24 June – 21h – It was much cooler today then it has been, and it was very pleasant. My guess is that the temperature was about 25°C.

Today was my first day of work. It turned out to be a quite busy day. Read on.

I met D at work at 11h, as planned. He seems to be a quite nice person. We went to a room on the second floor and talked about a few legalities, such as how the health insurance work, registration with the police, etc. We also talked about my classes. He told me that Iain would be helping me with a lot of things that I needed to do, such a where the offices I’ll have to drive to are, etc. Also, he told me that he wanted me to teach him and Iain a lesson for about 15 to 20 minutes so they could see how I teach. We agreed that I would prepare the first lesson (for beginners) and teach that to them at 14h. I also asked if he had a list of what the driving signs mean in English, as I don’t know European road signs. He said that he didn’t and recommended going to ADAR, the German Auto Association (diagonally across the road from our office building) and see if they did. I figured that they were probably associated with the AAA of the USA, which I have a card for (even though I don’t drive, I keep a current card on a relative’s account for maps and things like that). I figured that I’d do that after I went home and got my card. I left at 12h, went to the usual bus station and took it home.

When I arrived home, Sylvano, the creep was cleaning the stairs and wouldn’t let me go up. I really had to use the toilet! After about 10 (long) minutes, he let me go up. I spent about 45 minutes at home and then caught the 13h12 bus down to the city again. I walked to work and spent the rest of the time until 14h preparing the lesson.

I went and got D and Iain at 14h and we did the mock lesson. At the end, he told me that I would get a free intense German course when they start one up again (soon). One started last week, but I missed about 16 hours of class, so I’d we way behind if I started right away.

After that, I spend time familiarizing myself with the library and resource materials that are available. I also me a few different teachers (whose names I won’t remember tomorrow). One of the teachers, Paul (from Plymouth, England) invited me to go out with the other teachers on Saturday. I accepted.

At 14h45, Joseph, the teacher that I’m taking over for, came into the teacher’s room and we had a good talk about the different classes. Iain and I went for a walk at 15h15 so that I could see where my first “in company” lesson would be (at 8h30) tomorrow morning. It’s easier to walk there than drive there, so I’ll just walk. We also decided that at 10h30 tomorrow, he’d take me for a drive around Koblenz (with me driving) to help me get used to the layout of the city and also show me where the two other companies I’ll have to drive to are located.

I stopped out for a quick cup of tea after that, and then went back to the school. I worked on my other preparations for the day and also started sorting out what books I’ll need for the rest of the week. This school is quite a bit different than I’m used to. As far as I can tell, it serves two functions. The first one is to help people learn spoken English. These people don’t want to do any kind of fluency exams, they just want to learn English. Then there are exam classes. These students will be taking Cambridge Exams in the future, and these classes prepare them for that. I’m used to the latter, so I’ll have to adjust my thinking for the former.

Also, there doesn’t appear to be a clear pattern to the books. For one of my classes, I’m using the Matters Upper Intermediate book, three of my classes I’m using the Headway series and I’m using the First Certificate Gold book for my FCE class (the exact same book I used in Poland, and I like it). I’ll have to find out more about how they decide which books they use.

Just before my classes, I met few of the Spanish teachers. R (from Scotland) and I were talking in the teachers’ room when they walked in. After they left, Ross said that he’d like to be in one of the girl’s classes, meaning that she was very pretty, not that he wanted to learn Spanish. I then got up and went to the office to make some photocopies and she and a Spanish man were in front of me. They said something to me in German, and I responded in Spanish. I think it surprised, as David and Iain were also in the office and looked at me. The pretty girl and I then carried on a small conversation in Spanish (she doesn’t speak any English).

After making my photocopies, I went back to the teachers’ room and Ross was still talking about the ‘Spanish girl.’ I said ‘She’s Ecuadorian, I spoke to her.’ Lohr (a lady from France) said ‘One point for you,’ to which I responded, ‘Make that two points, I spoke to her in Spanish.’ She then told me that since I did that, she’d give me five points. I hope that I’ll be able to go out sometime with the Spanish teachers so that I can practise my Spanish.

My class went well today. I was supposed to have two, but no one showed up for the second one, which, I’ve been told, is not unusual. I had two students in the first class, both were ladies and were in their late 50s. One is a total beginner and the other took English in high school 40 years ago, and remembers a little, so she’s an advanced beginner. Beginners are hard to teach and take a lot of energy and preparation.

21h37 – That’s it for now. It’s time for bed. I’m beat and I have a big day tomorrow.

25 June – 6h30 – Yawn, it’s early. Another great sunny day.

My first class is at 8h30 today. I’m discussing a couple of articles from The Economist magazine with Deutsche Bank executives. I hope I do well.

22h – Today went pretty well.

Two of the boxes I mailed myself last Monday arrived today. That was quick. One more to go.

I made it to Deutsche Bank on time. The lesson only had two people in it. One spoke much better English than the other, but the other did well also. They told me that they wanted to change the direction of the class. Their business model might be changing so that they have to file all of their reports in English as of 2003, so they now want to work on things like formal wording for things of that nature. They also want to start doing presentations in English and have others in the class (and me) critique them and also work more on banking vocabulary. I gladly agreed to all of it.

