Too damn hot

Yes, it's still hot. Not quite as bad as it was, but it's been hot for so long that I'm feeling really worn down and light-headed most of the time. So, hiding out in my room reading rather than going out at the weekends, which means not much in the way of news.

Himself has been wonderful and ordered my new mp3 player, headphones and USB headset for me. Can't wait to see him next weekend.

Still trying to drag myself through this feminism nationalism translation. If nothing else it's turning into an interesting impromptu history lesson as I try to place some names - female anarchists executed for treason in the Meiji era.

Quote for the day: "Not unusually, tradition in Japan held that femaleness and an individual identity and destiny were oxymoronic. Thus, when the Tokugawa (1603-1867) authorities chose to execute a woman, she would be given a man's name. This was not unlike the view of progressive medieval Buddhists that enlightenment was not, after all, out of the reach of women. In male bodies, transformed at the point of death through the grace of Amida Buddha, they might gain immediate entry to the Pure Land. Either style of 'annihilation' meant dying a 'man'. However, after the Meiji imperial restoration of 1868, Western-style modernity brought with it a new view of women as modern citizens. The Meiji Constitution, Civil Code and political assembly laws fell far short of according them equality in terms of their rights or duties to the nation, yet the new criminal code promulgated in 1880 spelt a certain equality for women in granting them equal access to criminality."

From 'Resistance to Difference: Sexual Equality and its Law-ful and Out-law (Anarchist) Advocates in Imperial Japan' by Hélène Bowen Raddeker

Now you've done it

I've booked my flights for Japan in October! Finnair are having a seat sale, with Heathrow to Nagoya or Osaka for a mere £392.90. I'm leaving on Oct 3, arriving early on Oct 4 and there until the morning of Oct 26. The three week JR railpass and rental mobile will be sorted out later...

Not much else - it's still too hot. Went out to Yumeya, a ramen restaurant near the Frankfurt Messe exhibition center. It was fun, if quite disorganised on the service front. Not expensive either.

Really, really must concentrate on getting this feminist nationalist translation done this weekend so I can run away to Fontainebleau with himself next weekend. Shall bring the camera - I know I haven't been doing much around Frankfurt recently. There aren't many people interested in going places, and I'm sorry to say my German is still non-existent so I'm still quite nervous. But I should make an effort to at least see Heidelberg and one town on the Romance Road that seems near enough.

June already... been here three months. It feels like it, in that way that you get used to places, but also not in that I feel like I haven't got that much done. Another three months (or possibly four, the one month extension I was promised has not shown up yet) and it's all over. For now anyway.

But I have other things to worry about - I'm managing to read a small newspaper article a day on the Asahi Shimbun website, but as soon as I get back from France I need to start preparing for the residential weekend, which means reading short stories, reviewing the report-writing and preparing visual aids for the presentation. There's quite a lot of work to be done there, so I just hope I have the willpower for it...

yes, yes, YES!!

As the ad goes. I finally got my hair cut (goes a bit like this) which makes me feel like I've taken off a woolly hat. Which is good, as the weather continues to be stupidly hot.

In other news, having far too much fun looking at places to go with my brother and his other half in Japan in October (Tokyo, Matsumoto, Obuse, Inuyama and Kanazawa on the list so far) and generally managing to avoid the MA translation I should be doing.

Victory! (again)

I have an appointment for a haircut. Woo.

The Italians have been measuring the heat in the office, and apparently it hit 31 Celsius on Wednesday. Thursday was equally bad, but Friday was bearable. I did go out on Wednesday and buy four new light tops, and a headset for using Skype now I've paid in to be able to call normal phones.

Except the MacBook Pros don't come with a microphone port. They come with a line-in port, which normal headsets can't use. So, I can't use it. Need to get myself a USB headset or some kind of external amp or sound card. Spent a huge amount of time researching what will or won't work and think I have found one now that I can use.

Had a massive thunderstorm last night with constant thunder and lightning, and another one has just moved in. At least it will cool things down a bit. It's hard to concentrate on anything with it so hot, but I have at least managed to buy a card for my cousin's wedding (although I've managed to lose his address) and write to my homestay family in Japan.

My brother has finally firmed up his dates for Mongolia, so I can start plotting my next trip to Japan. Finnair are having a seat sale, and seem to make the journey via Helsinki faster than Emirates via Dubai. The direct flights are all over £800, much as I would love to go direct again.

Round and round and round we go

For anyone wondering what on earth I'm talking about with kumihimo, here's a photo of my attempts so far. One of them is being used a decorative dangle on my bag, as I wove it around a clip. I'm not sure if the thinner ones are meant to twist as mine do... But still an awful lot of fun and really relaxing.

Yesterday was too hot. It was the kind of day where you either are dressed, or move, but not both. Everything I own seems to be too heavy. Yesterday was 23 degrees - today, tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be 29. I'm going to melt.

Still trying to get a haircut.

The horror is in the post

Love these Hammer House of Horror commemorative stamps from Royal Mail - along with the Carry On ones.

Not sure what it says about the contents of what it's on though...

Oops

Apparently, I can lose track of time while doing kumihimo. I was planning on being in bed early tonight...

Easily distracted

I ended up undoing the kumihimo cord and redoing it - then undoing it again after realising I'd got the pattern wrong. How I did that I don't know, as it is literally weave-by-numbers. But on the third go I cut a new thread for the cross-weave so that it would be long enough to use up all the other cords, and wove away while watching a video - I now have a very nice red, gold and brown cord attached to a clip!

I don't have a weight to keep it tense and so keep the weave even, but I found that just holding the braid as it comes from the disc worked nicely. Very happy with it for a third first attempt...

But I really shouldn't be doing it in the morning before work. Need to run now.

Not too bad

As predicted, Friday felt like being called into work on a Saturday, Saturday felt like Sunday and Sunday didn't know what to do with itself. Such is a bank holiday Thursday.

Managed to get some things done - finally did a jewellery repair that I've had since Easter. I needed a few beads for it, so went to search for bead shops in Frankfurt without much hope - I'd searched before and found naught. But someone had posted a question about it a few days earlier on an 'answers' site and I got addresses for two places - the first of which had what I wanted (which was nothing special) and I also caved in and bought a kumihimo set and some carabiners with chains to weave onto. The second store was much larger and nicer, with a larger range of beads, and there too I was unable to resist buying something - in this case a set of 6 butterfly and dragonfly stamps and a set of blue/green ink pads. I know, I shouldn't. But I did.

The other thing I was on the lookout for was headphones. I found a real hi-fi shop, which predictably enough only stocked serious merchandise - 300 and 400 Euro Sennheiser headphones. The strange thing is that I can get both the headphones and the iAudio D2 much cheaper in the UK than here, even taking the strong Euro into account. But I can't seem to pay for them with my German bank card, so I'll have to see if I can get them delivered to a non-cardholder address (always a bit of a pain).

Otherwise, I finished the first section of the Social Science Readings translation, and read the central part we don't have to translate. I still have some way to go before I finish (due on June 13) but at least I've cracked the ice.

Went out to dinner last night with Z to the Thai place around the corner - cheap and cheerful (6 Euro main course) but tasty and just what we were looking for. He sent me one of his songs in production, and I am extremely impressed.

So, I'm now sitting surrounded by rattail (satin cord, in case you think it's something strange) and templates. I translated the kumihimo booklet online from German to English, and although not all of it made sense, I found a video that cleared up most things and actually making one piece has made a lot of the rest obvious. One bit I missed was that some threads have to be longer than others, so my 'finished item' has uneven straggly tails, but I quite like it anyway.

It's dead, Jim

I had a few things I was going to do on the bank holiday yesterday - and did exactly none of them. I slept for 12 hours, watched videos and listened to music and generally faffed around.

Today, the content management system misbehaved to the extent that I managed to get about half of what I was hoping to done, and the rest of the day rechecking files it hadn't loaded properly the first time. I get paid for this.

My beloved and heavily used iAudio G2 has bitten the dust. It was declaring its 1GB disk full although there was nothing on it, so I proceeded to do a firmware update, which fixed that last time. No such luck - it went from being recognisable but full on the Mac to being recognisable on the Windows virtual machine only, and then to only being seen as a defective USB mass storage device. Oh well. I have had it for ages, and used it most days in that time. It has earned its eternal rest.

I'm currently interested it its younger sibling, the iAudio D2, and a pair of out-of-ear earphones. While I hate the way they look, my inner ears are starting to feel funny, possibly because due to the complete and total lack of soundproofing in these flats, I always have headphones on when listening to anything. I'm still not convinced that my hearing is 100%, despite a visit to the Royal Berkshire.

And now - the weekend, where I will attempt to do what I should have done yesterday.

Dream and nightmare

This morning went swimmingly. Oh, I did my usual (this must be the right stop - oh no, the destination looks wrong - cross to other bus stop - bus arrives - tells me I need the other direction - RUN across dual carriageway and only catch bus because it is late) but I was at UPS as they opened, paid my money, got my package and had a good 25 minutes opening everything and reading manuals before the bus arrived.

And I spent the entire day - I kid you not - merging files on the content management system. So I've played some of all three games...

My new neighbour downstairs might be from the music school. I think he's playing saxophone. I can hear it over my own music with headphones in, and it's given me a raging headache in the 20 minutes I've been home.

Bank holiday tomorrow. Must get a few things done that I've been waiting to do. I just hope Mr. Saxophone is out.

German efficiency?

Dad mentioned on the phone that the TGV booking website is allegedly the worst. No, I can beat it...

