You Can Call Me El

Tenuous pun in the title, I know, and for that I apologise. Any superior suggestions are very welcome. However I wanted to reference the huge amount of complaining I've been enjoying recently; since the beginning of February there has been pretty much non-stop whining from over here. Although this may have become clear to most of you, due to my having said it roughly twelve hundred times in the last three weeks, I hate February. It is the worst month of the year. I've been waiting for the end of February since it started 24 days ago. As a break from ranting about my entirely trivial problems, here is a breakdown of all the months of the year, and why every single one of them is superior to February. January This initial month gets a lot of bad rap, which I believe is a tragic misunderstanding of the month's aims. January never pretends that it should be taken seriously. It's meant to ease you in slowly to the new year. You've made numerous resolutions, probably n...

I'm updating the blog a couple of days later than my usual Wednesday this week, as there's been a lot going on in the last few days. Regensburg/Ratisbon (the disappointing English name) Last weekend I visited Regensburg ( Regen means rain in German, hence the stunningly witty blog title) for the first time in about six and a half years. I had been before with my German exchange partner, Anna, when I went to visit her at the age of about fourteen, but all I could remember from my previous visit was walking along the river lined with numerous cafes with their chairs and tables set out in the sun. There was also lots of ice cream. As it turns out, I remember the train station more vividly than any of the historic and beautiful town, despite spending what must have been only about half an hour there while we waited for the train. This time around, I think my overwhelming memory of Regensburg will be its freezing temperatures. When we arrived on Friday evening, Ben and I walked...

Dobrý den! Last weekend I visited Prague and it was fantastic! I had been to Prague before, but not in living memory, as my parents took me when I was about three years old. From the age of about two to about twelve, we had a series of au pairs who lived with us and looked after us during the day, as both my parents worked. Most of them were from the Czech Republic or Slovakia, and three of them live in or near Prague, so we took the opportunity to meet up with them on Saturday! I got the train on Friday afternoon, arriving into Prague at about 7.30 after only about 3 and a half hours in total (the bus is even quicker). My first task was to get money out at the central station, which is confusingly named nothing even slightly recognisable: hlavní nádraží. The Czech currency is the koruna, which I found entirely impossible to get used to. I hazarded a guess and withdrew 1000 koruna from the cash point, before being instantly thwarted by the ticket machine which didn't take notes...

I started writing a post about the last seven days, which included a trip to Praha at the weekend, but soon realised that I had so much to say about this week that it wasn't going to really fit into just one post. Also writing it all in one go is exhausting. SO firstly, for your reading pleasure, here is the non-Praha-related post. Wednesday As I didn't mention in my last post, on Wednesday evening I went to the Cafe Brühlaffe with my German class (the same cafe that has featured in a previous post, well-spotted!). I fully expected this to be as awkward and stilted as previous experiences with this class, but it turned out to be surprisingly lovely. Perhaps due to the teacher turning her attention to the other end of the table, I was able to have a real, interesting conversation with two others whom I'd hardly spoken to at all before. There's not much more to say than that really; it was just a really nice evening! Also on Wednesday I managed to completely miss a ...