I’m rubbish at goodbye

I am sitting listening to Paper Planes as I write, surrounded by the detritus of my packing. There is nothing left in any of the cupboards or on the shelves, everything has been condensed into various suitcases, shoeboxes and bags. What is left over are the odds and ends that you need at the last minute and can’t quite pack away yet. I now have to clean a bit and then move out tomorrow night after work. Thank goodness I have access to a car to move. Otherwise… screwed (pardon my French) is probably the word of choice.

 

I have been saying goodbye far too much this week, some of the goodbyes are only very short, others for a month or so and for others it is the end of an era. Alex left on Thursday morning for the US for a month (Miami, New York…jealous…), others have gone home for the Easter holidays and Philippe left this afternoon forever. Philippe is the saddest as he really isn’t coming back unless it’s for a visit.

 

I have had an extremely busy week. Monday night I ate with my future flatmates to finally sign the contract. We ate at this great Thai place called Nam Nam in the Theresienstrasse, which is really kitsch . http://www.nam-nam.eu/ Had a very yummy prawn and chilli salad, although there was meant to be papaya in there which I certainly couldn’t find. It was such a relief to have it signed and sorted!

 

As we had a really big pitch at work for a new client on Wednesday morning I spent until 11pm preparing for it on Tuesday night and talking to myself in the mirror. Even though my part was really very small, I didn’t want to screw up and as it was my first ever pitch (and in German) I wanted to make extra sure nothing went wrong. The pitch went well…now we just need to hear back about the result!

 

I had Wednesday night reserved as party night, and even though it was a week night (makes no difference to the others but it does to me!) I wanted to do something special. I had my pitch that morning and most of my Erasmus friends had their last exams on Wednesday. In addition to this, Alex was flying off the next morning and Philippe was coming back from his trip to Bath before leaving for good. The plan was therefore a big farewell party. I set it up but due to work/flat logistics had no time to organise and so it was a rather spontaneous affair which nonetheless worked out very well! I ended up eating with the boys at Klinikum Großhadern, and also ended up doing the cooking. As I am an incorrigible fiddler at the best of times this isn’t a problem at all and I’d rather be stirring something than watching someone stir. We made the dish which is apparently traditional among the Franzosen of Klinikum, basically rice bolognese. We had arranged to meet everyone else at the News Bar but as per usual we were late arriving, especially as Alex and I took a detour to have a nosey round Alexandre Druart’s new flat as Alex wasn’t going to be there for the housewarming party at the weekend. Veeery nice flat.

 

We eventually made it to the News Bar http://www.newsbarmunich.de/ where I had the largest slice of Cheesecake I have ever eaten, and I didn’t manage to finish it. No one was in the mood for a club so we headed further into Schwabing to near Giselastrasse to the Green Room http://www.greenroom-bar.de/index2.html which is a shisha bar. I may have mentioned one or two (or ten) times that my new flat was nearby… The bar was perfectly nice and the shisha was apparently good but the cushions were a little too comfy as I actually fell asleep. Actually falling asleep tends to be a pretty good sign that it is home time so I was in bed by one.

However, Philippe, one of the main reasons for getting together on Wednesday never arrived. He wasn’t even in the country, having missed his flight from Stansted due to an accident on the motorway.

 

Thursday night a several of us (myself, Philippe (in rather bad shape), Laurent, Dora and another friend of Etienne’s Philipp) went to eat at Etienne’s. This turned out to be a brilliant idea as I came home to find the whole of my shared bedroom filled with boxes as my roommate was packing to move out the next day. I couldn’t get to my desk, my fridge, the shelves, or my bed. Then her boyfriend and a friend of his came in and the room was far too full. I escaped as quickly as I could to Studentenstadt. I’m getting to know the various Wohnheims around Munich quite well. It was a really nice, chilled evening, with spag bol and conversation.  

 

On Friday night Vittoria, Philippe and I had planned one last Kolpinhaus night out. Some of the boys were already at the Starkbierfest and we planned to eat and join them later of, however, (as usual) things worked out rather differently. Philippe and I ate together (Vittoria having a dinner date elsewhere) and then Laurent and Etienne arrived. That would have been the point to leave for the Starkbierfest but instead we lazed around in my room swapping stories and drinking Vodkabull (except for me as I hate the stuff and moreover, it’s still Lent). We were also waiting for Vittoria who took 90 minutes to arrive rather than the 15 promised by text. By the time she arrived Paul and Pierre-Olivier had finished at the Starkbierfest and had made their unsteady way to the centre of town.

