I’ve been a little MIA, partly because work has kept me busy and partly because I’ve started studying again and widely underestimated how much brain power I would need to use and have therefore been unable to string a sentence together.

It has taken just shy of two years for us to undertake one of the most touristy things we could find. The Boat Cruise. There was a strong argument for the ‘Hop On Hop Off Tour Bus’ but after stalking it enough around town, I think we covered most of it by foot. Or we told our visitors that we covered it all by foot and the strong desire they had to do it, suddenly vanished into thin air. #sorrynotsorry Mum.

It was nice to be surrounded by English again for a few days. I do get away with a lot more English than I should and tend to consciously (or subconsciously) use my English more than my German at work depending on who I’m working with, which is goal number 1 for 2018. To improve my German. As it’s already August, you can tell it’s going wonderfully. I’ll add it to my ‘learn to cook and clean’ goal that was started in 2010 when I moved out of home the first time. As much as I love my husband, which depending on what day it is can range from ‘infinitely’ to ‘could I smother him with a pillow’, he is a parrot. He has this handle of being able to mimic people, which when learning a language, he sounds like a local. So while I may run laps around him in vocab and grammar, he says one sentence and people resume the conversation with him assuming he is a local. I do enjoy the look of confusion and loss on dear husbands face when he is lost and tries to smile awkwardly to get out of it.

We’re coming up to two years in Germany and it’s pretty safe to say we’re no longer feeling lost. I don’t like the word lost, but I can’t think of another word to describe the feeling we had when we first moved. Confused, in over our heads, maybe. Beer helps with that feeling. Or bottles of 5€ Gin. We’re still yet to see a fight break out due to alcohol here but luckily a quick trip to London earlier this year fixed that. Husband and I have been doing a lot of talking about what we’ve done, accomplished etc. Normally fueled by a friends announcement of buying a house, or having a baby, or booking some massive Europe trip which, as always, sparks the jealous bug. Always that little thought of, shit, they got their life together at my age. Look at what they are doing, I’m still walking around the house with Tim-Tam pajama pants on, and they are buying/building a house. Shit. Maybe we are adult-ing wrong. We did spend one gin-filled night making ourselves into jack in the boxes whilst the internet was down, probably not the most adult thing we could do. Or eating out of the saucepan because neither of us wanted to unload the dishwasher.

I was hoping the ‘German Structure’, their organisation and drive, would have rubbed off on me by now. But I’m about to hit week 9 of my studies and I have things in Week 1 I haven’t finished yet. It’s on my list, this ‘To Do List’ which the older I get, the more I’m convinced its a scam to make people feel bad for not completing it. Unless rewriting it multiple times by urgency of things without actually completing any of them counts, in which case, I take it back. Highly effective system.

Enough rambles for today, I want cake.

Much love,
J x
*On re-read. I should clarify, we are in no way jealous of those having children. We’ve got other shit to do. We’re enjoying practicing*