Six months

December the 12th: I moved to Germany exactly six months ago. I think this weekend was the best since I came here. It began with the Sinterklaas party on Friday, which, in the end, lived up to the three-month buildup it seems to have had!Everyone had gone to a lot of effort with the gifts and poems and seemed to spend the entire evening in stitches (though that may have had something to with the Feuerzangenbowle, a sort of wine fondue, that Dave and Gaby brought). My secret santa person was Cara - I knew Zoran and Guido would read this blog, which is why I didn't mention it earlier! I bought her a garter as she is getting married in September; here is the poem I wrote for her:

Cara M***** - where do we start?
She comes from Ireland and is engaged to Mark
Three great journals she edits at *****
She has a PhD from Cambridge Uni
She gets married next year and starts a new life
As Mr and Mrs, man and wife
She's going home to marry in Ireland
She has three bridesmaids and her dad's booked a band
There's no denying that weddings cause flak
Mark, being wise, is keeping well back
Let Cara sort out all of these things
From booking the church and choosing the rings
To finalizing all of the details petty
The right size and shape and colour confetti
Cara, meanwhile, in weststadt Weinheim
Is thinking and planning and biding her time
What she secretly wants and for what she will hope
Is that Mark will suddenly suggest they elope!
Cara's dream of wedding-day bliss
Is set in LA with a vicar as Elvis
A Las Vegas white-chapel shotgun wedding
Because all this nonsense is doing her head in!
She can picture herself nine months from now
At the front of the church, making a vow
Nervous as she's about to be Mrs
Wearing a dress worth ten colour figures
She'll pledge to Mark her love eternal
And her editing skills to a science journal
The best of luck for when you get wed
Be sure to remember all that I've said
There'll be no problems and all will be fine
As long as you get to the church on time!
So Merry Christmas Cara, enjoy some eggnog
But don't relax too much - edit your backlog!!


It was a really fun evening and I woke up in a very good mood on Saturday morning and went to meet Adam at the station. He was waiting for me inside as it was raining outside - one of my favourite bits is when we first meet and I see him for the first time in weeks. I feel as excited and nervous as if we are meeting for a first date - the first kiss makes my heart fast; these moments make a difficult move abroad worth it as it's the type of experience you don't get if you are always together.

We have fallen into the tradition of buying pizza from Mannheim train station when we meet - he usually arrives around lunchtime and so we go to the very delicious but strangely-named Ditsch pizza and then get the tram home. This weekend I had bought him a bottle of whisky and some steak so he was a happy man. Adam is always happy though and his enthusiasm and passion for whatever he his doing at that very moment is infectious - he makes everything so much fun and the time never goes so fast as when he comes to stay.

On Saturday evening we went to the garden centre at the Famila to buy a Christmas tree. Adam carried it home, which is not far, but the tree was awkward and heavy and when we got home his neck was all scratched from the pine needles; he kept finding them in his coat pocket all weekend. We decorated the tree whilst listening to Christmas music and then we went to town and drank Glühwein at the Christmas market. We had dinner and went for drinks at the Unicum, an old, underground place that is dark but cosy with good music.

We spent Sunday at the Heidelberg Christmas market and in various cafés. The weather was quite wet and miserable but plenty of Glühwein kept us warm! We stopped at Guido's on the way home to pick up my kitchen chairs which we'd carried round on Friday night. We went into his flat and Adam said "Ah, this place is nice Soph, you said it was tiny!"

We made a very huge roast dinner (Adam had two steaks on the side of his) on Sunday evening, and then I went to work on Monday morning. We went for lunch in the afternoon and then went to Mannheim before it was time for Adam to catch his train. He bought a Bahnkarte in the station as we're thinking of going to visit a few places in Germany during the week we have together at New Year.

I was a bit sad when I got back to the empty flat but I put the tree lights on and read the Saturday Guardian that Adam had brought me and then I felt better. Only a week till I'm home anyway!

