Short update

STILL haven’t had time to properly sit down and blog. And have a totally kaputt computer so can’t blog anyway even if I had time. A is still in full exam season so in my role as best girlfriend of all time I have been feeding him. Making sure he gets his vegetables and whatnot. His computer has also recently died, but not due to an evil virus like mine, but because of some essential hardware problem.

Post Croatia

Last week I worked, a lot. Yesterday I cleaned, a lot (and watched 17 again ) Today I went hiking, a lot. And got sunburnt, not a lot. Soon I will update my blog, a lot.

Sand in my shoes, and clothes, and bags…

I’m now back in Munich and exhausted. We got up at 4:45 this morning to catch our planes. I’m back in an empty flat with a bag to unpack and feeling kinda lonely. Looking back at the photos of the last 2 weeks is quite frankly depressing. I want to be back there I’m going to go to bed VERY early tonight.

Staubsauger, Tollwood etc

The highlight of my week was the purchase of a new vacuum cleaner. When Alex (ex-flatmate) moved out, he took his vacuum cleaner with him and since then we’ve been using Philipp’s mum’s when he goes home and gets him for the weekend. This isn’t that practical and as I was feeling increasingly ashamed of the state of my room I went an bought one. This one: Aeg ergo essence. I’m so pleased with it that I thought I’d add a link. Sad, I know but small things… It was a little more than I intended to spend on it but it’s brilliant. I spent a load of time on Sunday morning playing with my new toy. Alex was very generous and offered to let me play with it some more in his flat but I reluctantly declined.

Friday night we went out for a drink (or rather cake in my case) with friends and for a walk in the park. The Englisher Garten at night is gorgeous. It’s even better than in the daytime because there’s no-one there.  A couple of weeks ago we say literally hundreds of glow worms. Like fairies. On another note, glow worms is such a boring word for such fantastic creatures. For a start they aren’t worms. Even the equally literal German word is prettier sounding: Glühwurmchen.

Anyway…

After my intense bout of domestification I met up with Christian and Birgit. It was lovely to see them and have a chat. We went to the Löwenbräukeller as the weather had cleared up for a change and then back to mine to show them round my new(ish) hime which they hadn’t yet seen.

On Sunday I met up with Vittoria to go to Tollwood. Tollwood is a festival that happens twice a year in Munich. There is one in the middle of winter on the Theresienwiese and another in the summer in Olympiapark. There are lots of stages and tents full of the usual bohemian tourist stuff. Nevertheless, it is fun to head there on a sunny day and have a poked around, stuffed full of people though it always is. It’s a good thing to check out if you have a spare Sunday afternoon and it’s on.

Posting will happen

I apologise for my currently appalling record of keeping up with my blog entries, it’s just that I’ve been really busy. I had the weekend in Oxford and London, came back, started work on Monday and have had one evening in this week which I spent unpacking and tidying. Other than that Alex came round Sunday and Monday, Wednesday I had Vittoria round for supper. Tonight I went to TUNIX, the Technische Universität summer festival and tonight we’re off to the LMU Sommerfest, to compare the two. Hopefully I’ll manage to blog a bit over the weekend and get other things done like fix my bike, buy a vacuum cleaner, clean my room, etc!

Flying away to graduate

Tomorrow I fly home.

This is what I am doing in June.

Fly home 11 June, graduate 13th June, fly to France for 10 days from 14th until the 24th to visit Gran etc, fly back evening of 24th, ball 26th, fly back to Munich the 28th, work on the 29th.

It’s going to be a lovely relaxing holiday, or not.

I will try at some point to update this blog. So far this week I have been attempting unsuccessfully to book hostels in Croatia for August, this has been taking up a lot of time. Tonight I need to pack.

The question everyone is asking…

Is Gordon Brown still Prime Minister?

Click HERE to find out the answer.

European Election Results

Like everyone else in Europe I have been intermittently reading about the results all day. Every country seemed to have a surprise result, and the UK results certainly provoked a lot of comment. Within hours a 100,000 against BNP group popped up on facebook, which is very nice but a little useless, it would have been better if the 100,000 had voted.

Also on facebook, a friend posted a link to a very interesting article in The Guardian: The hope we’ve gained from the BNP I think that the author of this article makes a very good point in that if the results force the main parties to deal with the BNP on a rational level and as the serious threat they are rather than dismissing them as Nazis, then it can only be a good thing.

I also find Mark Mardell’s Euroblog a useful compass to what is going on.

UK results from the BBC

UK Total MEP Seats

Party	Votes		MEPs
	%	+/- %	Total	+/-
CON *	27.7	1.0	25	1
UKIP	16.5	0.3	13	1
LAB	15.7	-6.9	13	-5
LD	13.7	-1.2	11	1
GRN	8.6	2.4	2	0
BNP	6.2	1.3	2	2
SNP	2.1	0.7	2	0
PC	0.8	-0.1	1	0
SSP	0.1	-0.3	0	0
OTH	8.4	2.7	0	0
SF	–	–	1	0
DUP	–	–	1	0
UCUNF *	–	–	1	0
72 of 72 seats declared. Vote share figures exclude Northern Ireland as it has a separate electoral system to the rest of the UK
* The Conservatives and UCUNF are allies, bringing their total to 26 MEPs

I was personally more concerned about the UKIP result than that of the BNP as it means that the Conservatives are not going to soften at all towards the EU if they see so much anti-EU sentiment and they are currently the most likely cantidate for the next general election.