After that, I stopped at a shop to have tea and a piece of apple cake for breakfast (€1.75). It was delicious. I plan on being a regular there.

Then, I went to the office. I met Iain there and we went for a drive so he could show me where I was going to be working. The company has four Ford Ka cars, one blue, one light green, one dark green and one lilac (which is called “the pink car”). We took the dark green one and went for my test drive. This was my first time driving in Europe. I had read over the road signs a few times last night and pretty much knew what they were. Also, some of the really important ones, such as STOP and DO NOT ENTER are the same as in the USA.

We were out driving from 10h30 to 2h, as he didn’t know where the second job was, but had a rough idea of it. We’re going for a second test drive tomorrow.

My first class at the school today was an Upper Intermediate class. I had three people and their English skills are good for this level. We’re using the Upper Intermediate Matters book for this class. It went well. We did a lot of grammar, perhaps too much, so I could see how their abilities were. We’ll do less next week.

My second job was a beginner’s class. This class is WONDERFUL!! I had five people, all of who were ladies, 3 in their fifties and one about thirty years old. We had sooo much fun. They worked, we joked around and everything was great.

I had a great day today.

26 June – Today started off with a 8h30 meeting. I’ve decided that really don’t like that time of the day. D had good news for us..as of 2003, he’s increasing our vacation days from 20 to 25! Hooray!! Also, for the second half of 2002, we have 12 vacation days, the bad thing is that ten of them must be used when the company shuts down the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s. Oh well, at least I can go somewhere warm for that time. I still have two more days. I’ll might use them before or after a holiday to get an even longer weekend, or perhaps just make a couple more long weekends for myself. More news…I found out that starting in August or September, I’m going to be teaching a CAE class and a business English class. Scheduling those into my current schedule should be quite interesting. I learnt something interesting about our school…Students are allowed to take four weeks of holiday per year (they usually have one or two days of classes per week). If they take one week, they don’t get a make up lesson. If they miss two or three weeks, they get one 1 hour make up lesson, and if they miss four weeks, they get 2 1 hour make up lessons. If I have to give a make up lesson, I get paid for it.

After that, Iain and I went for a drive, but this time in the light green car. It’s really not light green, but it’s a lighter green than the dark green one (which really is dark green). We only went to my furthest job, as that was the one that we had trouble finding yesterday. I should be able to find it tomorrow with no problems.

I’ll probably start driving to Deutesche Bank on Thursdays, as my class ends there at 9h30 and I have to be out to GAD at 10h15. It’ll be much easier to do that then rush back to where one of the cars is parked, get it and go. Iain and I decided that I would keep the keys for the light green one this evening so that I have them when I need them tomorrow, as it’s parking place is closest to DB.

27 June – It’s 13h26 on a Thursday afternoon. What are you doing? I’m at a restaurant just outside of Koblenz and am having lunch. I should be teaching, but my class was cancelled, so I have free time. Here’s how my day has gone so far…I woke up at 6h30 and took the 7h55 bus down the hill, then walked to my first job, Deutsche Bank, for 8h30. That class usually starts around 8h35 or 8h40 and ends promptly at 9h30. Then, I went to where the car was parked, got in and drove to my first job (Thursdays I only teach out of the school). I was there on time, but the class started 25 minutes late, as that’s when the student showed up. Yes, the student. Only one showed up today. My second class started on time and lasted the entire hour. At the end of that class, Angelika, the receptionist, told me that my 13h class was cancelled altogether today, so I have from 12h15 – 17h to do nothing, and I’m getting paid for 5 working hours. Had my last class at this business happened today, I would have had from 14h – 17 to do nothing (my 17h job is in a town a 25 minutes drive from Koblenz). I would have gone home, but since I don’t like where I’m living, I didn’t. I brought my laptop with me because I knew I’d have a long break, but I didn’t think it would be this long.

So, I got back on highway 9 and went down one exit to where a big area of “outlet store” type things are. I wanted to go to Media Mart, but ended up on the highway again after failing to navigate the roundabout correctly (it’s under construction and is very confusing right now), so I went down a couple more kilometres and went to the Stapes outlet, as well as a computer store one and a jeans one. No, I didn’t buy anything. I then took the back road to the area where the Media Mart one is and am having lunch at a restaurant right next to it. I’ll take a look around inside after.

My 17h job is at a place called Compushack. It’s a computer company that does databases and things like that. The first class will be tougher than others, as the class is a brand new one, but none of the students have been tested for levels. I’ll probably have to divide the group up into two groups and then teach then separately, one 17h – 18h30 and one 18h30 – 20h. However, I have absolutely no resources prepared for them. I guess I’ll just turn it into a discussion to find out what types of things they want to do. It’ll be interesting, as I’ve had no help from our office with this. It’s all up to me.

14h24 – Off I go again. I’m going to explore some more of the outlet shops and then go to my next job. More later tonight.