Frankfurt's route planner was sending me out two towns to the east before coming back in. Hence the hour journey and unknown fare.

It was only when I used Google Maps (no, not just plugging it because himself works for them) that I realised what on earth was happening. And that there was a U-Bahn station close by that I might be able to walk from. And when I traced the route, I could clearly see a tram on the street.

So, it's now down to a short hop to Willy-Brant-Platz and then Tram 11 to Hugo-Junkers-Strasse. 42 minutes. Or the S-Bahn to the next town east and then a bus. 33 minutes.

I'm sure it's something to do with not defining where I'm going in terms that the site can understand, but it doesn't exactly help me plan my journey...

Adventure calls

Or disaster. It's not clear which it will be...

I could have sworn I checked my mailbox yesterday, but when I checked it today I found two 'we tried to deliver' notices from UPS for the order I placed ages ago for some Japanese language software on the DS - one of the games was out of stock for weeks.

The postal system here has a nasty habit of sending things back, so after hastily online-translating the options I called up and asked for delivery to 'a nearby UPS Centre' - there's one around the corner!

I called the UPS number and after a reasonable start, the conversation degenerated to the point where the call handler switched to English. I got the street name and number for my pickup and was assured I could pay what I assume is import tax.

'Nearby' must be some kind of euphemism. The UPS Center is in a massive industrial park way out on the east side of the city, out by the docks. Google Maps came through for me again, pinpointing the street even though I'd left out a hyphen. The Frankfurt public transport site was far less helpful until I switched to searching on the larger street the UPS Centre is off - it will take me just over an hour on a combination of U-bahn, commuter train and bus to get anywhere near the place.

They're open from 8am to 9pm, so I'll try to get there tomorrow am - and get into work on time...

Weekender

After the morning of misfortune, I met up with A as promised at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. We headed back to mine to drop his case and then had a quick lunch at the Italian place near Iroha. From there we wandered through the historic Romerplatz and through to the river, where we took the 100 minute cruise up and down the river. The boat was bigger than the one I'd taken before for the cruise and Night of the Museums - maybe they're getting into high season. We could hear all the commentary, although it was playing a minute or so after we'd passed whatever they were talking about.

For dinner we tried out a place with a terrace on top of the Galeria department store, but it didn't do much in the way of food. We ended up at the bar at Eschenheimer Tor, where they forgot my cheeseburger. When it did come, I stopped eating the chips halfway through as they seemed a bit funny. And spent most of the night being kept up by having to go to the loo. If it wasn't that, it would have been the party at the house next door. At least A judged the inflatable mattress to be comfortable, and it was large enough.

On Sunday morning, mindful of what might or might not be open, we headed to the Main Tower, passing some really nice parks that trace the old town walls. After the airport-style security check (where they let a man with a pocket knife through...) we got into the lifts, which had a panel showing you where in the building you were and how fast the lift was going - I think we hit 18kmph. The view from the top (190m) was fantastic and it is definitely on my list of Places to Bring People.

Next stop was Fressgasse, supposed to be Frankfurt's one-street stop for all things gourmet. It was however very quiet and many places were closed. After deciding against anything too outrageous, we ended up having sandwiches and coffee at a really nice place that I'll definitely go to again.

Suitably fortified, we got back on the U-bahn and headed to the Sudbahnhof and connected with the No. 14 tram. It all looked very urban until the stop before ours, when we suddenly came into trees and the tram started to climb slightly. By the time we got off, you couldn't see any trace of Frankfurt. We headed off in one direction and found an arboretum and the City Forest House, full of interactive exhibits for kids. It also had a very impressive map of the city and forest with height gradations, and we could see there was a lake not far from the tram stop, so we set off back there with brief pauses to rescue a snail and investigate some kind of dragon mascot.

After crossing the tracks, we headed off in one direction and found some streams, but also a dead end (coming up against allotments) and then went uphill, which we thought couldn't be right. Back to the tram station and map - the only maps were on each side of the tram stop, and there was almost no signposting. The fact that neither of us has any sense of direction didn't help, but we weren't desperate to get anywhere. It was a glorious day and nice to be out of the city. We finally found the lake, took photos and staggered off to a rest stop for beer and diet coke.

Then it was back to the city center and another new discovery for dinner - although it took us a little while to find, the Historical Stork Restaurant was lovely and had great food - veal with mushrooms in cream sauce with noodles with butter and white truffle oil. And very reasonable, compared to Iwase.

Finally it was the traditional sprint for the station, but we got there with 5 minutes to spare and I waved A off. As he'd said, it was great to have someone familiar to chat to, and I was hit by a wave of loneliness as I watched the train fill up. Giving in to the urge to treat myself - but wanting to carry on avoiding sweeties as I had been doing so successfully for that week - I stumbled across a huge selection of novels in English in a bookshop in the station and bought a crime thriller.

Which came in very handy today, which finally was not party time at the laundrette.

But all in all a fantastic weekend - three new places to take people and a comfy mattress to put them up on.

Photos! Main Tower and Frankfurt City Forest

Today's photos are here!

Will write more about it, but for now I need my sleep...

And on and on

The Mac is again convinced that the hard drive on my music player is full, despite there being nothing on it. I think I've at least remembered how I fixed it last time, although I think it involved a laborious firmware upgrade.

I walked into town to look for tops - found only one I liked which looked great on the hanger but not on me. Gave up and went to walk to the Hauptbanhof.

Despite being convinced I had gone in the right direction, none of the streets were what they should have been. I gave up and once again got the U-Bahn.

Plan C, anyone?

If I thought Wednesday nights were party time at the laundrette, I was wrong. The true party time is Saturday morning. All 18 washing machines and 6 dryers in use.

Have hidden the washing. It would have been a nice walk if it wasn't so damn hot out. Will now have to wait until Monday night before I can try again...

I might just go into town and buy some more tops.

Visitor

After work on Thursday I ran into town to pick up an inflatable mattress and pillow plus pump as I have company! A friend of David's working in Munich is coming up for the weekend. I just hope the mattress is okay, as it was a choice between slightly too small and far too big...

The plan for this morning was to tidy up between loads of washing - as usual in hot weather it seems to breed in the corner when I'm not looking - but the washing machine in the basement is on the blink. So I now have to run to the laundrette and hope I have enough time before having to meet my visitor at the station. Great way to start an early Saturday morning.

Work is as usual. The heat in the office makes it very difficult not to get sleepy. My team are working themselves up to request reference books as they put together a style guide, but apparently 10 books requested a year ago turned into one book received last week. I am starting to get a bit disheartened that not only will I be doing no translation (no boost to language skills) but I will be reading over-the-top American English until September.

Anyway. Time to bring the guidebook to the laundrette...

... and relax

Had a wonderful long weekend - after an annoying start, with Aer Lingus supplying no information whatsoever about delays until we were halfway through the flight, I met up with himself at Dublin Airport and we headed out to my parents. Much talking, laughing, eating, walking on the beach and playing with the cat ensued, along with some computer fixing.

I got back on Monday night and got down to some actual work on Tuesday - after a week of having almost nothing to do, it was a relief although I really can get used to having free time... I was good and ate at the salad bar at lunch, but suffered for it - I think the sweetcorn had been left out too long. Today was more of the same work-wise, along with some objectively petty discussions about grammar and punctuation that have been dredged up by some of the translators starting to write up an in-house style. At the end of the day, it's not important if we put spaces before and/or after ellipsis denoting a pause in speech or not. It would be nice to do it either rightly or wrongly consistently, if anyone can ever agree on what right is. At least my stomach was happy with the Chinese food counter in the supermarket.

I have booked my flights to the UK for the craft fair and university residential week in July. I also have a guest arriving on Saturday, so one thing I have to do in the next day or so is go and purchase an inflatable mattress. And think of fun places to go.

I started on the translation for the Social Sciences course tonight, and ended up spending most of the evening finding other things quoting a quote I was looking up. Ah, the supreme time-wasting potential of the internet. As usual for this course, it turned out to be immensely depressing if worthy reading.

"They [fascism and religious fundamentalism] both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again." (Sermon: Living Under Fascism) I may not agree completely with the list of causes, but definitely do about civilisation.

It has gone hot and stuffy, especially at work where there is no air conditioning (apparently it's been promised for years now) - I need to try to get to sleep on time to have a chance of surviving the day. The heating is off and the window open, so let's hope that does the trick.

Party time!

It seems that 7:30pm on a Wednesday is the time to do your laundry.

After heading down to the basement to try to use the washing machine, I found that it was in use with another load piled next to it - and I still don't know if the dryer is fixed. So, after a sandwich I headed off to the laundrette which is a pleasant 10 minutes walk away.

It was packed. I got the last of the 18 washing machines and had to wait about 20 minutes for a dryer as two were on the blink. The pay machine wasn't giving change, so I ended up paying for about 40 minutes in the dryer, a huge Miele professional affair, and everything came out bone dry and so hot you couldn't touch any zips or buttons.

And while is it nice to not have to repeatedly go up and down the stairs and worry about whether the machine is in use, and it costs about the same (when I can get change anyway), I have to say that folding my undies while two men sit beside me singing and drinking beer is not my idea of a fun time. I ended up folding everything else first and creating a barricade of jeans and fleeces between us so I could fold with some privacy...

Yes, it really is

One other thing that happened on Sunday was lots of being talked to by older German ladies who don't seem to mind that we're not getting most of what they say. The first one was outside our building, ringing all the doorbells that had German names - I think someone's car was blocking her in the courtyard behind us.

