The end of the line

Well, this is it...we're into the last few days of my year in Hamburg, and what a year has been. I don't want to throw out all of those stereotypical, cliche phrases about it being the best year of your life and one of the greatest experiences...but it really has been a great year.

I've travelled to new places, I've seen new things and met new people. I've developed friendships and somehow strengthened relationships with people to be even better friends than we were to start with. I've been to some fantastic gigs and sporting events, I've spent some glorious days relaxing in the sunshine and enjoyed (is that the right word?) one of the longest and coldest winters in recent history.

But it really has been fantastic, and thanks gets given mainly to two groups of people. At the risk of this turning into a terrible awards ceremony style speech...here we go.

I found an absolutely fantastic cricket club in THCC Rot-Gelb, an incredible group of people that I couldn't have imagined meeting. If there's any regret there, it's that I didn't join the club earlier in the year and get to spend even more time with them. Plus, it's not every day when you can say that you're part of a team that has one of the best teams in an entire country. I've developed so much as a player in the last few months...I'm a more confident batsman, and while I'm not going to set the world alight with my batting, I at least have the confidence to know I can play a bit more than a forward defensive. My bowling has improved too. My fielding, while I always gave 100%, wasn't always fantastic. I still give 100%, but now I can say that I'm a better fielding, mainly due to being shown multiple times how to catch a ball properly. As stupid as it sounds, I've got more confidence taking high catches. Cam, Komal, Steve, Magic Moritz, Frank, Mark and everyone else...thank you. 
 To the 1st XI, best of luck in the national finals, you'll have at least one fan cheering you on from England and eagerly awaiting the result of the final. I'll forever be a Desperado, and if things go as I hope, I'll see you all next year.

Then there are the people at work. My wonderful colleagues at euroShell. What a wonderful, funny, utterly brilliant group of people they are. I've learnt so many new skills and developed so much as an individual. I went from not having a clue what I was doing on my first day to quickly figuring out what needed to be done. I'd like to think I've made a difference of some sort. Even if I haven't, I've made enough of a difference to myself in knowing what I can do...and perhaps what I want to do in the future. More windows and doors have been opened, it's just a case of seeing which way the wind blows. If opportunities arise in the future, I've potentially got more options to choose from and look at for careers and job prospects.
To Marc, Harm, Benjamin and Thomas, good day to you and thank you for everything. If our paths cross again, I look forward to the next meeting.

England, brace yourself. I'm coming back (for now). Germany...it's been fantastic and I'll see you again soon.

I'll leave the final word to The Doctor, who says it all...

Growing up isn't easy

A couple of evenings ago, I had a rather enjoyable conversation on Skype with Rachel. That's right Rachel, enjoy your moment in the sunshine...because it's only going to go downhill from here in this entry. ;-) Apart from her almost seeing a bit too much of me at one point, we actually had something of a serious conversation about growing up and where life is taking us. Well, mainly me...but the topic definitely applied to Rachel too.

As we all know, I've been in Germany for near on a year now. Which means that my time in this land is coming to an end for the time being as in a shade under five weeks, I'll be packing my bags and heading back to England for the last year of university and a probable end to my road of education unless I suddenly find myself wanting/needing to do a Masters course...it's possible. Anything is possible really.

Currently, my aim is to move back out to Germany after completing my degree. I know that's my plan, my parents know that's my plan, my friends know that's the plan...pretty much everyone who knows, or who has asked me about life after university knows that coming back to Germany is the plan. It might be Hamburg, I could find myself in a different city...it all hinges on where I can find work. I'm working from the mindset that I need to go where the work is and there's not a lot of point saying to myself that I want to live somewhere and not be able to find a job there.

But the conversation was spearheaded by talking about this and Rachel secretly admitting that she might actually have an ounce of humanity towards me by saying that if I move back to Germany...she'll miss me. Once I'd gotten over the shock of hearing those words coming from her pint sized mouth (that's not being overly cruel, more a reference to her Twitter handle), it got me thinking a bit about other friends that I have where a similar scenario can, and probably will play over over the next year or two.

I'm taking it as something of a given that most of my friends who are also studying German will be spreading their wings after graduation to some extent. There'll be some of us who head back out to Germany/Austria to find/continue work and our lives, some will stay in the UK, whether going back to family or working in another city. Then there's always the option of moving to another country altogether. But I mean, that's just the sort of thing you'd expect from leaving university, especially having done a language degree.

Elsewhere, I've got friends who may decide to head back to other parts of the world, whether returning back East or to other parts of Europe where they had lives set before starting at university. 

So it wouldn't be completely unreasonable to think that there's a potential situation arising where some of my closest friends scatter around the world and those friendships become built on exchanges of emails, Skype calls and talking on Facebook. That's a slightly scary scenario and almost leads to a reset where it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to find myself in a city and needing to start from scratch in terms of building new friendships. I mean, the ones I have now will last for years and years.

As I say though, I have to be realistic in my aims and aspirations for the future. There's no point in me returning to Hamburg if I have no money, no job and nothing concrete sorted out apart from "I want to live in Germany", and if I find work in the UK or another part of the world, then so be it...that's where I go.

Why do I need to grow up? Why can't we all just stay as we are and hang out in Leeds? Still, it's going to be a fun next stage!

Of course, when it all falls apart in a few years, I'll be moving to the USA to try and become a comedian...so none of what I've written above really matters.

Catching up

I have to admit that since starting the podcast a couple of months ago, this blog has definitely taken a backseat. You can tell that by looking at the number of posts I've made in here over the last few months...one, maybe two a month at best. But that really isn't good enough and it's something that needs to be changed to some extent. Even if I just start writing things of a different nature (because life can't always be incredibly exciting), it keeps me writing and keeps a regular output.

So where has life taken me in the last few weeks?

Well, after the little incident of falling over at cricket and getting a bump on the head, I ended up getting the rather polite suggestion from work that I go and get seen by a doctor. Surprise, surprise...I officially have another concussion to add to the list, though we sort of already knew that. It's been what, six weeks since I did that? My head is about as fine as it could be. Headaches can come and go, but I've had that happening for so long that it barely registers as something worth noticing.

Work has been rather good. Admittedly, having two or three weeks where both Thomas and Benjamin were off work wasn't ideal though it did give me a rather large to-do list which was dealt with in a successful and appropriate manner. My time-management skills might need a bit of work though. I'm not sure whether the work was MEANT to last me three weeks...but I had everything done in about two, and that was with working at what I thought was a relatively gentle pace.

I definitely needed a bit of a break though. Since coming back from England at the start of the year, I'd used relatively little in terms of my holidays. I took a few days off when my brother came over to visit for 16 Carat and then a single day of holiday when I made my flying visit to the UK in early April. Aside from that though, it's pretty much been five months without a break...and I was starting to feel a bit worn out by it all. So this week, I took the entire week off. There was some good logical thinking behind this, as I'll get into now.