23h44 – Random thought…I really miss Poland. I can’t believe that I actually left! That country suited me so well.

28 June – 11h43 – Now I’m at the laundry mat. I’m in the middle of the wash cycle and I’ll be here for a while. Washing costs €3 including detergent. I don’t know how long the washers take, as I left for an hour and when I came back, it was finished.

While this is happening, I’m going to the train station to check on the weekend tickets that Deutsche Bahn offers. They’re supposed to be very good deals.

12h45 – I’m drying now. Drying costs 50 cents for each 8 minutes. There is a weekend ticket for either Saturdays or Sundays that costs €28 and you can travel anywhere in Germany for the entire day on Regional Express (RE) and Regional Bahn (RB) trains. They are the slowest trains in Germany, so you can’t go to far. I thought there was a ticket specific for my state, but she didn’t tell me about it. I’ll have to go back and ask again someday. Be that as it may, my state isn’t very big.

After this, I’ll go home and put my clothes away, pack what I’ve unpacked, as I should be moving to my flat on Sunday, and clean a bit.

21h06 – Good News!!! I’m moving into my flat tomorrow!! Hooray!! I absolutely hate the place I’m living now and can’t wait to get out of here!!!

29 June – 18h18 –It’s been a busy day and life is much better now.

I woke up at 6h30 to catch a 7h43 bus down the hill to work. I wanted to go to the place I found a few days ago for a slice of apple pasty for breakfast, but they were out of it, so I had something else.

I stopped at a drugstore kind of place called Schlecker to pick up the photos I had dropped off on Tuesday. It was a good deal. 33 out of 36 photos came out and the total was only €4.25. That’s less than I would have paid at Rossman in Olsztyn, not to mention the bus/train to get there (getting photos developed in Mragowo was a compete farce, as they charged at least 2 1/2 times what was charged in Olsztyn). I’ll continue to have photos developed there, as I dropped them off on Tuesday evening and they were ready Friday night, plus it’s literally right next to work. Very convenient. I’m glad that they came out well, as it was a very important roll of film to me. It was the second part of the photos I took of friends before I left Mragowo (just before I left, I really annoyed everybody by taking photos of them).

Arrived at work at 8h and found that no one was there an it was locked. Great. Now what? I went for a cup of tea at the bakery two shops away from the office. I went into the office at 8h20 and went to the administrative part. The older lady was working three hours today and told me that she was given money for me, which I gladly accepted. I assume it’s because I don’t have a bank account, as paychecks are directly deposited into bank accounts in Germany.

After work, I drove to the landlord of my new accommodation and got the keys. I went up and looked around, and instantly fell in love with it. Basically, it’s a two level flat shared between three people. The lower level has an eating alcove and refrigerator, and the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen are upstairs. I took this flat over from the same teacher whose classes I took over. He’s told me that one of the others in the flat is a German college student who speaks very good English, and the other is a Chinese girl in Germany to learn English. My room is the biggest of all, about 33 m² (As a reference for some of you, it’s about as big as the living room, toilet & kitchen of my Brzozowe flat, or about as big as, but a bit wider than the master bedroom and bathroom of Chesterbrook). It has a vaulted ceiling, the side walls are white and the front and back walls, as well as the ceiling and entrance door are wooden (not wood panelling). The floor is a while and grey mix that is meant to look like it’s wooden, but it’s not. It reminds me of the kind of studio one would gentrify in a place like NYC. I love it.

I bought a tea kettle when I was shopping. It’s a small one (1 litre capacity) and only cost €5.99. It’ll do for my morning cups of tea, which I’ve been without for a couple of weeks now.

So, here I sit..in my loft without a television. It’s just as well, as all of the programs are all dubbed into German, so I wouldn’t understand them anyway. I need a new hobby… Painting? Nope, I’m hopeless at it. Writing? I’ve never been good at writing stores and things like that, only keeping journals like this. Photography? A definite possibility. I love to take photos. Reading? Sure, a few books here and there, but I want something even more fun. Learning German? Of course. It’s at the top of my list of things to do. Any other ideas?

I really feel good today. It took eight days, but everything has finally worked out. I love my new job, I love my new city and I love my new flat. Life is good.

The weather has been cloudy all of today and overcast. It’s looked like its going to rain all day, but we haven’t had any yet.

19h12 – I’ve just had a rethink about something. I don’t think I’ll get internet access at home. If I did, I would spend the entire weekend in the house using it. Having it at work will be great, as I can use it as much as I like during the week, and not having it (or a television) at home will force me to search out other things to do during weekends.

22h51 – I still love this flat. It has so much potential. It could be funky without being wild, and still very cool. However, I won’t fix it up like that, since I’m only a renter and know that I’ll be leaving some day.

22h55 – I’ve just filled up the kettle for the morning, so it’s time for bed.

30 June – 9h – A wonderfully sunny day.

9h55 – So…what to do today, what to do today…I’m thinking of going to Cologne (which, from here on out, will appear on these pages in it’s German form as “Köln”) again. I liked it there. There’s a plethora of trains from Koblenz to Köln, even on Sunday. If I take an interregional train, it’ll take 1 hour and 1 minute. If I take a regional express, it’ll take 1 hour and 31 minutes. The next interregional leaves at 10h48. Köln, Here I come!!