Jordan in Munich

Jordan in Munich

Depite the failure of the roadtrip, Jordan still decided to come to Munich for the weekend. This meant a full weekend of partying and little sleep. He arrived Friday night and after a late meal we went to a loewenbraeu bar to meet some friends of mine who happened to be round the corner from us. They had attempted to go to a party and found it so rubbish they ended up at a bar. We intended to go to this bar and then go on to a Brazilian party where a friend of his was, however, we failed in this as by the time we were trying to work out how to get to the party, the police had already arrived and disbanded it. So we wandered round Muenchner Freiheit to find a bar and eventully, as per usual ended up in McDonald’s where Jordan ordered the monstrosity that is the Shrimp Lemon. As per usual I didn’t order anything but just offered unhelpful commentary on how much the lemon shrimp looked like a brain, an alien one at that.

Saturday I really wanted to sleep, for a looong time. Unfortunately I was thwarted by the builders restoring the flat below who started work at the extremely antisocial hour of 9am. I got 4 hours sleep. I’m not great after 4 hours sleep. Saturday we wanted to do some tourism of Munich. Only one problem, the rain. So we got up slowly and I went shopping while Jordan talked to my flatmate Philipp for a couple of hours. We everntually ventured out in the rain to meet Alex and Solenne. Alex also had a guest round at the weekend and yours truly had volunteered to tour guide. We did all the standard sites, bought 3 umbrellas between us and ended up at an Augustiner Kneipe. This is where we spent the rest of the evening drinking and eating, later to be joined by Jordan’s Brazilian friend and Birgit and Christian. It was lovely to see them as I haven’t seen them since we went to Substanz back in January. We eventually managed to coordinate various other friends and arranged to meet in Sausolitos. By the time we had made it there it was almost time for the second Happy Hour. I can reccommend the second happy hour after 11pm when the jumbo cocktails are half price. At closing time, circa 1am, I was actually quite ready to go to bed but unfortunately my guest had different ideas. Trying to work out where we would get 10 or so people in at 1am on a Saturday who weren’t particularly well dressed we came up woth Max und Moritz. Max und Moritz, Pascha and 089 being rammed full we ended up at the Milchbar until 4:30am. However, as the ubahn’s aren’t frequent at that time of day we didn’t get home until 5:30, another day we saw dawn and went to bed after it. Today I determinedly slept on until midday, at which point we stumbled out of the flat and to the Englischer Garten, where I drank water in dark glasses after my big bowl of muesli, and Jordan had beer and sausage. We wandered round the Garten a bit and a while later met up with Alex and Alex Druart who fancied a stroll in the park. Biergarten hopping, we made our way round the Englischer Garten, before Jordan caught his Mitfahrgelegenheit home.

Depite the failure of the roadtrip, Jordan still decided to come to Munich for the weekend. This meant a full weekend of partying and little sleep. He arrived Friday night and after a late meal we went to a Loewenbraeu bar to meet some friends of mine who happened to be round the corner from us. They had attempted to go to a party and found it so rubbish they ended up at a bar. We intended to go to this bar and then go on to a Brazilian party where a friend of his was, however, we failed in this as by the time we were trying to work out how to get to the party, the police had already arrived and disbanded it. So we wandered round Muenchner Freiheit to find a bar and eventully, as per usual ended up in McDonald’s where Jordan ordered the monstrosity that is the Shrimp Lemon. As per usual I didn’t order anything but just offered unhelpful commentary on how much the lemon shrimp looked like a brain, an alien one at that.

Saturday I really wanted to sleep, for a looong time. Unfortunately I was thwarted by the builders restoring the flat below who started work at the extremely antisocial hour of 9am. I got 4 hours sleep. I’m not great after 4 hours sleep. Saturday we wanted to do some tourism of Munich. Only one problem, the rain. So we got up slowly and I went shopping while Jordan talked to my flatmate Philipp for a couple of hours. We everntually ventured out in the rain to meet Alex and Solenne. Alex also had a guest round at the weekend and yours truly had volunteered to tour guide. We did all the standard sites, bought 3 umbrellas between us and ended up at an Augustiner Kneipe. This is where we spent the rest of the evening drinking and eating, later to be joined by Jordan’s Brazilian friend and Birgit and Christian. It was lovely to see them as I haven’t seen them since we went to Substanz back in January. We eventually managed to coordinate various other friends and arranged to meet in Sausolitos. By the time we had made it there it was almost time for the second Happy Hour. I can reccommend the second happy hour after 11pm when the jumbo cocktails are half price. At closing time, circa 1am, I was actually quite ready to go to bed but unfortunately my guest had different ideas. Trying to work out where we would get 10 or so people in at 1am on a Saturday who weren’t particularly well dressed we came up woth Max und Moritz. Max und Moritz, Pascha and 089 being rammed full we ended up at the Milchbar until 4:30am. However, as the ubahn’s aren’t frequent at that time of day we didn’t get home until 5:30, another day we saw dawn and went to bed after it. Today I determinedly slept on until midday, at which point we stumbled out of the flat and to the Englischer Garten, where I drank water in dark glasses after my big bowl of muesli, and Jordan had beer and sausage. We wandered round the Garten a bit and a while later met up with Alex and Alex Druart who fancied a stroll in the park. Biergarten hopping, we made our way round the Englischer Garten, before Jordan caught his Mitfahrgelegenheit home.

Diversity

Althought not actually in Britain at the moment I have been following the wonder that is AntorDec’s “Britain’s got talent” from afar. I discovered Susan Boyle through a friend and backed her all the way. But now I have to admit that Diversity thoroughly deserved their win. Quality TV.