Rachel and Beth came over for the weekend and brought the surprise of the year when Ben walks through Arrivals at the airport with them. Didn't see it coming (it helps when they didn't speak much to me in the week leading up to the trip, just in case someone spilled the beans) and I was more than pleased to see him. That was a really fun weekend and I enjoyed hanging out with them again and just spending some time with friends that I haven't been able to see for a long time. When they left on Monday evening, it was the end of a really good couple of days.

So what about the rest of the week? Well, to be honest...Tuesday was a bit of a write-off. I went for a walk into the city centre, went on a boat tour and just had some time to myself to take in the world. The definition of a lazy day, and then I followed it up by watching some cricket. Wednesday was the day that's been marked on my calendar for months...and I mean months. I think I bought tickets to Iron Maiden in late October, so it's been over 6 months of build up to this show. Hessie was meant to come originally (hence the gig being in Frankfurt, not Hamburg) but life doesn't always work out that way and SusiSuse was kind enough to take up the offer of the second ticket and come with me.

What a gig. Iron Maiden may be getting on in age a little bit, but they can definitely still put on one hell of a show. The Festhalle was a really great building too, so good choice of location to them on a venue. 

Today being Friday...I'm having a laid back morning and afternoon. A couple of hours of cricket awaits this evening. The weather is nice once again, and the three weeks of torrential rain seems to be behind us. It might be a bit too late for Spring to have finally arrived...so maybe we're just getting an early summer. As long as it doesn't snow in August, I'll be happy with that.

I'm writing more too. Not necessarily on here, but I decided that I want to at least try and have a go at comedy in the future. At the moment, it's just a case of writing ideas and some early material and then once I get back to England, testing some stuff out and seeing whether I can make some people laugh. 

The podcast is going really well too, and I'm happy with the path it has been taking in recent weeks. There are episodes that I want to do in future weeks provided I can find the right guest, and there are some guests that I'd like to have on where...well, it might not really matter if there's a topic or not. The audience seems to be there and enjoying the content. Which reminds me...I need to record the intro for this week. The building work seems to have quietened down outside, so now might be a good time to do that...

I shall return.

Heads aren't as hard as you think..

Well, I started out on writing a blog post the other day but didn't finish it off...hence it wasn't posted. Then some things happened...so I figure I may as well just tell the world what's going on. I'll put the other entry up in the next day or two.

If you don't have Twitter and follow me on there or haven't listened to this week's podcast, I had a rather interesting Friday night. Friday evenings are now cricket training up at THCC, which is great. I can leave work early on a Friday afternoon with a good excuse and get the train to the other side of Hamburg for a couple of hours of practice in the nets and on the field.

So that was fine. I loosened up as always and started sending down my medium pace deliveries when required. A couple were all over the place, but the majority of them were at a decent length considering I haven't bowled outside since last August. Maybe 25 minutes in, I get told to pad up and duly do so. I always imagine that going in to bat is a bit like being sent over the top, except without machine guns and barbed wire. So really, it's nothing like going over the top...it's just having to defend my wicket while getting peppered with a variety of deliveries from the people bowling. Some clearly wanted to take my head off (despite the fact I don't wear a helmet, which I don't really think is on) and others were balls that I could play with relative comfort. I'm not the greatest batsman by any stretch of the imagination, so I tend to leave any balls that are going past leg stump unless I fancy having a bit of a slog. Great at a forward defensive though. ;)

I managed to escape batting relatively unscathed, just a massive bruise from where two consecutive balls from the same bowler came up and struck me which REALLY hurt. I should probably wear a thighpad in future to at least cushion the blow... Then I went off to do some fielding practice.

We get to the last 15 minutes or so and start to practice high catches...ball gets slogged into the air and I have to try and take the catch. So one gets sent up and it's not got a huge amount of distance, so I run in to take it. As I do, I slip over on some grass, fall backwards and give my head a good whack.

From that, things get a bit hazy. I remember pain and I remember everyone standing over me checking if I'm ok. Being the idiot that I am, I tried to stand up fairly quickly...which didn't go too well. Took a few minutes to compose myself and then moved to the edge of the field to continue lying down and gathering what senses I had. By which point, my head is throbbing, I feel a teensy bit sick and the world seems like it's got one of those stupid Instagram filters on it.

Ohh, what an idiot I am. Massive thanks to Steve for keeping an eye on me for the next few hours to make sure I didn't drop or have some sort of bizarre after-effects that I wasn't expecting. For those who know me, I've picked up a couple of head injuries in the past from things like this so I'm vaguely aware of what to expect. Maybe I shouldn't have done a podcast this week because listening back, I sound completely out of it...but I knew I needed to record the intro and finish some things off with it.

As things stand, my head isn't as fuzzy as it has been but I still have a headache. My neck and back are both sore so sitting down isn't too fun, lying down isn't fantastic either which leaves me with the option of spending my day standing or having a bit of nagging pain. Just like the last time I banged my head and knocked myself for six, I'm trying to sleep it off. I slept for a couple of hours yesterday and I've had a couple of hours today too.

Things could be a lot worse though. So let's keep some perspective on things.

Drifting minds are a powerful thing

Do you ever find your mind drifting away to somewhere it quite possibly shouldn't be drifting to? It's happened to me a few times in recent weeks and months, and do you know the main reason for this happening (at least to me)? Train journeys. Sitting on a train for several hours and staring out of a window can really be dangerous for the human mind, especially when staring out at what seems like an eternity of German countryside. Then again, staring out of a window can also do some pretty good things to a mind...maybe a realisation of something or a euphoric moment. Perhaps not quite on the same level as some of the great discoveries in human history, but some good things have definitely come from staring out of a window on a long journey.

Anyway, I found myself thinking back to years and months gone by. Times where I've left an opportunity or a particular moment slip through my fingers and potentially disappear forever because I either don't say the right thing or say nothing at all. At times, I'm not sure which is worse...I suspect silence wins. As an alternative, maybe it's a situation where I should have done something...and did nothing.

It isn't the first time that I've done this, and it almost certainly won't be the last. It always seems to happen at moments of complete silence where I am able to be truly alone with my thoughts. I guess that's part of the reason I spend so much time listening to podcasts, music and comedy, especially when listening. That way, I can listen to someone else talking and hear their thoughts instead of whatever my brain has to conjure up. In some way, it could be a "save me from myself" type of thing...but at a very basic entry level of my mind.

I don't know why I do it, but I do. And I always seem to look at the mistakes I've made in life and reflect back on those rather than focusing on the good things, or things that I've done right. Maybe I'm an idiot for doing this...it's just another reason on a fairly long list of why I could be called a fool with good reason.

I'll keep doing it though whenever I find myself alone with my thoughts. It makes me a stronger person, it gives me something to learn from and means that (hopefully) I don't repeat mistakes that I've already made somewhere in my life. There we go...that's my eureka moment.