The next time was when we got to the cemetary in Wiesbaden - the button for the pedestrian crossing wasn't working and the ladies who had been on the bus with us sounded like they were cross about it. We did get one bit of German vocabulary out of it though - or rather confirmation that 'das ist kaput' is real German!

Brain like a sieve

I don't even have the hayfever to blame for this (that has largely cleared up). I wanted to write my assessed report today, so I could review it during the week and send it on Thursday as I'm flying to Dublin on Friday.

Except the first half of it, which I wrote in work, and the soft copies of the newspaper articles, which I painstakingly typed up in work, are on my memory stick - still plugged into my machine at work.

Okay, I'll do the Social Studies translation... or I would, except that the glossary I made during the week is - you guessed it - on the memory stick, which I managed to leave in work on Friday.

Another coffee and some practice at newspaper articles and short stories, or some grammar study... not that my brain seems to be up to much today.

Hunt for the Red Baron

Photos are here!

I woke up early on Saturday and checked my maps to get to the Japanese bookshop I'd found online - and while doing so finally found the opening hours. It wasn't open until 10:00 so I hung around for a while and then headed in. I found it easily, and it has a good if small selection of books, magazines and comics with a scattering of Japanese food and 'fancy goods' like origami paper. I got a book of short stories by Miyazawa Kenji and one on 'How to be a proper member of society' (there are many of these quasi-etiquette books in Japanese), both on sale for 3 Euro. The full-price books are quite expensive, but all I want is some reading practice. I also got some writing paper, one of my favourite soft drinks and - after some advice from the very friendly staff - some powdered bonito stock to use in my nikujaga recipe. I stopped by the supermarket near the flat to get the ingredients, but they had no beef so it's going to be done with chicken this time.

Z was walking in to do his shopping as I was walking out, we stopped and chatted and I went home to get more information on Wiesbaden. Then at 1:00 we headed out! First stop was Hauptwache station, where we got the S-Bahn commuter service to Wiesbaden, which took just over 45 minutes. Google maps helpfully shows bus stops and what buses they're for, so after we coaxed some all-day bus tickets out of the machines we jumped on the No. 16 east to the Sudfriedhof cemetary. It was huge, spacious and much more like a park than a graveyard. The directions weren't great, but we eventually found what we were looking for - the grave of Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.

He's been buried three times - once by the other side, with full military honours, near Amiens, then moved to a state war cemetary in Berlin, then moved again after his surviving brother Bolko asked for him to be buried in the family grave in Wiesbaden when Berlin was divided and Manfred's grave could only be visited by special permission as it was right up alongside the Russian zone. Both Manfred and his other brother Lothar were awarded the highest honour in Germany, 'pour le Merit'.

We headed back to the main train station and stopped for an ice cream - it was an absolutely glorious day, and we saw a temperature sign saying 20 degrees Centigrade. Z had a chocolate and cream sundae that rapidly degenerated into a lake of chocolate, and I had a scoop of chocolate, mocha and amaretto. You wouldn't want to drive after the amaretto.

Then it was back on the bus, this time the No. 1 north to Nerotal, a hill overlooking the town. The main attraction - for me anyway - is the Nerobergbahn, Europe's only water ballast funicular! The traditional stepped cars operate as a pair, with the car at the top of the hill pumped full of water to weigh it down - the driver of the downhill car controls the rate of release of water to ensure the uphill car is pulled smoothly to the top, then the water is dumped at the bottom of the hill and pumped back up again to be reused!

We wandered around the top of the hill for a while, admiring the view and the stone amphitheatre (and the rope/treetop adventure centre, just like the one in Bracknell Forest) before setting off to find a church built on the hill. We initially went the wrong way - Z was foolish enough to let me read the map - and wondered how you can't find an Orthodox church with five gold domes on the top of a hill. We came back to where we started, realised where we went wrong and soon saw the domes glinting through the forest. The church was being restored so we couldn't go in, but the outside and the view were impressive.

After a calf-killing return up the hill, we got back on the Nerobergbahn and took the No. 1 bus to the town centre. It had just gone 6:00pm, so the shops were closed with only some cafes and restaurants still open. We wandered around the old town and saw the church and market hall, then opted to get back to Frankfurt for dinner.

We went to the Japanese restaurant we'd happened across while wandering around the city a few weeks ago, Iwase. It is tiny, and we just managed to get two seats at the counter between reservations - the place is booked solid. There are about 16 seats plus 8 at the counter, and it is popular! Compared to our other favourite, Iroha, it was expensive but definitely worth it. I had a tempura set (with rice and soup) and some fried aubergine, and Z had a large sashimi plate set. I paid 30 Euro and his was 38 Euro, but it was delicious. We got talking to the people behind the counter - who had already guessed where we worked, as they said the only foreigners who spoke good Japanese were from Nintendo. They actually said 'like a native', which I was most chuffed by.

The owner had actually met the previous two presidents of Nintendo when they were over visiting - and there were a lot of Japanese there as well, always a good sign. They also operated a Japanese bar system, with multiple bottles of the same thing with the owners' names written on them behind the counter. We will definitely be back, although it's not something we could do every week. After chatting over refills of green tea, we finally headed back via a different supermarket that has a much better selection - must go there instead.

So, all in all, a fantastic day. I'd definitely go back to Wiesbaden and explore the town centre. And Iwase is officially a new favourite place. It was a glorious day, I had company and all went well.

The shadow over it all was waiting for me when I got home - an email from a friend working in Munich, who was suggesting days to come up and visit. Nothing wrong with with that, except that he was leaving Germany for tax reasons and after a morning looking up various contractor and government websites, I think I may have to pay tax here too. Although the UK's tax year runs from April - so I don't become non-resident while I'm here - the German tax year is the calendar year and they consider me automatically resident for tax purposes after I've been here for 183 days. In theory I should be paying German tax on income earned in Germany regardless of length of stay, but if it's under 183 days they assume it's covered under the double taxation agreements with the UK. I may need some professional help with this one...

Playtime is officially over

My new project at work is kicking off, I move to a new desk on the other side of the building on Monday. I will in all likelihood still spend lunchtimes with the other English translators though.

Which is not to say that I won't have any free time at all... I just can't continue doing other things quite as blatantly as I have been doing, i.e. printouts of MA assignments all over my desk.

I finally managed to get Firefox working (proxy issues) which means I can use the marvellous Rikaichan plugin, which is a pop-up Japanese-English (or -German or -French or -Russian) dictionary which activates when you hover over a Japanese word on a web page. Saving Word assignments as html and using Rikaichan on them is a great time-saver.

Minor miracle

I actually said something unrehearsed in German.

At the post office, I had my practiced lines for 'How much will it cost to send this package to England?' (it was going to Wales, but they don't seem to know where that is) and 'How much will it cost to send this letter to Ireland?' It all went off well and I even understood the numbers. It cost 9.30 Euro, I handed over a 50 Euro bill and then heard myself saying 'I have the 30'.

Wow. My first spontaneous German. Nothing amazing, but a first.

The second minor miracle was when I was nearly at the office - there's a big dual carriageway with signals to cross each one, so you have to wait in the centre for the next light. However, the woman crossing towards me must have seen the light on the far side and thought it was for her - it's the only thing I can think of - because she crossed as three lanes of traffic started moving off and turning left. Somehow, she wasn't hit and nobody crashed into anyone, although there are now some impressive tyre marks on the road. She seemed to have no idea, she just smiled vaguely at the man who nearly hit her.

Use with caution

Had a bit of an unpleasant surprise waiting in my postbox last night - a statement from Deutsche Bank. I have an online/phone account, so they charge for statements. I didn't ask for one. I don't want one. But they sent me one anyway, and if they send me one again they're going to start charging me 2.49 Euro per statement.

Apparently they're sending it to me because I haven't used a statement-printing machine in 6 weeks. Well, that's because I can see my account online. I neither want nor need to print statements. But now I'll have to haul myself up to either the branch one U-bahn stop from the office or the one on the far end of Zeil at least once a month or else they'll send me a statement and charge me for it.

Also, I've been being charged 4.99 Euro every time I withdraw cash. Turns out the 'EC Card' machine (and yes, I have an EC Card) in the supermarket is not linked to Deutsche Bank, and has been merrily charging me without any indication whatsoever. No 'You will be charged x.xx for this transaction. Do you want to proceed?' as you get in cash machines in pubs, betting shops and exhibition centres. Just silently skimming off 4.99 Euro every time.

So, I'll have to walk up to the aforementioned two banks or find one of the three partner banks to avoid this.

All very underhanded, and making UK banking look very good indeed. Did I mention I'm paying to have a current account as well? I don't object to that in theory, but the Euros keep adding up.

Fly me to the moon

I received an invite to my cousin's wedding today - well, an email saying he needed my address to send me one. They're getting married on the isle of Inisbofin, which Dad says is rather like the moon in terms of actually getting there.

I had a look at getting from Clifden to the ferry port, Cleggan, on Google Maps, and it's a bit like... looking at the moon. Either the satellite photography is a bit strange, or the landscape is.

Long Night of the Museums

Photos are here! (And for once Picasa uploaded them in proper time order...)

It isn't actually called 'Long', but I saw it somewhere else and thought it was a fun title. The basic premise is simple - for a 12 Euro ticket you get unlimited entry to 49 museums in and around Frankfurt between 7pm and 2am, with free buses, trams, tourist railway and ferries laid on.