Kakaopulver

Today was an early start; Cara picked me up at eight and we drove round the corner to pick Guido up and then went to the Famila Zentrum. I didn't know it was even open that early but we decided to go this morning as there won't be time later. Guido was buying drinks for this evening and Cara and I were food shopping. Adam is coming over this weekend so I always have to buy three times as much food! I was going to get a Christmas tree as well but by the time we'd rammed all our shopping into Cara's tiny car (she bought it from José two months ago when he bought Esther's) there was hardly room for the three of us.

I went to the Famila last night as well actually as I needed to buy ingredients for the muffins I said I'd make. I'd made sure to look up the German for flour (Mehl) and baking powder (Backpulver) beforehand so I thought I was set but when I got there I was faced with many many different types of Mehl; there were Hafermehl, Kartoffelmehl, Stärkermehl, and Weizenmehl to name but a few, and all were in identical white bags so I couldn't even identify what each was made of. I guessed that I would need Weizenmehl as this was by far the most abundant and I know from the beer that 'Weizen' means wheat. So I decided to go for that but then was dismayed to find that Weizenmehl was further split into different types; should I get Weizenmehl 405, 706, 892, or 1560? Who knows what these different numbers mean but I chose 405, reasoning that this must be the most basic and that 1560 was probably some sort of superflour meant for bakers whose skills are far better than mine. I also needed cocoa powder (Kakaopulver) which is what I thought I'd bought but got home to find it was a solid block of chocolate glaze. These are the subtleties that so easily catch you out. I bought nutmeg as well, hoping I hadn't got curry powder by mistake - it all looks the same!

Had my first Christmas card in the post yesterday- thanks Grandma!

I went to the Rhein-Neckar Centre last night to buy my secret-santa present. The Rhein-Neckar is a large indoor shopping centre not far from work. It's also got a cinema and a few restaurants. It was very busy last night and I suppose it will be all the way up until Christmas. It's open until eight but even in December it isn't open on Sundays. This means I have to do all my shopping on Saturdays or in the evenings after work. In a way though it's good because it means you have to do nothing on a Sunday although for me it usually means housework!
I got the present and I wrote the poem (I'll put it on here after the weekend) and I've even done the wrapping paper (meant to be personalized for the person receiving the gift). We are all to take some food to the Sinterklaas party tomorrow so that's what I'll be making this evening!

Had a letter from the Stadtwerke this morning; I am supposed to read the meter and send back a form but I don't know where the meter is or how to read it - might be time for a note to the Hoff! She gave me a lift to work yesterday actually so I think we are finally on good terms. I was walking along Ahornstrasse when she pulled up and said get in. She asked me how my German was going so we had a bit of chat and she asked me if I was going home for Christmas. I said yes, on the 18th, and then we both sat there thinking "Good."

An update on the allergy reaction: it's much better though not gone completely. Denis has been to check on the finger daily and has seen a definite improvement! At the Christmas party, when it was at its worst, I said I might need to go the doctor but I'm not registered with one in Germany. Zoran said, "I'm a doctor. I'll be your doctor, Sophie." Zoran is indeed a doctor, but of chemistry, not medicine, so I don't think he was qualified to advise against eating the dessert, which is what he did after prescribing several large doses of wine as a cure…..at the end of the evening he had several tall trifle glasses lined up in front of him like shot glasses; I think he had an ulterior reason for forbidding me to eat mine (which was apparently not a trifle, but a gateaux!).

A week goes by

It's been almost a week since my last entry - it's been a busy few days! On Friday afternoon I went to Ikea (stopping off at the Christmas market first) with Dutch boy (Guido acquired this nickname on Friday and as he still wants to be appear under a pseudonym I think it's quite useful) and Zoran. I bought a chair but they didn't have the tv table (of course).