24 June – 21h – It was much cooler today then it has been, and it was very pleasant. My guess is that the temperature was about 25°C.

Today was my first day of work. It turned out to be a quite busy day. Read on.

I met D at work at 11h, as planned. He seems to be a quite nice person. We went to a room on the second floor and talked about a few legalities, such as how the health insurance work, registration with the police, etc. We also talked about my classes. He told me that Iain would be helping me with a lot of things that I needed to do, such a where the offices I’ll have to drive to are, etc. Also, he told me that he wanted me to teach him and Iain a lesson for about 15 to 20 minutes so they could see how I teach. We agreed that I would prepare the first lesson (for beginners) and teach that to them at 14h. I also asked if he had a list of what the driving signs mean in English, as I don’t know European road signs. He said that he didn’t and recommended going to ADAR, the German Auto Association (diagonally across the road from our office building) and see if they did. I figured that they were probably associated with the AAA of the USA, which I have a card for (even though I don’t drive, I keep a current card on a relative’s account for maps and things like that). I figured that I’d do that after I went home and got my card. I left at 12h, went to the usual bus station and took it home.

When I arrived home, Sylvano, the creep was cleaning the stairs and wouldn’t let me go up. I really had to use the toilet! After about 10 (long) minutes, he let me go up. I spent about 45 minutes at home and then caught the 13h12 bus down to the city again. I walked to work and spent the rest of the time until 14h preparing the lesson.

I went and got D and Iain at 14h and we did the mock lesson. At the end, he told me that I would get a free intense German course when they start one up again (soon). One started last week, but I missed about 16 hours of class, so I’d we way behind if I started right away.

After that, I spend time familiarizing myself with the library and resource materials that are available. I also me a few different teachers (whose names I won’t remember tomorrow). One of the teachers, Paul (from Plymouth, England) invited me to go out with the other teachers on Saturday. I accepted.

At 14h45, Joseph, the teacher that I’m taking over for, came into the teacher’s room and we had a good talk about the different classes. Iain and I went for a walk at 15h15 so that I could see where my first “in company” lesson would be (at 8h30) tomorrow morning. It’s easier to walk there than drive there, so I’ll just walk. We also decided that at 10h30 tomorrow, he’d take me for a drive around Koblenz (with me driving) to help me get used to the layout of the city and also show me where the two other companies I’ll have to drive to are located.

I stopped out for a quick cup of tea after that, and then went back to the school. I worked on my other preparations for the day and also started sorting out what books I’ll need for the rest of the week. This school is quite a bit different than I’m used to. As far as I can tell, it serves two functions. The first one is to help people learn spoken English. These people don’t want to do any kind of fluency exams, they just want to learn English. Then there are exam classes. These students will be taking Cambridge Exams in the future, and these classes prepare them for that. I’m used to the latter, so I’ll have to adjust my thinking for the former.

Also, there doesn’t appear to be a clear pattern to the books. For one of my classes, I’m using the Matters Upper Intermediate book, three of my classes I’m using the Headway series and I’m using the First Certificate Gold book for my FCE class (the exact same book I used in Poland, and I like it). I’ll have to find out more about how they decide which books they use.

Just before my classes, I met few of the Spanish teachers. R (from Scotland) and I were talking in the teachers’ room when they walked in. After they left, Ross said that he’d like to be in one of the girl’s classes, meaning that she was very pretty, not that he wanted to learn Spanish. I then got up and went to the office to make some photocopies and she and a Spanish man were in front of me. They said something to me in German, and I responded in Spanish. I think it surprised, as David and Iain were also in the office and looked at me. The pretty girl and I then carried on a small conversation in Spanish (she doesn’t speak any English).

After making my photocopies, I went back to the teachers’ room and Ross was still talking about the ‘Spanish girl.’ I said ‘She’s Ecuadorian, I spoke to her.’ Lohr (a lady from France) said ‘One point for you,’ to which I responded, ‘Make that two points, I spoke to her in Spanish.’ She then told me that since I did that, she’d give me five points. I hope that I’ll be able to go out sometime with the Spanish teachers so that I can practise my Spanish.

My class went well today. I was supposed to have two, but no one showed up for the second one, which, I’ve been told, is not unusual. I had two students in the first class, both were ladies and were in their late 50s. One is a total beginner and the other took English in high school 40 years ago, and remembers a little, so she’s an advanced beginner. Beginners are hard to teach and take a lot of energy and preparation.

21h37 – That’s it for now. It’s time for bed. I’m beat and I have a big day tomorrow.

25 June – 6h30 – Yawn, it’s early. Another great sunny day.

My first class is at 8h30 today. I’m discussing a couple of articles from The Economist magazine with Deutsche Bank executives. I hope I do well.

22h – Today went pretty well.

Two of the boxes I mailed myself last Monday arrived today. That was quick. One more to go.