I headed into town around 2pm to meet Z, who had texted me earlier. The weather was stunning, and we got some ice cream and managed to find a nice park to have it in. We headed back towards the main street to see if we could catch up with some other friends, but didn't in the end. Our favourite place, the Japanese restaurant Iroha, was closed between lunch and dinner so we had some pasta nearby instead. Z went home to do some songwriting and I went to buy my ticket, determined to go even if no-one else was.

Next stop was the riverside, where I finally got onto to one of the Primus Line ships that plys its way up and down the river, going east or west along the Main for 25 minutes before turning around, docking and going the other way. I got a ticket for the whole 100 minute east-west trip and enjoyed it immensely. I had decided to take my camera without the large bag to stay light, so of course the batteries started to run out as soon as I got on the ship, and I had no spares. I can always take the cruise again - it was only 9 Euros. There were fantastic views of the city, as well as the working ports and coal-fired power station. And just the joy of being on the water.

Two fit young men were attaching banners and lights for the Night of the Musuems on the side of the boat, all done with plastic ties. There was also what appeared to be a stag party on board, who descended into the first area I chose to sit in, so I moved on and ended up on the top deck with no seat, but that was fine. It was unfortunately also the smoking area, but when we docked to go the other way I managed to get a seat right up the front.

Once we got back to the riverside, it was getting chilly and I decided that although it was nearly 7pm I had better get something to eat. I headed back up through the Romersplatz and was rather dismayed at the massive queues outside the History Museum and the ticket stalls. I went back to Iroha, now open for dinner, and there was a slight misunderstanding (I was at a table for two, and the waitress who hadn't seated me thought I was waiting for someone and so didn't try to take my order) that cost me some time, but the food is always lovely. Fortified with teriyaki chicken, miso soup with mushrooms, rice and tea I headed back to the riverside.

I had done my plotting in the restaurant and decided to hit the Film Museum and Architecture Museum to see the anime exhibits I hadn't seen before, then the sculpture museum and finally the big one - the Städel Museum. The Primus Line were in action again as the free ferry for the night, so I hopped on and was whisked across the river to a pier just in front of the Städel Museum. I headed back up the way we'd come to get to the Film and Architecture Museums, which are conveniently next to each other.

The Film Museum exhibit was very good, with a section on different types of anime (shoujo, for girls; shounen, for boys; seinen for adult men and others) and also on European-Japanese co-productions that flourished in the 1960s. I recognised many series I'd seen as a kid in France there and it was nice to see them covered. It was a basic introduction, but an excellent one. There were also cels (hand-painted images on acetate sheets that are used to film the animation) for a number of series, including Kiki's Delivery Service and Mononoke Hime. And at the exit was a full-motion trailer for the computer game Final Fantasy XIII, which looked very impressive. (Link to video for Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII Versus)

The exhibit in the Architecture Museum was much more specialised, and focused on the Metabolist group of avant-garde architects active in Japan in the 1960s and how many of the urban landscapes or particular buildings in anime resemble their designs, particularly the skyscrapers lowering to become underground stalactites during attacks in Evangelion, or the prayer hall in Akira that looks like something by Kenzo Tange. They were showing anime in rotation in a secluded section of the room - in the middle of it - with Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, Akira and others. There were also magnified panels from X-1999, a manga and anime by CLAMP which features the destruction of real Tokyo landmark buildings. It was very nicely done, and did a great job of linking the urban landscapes in anime in with these utopian architectural movements, even if it was very specialised.

I stopped off for a coffee in the ground floor bar, sent a text message to himself and Dad (who would no doubt be amused at the thought of being in a museum at 10pm) and had another look at my map.

One thing I have noticed about Germans - and maybe it was only that evening - but they have no concept of being in the way. People stop to talk, sit down, or just for no visible reason in doorways, gangways, staircases and narrow paths. And they have no compunctions about shoving in when they want to get somewhere, as I found when getting on and off the boat (no need to give way to your elders, they'll get there first) and when I was shoved into a doorframe in the sculpture museum by another older lady. The younger man behind her kindly let me past. Unpleasant memories of special exhibitions in Japan.

I walked past the Städel Museum again on my way to the sculpture museum, and there was still a queue, as well as a huge number of people eating and drinking on the lawn outside. The Liebieghaus, to give the sculpture museum its proper name, is fairly small but well laid out, and in a sense a perfect size as you stay interested throughout. Most of it is middle ages religious art with a little Asian religious sculpture. I'm not mad on religious themes, but there was one Pieta that was quite moving, with Mary's face shadowed by a scarf with an expression of quiet despair.

There was a good arrangement of exhibits that linked the different styles - unfortunately I managed to walk through some of it backwards - including Baroque, which was defined as initially a pejorative term for something over the top or grotesque but gradually gained a more positive meaning. The figures are huge and mighty and use poses from theatre, and the gloss on the walls explained it in terms of religious figures needing to create a greater impact on the common people to aggrandise themselves. The birth of spin?

I walked back to the Städel Museum, and there was still a queue. I was getting tired and wasn't sure I wanted to take it on, so decided to skip it and instead make for my back-up museum, the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, the modern art museum, which according to my (2004) guidebook had some Roy Lichtenstein. I was treated to the always impressive sight of the Primus Line doing the equivalent of a handbrake turn on the Main before boarding and being ferried back over to the north side of the river. (Ferries are right up there with trams, funiculars and cable cars as my favourite ways of getting places.)

On the way there, walking through the back of the still-heaving Romersplatz, I found another museum with a display of women impressionists, so detoured into the Schirn Kunsthalle. There were a large number of paintings and drawings by each of four artists, and again I went around it my own way (although they didn't seem to be arranged in any particular order that I could see) so I had fun guessing what year the work was from by how the artist evolved into and out of a classical impressionist style. Some of the impressionist/pointillist paintings were amazing, and two of the artists developed a very detailed pen and ink style afterwards, as if in reaction to the soft-focus impressionist style.

I didn't find any Roy Lichtenstein at the Museum fur Moderne Kunst around the corner, but from the museum website it seems they change around up to half the rooms every 6 months. What I did find was a huge exhibition of works by Bernard Buffet, which was very, very interesting. His 'Horrors of War' looked like an updated vision of hell from Bruegel, his self-portrait looks astonishingly like Jamie Hewlett's Murdoc from the virtual band Gorillaz, and he paints the most unsexy naked people I've ever seen.

Finding even one artist I like in a modern art museum is something for me, and I wasn't that interested by anything else, including frame-shaped bits of string and photos that if they were taken by anyone else would have been binned. A band was playing 1950s and 1960s French cafe music downstairs, and the building itself was very nice, all big and small spaces and brightly-lit white walls which woke me up a bit. I staggered out at 12:45am.

The Starbucks in Romersplatz was still open, so I got a (very mediocre) hot chocolate and made my weary way home. Threw all my drying off the bed onto the floor (there's something wrong with the dryer in the building so everything came out damp) and goodnight Frankfurt.

Hardcore Culture

When was the last time you came home from a museum at 1:30am?

Details later today... for now I need to get all my drying off my bed so I can get into it...

Friday night's all right for

... staying in, this time. My colleagues evaporated at the end of the day, to play football, go home and nurse a cold or in one case to buy an X-Box 360 and hit the town courtesy of a rebate from the German taxman.

I passed on information about the 'Night of the Museums' tomorrow, but no-one seemed interested so I'll probably be doing that on my own as well. I should at least get some photos, and I might go in earlier and walk around and maybe take a boat trip up and down the river.

Must get out more, lack of German notwithstanding.

Her story

Finished Unit 5, which is the last distance-learning unit for Social Studies. After this it's the translation (waiting for it to arrive in the post in Reading), seminars at the residential week and essay.

There was some reading material in the course pack that went into mercifully brief detail about how 'comfort women' (a euphemism if ever there was one) were 'recruited' to serve at Japanese army stations during the Asia-Pacific War through WWII. It put me into my own private nightmare for the 40 or so minutes I spent reading it. After closing the coursepack, I felt like the sunny day, colleagues giggling as they sent instant messages and BBC story about banks losing their case on charges were all quite unreal.

(For anyone interested, the text was 'Procurement of Comfort Women and their Lives as Sexual Slaves' by Y. Tanaka, in Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation, London, Routledge 2002)

So, tonight I have to record my presentation and tomorrow it's report writing... I should be grateful for the chance to get all this done in work time, it would have been a really hard slog in the evenings and weekends otherwise. Speaking of which, it's nearly Friday again - I really should plan something. There's a bank holiday Thursday next week too.

After getting out of work on time, I ran up to my flat (No. 32, but actually on the 4th floor) and grabbed some washing and my box of powder, then went down to the basement - to find the machine in use, and unhelpfully it doesn't say how long it has left to go. So, back up again. That's my stairclimbing for the day.

Back at Uni

I finished off Unit 3, did all of Unit 4 and edited my presentation - left everything at work, forgetting that I needed the script for the presentation to record it. Oh well, I can do it tonight...

Today I'm bringing in Unit 5 and if I can get that done I'll see if I can start on my report-writing assignment on Friday. Getting quite into this now, it's like being back at my Japanese school.

One of the reasons I left everything at work yesterday was to run into the main shopping street and look at steamers and rice cookers. The only place I could find selling them was Saturn, they had one huge rice cooker (and I keep reading reviews saying that if you only put small amounts of rice in large cookers, it burns) and the steamers were much, much larger than I thought. Basically, it would have taken up all my food preparation space...

I also grabbed a ham & gouda sandwich from the supermarket on my way in - and in contrast to my experiences so far, it was the worst spongy, crumbly white bread I've had in a very long time.