Looking at it that way, maybe it isn't such a bad thing to spend a bit of time with my thoughts..

A spring in my step

It might be a rather cool 0 degrees at the moment, it might feel a lot colder than that...but I don't care. It's springtime. Or at least, it is in terms of calendar. Then again, the sunshine is currently coming through my window and leaving a rather forgotten feeling of warmth. I've missed the sunshine...and the last few months haven't had much sun. 

It looks as though the worst of the cold weather is behind us and what is left of the snow is going to start melting and disappearing in the next few days...about time too. For what feels like an eternity, every day has had at least a sprinkling of snow. So the snow never fully melts (not that it would anyway) and you very quickly learn where the icy deathtraps are within daily life. For example, I know not be too careless on the two minute walk from the bus stop to the office through fear of falling flat on my face in front of people I work with and having to try and give the impression that I've only bruised my pride. 

Work is a mixture of ups and downs at the moment. There's nothing bad as such, but there can be days where there isn't a lot for me to do and I end up doing slightly trivial tasks for the sake of keeping busy at times. On the plus, it's meant that I've been getting more phone calls and emails from people outside of our little Finance corner asking me to investigate certain things and look up information about various aspects of the business for reports and conferences and the like. As a negative...well, I don't really think there is a negative. I'm still working and I'm still enjoying my time at work. It seems crazy that I'm over half way through the placement and there are just five months left on my contract before I pack up and head back to England. Where has the time gone?

There's a bit of a spring to my step at the moment. While I've fallen behind on listening to podcasts a bit and one or two have fallen by the wayside (sorry Bone Zone, you're no longer a must-listen to me), I've really picked up on the music again. Having sorted my music library out, I realised I had a couple of Lynyrd Skynyrd albums that had gone unlistened as well as a host of other bits and pieces that I hadn't listened to for a few years. Having stuck their music on after work on Friday, I think Skynyrd might be an ideal choice for the Friday afternoon walk home from work. At the moment, I've got a fantastic selection of 80s pop music playing (thank you Rachel for sending me that link). I've got a smile back on my face and 2013 continues to be a better year than 2012.

I started writing again, which has been something missing from my life for the last few months. Whether it's writing down those silly little stories that I come up with (which, it seemingly turns out, are brilliant at helping people sleep) or returning to writing down those little ideas for jokes that I get throughout the course of my day, I've been scribbling something down most days. Maybe it'll all just sit in a folder on my laptop to never be seen or used...maybe I'll find a way of using some of it in life.

I guess I have just one complaint and grumble about my life at the moment, and it's the lack of sleep. I know...it's the same old story as always, and this can't have been the first time I've complained about a lack of sleep on this blog. It's getting pretty bad now though. I make jokes about never sleeping and not needing sleep, but that'll only get me so far before I eventually lose the plot completely and throw my computer out of the window at work (or fall asleep...I'm not sure which would land me in more trouble to be honest). Despite knowing that I'm having trouble sleeping and changing my pattern slightly to go to bed earlier in an attempt to counter this problem, I still find myself spending most nights getting no more than four or five hours at the very most. I'm sure that's not healthy...

At least when I'm sleeping, I'm getting some fantastic dreams. So it's not all bad. For the times when I'm lying in bed awake? I started reading a couple of really interesting books which can provide some interesting food for thought. I'd always heard Duncan Trussell talking about the Bhagavad Gita so decided to give that a read to see what it was all about (and so far, it's a cracking read, though a little difficult to fully get to grips with if not paying full concentration) and I've been working my way through a collection of books about the origins and history of cricket for a slightly lighter read. Reading is definitely helping matters. If I can't sleep, I may as well read and/or listen to the cricket commentary.

Tiredness kills. So will I if I don't start getting some sleep soon...

(If there are any legal type people out there, I don't mean this. I won't be killing people. Honest.)

Things can only get better. They're pretty good as it stands, but there's always room for improvement. 

Catching my breath

It's Monday evening, about 6pm. This is my first real chance to sit down, compose some thoughts and have some time to myself in about a week. My brother's on his flight back to England and I'm tucking into the packet of chocolate Hobnobs that he brought over (other biscuits are available, but they're just not as amazing). My rest is just about over and tomorrow, it'll be back to the normal routine and business as usual.

I've had a few days off work since my brother came over to Germany, partially to see me, but the main purpose of the trip was to go down to Oberhausen for the wXw 16 Carat weekend. I know that we're only two months into the year, but they feel as though they've been two really intense months at work and I hadn't taken any time off since Christmas. I also had some leftover holiday from 2012, so it made sense to use that to spend some time with Andrew and head down to Oberhausen.

It also gave me the opportunity to use my day off on Thursday to check out the 25 Years of Pixar exhibition at the MKG Hamburg. If you don't know this about me, then you really should...I am a HUGE Pixar fan. Everything about the company fascinates me, from their very very early beginnings with very basic animated shorts all the way through to their feature length films and the current day. Their films have been the background of an entire generation and the Toy Story trilogy...well, I doubt I need to say too much. The exhibition is a celebration of 25 years in the industry with a wide array of original drawings, paintings and moulds from Pixar films. To see the level of detail, even in the early drawings and ideas of characters and scenery is amazing. It was really cool to see character evolvement and progression, especially for films like Monsters. Inc where the main characters of Sullivan, Mike and Boo look nothing like the early drawings for their characters.

Friday came, and it was time to head down to Oberhausen for the tournament. Three packed days of action with 16 guys in the tournament from 8 countries (and plenty of other non-tournament action featuring even more people). Simply fantastic, and I take my hat off to wXw for being able to put on a three day event AND be able to fill the afternoons with really interesting extras. One of the big points for me was being able to watch the Westside Dojo training session led by Tommy End. Even though the session felt really packed and included a lot to push the trainees, Tommy said that the material they covered was maybe 10% of everything they do (a lot of the other 90% being stuff that you just can't show to an outsider), but it was a really cool thing to watch people going through the basics and also getting to hear about why they want to train and become wrestlers. Sometimes, it's the little things that make the biggest differences.

Still, three days and plenty of moments to remember. So that was my break from work. It's been a good little opportunity to check out something that I'm really into and get a few days out of the office, plus I was able to catch up with a couple of Germans I met last time. I can't say it was the most relaxing break ever though...I'm feeling pretty tired, but I'm looking forward to heading back into work tomorrow and getting to work for another busy stretch.

Work is still pretty busy but it's certainly interesting stuff...and it's a hell of a lot better than being bored and having nothing to do with my time. 

For those who have listened to my podcast so far (which you can find at trailingthoughts.podbean.com), I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's only a small small corner in the world of the internet, but it means something to me. With a bit of work and dedication, it might be able to mean something to others in the future. I've only had two 'proper' episodes so far, but they've both had good feedback and signs are encouraging. It's now available to listen to on the website as well as being on iTunes...and should hopefully be up on Stitcher Radio in the next day or two. I've got a couple of interesting guests lined up in the next few weeks and hopefully things will continue from there. 