I made it to Deutsche Bank on time. The lesson only had two people in it. One spoke much better English than the other, but the other did well also. They told me that they wanted to change the direction of the class. Their business model might be changing so that they have to file all of their reports in English as of 2003, so they now want to work on things like formal wording for things of that nature. They also want to start doing presentations in English and have others in the class (and me) critique them and also work more on banking vocabulary. I gladly agreed to all of it.

After that, I stopped at a shop to have tea and a piece of apple cake for breakfast (€1.75). It was delicious. I plan on being a regular there.

Then, I went to the office. I met Iain there and we went for a drive so he could show me where I was going to be working. The company has four Ford Ka cars, one blue, one light green, one dark green and one lilac (which is called “the pink car”). We took the dark green one and went for my test drive. This was my first time driving in Europe. I had read over the road signs a few times last night and pretty much knew what they were. Also, some of the really important ones, such as STOP and DO NOT ENTER are the same as in the USA.

We were out driving from 10h30 to 2h, as he didn’t know where the second job was, but had a rough idea of it. We’re going for a second test drive tomorrow.

My first class at the school today was an Upper Intermediate class. I had three people and their English skills are good for this level. We’re using the Upper Intermediate Matters book for this class. It went well. We did a lot of grammar, perhaps too much, so I could see how their abilities were. We’ll do less next week.

My second job was a beginner’s class. This class is WONDERFUL!! I had five people, all of who were ladies, 3 in their fifties and one about thirty years old. We had sooo much fun. They worked, we joked around and everything was great.

I had a great day today.

26 June – Today started off with a 8h30 meeting. I’ve decided that really don’t like that time of the day. D had good news for us..as of 2003, he’s increasing our vacation days from 20 to 25! Hooray!! Also, for the second half of 2002, we have 12 vacation days, the bad thing is that ten of them must be used when the company shuts down the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s. Oh well, at least I can go somewhere warm for that time. I still have two more days. I’ll might use them before or after a holiday to get an even longer weekend, or perhaps just make a couple more long weekends for myself. More news…I found out that starting in August or September, I’m going to be teaching a CAE class and a business English class. Scheduling those into my current schedule should be quite interesting. I learnt something interesting about our school…Students are allowed to take four weeks of holiday per year (they usually have one or two days of classes per week). If they take one week, they don’t get a make up lesson. If they miss two or three weeks, they get one 1 hour make up lesson, and if they miss four weeks, they get 2 1 hour make up lessons. If I have to give a make up lesson, I get paid for it.

After that, Iain and I went for a drive, but this time in the light green car. It’s really not light green, but it’s a lighter green than the dark green one (which really is dark green). We only went to my furthest job, as that was the one that we had trouble finding yesterday. I should be able to find it tomorrow with no problems.

I’ll probably start driving to Deutesche Bank on Thursdays, as my class ends there at 9h30 and I have to be out to GAD at 10h15. It’ll be much easier to do that then rush back to where one of the cars is parked, get it and go. Iain and I decided that I would keep the keys for the light green one this evening so that I have them when I need them tomorrow, as it’s parking place is closest to DB.

27 June – It’s 13h26 on a Thursday afternoon. What are you doing? I’m at a restaurant just outside of Koblenz and am having lunch. I should be teaching, but my class was cancelled, so I have free time. Here’s how my day has gone so far…I woke up at 6h30 and took the 7h55 bus down the hill, then walked to my first job, Deutsche Bank, for 8h30. That class usually starts around 8h35 or 8h40 and ends promptly at 9h30. Then, I went to where the car was parked, got in and drove to my first job (Thursdays I only teach out of the school). I was there on time, but the class started 25 minutes late, as that’s when the student showed up. Yes, the student. Only one showed up today. My second class started on time and lasted the entire hour. At the end of that class, Angelika, the receptionist, told me that my 13h class was cancelled altogether today, so I have from 12h15 – 17h to do nothing, and I’m getting paid for 5 working hours. Had my last class at this business happened today, I would have had from 14h – 17 to do nothing (my 17h job is in a town a 25 minutes drive from Koblenz). I would have gone home, but since I don’t like where I’m living, I didn’t. I brought my laptop with me because I knew I’d have a long break, but I didn’t think it would be this long.

So, I got back on highway 9 and went down one exit to where a big area of “outlet store” type things are. I wanted to go to Media Mart, but ended up on the highway again after failing to navigate the roundabout correctly (it’s under construction and is very confusing right now), so I went down a couple more kilometres and went to the Stapes outlet, as well as a computer store one and a jeans one. No, I didn’t buy anything. I then took the back road to the area where the Media Mart one is and am having lunch at a restaurant right next to it. I’ll take a look around inside after.

My 17h job is at a place called Compushack. It’s a computer company that does databases and things like that. The first class will be tougher than others, as the class is a brand new one, but none of the students have been tested for levels. I’ll probably have to divide the group up into two groups and then teach then separately, one 17h – 18h30 and one 18h30 – 20h. However, I have absolutely no resources prepared for them. I guess I’ll just turn it into a discussion to find out what types of things they want to do. It’ll be interesting, as I’ve had no help from our office with this. It’s all up to me.