Zombie time

I was just about awake and staggering around when my doorbell went at 8:15am - it was the landlord with my receipts for the internet access and a promise of getting the hall light fixed. I hope my spiky-haired, pyjama-clad, non-glasses wearing demeanour didn't scare him too badly.

Work was insanely boring again. There were a few emails about something I'm no longer really involved in, then I set to work seriously damaging my brain by getting stuck in to my Social Studies module. I did manage to get most of it done... but I'm not sure I remember anything.

We had a planned power outage at lunch, so we headed off as a team to the Japanese restaurant near the Disney tower. Wonderful salt-fried fish with rice, soup, seasonal veg and pickles for me - others had sukiyaki, tempura or sashimi. Wonderful though it was, it took us nearly an hour and a half to get there, eat and get back, so we were all in until 6:30 or later.

It was so nice I spent a while on the internet looking for rice cookers - or possibly a steamer that does rice... but I wasn't sure if the shops closed at 7 or 8, and I wasn't going to make it very far by 7. So I contented myself with going to the supermarket next door and getting the ingredients for nikujaga, a Japanese stew. I didn't have the dashi fish stock, but it turned out pretty well. I'm quite proud of myself for doing my pilates and cooking on a evening when I felt like getting into bed as soon as I got home...

More boredom (and Social Studies) forecast for the rest of the week.

Worth getting up early for

My doorbell just went - I have no idea how to operate the buzzer, so I just ran downstairs. Mr. Bock (there's an umlaut in there) turned out to be a young, cheerful and pleasant shaven-headed man in company body-warmer. He seemed genuinely pleased with the chocolate-covered strawberries I had as a thank-you. It's hard enough to buy anything for guys I do know, let alone ones I don't.

The box was covered in customs tape - they had cut open the bottom and removed the packing list from its outside packet, then put it inside the box. Everyone seems to have had this packet before me. I wasn't charged anything though - maybe they don't count postage...

Anyway, it's just as cute as it looked on the site.

Good deeds...

... never go unpunished, as Mom likes to say. But not always.

Despite thinking about heading to the zoo or taking one of the tourist cruises, I spent today sleeping in (needed), getting my IM software to speak to AIM (horrific! Required installing additional software, creating an account on a server goodness knows where and getting my own AIM account) and feeling ill - not sure why, I ate exactly the same things I had yesterday and I was fine then.

I did get a lot done on my Japanese Spoken Language assignment which is due in on Friday. I must do a test reading to see if it comes out at 2 or 10 minutes (the usual margin of error for me if it's supposed to be 5).

And I checked the noticeboard for my MA year for Japanese Spoken Language to see if there was anything new, and found a plea for good Japanese internet radio. I had a look, was quite disappointed by NHK, but persevered and was rewarded with a weekly Ghibli podcast from Tokyo FM! It's busily downloading now. Joy.

Eureka

While not getting a good night's sleep and rampant boredom may be to blame for some of my zombiness this week, another potential culprit has stepped up. Although the classic symptom of swollen eyelids hasn't shown, the distinctive itching in the inner ear finally did. It happens every year, and I still never recognise it until I've been feeling out of sorts for a week - yep, my hayfever is back.

In another feat of what-would-we-do-without-the-internet, I looked up the generic name for the active ingredient in my favourite antihistamine and managed to get it at the local pharmacy, in its generic form, for 7 Euro for 20 tablets. Result.

The weather forecast was spot on, it's raining and grey and chilly. It's supposed to be better tomorrow. I'll write my postcards for Japan - they didn't have any 1 Euro stamps at the post office, but I have some 55 cent ones with poppies and 45 cent ones with daisies instead. I should also do some more work on my presentation - which needs to be turned into a 5-minute recording by next Friday - but I feel more like studying German. I'm sick of sounding like I have a mental age of 2.

In other news, I've been asked to consider staying on until the end of September (a month longer than my current contract) to work on a new project. Fine in principle, and they have signed off my holidays for the craft fair I'm doing and my residential week. Need to be careful about being in Japan at the right time for my brother getting there after Mongolia though. And, like the project that has just ended, I won't be doing any translation. Just supporting the people using English as a source and spotting errors in the existing translation. No idea if I'll be allowed to correct them or not yet.

It's incredibly frustrating. I came here to translate, not edit. I know editing and checking are also valuable skills, but they're not the ones I'm after right now... I may have to try to find something to do on the side to get the experience I want.

A whole new challenge

I was gearing up to try to deal with a 'we called but you weren't in' card from the post office, but what I got was that plus the business card of someone who I think is doing plumbing work in the building next door. Apparently, he has my package.

Do Royal Mail or An Post do this? Hand packages over to tradesmen who aren't even working in the place?

Anyway, a short and painful phone conversation later, the nice man will be here at 7:30am on Monday with my package. I'll be getting up early then.

WTF?!, as they say.

Phew

Just sent in my mini annotated translation, which is a weight off my mind. I really liked having the time to go through it again and again - I kept seeing new things each time, and felt like I really got to grips with what the author was trying to say. It's not a feeling I've had often, and it was a good one.

For anyone who's interested, it was part of a essay by Miyazaki Hayao from the collection Shuppatsuten ('Starting Points'). I would put the name in kanji, but Firefox is cranky and not accepting Japanese input. So much for the bulletproofness of Macs.

I will officially be off the project I'm on at the moment next week, which will mean a little less wait-and-hurry-up, I hope. Today was particularly bad, where I'd bored myself into a stupor by the time any work turned up about 3pm. It makes it so hard to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing. A mistake in the terminology lists and the producer asking me to get someone to proofread my changing 3 words (so I had a typo in the files - I was the one who found and corrected it and it's not like the Japanese head office noticed when they approved the change - end rant) didn't help.

Bought some postcards, but feel too braindead to write them tonight - all for Japan.

Should really do something on the weekend - Z is organising dinner on Friday, so I think he's finally been paid - but I may just sleep and play sloth. Despite thinking I slept better this week I was still fairly shattered today. Unless it is just the boredom.

There is an easy option for a day out - even on Sunday! - in the form of the Zoo. Saturday is forecast to be cold and raining, so it might be a good day to be in anyway.

The best laid plans

Just as I finally thought I was getting to grips with my MA work, I realise that not only does my translation need to be with the department on Friday... they want it by post. Plan B - applied for an extension, researched the German equivalent of Special Delivery, wrote reminders to myself in big block capitals to print everything out at work on Thursday, and bought some A4 envelopes on the way home.

Only to find that in response to my request for an extension, the department quite happily said I could email it all. In complete contrast to the schedule and the Handbook they so love referring me to. Anyone need some envelopes?

They also forgot to put the translation for the Social Studies course (the one where each unit is taking me several days) in the course pack, so that is coming - guess - in the post.

At least I've finally finished the glossary checking at work. I may get my brain back.

Crash

We appear to be having a massive thunderstorm. I wondered what the noise was - I had my headphones on while studying and only noticed when I got up to get something. (Listening to UNKLE remixes atm, forgot how good they were).

A whole degree too far

I'm trying to finish up my Sheffield annotated translation - the first half of the first essay in Miyazaki Hayao's book 出発点 (Shuppatsuten or Starting Points). In it he speculates on why anime is so popular among 12-15 year olds. I decided to have a look online to see if I could find anything to say if that was still the case or not...

... and came across a whole load of people who are taking it all way too seriously. I love the stuff, but the idea of being 'a social scientist specializing in otaku studies' or my 'research interest' being 'the English-language "boy's love" manga's [sic] online fan community' is a bit much.

Rain check

I was most grateful for my new USB memory stick on Thursday, as I didn't have anything to do other than edit my Translator's Introduction and read the instructions for my practice presentation until about 2pm. Then the terminology checking was finally available with Japanese, and it's going to take another 2-3 days to finish. It's the kind of thing that leaves you completely cross-eyed, dazed and unable to spot your own name in a list. But anyway.

There was a notice on Thursday morning for going out to see the Luminale, a festival of light that is on for a week every year in Frankfurt and surrounds. I hadn't realised it was on... even if I walk into town, I'm on the near side of the main shopping area and so didn't go past any of the museum or riverside installations. I passed on it on Thursday, thinking I'd get a decent night's sleep and go on Friday instead with the camera.

I spent Friday - the last day of the Luminale - looking at rain. The temperature had dropped drastically and I reluctantly decided that there was no way I was taking the camera out. (I'm sure getting rain in the lens doesn't harm it, but it makes me nervous... You can see some pictures of the festival here.)

Instead I met up with Z and G and we went to Iroha, a very nice Japanese restaurant near Eschenheimer Tor (aka the Disney Tower). M, an Italian translator joined us and after G headed home we went to an Italian bar-restaurant near our building. It was, without a doubt, the liveliest place we've been to since we got to Frankfurt. The decor is great, there was a buzz from the crowd and the food looked lovely (we will go there another time to eat).

M was giving out about Z not drinking (religious reasons) - I thought he was going to drop when I told him I didn't either. He complained vociferously about it with the Italian owner, who looked equally unimpressed. He had been planning to treat me to a glass of Zaccagnini, which is made near his home town. (If anyone manages to try some please let me know what it was like!)

After a chat we headed home - it's great when you find somewhere nice within a few minutes walk - and I stayed up watching some anime. Saturday morning is for sleeping in after all.

