Germany

Flying into Germany and seeing the lovely Houbens again after 4 and half years has been a wonderful experience. It wasn't even too cold with Friday and Saturday getting up to 15 degrees! Driving on the other side of the road became second nature very quickly and I surprised myself by slipping in German very easily - I was even dreaming in German after only a couple of days. It did feel a little strange being back in Effeld and feeling like not much has changed, yet it in many ways a lot has happened since the last time I was there. Biking around the Waldsee (lake), eating cake, going to school - all felt very normal!

Ute (my youngest host-sister) and I did a daytrip down to Aachen on Wednesday and finally found the Dreiländereck (where three countries meet; Germany, Holland, and Belgium). I think this was the third time I have tried to find it and it was actually pretty straightforward - no idea what happened the last couple of times! It is also the highest point in Holland which was pretty funny as it is really not high at all. Aachen is a super interesting city where Charlemagne is buried in the cathedral and the city is known for it's natural springs. I've been to Aachen before but it's a good place to be reminded of how much history and old, pretty buildings there are in Europe!

Ute and Balduin at the highest point in Holland

One foot each in a country and the rest of my body in the third!

Part of the old city wall

On Thursday I went into primary school with Manuela (host mum) and helped her out for the morning. One of the other teachers was sick so we had about 50 students age 7-8 to look after. I gave a presentation about NZ which tested my German a little and then took questions which really tested my knowledge. How tall is the tallest tree in NZ (no mention of trees in my presentation)? How many different types of bird are there? Did the dinosaurs live when volcanoes were active in NZ? It's always interesting to see what young kids get fixated on! In the afternoon I went into the Betty Reis high school where I was a language assistant 4 years ago. Again, a little scary how little has changed though they have got WIFI for the teachers. I went to a year 12 class with one of the English teachers who I had a lot to with last time and she asked the students if any of them knew who I was. Two girls did - I went on their year 8 class trip to Bremerhaven. Certainly made me feel a little old!

Bonn

Manuela and I drove to Bonn on Saturday to meet up with Vera and Steffen (host sister and her boyfriend) and it was really good to see them again. I made Steffen try acro with me (actually I made pretty much everyone try acro!) and we went into the city to get tea and cake. Man, the Germans really know how to do cake! Over the week my feet have been pretty bad and I am rather worried about how I am actually going to cope traipsing all over London on a regular basis. I had forgotten quite how bad the pain can get and with so much walking regularly they aren't recovering very well either.

Bonn (statue of Beethoven)

Sunday I flew back to London and yesterday I met my teaching agency and spent the afternoon looking a rooms. I went into some dodgy neighbourhoods (need to utilise streetview more) though thankfully during the day and saw some truly awful places. If you thought student housing in NZ was bad, you haven't seen apartments in London. Thankfully, a couple of places look like they may do and I have another couple to look at today so fingers crossed I find somewhere soon!