 

Once we had everyone assembled, and had picked up Jessie, a German girl who lives in Kolpinhaus, we headed out to try to find a club. We spectacularly failed in this, 5 times, before eventually ending up at Max und Moritz http://www.maxundmoritz.tv/ . The first two clubs were clubs that we didn’t know but Laurent wanted to try out. One was crap, and the other didn’t exist. We also tried Pacha, 089 and Rote Sonne before giving in to M&M. My initial reservation was the evening description as a “Jagd” evening, ie, everyone on the pull and had no inclination to be leched over by drunken Bavarians that evening. However, I had underestimated the power of going dancing with a group of boys.

 

The only time I had been to Max und Moritz before was on the 11.11 for the Fasching party. Needless to say, the music was a little different this evening, one room was electro, the other a “bunte Mischung” of all sorts, from Jacko to Pet shop boys. We spent most of the night in the ‘cheesier’ room dancing and singing our hearts out until about 5:30, whereupon we made the compulsory trip to the Stachus McD for 1Euro cheeseburgers for the boys. Vittoria was leaving at 11am to go home for a couple of weeks before moving into her new WG and needed to leave things in my room, so she didn’t go to bed and I got woken up at 8:30.

 

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sleep all day as I had certain things to get done before going out again that evening. But, after unsuccessfully trying to buy a bike, I did have a little nap…which turned into a 3hour nap and meant that I had to tell people NOT to come over for dinner as I had only just woken up…a little embarrassing. This didn’t matter though because we were more than adequately fed at Alex Druart’s housewarming party. The food was delicious and there was a lot of it. The people were also really nice and it was generally a really nice (and extremely civilised) housewarming party. They even had proper wine glasses! Alex’s housemate had made quiches, dips and nibbles, Alex had made crepes and chocolate brownies with fondant centres…mmm… As I said, very good food for a house party. Unfortunately this has set the bar rather high for my own housewarming party… However, I have about a month to prepare as I won’t be holding it until everyone is back from holiday, and as Alex doesn’t get back until the 27^th April, it looks like I’ll be having it the first May weekend. How can I top homemade quiches..?

 

I must admit that we were a bit crap. We were all completely exhausted from the previous evening and the week. There was a footie match on TV, France vs Lithuania and as a collective the Francophones gathered round to watch rather than mingle. Poor show. I must admit though that for a bit I did succumb (not to the football but rather) to the idea of stretching out on the bed and not talking to new people. Coup de barre enorme…  After the hostess (who is lovely) commented on this, I felt guilty enough to go and chat and met some cool people. I wonder if I shall see them again…

 

We left around midnight as Philippe, who is not at all a healthy specimen at the moment, needed to go home. I was doing ok by that point but thought that bed was probably a good idea. In the end it took us an hour to get back to Kolpinghaus due to works on the line etc and then we stayed up until 3am exchanging photos and music (I now have the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, yay!) so it wasn’t really an early night.

 

Today I have been packing, attempting to condense my life into something approximately portable. We shall see tomorrow how successful I have been. Laurent came to Kolpinghaus for lunch as we attempted to get rid of all our leftovers as he was going back to Belgium for a bit. I therefore made a very creative meal for the 3 of us from everything that remained.

 

Then, in the rain (cos that’s how good a friend I am), I helped Philippe carry his stuff to the train station to catch his train to Strasbourg. He seemed to have considerably less than me…not quite sure what I have gathered over my time here but it already seems loads and I’m going to be here a good while longer…

 

So that was my final goodbye of the week. I shall miss my Kolpinghaus buddy. I can’t wait to move out tomorrow.                            

 

 

   

 

 

 

Dinner and cake 9-15.02.09

Didn’t manage to do very much sport this week, had some days of late work and other days of not very much work and lots of snow in between. It was a great week at work because we won a pitch we’ve been working on since January and into which I personally have put quite a lot of time. I also now have a new phone, which is very cool . My wonderful pink phone is tragically on its way out. It keeps turning itself off and back on again sporadically, which is inconvenient in the middle of a call. I was complaining about phones etc when one of my colleagues offered me his old one that he had at home. Clearly I jumped at the offer and it’s great! Only thing is, it’s a dark colour and I’m going to lose it I just know it…

 

Other than work…Wednesday night, I went for dinner at Laure’s. I basically spent the whole day pigging out as there was some particularly nice chocolate at work and I met Alex for some cake (crunchy cherry cake..) before heading to Laure’s. She hadn’t felt like cooking so we dined on a sumptuous array of sweeties and wine .

 

Thursday I cooked for 5 of my Erasmus friends. Laure is leaving on the 28^th and Alex left Friday and is only coming back on the 28^th so we had a mini farewell party. The original idea was a bar but as there were so few of us I thought it would be easier if we had them all over to Kolpinghaus. I made enough Chilli con carne and rice to feed about 8 but those boys eat a LOT, so 1kg mince and 1kg rice was in no way too much food. That was really fun.