I headed out around midday, walking up to a bookshop near G's where I'd seen something I wanted to buy as a present - but that was several weeks ago and it was gone. Damn. The sun was out and I had to stop to take off my jumper, even with just a t-shirt under my coat I was nearly too hot. I headed into town, and was walking past a guy in his late twenties or early thirties when two cyclists came towards us (cycling on the pavement is de rigeur here, in or out of the cycle lane and regardless of whether or not there is actually enough room). I passed him quickly and moved over in front of him to let the cyclists through.

The reason why I mention that is that it was the only thing I could think of that might have pissed him off. A moment later he stepped on the heel of my shoe, and when I looked back he said something to me that obviously wasn't an apology. I said sorry, I don't speak German, to which he replied 'Speak German?' and then went off in German again. He spoke quite a bit before saying a pointed 'goodbye' in English. I slowed down and let him get ahead of me, trying to figure out what it was all about.

He stopped, turned around and watched me coming as if waiting for me. I walked to the nearest crossing and stood next to some people, using looking for traffic as an excuse to see where he was. I lost sight of him, but after I crossed I could see that he had stayed on that side of the road and I dropped even further back on the other, feeling more like the stranger in the strange land than ever. After wandering around and not concentrating on what I'd come in for, I got some t-shirts and a set of hand weights for my pilates and went home via the supermarket. Nothing like a ham and cheese sandwich to make you feel better.

This afternoon I've mainly been failing to make a huge amount of progress on my Sheffield work, some of which is due in next Friday and some more the Friday after. I also need to do some washing, but when I walked downstairs to the washing machine (down four stories, then outside and into the basement) someone was using it, so I had to walk back up - I'll try again later. Here's hoping things get back into sync.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

This is, unbelievably, a new game for the Nintendo DS.

Link to Flash/Windows Media/Quicktime video trailer (3:45)

The worst is that at the end, they promise that you'll learn 'living English'...

Seeing red

Walking into work yesterday, I saw something that I have seen before - but not up so close! Two small squirrels - they looked like babies to me, but could just be a smaller species - were scampering up the road towards the park I cut by the corner of on my walk. They hopped out onto the road, then back onto the pavement when a car came by. I stopped near the corner as one backtracked, and it ran past about a foot away. It was red! I have no idea if it was a bona fide red squirrel or if squirrels are different here. Z, who had left the building just after me, caught up with me at that point.

I got my PIN number. I appear to have been paid my first three invoices in one go. Today was wet and miserable, so I abandoned my plan to walk over to the electronics shop near G's and instead took the U-bahn into the centre of town and went to another branch there to get some DVDs to back up onto and clear some space on the hard drive, and also a USB memory stick so that I can take some Sheffield stuff into work. I suspect that my days of doing nothing apart from jumping on the four or five bugs reported will soon be at an end (the project ends at the end of next week) but I really have done all the playing of the game and surfing on the internet that I can stand. I'd rather study.

White out

Even after hearing David's tale of woe about getting back to London (held over Heathrow until fuel ran low because one runway was closed by snow, went to Birmingham to fill the tank, then back to Heathrow and waiting for a gate) I never thought of it snowing here. It had been cold but nowhere near freezing on Sunday night.

So it was with some surprise that I walked out this morning to be greeted by a good 3cm crust of snow on the cars, although it was mostly melting and running off roofs to hit unwary passers-by. I regretted not having my gloves. I spent a good part of the day staring out the windows at the snow being blown around by high winds, although it had calmed down (and mostly melted) by the time I went home.

Good news was that I have been paid, although I'm still waiting for my PIN so I can access the money without going to the bank. The other bit of good news is that the agent for the flats has agreed to bring down the price of our internet access, which was ridiculously high.

Other than that, still trying to get through work for Sheffield. My annotated translation is due end of next week, my presentation topic the week after, and I need to keep on working on the social sciences one as each unit is taking me at least a day to complete. If I don't keep on top of it, I am going to be in trouble...

Had my dashi-iri miso for the first time today - it's miso (fermented soy bean paste) with a fish stock blended into it, making it an instant Japanese soup base. It was absolutely delicious. I think I will be going for this in future...

Big spender

After sleeping in on Saturday morning, doing not much and finally doing some homework for Sheffield, I decided that having 3 Euro in my pocket when I had plenty of money in the UK was silly, and the overseas withdrawal charge be damned. My bank appear to finally be showing it as a separate item, so at least I knew what it was.

I used the ever useful Google Maps to find local cash machines (Geldautomaten) but it only showed me some banks - ATM got others but also something completely different with the same acronym. I decided to look for 'bank' instead and found one just across the road from the U-bahn station. Being a Saturday afternoon it was of course closed, and there were no cash machines outside. Yet more ways in which Germany is like Japan.

(And there is a version of Japlish - such as the lingerie ad with the strapline 'Just feel like a volcano'.)

I gave up and headed into town, as I knew there were cash machines in external walls there. I used one that Z had used a few weeks ago, belonging to what seems to be the local co-op. There was the usual will-it-won't-it moment as it did its international authorisation voodoo, but then it made a soft but unmistakable cash-dispensing noise. Going from an empty wallet to a full one is a nice feeling - a bit like from an empty stomach to a full one.

Making my way to the main street (Zeil) I picked up a battery charger (which was 8 Euro when identical ones next to it were 10, result) with two high capacity Ni-MH batteries, some more socks (despite going back to the UK for more clothes, I seem to have left half my socks there) and finally to the Asian shop we'd found before, where I treated myself to a gorgeous green-glazed ramen bowl (the bowls I have are so shallow you can't even put a full can of soup in them), some udon and soba noodles and some miso as well as a pair of chopsticks. The idea of eating noodles without chopsticks is somehow deeply wrong.

I walked back to the Rewe supermarket near the flat, which despite being reasonably large manages not to have much of a selection. I got some supplies and some crisps and Quark with herbs for going to G's the next day and headed home. My wallet was 45 Euro lighter, but I was much happier.

Got back to doing my homework, didn't realise how long I'd been out and ended up finishing the unit (reading about methodological issues in historical research - in Japanese) at 1:30am. Lots of chatting to David in NY and watching videos of kittens and bunny rabbits from the internet did not help - what did people do before broadband...

So, slept in again today and did some more work and off to G's soon for fighting games and such nonsense.

No, this is reality

Some American children apparently unable to distinguish between anime and real life.

Reminds of the Father Ted gag - "No, Dougal. Small - far away."

Business as usual

Friday already! Sorry there haven't been any posts but there's not much to report.

The weather is getting a little milder, and I'm still enjoying the walk to and from work. It's at the point where you still need a coat or a sweater but not both, and the hat and gloves are staying at home.

Work has been quite frustrating, with the usual bursts of high activity and panic followed by long periods of waiting for it to happen again. It puts me in a strange, detached state of mind. I don't know if it's that or too much coffee or something else, but I haven't been sleeping too well.

That combined with still waiting for my bank card means that I've been staying in in the evenings, doing some study for Sheffield as I'm a little behind, and chatting online with David.

So - no news, but all is well!

You know it's Monday when

There were actually some not-so-good bits of the weekend, which I'd completely forgotten about as they were most definitely outweighed by the good bits. We went out on Saturday night to meet a friend of Aodan and Annette's at a pub, he was celebrating the birth of twins. Had a great time chatting with Aodan and a friend of his who is studying Japanese.

But you can still smoke in pubs in Koln. I'd forgotten how absolutely horrible it is to start coughing and rubbing your eyes, wanting to put all your clothes in the wash as soon as you get back (and I was wearing mine the next day) and then to crown it all your hair reeks of stale smoke...

And while I was having my hot chocolate in the museum, a bead came off my necklace - which is a woven one, so it means the thread is broken. I should probably restitch the whole thing... which will be many hours of work, but I suppose it is one of my oldest pieces and I should have taken better care of it.

And for the Monday - I put the clock forward and reset the alarm, but forgot to turn the alarm function on. Woke up 45 mins late. Went to the bank, my contact was busy. Managed to communicate my problem to the non-English speaker at the desk (PIN and part of online banking security received, card and other part of online banking security not received). But then, of course, couldn't understand the reply. A man who spoke English was produced and he explained to me that for reasons best known to themselves Deutsche Post had sent my card back to them, despite delivering the rest. A new one was ordered and I should have it all by the weekend. But I still haven't been paid, so the HR people will look into that.

The washer and drier were finally installed in the building! I had saved up a huge stack of 50 cent coins to use them, but they ended up taking 1 Euro coins. So I hauled myself out to the laundrette, which I'd checked out on the way home on the assumption I still wouldn't have any facilities in the building. It's a massive affair with a change machine, and instructions in English! I was as usual pathetically grateful.

So, for 5 Euros and 2 hours of my time (mainly spent playing Pokemon Blue Rescue Team) I got the washer, powder and conditioner and an immense Miele dryer which had everything bone dry in 30 mins. My pyjamas were even still warm when I got home. While unloading the dryer, I found I was missing two socks - I checked the washing machine and sure enough they were there, wedged into a corner. As I made a face at them, the German woman beside me smiled wryly - the one-legged sock thief obviously exists here too.

Tired, but very happy, and with a cupboard full of clean clothes. There have been worse Mondays.

Cologne! (or how not to catch a train)

Back from a fantastic weekend in Cologne, or Koln, mainly thanks to the wonderful and expansive hospitality of my hosts, Aodan and Annette. Aodan has picked up a huge amount of lore about the city, and kept me laughing for a lot of the trip.

Pictures are here!