It's an exciting time. Let's go!

A step in the right direction

Once again, it's been a few weeks since the last entry...so immediately, I should apologise for that to some extent. But then again, I always think about how I don't really want an overkill on this, and if I post on here for the sake of posting something...well, it's just not that interesting. Or at the very least, it isn't as interesting as it could be. At the end of the day, it's all a matter of perspective. 

Life in Germany is still going relatively well. I set myself the personal goal at the start of the year to get out there, do a bit more with my life and make the most of the time I've got out here. If I'm honest, the first few months were probably a little bit of a write-off. Work was good and I had a couple of good trips to see friends and do some things...but that was it really. I could have done more, I should have done more, and I went home at Christmas thinking that things could have been a bit better.

So when I came back, I figured I needed to do a little bit more and throw myself into doing more with my time. A month and a half into the new year, I'd like to think I've done just that. There was the trip to Leipzig which I touched on in the previous entry and then I've done some pretty good things on the other weekends to keep me busy. I checked out the Hamburger Motorrad Tage at the Messenhalle a few weeks ago, which was basically just a giant gathering of bike lovers from around Northern Germany. And anyone who is anyone in terms of brands in the biking world was there. For me, the fascination with bikes has never been as big as the love of cars...mainly since cars have always been there, whether through me watching motorsport or just seeing cars in magazines and on TV shows. 

Wandering the hall for a couple of hours and seeing all of the bikes was amazing, and I was able to talk to one or two people about bikes and see what people liked. Even if I never ride a motorbike, I can say I've sat on three Triumphs. That'll probably do for me.

I also got the opportunity to check out a HSV game thanks to some very friendly people at work. In short, there was a little treat set up to reward a group of the team who had played a large part in organising an event last month...the treat being tickets to a fancy lounge to watch HSV take on Eintracht Frankfurt. Someone fell out, and two of the team put my name forward as someone who they thought deserved it as a reward for my work. First of all, that in itself is pretty cool to see that the people at work think I'm doing a good enough job to tell me this, and also set me up for cool opportunities like this.

Off I went, and though my interest in football isn't that strong at the best of times and I recognised one name on the HSV team sheet, it was a cracking evening. The game was pretty good, HSV lost (you can decide whether that's a good thing or not) and I got to talk to some really interesting people. We also looked at setting up a little opportunity for me later in the year to go and spend some time working on a different project. If that comes through, it'll be a really interesting experience and something that I'm looking forward to.

Part of me feels that I'm being choked a bit in Hamburg...and spending my time in the city has left me wanting to escape. Which is why I'm off to visit Kiel tomorrow. It's only an hour or so up the road and was one of the places that I had on my mental list of places to visit during the year, so I'm looking forward to that.

I mentioned in the last entry that podcasting was about to begin....and it has with a little project called Trailing Thoughts, which you can find on iTunes (hehe, I'm on iTunes) and on the website (trailingthoughts.podbean.com). Currently, there's one episode done and another one is on the way either later tonight or tomorrow depending on when I finish editing and uploading. I'm really looking forward to seeing where I can take this over the coming weeks and months, as well as getting the opportunity to speak to some people that I haven't spoken to as well as hopefully talking to some friends about topics where they've got a story to tell and something to share. I got some really good feedback about the first episode about my plans and I've set up a couple of guests already... exciting things are happening.

Must dash. I made brownies and they've been cooling as I write this. Time to go and stuff my face with chocolatey goodness. 

Enjoy your weekend.

Bits and pieces

It's been pushing three weeks since the last entry, though this will just about keep within the line to have a minimum of two blog entries per month. I mean, it's not that hard to sit down for half an hour every two weeks and write something...to be completely honest, I need to start writing more frequently. I got into a period last year where I'd be writing for about half an hour a day, whether it was writing a short story, a rambling stream of consciousness or other assorted bits and pieces. They're all filed away on this laptop...somewhere. Some of the stories were pretty decent from what I recall. Nothing that's going to blow anyone's mind, but for things that are usually made up on the spot. For some reason, my stories always seem to sound better coming from the top of my head than being thought about for a prolonged period...

Since it's been a few weeks since the last blog, I should give a bit of an update on the whole Alpha Brain thing. For the sake of it, I'll only mention the first two weeks otherwise the second entry on that will only contain a week of discussion...it makes enough sense in my head.

For what it's worth, I definitely think they've had some sort of effect on me. There wasn't a lot going on for the first few days, but I think I put that down to my body taking a little bit of time to get used to things. Plus, I started midweek with that weekend being spent in Leipzig (more on that later), so there wasn't a lot of need for the stuff to work. By the Sunday night though, I was more than a little bit tired after barely sleeping that weekend and decided to try some an hour or two before bed so that they'd influence my sleep. It could have just been that I was completely shattered, but that was one of the better nights of sleep I've had in recent months. I didn't sleep right the way through, but I had some pretty cool dreams and woke up in the morning feeling unusually fresh and energetic...especially for a Monday morning.

At work, I'm able to concentrate on my work and focus better. I was finding that by around 2/3pm, my concentration would completely wane with my energy levels for about half an hour of being completely unproductive before picking up for the final hour or two at my desk. Honestly though, I haven't had that...the concentration level is still right up there until the end of my day and I don't get that mid-afternoon drop.

So they seem to be doing something positive. Things from the last week seem to continue suggesting this, and taking another few pills before bed once every few nights seems to bring on a better level of sleep and some cool dreams. I'm not saying it'd be worth taking this stuff just for some crazy dreams, but these dreams are good fun.

Anyway, as I mentioned a few paragraphs up, I was in Leipzig a few weekends ago catching up with friends.  Admittedly, the weekend started off with a big bag of suck when Hessie called me to say that she'd missed her coach by a matter of moments and wasn't going to be joining us. A single tear of emotion trailed down my cheek at the loss of a stranded bff, but we soldiered on.

It was a really fun weekend, and I can now tick "Sleep under a table" off the list of things to do before I leave this planet. Don't ask why, I'm not completely sure there was a valid reason for my sleeping under a table. There was space elsewhere on the floor, but I was happy enough there and it meant that I was able to chat away with Susan until the small hours grew slightly larger and light probably wasn't too far away. Aside from a diet of predominantly tasty baked goods (mmm...tasty baked goods), one of the cool points was going to the Stasi museum. Admittedly, it was a bit grim in parts...though we all know the Stasi weren't all about sunshine and rainbows. What was interesting though, was reading about people who had been sentenced to death and executed decades ago, but were posthumously pardoned in the early 90s. I can't imagine that's much solace to the individual..

As always, it was great to catch up with friends and spend some time checking out another part of Germany. For a first proper visit to the former East Germany, it was pretty cool to look at some of the slight differences between the East and the rather modern and super busy Hamburg. Even now, over 20 years since reunification, there are still slight traces of the past. I guess that's the way it should be though, at least to some extent..

