite so enchanting without the snow… We had pizza in the Holzofen place, yummy! A guy followed us back to the hostel, and scared the life out of us by saying “Hallo”, while walking about 6cm behind us. We started talking in Irish, and just hurried back to our room - the same one as we’d had before

Tuesday morning was up bright & early, to go to Olympiadorf. It took a while to find where I had to go, and the suitcases certainly didn’t help. We made it in the end tho, got my papers and keys, found the apartment, and started to unpack. I was just spaced out, with everything I had to learn & remember! Mum got me sorted, and we went for a walk locally, bought some food etc. Then I headed off to classes at about lunchtime. With my second set of keys (yay!), mum went off shopping.

The orientation course was grand - various people welcomed us, then we queued and queued to sort out the students’ union contribution, health insurance, and the course registration. After a quick break, it was in for a Kloze-test, filling in the blanks. Then it was back home, where I was greeted with cheese on toast! (And honey on toast for dessert.) My new microwave rocks - it can grill stuff too! Later, we had some veggies & sausages.

This morning it was out again, to my classes. The class I’m in all seem lovely, and it was about as much as my over-full brain could handle. Got the Vorlesungsverzeichnis (list of lectures etc available) before class, then met mum briefly during the break. During the first class we introduced each other - after the break, we chatted a bit about Munich & Bavaria, and tried to figure out the MVV (local transport system) ticket thingy.

Went for a lovely lunch with mum, in a little Italian place around the corner from my classes, and then went wandering, to find where I had to register. More wandering brought us to the tourist office in the city centre, and I gathered bits of paper (map, and various info about the different mobile-phone operators). At that stage, it was pretty much time for me to go to register. One very tearful parting later, I did so Sad panda

Registration was pretty easy - I got a temporary, paper, student card, and signed up for the Erasmus students’ club. Then I headed off with two of the other Erasmus folk (Gordon, who I met while waiting to get my apartment, and Andreas, who I met on the course), to get our transport passes. We went to Poccistraße, got the passes without any bother, and got on the U-Bahn back to Marienplatz to get tickets (you need a free pass to get a student-priced ticket). Minor panic ensued - someone had bashed up against me on the way out of the tram, and the pass wasn’t in my (open, outside) jacket pocket, where I thought I had put it

Gordon sagely told me not to panic, and we sat down to look through my stuff for it. Just when I’d given up, and was going to go back to Poccistraße to try and get another, I found it, in my jeans pocket! Yay Total cost for one month of travel in the “Innenraum” (covers most of Munich) - 39EUR.

Back at my apartment, I found a lovely little card from home. I miss you guys, lots and lots. iChatted with Colm - complete with really nice, decent-res video - for a while, then headed over to the computer room, to get an account with the local netsoc. Just getting used to a German keyboard - oh what fun… Time to head back and see if I can make sense of the Vorlesungsverzeichnis now! Wish me luck

Colm and I were heading over the Millenium Bridge this afternoon (en route to Maplins/Peats, in search of an elusive USB Compact Flash reader… I’ve found loads, but all of them are much more expensive than I want, and do much more stuff than I want ), when we saw a weird, red *thing* downriver.

There’s been a little pontoon thingy there for a few weeks - we saw it being constructed, but weren’t sure what it was for. Colm thought it might be for concerts!

Turns out, it’s for the “Liffey Voyage” - quite similar to the old Guinness barge tours. The red thing was “Spirit of Docklands” (originally to be called “Strumpet”), a Danish-designed, Swedish-built, DDA-funded boat). It’s an amazing boat - very, very low air draught, and similarly low water draught, so it can fit under the bridges at high tide, and still navigate the Liffey at low. At 9EUR for a student (11 for adults), we figured it was worth a go - especially since it’s my last day in Dublin for a while.

It brought us from Bachelor’s Walk all the way down to the Grand Canal Dock, with an interesting commentary. All the crew were (as far as I could tell) Irish, and all very friendly. The boat was lovely and comfortable, although it took a little getting used to - we were essentially sitting *at* the water line, or slightly below it. It’s only been going since the 23rd of last month, so it still had that “new car” sort of smell

I learned several things - 1988 was Dublin’s “aluminium year” (the people not yet being familiar with the word “millenium”… Guess it’s a good job they got a chance to practise in time for the turn of the century so )… There’s an old diving bell on the south quays - Hanover Quay, I think? Dublin’s Customs House cost 250,000 pounds (sterling) in its day. Diarmuid Gavin’s Chelsea Flower Show garden has been transplanted to an apartment complex on Hanover Quay

It was odd going under all the bridges - particularly the 46m wide O’Connell Bridge. Seeing a seagull trying valiantly to swim against the current was funny - especially when the one beside it quickly gave up, and took to the air

All in all, it was a great trip