The three of us went to Zoran's place in Mannheim (Guido walking along with an armchair and a couple of cabinets under each arm, Zoran carrying some coasters) and assembled Zoran's chair. There is nothing quite like watching two grown men try to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture in a confined space after three rounds of homemade Macedonian grappa. It was eye-watering, throat-burning stuff and I know it was strong because it wasn't long before I was singing…..I also told them the address of this blog (mistake); Guido spent the next twenty minutes reading through it and periodically shouting out "I never said that!" and "Don't put that!" and trying to shield the screen from Zoran so he wouldn't see what I wrote about the secret santa.

Zoran went to Italy a couple of weekends ago and had bought himself some souvenirs, which were on his shelf. They were two plastercast reliefs of Florence scenery and were what is generally known as tat:

"Wow, top tat, Zoran!" I said, picking them up and examining them in their cellophane-wrapped polystyrene frames.

"Tat? What do you mean, I like those. I'm going to put them on my wall."

"But…Zoran, they're awful! I got something similar when I was in Italy - my aunt asked me to get her the best piece of tacky souvenir tat I could find and I got her a purple, glittery, plaster Leaning Tower - it was horrible!"

"This one's glittery, look….!"



Mum and Shaunna came on Saturday afternoon. They brought me an advent calendar and some supernoodles and we had a busy weekend. We went up to the Christmas market on Saturday evening as it began this weekend. The Marktplatz is covered in fairy lights and Christmas trees and wooden huts selling glühwein and bratwurst and there's a really festive atmosphere. There is an ice-skating rink and a live band was playing as the people skated. The two castles and the mountains were in the background and it was such a wonderful scene that I thought to myself "I really like living here." Shaunna and I went skating on Sunday morning and then we spent the afternoon in Mannheim at the huge Christmas market (see picture).

We went to the revolving restaurant on Monday evening, Mum and Shauns both really enjoyed it. Adam and I loved it when we went there in September and we were fortunate that it was still light early in the evening so we saw the sunset and the moon rise.

Rather unfortunately though, at some point over the weekend I came into contact with something that I have had quite a severe allergic reaction to. I had two itchy spots on the left of my face on Monday morning and by the afternoon there was one on my left arm and right shoulder. I thought something had bitten me but on the way home from the Skyline restaurant on Monday evening, three more sprang up on the back of my right hand and little finger. They all swelled up and blistered so that by yesterday morning I had to go the chemist and get some antiallergy pills. I have no idea what caused it as I didn't eat anything unusual but it was so horrible that I almost didn't go to the Christmas party last night. I couldn't move my finger it was so swollen and everyone I showed took a step back and said "Urrgghh!"

I decided to go the Christmas party and just pity the poor person who had to sit opposite me! A few of us (me, Cara, Guido, Lisa, Brid, Claire, Jennifer) went to a wine place at the top of the Marktplatz beforehand and then walked round to the Schlosspark restaurant. It turned out to be a really fun night even though everyone who had been before said it was tiresome with lots of long, boring speeches. The food was tapas and there were lots of different courses and lots of wine and as it was all free we got rather merry! Brid and I had an (friendly) argument about whether one of the desserts was a trifle or not; I said it was and she maintained that it wasn't because it didn't contain jelly but Lisa said this morning that it was a blackforest gateaux. Me and Brid both agree that it definitely wasn't.

The speeches turned out to be just one speech and it wasn't too long. Frau Willa gave out prizes to winners drawn from a hat. Denis, who is just a bit older than me, won a prize and Frau Willa congratulated him saying that they are very proud of their employees who begin as an apprentice (as has Denis) and that they have some who have celebrated 20 or 40 years at *****, at which point Denis was pulling a face that looked as though that was his idea of hell! Everyone who won had to say what they did in the company and Denis said "I am with production and I work for - I mean, with, Margitta...." with a little bow towards Frau Schmitt....

Today I look and feel much better though I hope this has all gone before Adam comes at the weekend!