I mentioned in the last entry that I was finally going to start podcasting. I think we'll need one or two more dummy runs to make sure everything is alright before we put the first piece of content out. The name still hasn't been sorted either. Well, my half of the name...turns out that's the most tricky thing for me! I'm thinking about possibly doing a solo 'cast alongside the joint one with Rachel, but if I do that, I'll probably leave it a while... we'll see.

That's all from me. As always, life is looking good in the immediate future. Love what you're doing and make the most of what you've got.
Much love.

Kicking off with a bang

It's the start of the year, and we're headed towards the end of the first full week of 2013. I've been back in Germany for almost a week, I've been back at work since last Friday...and it's starting to feel like I've never been away. That's not a bad thing at all, I quickly remembered that I could speak German, settled back down into work and picked up where I left off at work.

The first week and a half of 2013 have been pretty good. I realised that I needed to be more positive in life, and I think I've made a good effort so far to be more positive in day to day life. If that keeps going over the coming weeks and months, then I'll be quite happy with myself. I didn't go and make any resolutions for the start of the year, since I've never really made them. If I made one, I'd probably feel more tempted to break it, just for the sake of it.

One thing I would like to change is getting a bit more sleep though. For quite a while, I've been struggling to sleep. If I go to bed early, I find myself springing awake by about 1am and then I'm unable to go back to sleep for a while. My current 'record' is 4 hours lying awake at night. Maybe I should start doing some writing at night. I was always at my most creative last year during the small hours of the morning...maybe it's a sign!

Anyway, the main chunk of this blog entry is to say that I'm taking a 30 day challenge using Onnit products. For those who don't know what Onnit is, they're a supplement group specialising in nootropics and the like. I heard about them as a sponsor of Joe Rogan's podcast, and they've started sponsoring a couple of other podcasts that I listen to. So, I figured I'd give them a go. Their website has plenty of material about what the different supplements contain, what they claim to do and if you have a quick look on Google, there's plenty of material on both sides of the argument saying that they're a load of rubbish and that they really do work and they're fantastic. I guess we'll find out.

I decided to get hold of some Alpha Brain, which they claim is a cognitive enhancing supplement to boost mental performance (as well as help with an enhanced dream state) and New Mood, a 5-HTP and L/-tryptophan supplement which is supposed to support relaxation and help with a healthier mood balance by creating more serotonin 

Maybe they'll work, maybe they won't. If they don't, then it isn't the end of the world. If they do have some sort of positive effect on me, fantastic.

So over the next 30 days, I'll be writing a little something every day about how I'm feeling and whether I can feel a difference. I haven't decided whether I'll post things on a weekly basis in four installments or if I'll do two entries for each half of the month. We'll see how things go.

Also, I'm pretty sure my Zoom showed up today. Sadly, it's currently upstairs with a neighbour who decided to take it and they haven't been home all evening for me to pick it up. So that'll have to wait until tomorrow...but I should be able to have a play with that. I imagine Rachel will be busy in the next few weeks with exams and uni related antics, but then we should be ready to take a couple of trial runs and find out what works, what doesn't work and what needs to be changed before throwing some audio content out into the world. 

Oh, and Leipzig awaits this weekend. Fantastic. Exciting times lie ahead. Watch this space!

Looking back and moving forward

The end of the world didn't happen, but we are at the end of another year. It really is ridiculous how quickly the year has flown by though, and no doubt that will continue in 2013 where the year will somehow feel like it has been compressed into just a handful of months.

At the end of last year, I wrote myself a letter and hid it away in the depths of my hard drive to not be opened until these last few days. I've read it back, and I'd like to think that pretty much everything in my letter worked out as well as could be.

Like everyone, there have been plenty of ups and downs. I've had a 12 months of relatively good productivity in life and with a bit of luck and some hard work, the next 12 months can be even better. The good times have been pretty good and the bad times...well, when you think about them, they weren't really that bad. 

I got my dream work placement working for a motorsport media group doing translation work for the ADAC Masters weekend, and was lucky enough to spend several race weekends translating a string of articles for the GT Masters. As a little side job while at uni and as preparation for the year abroad, it was near perfect. Looking at the long term future of what I'd love to do when I get out of uni and I'm thrown into the real world, it was brilliant...it could open a door to get a job working in the industry, especially in the world of sportscar racing where I'm more interested than I've ever been.

Then that job fell through at the eleventh hour. There's a blog dedicated to that earlier in the year, so you can read all about that there if you haven't already or want to remind yourself of that wonderful time. It struck me hard, it really hurt and for a while I didn't have a clue what the year abroad had in store for me. Thankfully, there was the great supporting network to pick me back off my slightly shaky feet, brush me down and help me out. Hessie, for being crazy enough to answer her phone to me at almost midnight when I got the news and needed someone to talk to. She was there as someone to talk to, she sat with me for several hours, reassured me and we knew that things would be ok. Giles, who despite getting knocked a bit for not always being very quick to reply to emails, was there for me straight away when I told him and helped me to find something else for the year. 

That something else, of course, was a job at euroShell. Four months into that job, and I'm very happy that I'm there. Obviously, I wish I could have taken the job in Austria with motorsport but the placement I have has allowed me to meet some really great people. I'm in a work environment where I'm allowed to push myself and find out just what I'm capable of. I've been given plenty of brand new situations to deal with, and I would like to think that I've dealt with them in a more than suitable manner. These are skills that I can continue to develop in the next eight months of my time in Hamburg, and no doubt I'll learn more skills and tricks along the way that can stand me in good stead when I graduate and start looking for jobs.

Aside from that, life has been pretty good. I was able to get back into playing cricket again this summer and despite not setting the world on fire, I had fun. We may not have won a game when I played, but if I can get enough practice in during Spring 2014, when summer rolls around (and if the weather holds off), I might be able to score a couple of runs and grab a wicket or two. 

I've made some good decisions with my personal life and I've made some not so clever decisions, but I don't think I regret a single thing I did with my year. Everything happens for a reason and sometimes we have no control as to whether things work out. 

2013 should be a good year. I've got plans and goals on where I want to take my life over the next 12 months. I've got plans to see friends, tickets for gigs and events (such as 16 Carat in March and Iron Maiden in June) and if things go well, I'll be making my first ventures into the world of sportscar racing by attending a couple of races. I might try and make it to an F1 race as well, but the main priorities in terms of motorsport are the 24 Hours of Nurburgring and going to Le Mans.

I said in the last entry that I'd be looking at starting a podcast too, which will be happening...usually with Rachel as my trusty sidekick and maybe once or twice with other people if I venture out and try to bring other people in to share their story. 

It might be overused, it might be cliche...but as Bill Hicks said so brilliantly, life is just a ride. Strap in, let's see what the year throws at us and make the most of each opportunity.