14h24 – Off I go again. I’m going to explore some more of the outlet shops and then go to my next job. More later tonight.

23h44 – Random thought…I really miss Poland. I can’t believe that I actually left! That country suited me so well.

28 June – 11h43 – Now I’m at the laundry mat. I’m in the middle of the wash cycle and I’ll be here for a while. Washing costs €3 including detergent. I don’t know how long the washers take, as I left for an hour and when I came back, it was finished.

While this is happening, I’m going to the train station to check on the weekend tickets that Deutsche Bahn offers. They’re supposed to be very good deals.

12h45 – I’m drying now. Drying costs 50 cents for each 8 minutes. There is a weekend ticket for either Saturdays or Sundays that costs €28 and you can travel anywhere in Germany for the entire day on Regional Express (RE) and Regional Bahn (RB) trains. They are the slowest trains in Germany, so you can’t go to far. I thought there was a ticket specific for my state, but she didn’t tell me about it. I’ll have to go back and ask again someday. Be that as it may, my state isn’t very big.

After this, I’ll go home and put my clothes away, pack what I’ve unpacked, as I should be moving to my flat on Sunday, and clean a bit.

21h06 – Good News!!! I’m moving into my flat tomorrow!! Hooray!! I absolutely hate the place I’m living now and can’t wait to get out of here!!!

29 June – 18h18 –It’s been a busy day and life is much better now.

I woke up at 6h30 to catch a 7h43 bus down the hill to work. I wanted to go to the place I found a few days ago for a slice of apple pasty for breakfast, but they were out of it, so I had something else.

I stopped at a drugstore kind of place called Schlecker to pick up the photos I had dropped off on Tuesday. It was a good deal. 33 out of 36 photos came out and the total was only €4.25. That’s less than I would have paid at Rossman in Olsztyn, not to mention the bus/train to get there (getting photos developed in Mragowo was a compete farce, as they charged at least 2 1/2 times what was charged in Olsztyn). I’ll continue to have photos developed there, as I dropped them off on Tuesday evening and they were ready Friday night, plus it’s literally right next to work. Very convenient. I’m glad that they came out well, as it was a very important roll of film to me. It was the second part of the photos I took of friends before I left Mragowo (just before I left, I really annoyed everybody by taking photos of them).

Arrived at work at 8h and found that no one was there an it was locked. Great. Now what? I went for a cup of tea at the bakery two shops away from the office. I went into the office at 8h20 and went to the administrative part. The older lady was working three hours today and told me that she was given money for me, which I gladly accepted. I assume it’s because I don’t have a bank account, as paychecks are directly deposited into bank accounts in Germany.

After work, I drove to the landlord of my new accommodation and got the keys. I went up and looked around, and instantly fell in love with it. Basically, it’s a two level flat shared between three people. The lower level has an eating alcove and refrigerator, and the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen are upstairs. I took this flat over from the same teacher whose classes I took over. He’s told me that one of the others in the flat is a German college student who speaks very good English, and the other is a Chinese girl in Germany to learn English. My room is the biggest of all, about 33 m² (As a reference for some of you, it’s about as big as the living room, toilet & kitchen of my Brzozowe flat, or about as big as, but a bit wider than the master bedroom and bathroom of Chesterbrook). It has a vaulted ceiling, the side walls are white and the front and back walls, as well as the ceiling and entrance door are wooden (not wood panelling). The floor is a while and grey mix that is meant to look like it’s wooden, but it’s not. It reminds me of the kind of studio one would gentrify in a place like NYC. I love it.

I bought a tea kettle when I was shopping. It’s a small one (1 litre capacity) and only cost €5.99. It’ll do for my morning cups of tea, which I’ve been without for a couple of weeks now.

So, here I sit..in my loft without a television. It’s just as well, as all of the programs are all dubbed into German, so I wouldn’t understand them anyway. I need a new hobby… Painting? Nope, I’m hopeless at it. Writing? I’ve never been good at writing stores and things like that, only keeping journals like this. Photography? A definite possibility. I love to take photos. Reading? Sure, a few books here and there, but I want something even more fun. Learning German? Of course. It’s at the top of my list of things to do. Any other ideas?

I really feel good today. It took eight days, but everything has finally worked out. I love my new job, I love my new city and I love my new flat. Life is good.

The weather has been cloudy all of today and overcast. It’s looked like its going to rain all day, but we haven’t had any yet.

19h12 – I’ve just had a rethink about something. I don’t think I’ll get internet access at home. If I did, I would spend the entire weekend in the house using it. Having it at work will be great, as I can use it as much as I like during the week, and not having it (or a television) at home will force me to search out other things to do during weekends.

22h51 – I still love this flat. It has so much potential. It could be funky without being wild, and still very cool. However, I won’t fix it up like that, since I’m only a renter and know that I’ll be leaving some day.

22h55 – I’ve just filled up the kettle for the morning, so it’s time for bed.