I nearly didn't get there - leaving in plenty of time on Saturday morning, I decided to walk to the main Frankfurt station. I was fine until Eschenheimer Tor, which I've walked to often, but then made a wrong turn while thinking I knew where I was going and found myself off to the northeast, on the street that runs off beside the flat. I had 14 minutes before the train. Why oh why didn't I just get the U-bahn? I know how apt I am to go off on a complete tangent even armed with maps.

I power-walked in some desperation back to the nearest U-bahn station, but it wasn't a line that ran to the main train station. But there were taxis. We hit every red light in the city. The elderly driver was very chilled out. But he got me to the station, I knew the platform from the detailed Deutsche Bahn printout, and by some considerable feat of luck the doors I came in led straight to the platform I needed. Two minutes to spare. Told myself off.

There was a group of very loud natives with a mini keg and huge sausages (being eaten with a tube of ketchup) sitting across both tables, one of which held my reserved seat. Decided I couldn't be bothered, and as the train wasn't that full I just sat in another seat. Proprietor of said seat boarded at the airport, so I just stood until everyone had found their seat and sat in a vacant one. The ticket inspector didn't care, so I could finally relax. Read MA stuff on the way up, deeply depressing accounts of what the Japanese did, mainly to Koreans, forcibly drafted as 'comfort women' during the Asia-Pacific war.

The next stop, just an hour and ten minutes from Frankfurt, was Kolnhauptbanhof. There's no missing the cathedral - just come out the exit marked 'Dom' and there it is blocking the entire skyline. I wandered around the outside for a bit, then went in and bought a self-guiding booklet and proceeded to walk around the inside. An embarrassment of riches makes it impossible to decide whether to look up, down or all around. I never feel quite right taking photos in places of worship, but I seemed to be the only one. I kept the flash off, at the risk of camera shake, but the light was great - it was a lovely day - and I didn't have a single bad shot.

After seeing the inside, I headed out through the shop and got a few postcards and a fridge magnet as a souvenir. I thought of heading further afield, but was aware that Aodan might call. I remembered that there was a spire you could climb so walked around to the end of the cathedral and found it. Paying my 2 Euro, I headed up.

Now, normally I'm fine with stairs. If you're visiting mountainside temples in Japan you need to be. But at least they have proper steps. It was nothing like edging up a worn circular stone staircase, on the inside with no banister and the thin edge of the triangular step, trying to hold on to the core of the stairs while taking great care to place your foot so that you get as much step as possible under it but don't catch your shoe on the step as you go up. All the time very painfully aware that it would only take someone on the way down tripping or catching my rucksack to knock me backwards. I had to stop briefly twice on the way up - when there was no-one coming down and I could step over to the banisters and let the terribly fit elderly Germans coming up behind me overtake - my calves were burning and I was breathing hard. Finally got to a point where the up and down stairs broke off, and stopped for a while to get my breath and try to stretch my legs out. There were more stairs to go. At least these were newer, wider and (for at least some of it) not circular, with banisters.

Once at the top I was mostly moved along by the crowd, got some good shots and headed down, stopping off at the bell tower. It was much easier, both because I had the banister and wider stairs, and because my calves were getting a break. I must have been using cycling muscles or something, I didn't think it would be that easy. There were even more people coming up, so looks like I got out just in time. There was graffiti everywhere, all over the walls of the staircase and even on the spire itself.

Frankly, unless you love stairclimbing and are combining travel with exercise, I recommend buying the postcards of the view at the entrance. I can confidently put this way up on Mom's list of places to say 'Let's not and pretend we have!' to.

After staggering out of the church I tried to find somewhere to sit and read the guidebook while waiting for Aodan. The only place with seats in the station was Starbucks, where I ordered an expensive latte which I'm not sure had any coffee in it at all. Missed Aodan's call, and realised I can't get into my voicemail as the voice of a nice German lady is giving me some kind of setup instructions I don't understand.

We headed out to the church of St. Ursula, a lady who travelled to Rome to dedicate herself to the church to avoid a marriage, had a dream that if she came back the same way she would die, and dutifully did so - martyred with ten maids to become the eleven martyred virgins. A brisk trade in bone relics sprung up, fuelled by the Roman graveyards... eventually so many were sold that the number of ill-fated virgins grew to 11,000. (There is also a Koln joke that there have never been that many virgins in Koln.)

The Golden Chamber in the Church of St. Ursula where someone's bones are preserved in Gothic splendor were unfortunately closed, so we instead wandered off to look around the town, including a strange sculpture with a woman with a lantern and loads of little men. The invading Prussians were so annoyed with the laid back and work-shy attitude of Kolnians that one of them invented a story of a bunch of 'little men' who built and ran the town while its residents slept in a drunken stupor. One night a tailor's wife put peas down on the ground, the little men stumbled on them and she caught sight of them - they were so offended they disappeared. Leaving Koln in the state the Prussians found it in, where they managed to convince the locals that the cathedral (which had been as it was for 300 years) wasn't actually finished. The relic and pilgrimage trade had been so good they hadn't bothered to complete it.

There were tales of Carnival, an alcoholic and musical riot preceding Lent, and the city gent/country bumpkin duo who supply much of the town's humour. And more sobering, small metal squares set in the ground, everywhere, before the houses of Jews killed by the Nazis, bearing their names and how the died. Not a city endeavour, but a lone stonemason's mission.

We walked around the banks of the Rhein for a while, then headed back to Aodan and Annette's very nice flat, passing the Schokolademusuem on the way. Koln is quite compact, so it was nowhere near as far away as I thought. We had a fantastic broccoli and blue cheese soup made by Aodan and talked well into the night about the past, the future (they will become parents in July/August and have bought a house in part of an under-conversion listed farm building) and how what you worry about changes as you get older and how hard it is to keep up with everyone who could be a good friend.

The hour went forward, so that combined with a long sleep and a long and late breakfast got me to the Schokolademuseum around 2pm. I was thinking of going to another museum as well, probably a 20th Century one near the cathedral, but it didn't happen. There's a lot in the Schokolademuseum, about the cocoa bean (they even have some trees in a tiny hothouse) and how it is processed, where the growing and processing happens, and what the demand is. The figures were from 1997 (and in Deutschmarks) so I'm sure it's even more impressive now. Then there was a mini-production line with real live little chocolate ingots coming off it, samples of melted milk chocolate on wafers dispensed by a white-suited Lindt employee from an enormous chocolate fountain, a huge section on advertising and packaging and finally cult chocolate products and the history of Lindt & Sprungli.

I sat down for a bite to eat in their cafe, and was delighted to find I was able to order - although the fact that what I ordered was a 'ham und cheese toast' helped. I also had a hot chocolate, which was very, very sweet. Nice, but you didn't want a second one. I've never been mad on Lindt milk chocolate.

Last, and most fatal, was the shop. Only the fact that I conserving my Euros until I get my bank card saved me from diabetic coma. I came out with a whiskey and chili bar for Aodan, a dark (62% cocoa) milk Java single origin bar for me, and some Venezualan (43% milk) and Ghanaian (85% dark) pastilles for work. My Javan one is nice - starts off with a dark chocolate kick but has milk chocolate mellowness aftwards.

Met up with Aodan and Annette again at (another) Starbucks and chatted to them and their friends until it was time to go for the train. Decided to U-bahn it and was told which lines. Decided to go to the loo, but for some reason didn't factor in the wait for it to become available out of the time left to get to the station. Aodan was looking dubious as I left and I soon realised why - as I got into the station, the station clock said I had 11 minutes. Ran for the platform. Got nervous and finally realised, as I missed one train in each direction, that I was on the wrong platform. Got the next train of the correct line, two stops. Got out at Koln Hauptbanhof at the time my train was departing. Ran for it anyway, as I had the platform number. Got turned around looking for the platforms after coming out of the U-bahn, but finally saw them - and the train was still on the departure boards. Ran. Jumped on. It was four minutes past departure time.

As the Japanese say, even monkeys fall from trees. The ever-reliable British 'maybe the train will be late' worked. Found my seat and collapsed. Got a fantastic view of the cathedral on the way out and a 'glad you got the train' from Aodan in response to texting him about it. Was going to study some German on the way back, but found the files for the Berlitz course had failed to copy onto my mp3 player, so listened to music, looked out the window and read the book instead. Took my safe travel charm from Fushimi Inari Daisha out of my passport, gave it a rub and thanked it profusely - I had had much too much luck to believe it.

Successfully bought some bread at the station and U-bahned home. Looking forward to another trip sometime - I could go to Koln again, there are loads more museums and churches, or Annette recommended Heidelberg, which isn't far away. Hmmm.

Oooooh

Cologne has a Schokoladenmuseum.

Victory!

Topped up my phone at the supermarket. There are little plastic cards at the end of some of the tills with '15 Euro' and 'T-Mobile' written on them, you take them to the till and they scan them, then you punch your phone number into the PIN keypad twice, et voila! Chuffed.

A day full of unnecessary complications, mistakes, annoyance and reworking. But I left on time as there was nothing that couldn't be deferred until tomorrow.

Feel a bit lurgified (proper UK English) and went into the supermarket to look for whatever Germany uses for Lemsip. There didn't seem to be anything - they sell vitamins and what look like nuclear-war level herbal teas, but no aspirin or other serious stuff. I suppose there is a reason for all the Apothekes I see around. Another example of a strange boundary shift in everyday life.

Other than that, not much. Cold but no more snow. Looking forward to visiting Cologne at the weekend.

Have a look at a very cute coyote.

Stop that right now

Okay day at work, finally managed after a day and a half to find out what they actually wanted and got it done.

Got back, did pilates. Got four successive terrifying crunches out of my spine.