See you in 2013!

The Power of the Podcast

I have to admit that I pretty much gave up on listening to the radio a couple of years ago. Local radio stations didn’t seem quite as good as I remembered them being from my youth and I would either feel that the presenters weren’t quite as energetic as they used to be, or I started to find parts of their act a bit tedious. My feelings on modern chart/radio-friendly music are pretty strong where I couldn’t tell you what is currently in the charts and the bits of chart music that I have heard (admittedly not through my own choice), don’t exactly capture my imagination. Then again, these songs and artists don’t have me as their target audience. They target a slightly younger audience who will buy their posters, t-shirts, other bits of merchandise and think that One Direction and Twilight are the great artistic works of this century.

There are exceptions, such as Radio 4 for their interesting array of programmes on a variety of areas (and the Shipping Forecast, even though I don’t have a clue what they’re on about most of the time), Radio 2 for music that is slightly more up my street and presenters I actually know and other niche markets and programmes like Test Match Special and Radio Le Mans for all of my motorsport news and commentaries.

Then, I stumbled across the world of podcasts. I think The Joe Rogan Experience was my first podcast, which makes sense since I can stretch back to as early as episode 10 when it was still him and Redban sitting in their “studio” goofing around with snowflake effects. I don’t even know how I found Rogan’s show, but it’s probably around the same time that I found out he wasn’t just a UFC commentator and that guy who used to present Fear Factor, but he was also a pretty good comedian.

From there, everything sort of snowballs. I would listen to podcasts with Rogan’s friends and from there, I started finding out more about these people. I got to know more about Doug Stanhope, listen to his back catalogue of work and I’ve now seen him two or three times where he’s probably one of my favourite comedians. I found out about their crazy friend called Joey “Coco” Diaz who has a life story crazier than that of the most over-the-top Hollywood film script. The great thing about these shows is that because Rogan can do two or three podcasts in a week, you get to know him over time, you know Redban and you get to know their crew of friends.

 I was on board with the Deathsquad network from an early stage too and have come to find out about personalities like Ari Shaffir, Brody Stevens, Esther Povitsky, Tom Segura, Christina Pazitsky and numerous others. Through their shows, you get to know about those people too and after a couple of shows, it just feels as though you’re listening to friends having a conversation. I don’t recommend talking back to the podcast since that’ll seem a bit weird, but you can certainly converse with these people on Twitter and send them emails.

It just keeps on growing though. I started to find other fans of Deathsquad on Twitter and get to know that online community of people from all over the world. I both follow and have followers from across the USA, Canada and parts of the UK and in some situations I’ve seen the power and effect that this community has on people. It brings people who would otherwise be complete strangers together to form friendships and perhaps most importantly of all, everyone gets inspiration from somewhere. Some like me, take the inspiration to stay creative and keep writing blogs as well as other side projects, some have started to chase dreams and taken to the stage to try their hand at stand up comedy and some have their own podcasts.

I’ll take Mick Guzman (@postalpoet on Twitter) as an example, since I was listening to his podcasts last night and we shared some thoughts online. Mick is someone that I don’t know personally, but I’ve been following him on Twitter for over a year now and we’ve shared some interesting thoughts. He started his own podcast called ‘Ask My Boss’ and over the last 8 months or so, he’s taken his creative process in a couple of really interesting directions with Keep Making Noise, Going Postal, his podcasts with “Pastor Joe” and more recently, he’s embarked on a creative journey looking back at his education going from his beginnings to where he is today in life. As I say, these latest episodes are something a bit different to what I listen to in podcasts these days, but they’re really interesting. I’m learning a lot, not just about education but also about Mick. I plan on being onboard for the rest of the journey to see where we finally end up.

Podcasts really are a powerful thing these days, and for me they’ve all but replaced radio for day-to-day listening. They serve as a fantastic way of getting to learn about other things in life, getting to know people you wouldn’t ever meet otherwise and as a platform for finding like-minded people in the world. I still listen to my music from time to time, but my iPod these days is heavily dominated by podcasts and comedy album. I always say I want to get my own podcast started and get another way of expressing my ideas and thoughts into the world, as well as getting to share some stories with friends. 

Maybe 2013 is the year I finally do it...

Winter is here

Though I doubt you needed me to point that out to you.

Let's face it, we're all intelligent people here...you could probably figure out that it's winter. Unless you're in the southern hemisphere...in which case, it's summer. Sweet! Go the beach, enjoy the nice weather and laugh where appropriate.

In the last few days, it has felt as though everywhere else in Germany besides Hamburg was seeing snow. The weather forecast has had lovely snowflakes scattered across the map and for a fair few days, people have been talking about snow. Some people have had lots of it, some just a dusting. According to Sam, there was snow on the other side of Hamburg on Sunday morning but I saw nothing. I was awake thanks to my neighbour having seemingly turned nocturnal and having their TV on throughout most of the night with the volume up pretty loud. There's a plus side to this though where since I'm waking up early enough, I've found myself watching cartoons during the early morning. Most of them are the standard cartoons that you'd find pretty much anywhere in the world so they're not the most difficult thing to follow, but it's something stupid and keeps me amused for a bit.

I was stopped on my way to lunch today by someone I didn't know. She looked at me and said (I'm translating here), "Short sleeves? But it's cold outside!" I looked at her, smiled and said that it wasn't REALLY that cold, but she was pretty insistent that I was mad to want to venture across the car park to lunch without at least a jacket. Fair enough...or so I thought. Then when I decided to walk home from work, I had three or four people look at me while we were waiting to cross roads and question my sanity for not wearing a hat, scarf, gloves and have my coat zipped up tight. Instead, I was still wearing the short sleeved shirt, had my coat open and was nodding my head along quite happily to Fozzy's latest album which, if you haven't heard it, is totally froot and well worth checking out. In the highly unlikely event that Jericho or any other member of Fozzy reads this, I'm trying to get 'froot' back into circulation. You're welcome.

Maybe when it actually gets cold I'll think about zipping my coat up. Or when I get ill...which ever comes first.

Of course, just as I got back into the flat after the walk home, it started to snow. By no means is it a blizzard or heavy snow, but it looks as though it's settled after being dry for most of the day so hopefully that dusting will still be there by tomorrow. It's just nice to look at really and just points out that winter is here. I'm expecting there to be more snow before I fly home for Christmas in a couple of weeks...

That's a slightly scary thought. I'm home in about two weeks and I do only have 10 working days left (you can probably work out when I'm home based on that). Then Christmas is less than three weeks away. Where has the year gone?

I should probably get cracking on the Christmas shopping...if I have to go out into Liverpool a few days before Christmas, I might find myself killing some poor fool who, like me, has left it far too late to buy presents. That's what Amazon is for these days, right?