30 June – 9h – A wonderfully sunny day.

9h55 – So…what to do today, what to do today…I’m thinking of going to Cologne (which, from here on out, will appear on these pages in it’s German form as “Köln”) again. I liked it there. There’s a plethora of trains from Koblenz to Köln, even on Sunday. If I take an interregional train, it’ll take 1 hour and 1 minute. If I take a regional express, it’ll take 1 hour and 31 minutes. The next interregional leaves at 10h48. Köln, Here I come!!

24 June – 21h – It was much cooler today then it h…

24 June – 21h – It was much cooler today then it has been, and it was very pleasant. My guess is that the temperature was about 25°C.

Today was my first day of work. It turned out to be a quite busy day. Read on.

I met D at work at 11h, as planned. He seems to be a quite nice person. We went to a room on the second floor and talked about a few legalities, such as how the health insurance work, registration with the police, etc. We also talked about my classes. He told me that Iain would be helping me with a lot of things that I needed to do, such a where the offices I’ll have to drive to are, etc. Also, he told me that he wanted me to teach him and Iain a lesson for about 15 to 20 minutes so they could see how I teach. We agreed that I would prepare the first lesson (for beginners) and teach that to them at 14h. I also asked if he had a list of what the driving signs mean in English, as I don’t know European road signs. He said that he didn’t and recommended going to ADAR, the German Auto Association (diagonally across the road from our office building) and see if they did. I figured that they were probably associated with the AAA of the USA, which I have a card for (even though I don’t drive, I keep a current card on a relative’s account for maps and things like that). I figured that I’d do that after I went home and got my card. I left at 12h, went to the usual bus station and took it home.

When I arrived home, Sylvano, the creep was cleaning the stairs and wouldn’t let me go up. I really had to use the toilet! After about 10 (long) minutes, he let me go up. I spent about 45 minutes at home and then caught the 13h12 bus down to the city again. I walked to work and spent the rest of the time until 14h preparing the lesson.

I went and got D and Iain at 14h and we did the mock lesson. At the end, he told me that I would get a free intense German course when they start one up again (soon). One started last week, but I missed about 16 hours of class, so I’d we way behind if I started right away.

After that, I spend time familiarizing myself with the library and resource materials that are available. I also me a few different teachers (whose names I won’t remember tomorrow). One of the teachers, Paul (from Plymouth, England) invited me to go out with the other teachers on Saturday. I accepted.

At 14h45, Joseph, the teacher that I’m taking over for, came into the teacher’s room and we had a good talk about the different classes. Iain and I went for a walk at 15h15 so that I could see where my first “in company” lesson would be (at 8h30) tomorrow morning. It’s easier to walk there than drive there, so I’ll just walk. We also decided that at 10h30 tomorrow, he’d take me for a drive around Koblenz (with me driving) to help me get used to the layout of the city and also show me where the two other companies I’ll have to drive to are located.

I stopped out for a quick cup of tea after that, and then went back to the school. I worked on my other preparations for the day and also started sorting out what books I’ll need for the rest of the week. This school is quite a bit different than I’m used to. As far as I can tell, it serves two functions. The first one is to help people learn spoken English. These people don’t want to do any kind of fluency exams, they just want to learn English. Then there are exam classes. These students will be taking Cambridge Exams in the future, and these classes prepare them for that. I’m used to the latter, so I’ll have to adjust my thinking for the former.

Also, there doesn’t appear to be a clear pattern to the books. For one of my classes, I’m using the Matters Upper Intermediate book, three of my classes I’m using the Headway series and I’m using the First Certificate Gold book for my FCE class (the exact same book I used in Poland, and I like it). I’ll have to find out more about how they decide which books they use.

Just before my classes, I met few of the Spanish teachers. R (from Scotland) and I were talking in the teachers’ room when they walked in. After they left, Ross said that he’d like to be in one of the girl’s classes, meaning that she was very pretty, not that he wanted to learn Spanish. I then got up and went to the office to make some photocopies and she and a Spanish man were in front of me. They said something to me in German, and I responded in Spanish. I think it surprised, as David and Iain were also in the office and looked at me. The pretty girl and I then carried on a small conversation in Spanish (she doesn’t speak any English).

After making my photocopies, I went back to the teachers’ room and Ross was still talking about the ‘Spanish girl.’ I said ‘She’s Ecuadorian, I spoke to her.’ Lohr (a lady from France) said ‘One point for you,’ to which I responded, ‘Make that two points, I spoke to her in Spanish.’ She then told me that since I did that, she’d give me five points. I hope that I’ll be able to go out sometime with the Spanish teachers so that I can practise my Spanish.

My class went well today. I was supposed to have two, but no one showed up for the second one, which, I’ve been told, is not unusual. I had two students in the first class, both were ladies and were in their late 50s. One is a total beginner and the other took English in high school 40 years ago, and remembers a little, so she’s an advanced beginner. Beginners are hard to teach and take a lot of energy and preparation.

21h37 – That’s it for now. It’s time for bed. I’m beat and I have a big day tomorrow.

25 June – 6h30 – Yawn, it’s early. Another great sunny day.

My first class is at 8h30 today. I’m discussing a couple of articles from The Economist magazine with Deutsche Bank executives. I hope I do well.