 

Friday night we ventured out in the snow to Universität to have a cocktail. There was an Abschiedsfeier that night at a WG nearby but I wasn’t too up for going as I didn’t know the hosts and I didn’t have anything to drink with me. So rather than gatecrashing we went for a cocktail at the SODA bar. MUCH calmer than the previous Friday.

 

Valentine’s day

 

It snowed ALL day Saturday. But as I had no food and overdue library books I still had to brave the elements. On the way back from the library such a blizzard started up that I called in on Laure to shelter from the storm. I must have looked quite a sight, caked in snow.

 

As it was Valentine’s day I went out, with 3 girls. In order to avoid all romance and anything that might remind us of it we (myself, Laure, Vittoria and Anna) went to find a bar in Glockenbachviertel. I have now located where the gay population of Munich hang out, LOTS of rainbow flags. We ended up in a bar which, although lacking a pretty flag, was definitely a gay bar. We walked into the strains of ‘Come what may’ from Moulin Rouge, the only punters were 3 men together and 2 other men lounging on the Louis XIV style sofas which had very nice embossed velvet upholstery. It was the perfect bar for what we needed that evening, an evening of girly chat and martini, no guys, no beer, and nothing to remind us of Valentine’s day.

 

Today I went for a run as it had stopped snowing. The snow lay ankle-deep in the park and was soooo purty. I had to stop and play for a while. I don’t think I got tooo many odd looks, a 22 year old making pictures by herself in the snow….

I have also FINALLY got round to buying myself a Bahnkarte 50. Now I can get my train tickets to Mainz next weekend. Bring on Fasching!!!

Katie and TT 19-25.01.09

Katie was over this weekend (photos on facebook http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2267436&id=36801141&l=96764). This was the focal point of the week, other than that it was work and sport as usual. It was really nice to see her and the weekend was a great success. I took her out on the town to show her that even though this isn’t London, we still know how to party.

Pre-party on Saturday we went to the Nordbad and lounged around in the pool outside. It was lovely to be in a hot Jacuzzi in January, blue sky overhead and white snow on the ground around us. After this very civilised activity we went for a very civilised ladies-who-lunch meal. Saturday, we also had the privilege of being driven very fast (circa 250km/hr) in an Audi TT. On the Friday evening when she arrived Katie got in touch with a friend of the family to have a meal. We ended up eating in a Paulaner, coincidentally the one to which I had taken Katie when she was over here in October. The meal was fun and then we did a mini bar crawl of Munich starting in Pussers and ending in the News Bar, attempting various others on the way including a very swanky joint called Sylvester’s or something where we felt decidedly underdressed. That evening, circa 1am we talked him into taking us for a spin in his TT the next day. We (or rather I) didn’t expect him to actually mean it but he sent us a text and picked us up outside the café where we were having lunch. VERY swish. It was great. We drove out of Munich, onto the Autobahn and out to where the speed limits have no power… Driving at 250km/hr with the Killers on the radio and the Alps in the distance. Brilliant. I never knew Katie was such a speed freak

After this we had just enough time to do a quick tour of the shops for Katie to get a top and her Deutsch fix (books, mags, cds) and to buy food for that evening. I had invited the Erasmus lot and Vittoria from the Wohnheim for food then partying.

In the end we were about 10 or 11, it fluctuated. All I know is that there were 13 people for pudding. Faced with such a horde we did LOTS of pasta and 2 different sauces; tomato and Katie’s delicious fish sauce. After this we headed out on the town. The original plan (which fell apart of course) was to try out the Club and Line party bus, but I couldn’t find the timetable, couldn’t work it out and in the end couldn’t be bothered. We headed to Qclub in the Kultfabrik. In the end only 5 of us went to the club, me, Katie, Laure, Alex and Vittoria. The rest either went home to work (looming exams…) or to a houseparty. I wasn’t really feeling the houseparty as I didn’t know the hosts and wanted to go to a club…

So, dramatically thinned out, we headed off and had a really fun evening. We spent all evening in the Q club switching between the 2 dance floors. They have an electro room and a ‘cheese’ room. The electro room is good but the ‘cheese’ room is brilliant because it’s just like a bop, so Katie and I were right at home. By 5 am it was just me, Katie and Alex. So we left and went to meet the other stragglers at another bar. However, seeing the time, the state they were in, and thinking about Katie’s flight later in the day we made the wise choice of going home to sleep for 4 hours before getting up for Brunch.