Breaking down barriers

I don't think this Year Abroad was ever meant to be easy. Enjoyable? Yes. An experience? Yes. But not easy. If it were easy, what would we really accomplish from it? It's about getting thrown into a different environment and doing something you're not used to doing in working, studying or teaching in a different language in a different country. So far, that's exactly what this year has thrown up at me. I'm working on a full-time basis which is something completely brand new to me, I'm surrounded by the German language for the majority of my day, I can feel my language improving and I'm finding myself in situations that I never thought I'd be in.

For example, I never...NEVER thought I'd utter the words "I miss working in Finance", but it turns out I do. Obviously, my usual life plan wouldn't have me working in Finance since that isn't really meant to be one of my strong points. That's what this year has thrown at me though with this rotating internship...I've spent time working in Finance and getting to grips with the tasks on that side of the business, and I really enjoyed what I was doing. Maybe it's because I was being given jobs to do for a reason, rather than having tasks for the sake of having tasks...maybe it's because I was given responsibility and tasks that I wouldn't have thought were really best given to an intern. Who knows? 

In the last two weeks though, I've not been working in Finance full-time and have instead been integrated into the wonderful world of SaSu. My job there has been fairly one dimensional though...I knew it would be before we started and the staff apologised for not having the most exciting work for me, but it's a job that needs to be done. I don't even need to look that far to find the positives though, since it's given me chance to use some different tools and pieces of kit on the computer so I'm now comfortable using those. In short, I've had the joyful task of seeking out a couple of hundred customers and tracking down the bonuses that they're rewarded when they buy x litres of fuel a year. Find the files, copy them, scan them, go through them, compare the bonus in the files to what three different computer programs say, match them all up and then if they're not all singing from the same hymn sheet, take the issue up with other staff for them to resolve. As I say, it's not exciting, but it has to be done...I may as well do it.

As a result of all of this, my jobs in Finance have slowed down considerably but that was because my boss knew that I needed to finish this stuff off. Through the dozen or so trips that I've had to make to the filing room in the last two weeks, I go through their office most of the time and have a quick chat. He knows that I'm pretty much done...so maybe I'll start getting some more work thrown my way again.

We finally bought a washing machine last week after two months of using the laundrette up the road. I wasn't completely set on the idea of buying one, but it made sense to get one...and in the long run, it'll be cheaper than a weekly trip to the laundrette and spending 5 Euros a go to get some clean clothes. So it came at the start of the week and spent a night sat downstairs. We moved it upstairs on Tuesday and then after leaving work early on Wednesday to wait for a plumber to install it, he didn't show up. Or he did show up and didn't call me or knock on the door like a normal person. I'm not sure. Either way, I ended up fitting it myself with some assistance from a Skype call to my Dad. I've seen him do it before, but doubted my own skills to be able to do such a thing. Turns out I'm an idiot and it's really not that difficult once you've had things explained...I'll admit that having looked at it earlier, I was pretty much right in thinking what needed to be done, needed to be done. Always nice to have it confirmed. So that's another thing I can say I'm able to do.

It's all about breaking down barriers. Put your mind to it, virtually nothing is impossible.

I've really started digging Everlast in the last week or two. Brilliant timing since I spotted a poster for a gig he's doing next month. On that basis, I might start listening to Foo Fighters and see if they want to announce something. ;) So here's one that I stumbled across while listening to his stuff in work. 

Thoughts from the weekend

I haven’t really been overly bothered about my birthday for the last few years. With the exception of getting more post than usual and getting gifts (and most of the time, cake), it’s just a regular day. Living away from home in a different country meant that I really couldn’t have cared less about turning 21. Since the vast majority of my friends are of a similar age, I see people planning big occasions for their 21^st and I know that I’ll be missing 95% of them and its case of if I’m on a rare occasion of being back in the UK, I’ll celebrate with you. If you’re in Germany with me, then I’ll certainly do my best where appropriate.

So the trip to Frankfurt during the last weekend of October sort of doubled up as a chance to celebrate my birthday. Our plan of going to see Steel Panther backfired since we took far too long to getting everyone to commit to the weekend and then by the time things could be confirmed, tickets had gone. Not that I’m surprised...those tickets would have flown out. To be honest, I don’t think we needed that gig in the end and we had an utterly awesome weekend doing our own thing. As I said in my last post, I definitely missed that crew far more than I’d realised, so I’m already counting down the days until the next gathering...though I’m not totally sure where/when that is. I think I know, but it’s pretty difficult to know for sure since it’s kind of late, I have no internet access at the time of writing this and I’m in a hotel room in Oberhausen.

If you’re wondering why I’m in a hotel room in Oberhausen, I’m here because of the wXw/CZW weekend that’s going on at the moment. Three shows across three days (plus a cinema screening of the wXw/CZW/BJW Triangle documentary which was brilliant) with a whole host of talent from across Europe and then some US guys with CZW that I’ve previously had little/no real interest in seeing. Though having seen some of their matches, I suspect a fair portion of that was because of prejudices towards what I’d heard/seen on the internet of CZW being trash wrestling, but having seen their guys work, they’ve got a pretty solid crew who can work both straight matches and hardcore matches. It’s fair to say that I’ve changed my perceptions of the hardcore/deathmatch style to professional wrestling in the last few days, so that can only be a good thing. I really hope I did bring my camera cable with me to Germany since I’ve got some cracking pictures on the camera from the first two days.

NOTE: Turns out I did! And you can see those lovely pictures of wrestlers, blood and me on my Facebook page.

As twisted as it sounds, my favourite picture might be of me and Drake Younger. He’d just come from a street fight against Matt Tremont where they were bleeding heavily pretty quickly in the match, they went around the building (including spilling some blood onto my coat as they battled past having done some twisted stuff right in front of me), and at the conclusion of the match went to intermission so the ring crew could clean up. Both guys went to the merch tables to take photos with the fans and say hello, and it gave me a chance to get photos with those guys and thank them for the match. They’re both still covered in blood and Drake has a great big smile. As I say, I’m not usually a fan of that style of match but I’ve found myself coming round to them in recent weeks (largely thanks to an insightful topic on deathmatches on UKFF with some cracking reviews from Richie Freebird).

Also, Greg Excellent loves Kenny Loggins. He was super surprised when I was able to rattle off a couple of Kenny’s songs and join in singing a couple. Those strange Americans...

Going back to my birthday, it was actually a pretty good day. Work was never going to be super exciting, possibly because it’s never super exciting. Interesting, yes...but not exciting. Not unless they’ve got the secret jet pack development hidden away or some sort of dirt racetrack for racing bikes and cars during lunch break. Thank you to everyone who threw me a message on Facebook to wish me a good day, they were all read (almost all were replied to) and all of them were appreciated.