Received an email saying my card had been declined and was unable to log in to online banking despite being certain my details were correct. Tried to call the bank on my online calling card only to be told my calling account was suspended. Had a momentary ID-theft panic.

Called the bank on my German mobile, was kept on hold then told everything was fine on my online banking, then put on hold again and then told everything was fine with my card, they hadn't received the request that said it was declined.

Phone credit ran out halfway through that one. Great way to burn through 30 Euro.

The short version of the slightly white long weekend

Thursday morning wasn't so great - I didn't sleep well and managed to rip the jeans I was going to wear. After stuffing my washing into my bag I headed out early to get to the bank. My card hadn't arrived yet, so I had scribbled down some phrases to explain that and ask if they could tell me what my balance was and could I make a withdrawal. Got through the first bits okay, only to find that my balance was the money I had put in - so I didn't need the last bit. Batting away the remnants of my dreams of buying giant Golden-Hasse (Lindt Gold Bunnies in the UK) as presents, I trudged into work.

A French translator introduced himself to me on the way in, people I didn't know smiled and said hi, and it was generally lovely. An impending long weekend will do that to people, but I chose to take it personally. The UK team were going out to a German restaurant that evening, which I would miss, but we did have lunch together in the Chinese. I got out relatively on time and was surprised by the mere 3.90 Euro and 45 minutes it took to get to the airport.

We had some loud but otherwise harmless youth until the main station, then they swapped out with football supporters on their way to a local game - beer and singing aplenty. A British guy remarked to his neighbour that beer, football and youth were a bad mix and was agreed with - he assumed he'd found a fellow Englishman but the guy was actually from Frankfurt. Herr Britisch then went on to quote Shakespeare and go beyond the limit of the man's excellent English, which struck me as pretentious and annoyed me (especially seen how useless my German is).

After sending me an online check-in email, BA then wouldn't allow me to check in online and were either useless or deliberately witholding information and didn't tell us we were nearly an hour delayed until we were boarded and had our phones turned off. High winds at Heathrow.

When we did get there, just over 40 mins late, David was waiting for me - with a latte and a slice of carrot cake, and a little Gold Bunny. The man knows how to make me feel welcome. We headed out to the rental car, a Chevrolet Matiz. Feather-light steering and juddering controls, but at least not as noisy at speed as the Ford Ka was. There was a certain amount of being blown around the lane on the motorway though.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent at David's parents, sitting at the kitchen table identifying birds, eating, chatting and generally having a wonderfully restorative weekend. Did my washing and hung some on the line for the first time in I don't know how long. The weather was bizarre, with bright spells, high winds, sleet and a bit of snow that stuck for a few hours on Sunday morning. David's mom was wished a Happy Christmas at church. Also had my first game of Scrabble in I don't know how long. David helped set up their new laptop and broadband, and I managed to get another pair of jeans. We left just in time to hit the shops on Sunday and I got the PG Tips pyramid tea bags that had been demanded of me.

We weren't sure what to do on Monday - the weather forecast was poor, but we really wanted to go to Longleat safari park. In the end I finished my packing (bringing back an extra piece of luggage to get some more clothes and shoes) and pushed everything into the Matiz' underdeveloped boot to head out past Andover and Stonehenge to Longleat.

We were in luck - the sky cleared on the way there, we made great time and we got in at 9:30 when we thought we'd have to wait until 10:00. We headed into the safari, taking the chance to get out of the car and walk around the wallabies and goats and grab a tea and a sandwich before getting back in the car. (By the way, if you go there beware of the cafes - one seems to be twice the price of the other.)

And then it was giraffes and emus and zebras and camels, oh my! Followed by many different kinds of deer and even a chance to feed them. Well, let me rephrase that. You could avoid feeding them by a) not buying food and b) driving through swiftly with the windows up. Once you pulled over with the window down, you had a deer in each side of the car faster than you could get the food ready. Just as pushy as the sacred deer in Japan! And they drool. Seriously.

We got several photos of the supposedly elusive Bongos, who were happy to be photographed while grazing. Others walking into the spotlight were the camels and some very impressive African cattle. Then it was in to the monkeys, with ample warnings to kiss your car trim goodbye and even an opportunity to U-turn out of it. They weren't interested in the rental car - too rounded - but loved 4x4s, anything with a roof rack or spare tyre and we saw five of them on an old (flat-roofed and flat-bonneted) Jaguar. The babies swung off anything that stuck out when they weren't chasing each other around the trees.

We concluded that the endless stream of cars was the enrichment activity and new toys for the monkeys, and that Nature will have your windscreen wipers.

Carrying on with our CD narrated by one of the presenters of Animal Park, which was a nice touch, we hit the big time - the big cats. Queues of traffic built up as people stopped to stare at and photograph tigers having their mid-morning snack and sleeping on the roof of the hides, and lionesses pacing about their wooded lawns. There are two lion prides, and the second had youngish cubs who were running around and jumping on their elders. Finally we went through Wolf Wood, where most of the residents were lying around doing their own brand of regal. One was tearing apart lunch, but despite signs all over of "CAUTION Wolf pups in road" we didn't see any.

Once out of the safari, we drove around to the grounds and headed for Pets Corner, home of the smaller and fluffier things. The parrot show was on, so we took advantage of the lull to check out the degus and rabbits, ground squirrels and Siberian chipmunks (think little albino squirrels). Ducking through the insect and reptile house got me the chance to hold a Chilean rose tarantula, which was absolutely lovely. The keeper was also very tempting when she said they could be acquired for £15, live in a quite small box lined with earth and only need 2 live crickets a week...

(Later research seems to indicate they don't like handling, which is both confusing and real shame if it is true - I don't want to stress anything. Best quote: "A happy spider is an unseen spider".)

The stars of the area were the otters, proud parents Rosie and Romeo and their two young kits. Six others had already been born and sent to other zoos, and Rosie was due to give birth again in April! She did have a distinct waddle. Very romantically, Romeo was giving her some of his food, just in case her "I'm cute! Feed me!" face failed to work.

We went for some food next, an excellent cottage pie for me and mushroom quiche for David. Expensive, but not bad. Next up was the safari boat, out into the lake with the gregarious Californian sea lions. They had already been fed - 65kg of fish - but were always given treats for chasing the boat. We saw the hippos from a distance (the only way to see the perpetually grumpy animals according to the guide) and also the elderly gorilla Nico, sitting on the porch of his house watching the rain. The guide gave a very moving talk about the status of the gorilla which had us reaching in our pockets for the collection boxes on the pier next to the meercats.

After that we judged we had just enough time to get to the batcave! After a few displays of insects (including my personal squee item, some real live and very large Deaths Head cockroaches) we got into the bat room. They were being fed and seemed to fall elegantly from the ceiling to lie wings out, flat on their stomachs to chew on fruit. They even adopted that position for the water bowl. The fruit kebabs suspended from ropes were a real favourite - one bat was on each, holding on to the top with its feet and munching away while mantling it with its wings. As the keeper said, relax, they're not going to hit you. They're good at this.

Final stop was the butterfly garden, and what a finale. Massive butterflies with wings like owls' faces lined the roof, with ones the colour of mother of pearl or cobalt flapping through the garden. Others were an amazing velvet black and startling red. David got some fantastic photos, even if we couldn't get the glasswing to stay still long enough.

Then we hit the road, just in case we didn't make good time back - all too possible with a combination of ropy weather and Bank Holiday traffic. We did it pretty well, from Longleat to the drop-off at Heathrow Terminal 1 in 3 hours. Back on the plane.

I was oddly tired by the time I got back, and the efficient German S and U-bahns got me home as soon as I figured out what ones I wanted to be on and managed to buy a ticket. Following some loud Americans who were going my way helped. It seemed to be shift change, with loads of police and men in hi-vis jackets in the station. I glared at the stairs, but as there's no option I climbed up. At least my suitcase was comparatively light this time.

Today was all right - up early to go to the bank again as I still don't have my card (I got my pin and some info for online banking, so I know they have the address right) but this time managed to not be understood and had to hand my notes over to the cashier. Money still isn't in my account so I withdrew from my UK account to cover me for another two weeks or so. Worked away on the instructions of A, got a confusing comment from B, A checks with B and realises there has been a misunderstanding, I have to throw away my morning's work. It ended with translators finding all the day's issues between 5:00 and 5:30, which is when I wanted to leave. I did manage to get away soon after.

Right into the snow that had been falling for an hour or so - huge fat wet flakes that were just about sticking on the dual carriageway dividers. It cleared a little, we hit the supermarket (I had given up on my daydream of blowing a stack of Euros in the Asian food shop) and I took the U-bahn back just in case it started up again. Must wear the hiking boots tomorrow, as it's forecast to be -3 tonight and tomorrow night with snow.

It was wonderful to be back in the UK - but I also have a trip to Koln/Cologne to look forward to this weekend! My first trip on the InterCity Express, just over an hour. Shall bring the camera...

Ready, steady...

Didn't forget anything! And actually got some work to do that didn't involve playing a game...

Will head out early tomorrow so I can get out early and get to the airport, even more important now that BA are denying me online checkin despite sending me an email inviting me to do so.

We still appear to have no washing machine, or if we do we have no key to the basement to access it. So I will be doing the student thing and taking my washing home with me.

And I may have been paid - someone who started at the same time as me has been - but as I don't have my bank card yet I don't know. May call into the bank tomorrow and see if they can tell me. Another deutsche challenge...

Will be away from tomorrow night until Monday night - have a great long weekend to everyone who has it!