There was a group of about 7 of us from Leeds who were about in Hamburg since there was a state holiday in parts of Southern Germany, so a couple of people headed up north to see friends. It gave us a good excuse to go out into Hamburg for a couple of drinks and catch up, which led to a pretty fun evening. A few drinks, talking to some strangers and making friends with them and then finding ourselves in a karaoke bar on Reeperbahn and stumbling across a group of English guys from Birmingham (who were terrible at placing accents if they thought Kirstie was from Leeds...). Fun place though, and of course...this is me we’re talking about, so I had to try a couple of songs. You can never know how well they’re received...but I stick to the plan of going for songs that aren’t technically difficult and just require some energy and enthusiasm to make me look great. Also, do it when people have had a bit to drink and you sound even better than you might do if people were completely sober.

Very good to see some more people from uni though, and it was good to get out there and meet/talk to some new people. That’s definitely something I need to do a little bit more (including perhaps getting some phone numbers to be able to see them again...).

Plenty to look forward to, but for now I’m just looking forward to going to bed since it’s rather late and I’m tired. It’s a bit strange to think that this is being written on Saturday night but won’t be published until Monday afternoon, so it’s already a bit dated. We’re on course to making this more regular than the very sporadic bi-monthly (and sometimes less frequent) posts, let’s keep this up!

Thoughts from a train

A long train journey is quite nice...in my case, it has given me four hours to look out of a window and admire the German scenery as we rush past at speeds of up to 250kph. Well, I would admire it...but travelling during the evening means you see nothing but darkness and the occasional flash of light from a passing train or cars on the Autobahn. So instead, as is often the case with me, the journey allows time to think and reflect on life and recent events, and it can be pretty good for writing too. Which means that over the course of my journeys to and from Frankfurt over the weekend, I was able to get some writing done. Which means that most of this blog will have been written on my phone and uploaded in parts.

 

It's ridiculously important in life to have good friends by your side. It's probably even more important to maintain your good friendships with these people. Most of all though, it's important to make sure that they know just how much they mean to you.

 

It's a sign of great friendships when you don't see each other for five months or so (the joys of a university summer and moving abroad) but when you meet up after all that time, you find yourself acting as though you only saw them yesterday. Once you've got through the quick catch up on life, things are back to the way they've always been.

 

That's crucial. And of course, you can go from having a silly conversation one moment about something utterly bizarre (as I quite frequently do), to being engaged in a serious conversation about something much deeper. At the drop of a hat, and when the timing is right of course, you can make things light-hearted and a bit silly again.

 

Seeing friends after such a great time span makes you realise a few things. First of all, how lucky you are to have such a brilliant circle of friends. Second of all, it goes to show how tight the friendships are that months. Most importantly of all, never go five months without seeing your best friends when you can avoid it. These days we have texts, tweets, Skype calls and Facebook messages...but nothing quite beats actually seeing your friends, giving them a hug and saying that you've missed them.

 

Friends have never been more important in life. They really are a second family...

 

Something completely different, but it caught my attention on Friday during the journey down. There were two kids, probably around the same age as Maisie and Joseph who were just raising hell. There's the bit inbetween carriages that flexes and moves with the train and these kids were having all sorts of fun. Running across it, jumping, standing in the middle and getting moved around...but all of the time they're doing this, they're giggling away and laughing.

 

I'm not usually a massive fan of random kids, especially when they're running riot (though to their credit, the parents were both there and both keeping an eye on them and calming them down)...but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was fun.

 

I'll probably be back with another entry later in the week with some recaps of Frankfurt (though there are no doubt plenty of photos on the way which will do that more than justice). All I will say is that it was an absolutely fantastic weekend with some brilliant people. All of you, thanks for the cracking weekend.

A little goes a long way

I won't lie, in the almost two months that I've been living in Hamburg, I haven't really got to know my neighbours too much. Maybe it's because the vast majority of them seem to be several decades older than us, and I doubt my bonding abilities stretch far enough to random 70s and 80s German references that would go right over my head. If the residents in this apartment block aren't hold, then they're a young family. At least, I'm assuming they're a young family based on the fact that there's a pram at the bottom of the stairs and I can occasionally see a baby if I'm sat on the balcony and peering down to see where the crying is coming from. It's the baby. It's always the baby.

The extent of my getting to know the neighbours predominantly came when we didn't have internet in the flat and I asked a couple of neighbours if they knew of an internet cafe nearby. While one lady actually asked me what an internet cafe was and another merely told me of a cafe just off Hamburger Straße (try the carrot cake, it's fantastic), I got lucky with the neighbour on the right hand side of our floor. She said there was one a short train ride away, but also that we could borrow her internet connection if we needed access....and that came in more than useful in the three weeks of not having internet since it meant that I could occasionally log on and get Doctor Who on iPlayer or stock up on podcasts for listening to during the week.

I think Vejuna has mentioned that she's bumped into neighbours once or twice and had very brief conversations which from her retelling of them seem to consist largely of "Oh, so you're one of the English students living here?" and then not a lot more besides that. 

Aside from that, seeing neighbours has been predominantly limited to seeing people as I'm coming or going from the flat at various points through the day. I'm always friendly/polite and say hello to them or hold the front door open if someone is behind me. 

It's a bit strange really. When you get into a pattern every day of journeying to and from work, you quickly see the same people. There's the old guy who sits outside the bakery downstairs every morning drinking his coffee and reading the morning newspaper, the same people I see at the bus stop every day (when I get the bus), the same people I see waiting for and getting on the same train as me and the same people riding the bus from the train station to work. Life quickly drops into a pattern of familiarity...which is why I occasionally mix things up of a morning by getting the train instead of the bus and even then, I can go from one of two stations. It's just about enough to keep me sane (though that moment may have passed a long time ago).

Anyway, when I got back from work this afternoon, a woman was just in front of me and struggling to get a bike and several bags of shopping along the hallway. So after she'd let me go past to check my mailbox (where I got Iron Maiden tickets and a book of German slang, wooo!), she went to let me go past on the other side again so I could go up the stairs to my flat. I thought I'd ask if she needed any help and offered to take some bags upstairs for her. What does it matter if I live on the third floor and you live on the fourth? I can take that extra flight of stairs...it won't kill me. So I took some stuff up for her and then after letting myself into the flat to drop my jacket off, I heard her slowly making her way up the stairs. Again, I just asked if she wanted any more help and took another couple of bags up the rest of the way for her. 

Nothing to it, just being friendly and helping someone out. I'd like to think that if I were struggling to get up the stairs with something, someone would help me out if they spotted me.

As I dropped her bag off, she reached into one of her bags and after moving some cat food (at least I know who has the cat now), she gave me some ice tea as a way of saying thank you. I wasn't in it for the gifts and said that, but she seemed quite insistent and said some nice things, so it felt a bit wrong to refuse it. That's now sat in my fridge and will no doubt be consumed in the very near future. Probably just after I've posted this.

In short, I just wrote a blog to tell you I got a free carton of lemon flavoured iced tea for doing something good. Break from the routine, say hi to someone you don't know and help someone else out. Even if you don't get a free beverage, they'll appreciate it and you'll feel good.