22h – Today went pretty well.

Two of the boxes I mailed myself last Monday arrived today. That was quick. One more to go.

I made it to Deutsche Bank on time. The lesson only had two people in it. One spoke much better English than the other, but the other did well also. They told me that they wanted to change the direction of the class. Their business model might be changing so that they have to file all of their reports in English as of 2003, so they now want to work on things like formal wording for things of that nature. They also want to start doing presentations in English and have others in the class (and me) critique them and also work more on banking vocabulary. I gladly agreed to all of it.

After that, I stopped at a shop to have tea and a piece of apple cake for breakfast (€1.75). It was delicious. I plan on being a regular there.

Then, I went to the office. I met Iain there and we went for a drive so he could show me where I was going to be working. The company has four Ford Ka cars, one blue, one light green, one dark green and one lilac (which is called “the pink car”). We took the dark green one and went for my test drive. This was my first time driving in Europe. I had read over the road signs a few times last night and pretty much knew what they were. Also, some of the really important ones, such as STOP and DO NOT ENTER are the same as in the USA.

We were out driving from 10h30 to 2h, as he didn’t know where the second job was, but had a rough idea of it. We’re going for a second test drive tomorrow.

My first class at the school today was an Upper Intermediate class. I had three people and their English skills are good for this level. We’re using the Upper Intermediate Matters book for this class. It went well. We did a lot of grammar, perhaps too much, so I could see how their abilities were. We’ll do less next week.

My second job was a beginner’s class. This class is WONDERFUL!! I had five people, all of who were ladies, 3 in their fifties and one about thirty years old. We had sooo much fun. They worked, we joked around and everything was great.

I had a great day today.

26 June – Today started off with a 8h30 meeting. I’ve decided that really don’t like that time of the day. D had good news for us..as of 2003, he’s increasing our vacation days from 20 to 25! Hooray!! Also, for the second half of 2002, we have 12 vacation days, the bad thing is that ten of them must be used when the company shuts down the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s. Oh well, at least I can go somewhere warm for that time. I still have two more days. I’ll might use them before or after a holiday to get an even longer weekend, or perhaps just make a couple more long weekends for myself. More news…I found out that starting in August or September, I’m going to be teaching a CAE class and a business English class. Scheduling those into my current schedule should be quite interesting. I learnt something interesting about our school…Students are allowed to take four weeks of holiday per year (they usually have one or two days of classes per week). If they take one week, they don’t get a make up lesson. If they miss two or three weeks, they get one 1 hour make up lesson, and if they miss four weeks, they get 2 1 hour make up lessons. If I have to give a make up lesson, I get paid for it.

After that, Iain and I went for a drive, but this time in the light green car. It’s really not light green, but it’s a lighter green than the dark green one (which really is dark green). We only went to my furthest job, as that was the one that we had trouble finding yesterday. I should be able to find it tomorrow with no problems.

I’ll probably start driving to Deutesche Bank on Thursdays, as my class ends there at 9h30 and I have to be out to GAD at 10h15. It’ll be much easier to do that then rush back to where one of the cars is parked, get it and go. Iain and I decided that I would keep the keys for the light green one this evening so that I have them when I need them tomorrow, as it’s parking place is closest to DB.

27 June – It’s 13h26 on a Thursday afternoon. What are you doing? I’m at a restaurant just outside of Koblenz and am having lunch. I should be teaching, but my class was cancelled, so I have free time. Here’s how my day has gone so far…I woke up at 6h30 and took the 7h55 bus down the hill, then walked to my first job, Deutsche Bank, for 8h30. That class usually starts around 8h35 or 8h40 and ends promptly at 9h30. Then, I went to where the car was parked, got in and drove to my first job (Thursdays I only teach out of the school). I was there on time, but the class started 25 minutes late, as that’s when the student showed up. Yes, the student. Only one showed up today. My second class started on time and lasted the entire hour. At the end of that class, Angelika, the receptionist, told me that my 13h class was cancelled altogether today, so I have from 12h15 – 17h to do nothing, and I’m getting paid for 5 working hours. Had my last class at this business happened today, I would have had from 14h – 17 to do nothing (my 17h job is in a town a 25 minutes drive from Koblenz). I would have gone home, but since I don’t like where I’m living, I didn’t. I brought my laptop with me because I knew I’d have a long break, but I didn’t think it would be this long.

So, I got back on highway 9 and went down one exit to where a big area of “outlet store” type things are. I wanted to go to Media Mart, but ended up on the highway again after failing to navigate the roundabout correctly (it’s under construction and is very confusing right now), so I went down a couple more kilometres and went to the Stapes outlet, as well as a computer store one and a jeans one. No, I didn’t buy anything. I then took the back road to the area where the Media Mart one is and am having lunch at a restaurant right next to it. I’ll take a look around inside after.

My 17h job is at a place called Compushack. It’s a computer company that does databases and things like that. The first class will be tougher than others, as the class is a brand new one, but none of the students have been tested for levels. I’ll probably have to divide the group up into two groups and then teach then separately, one 17h – 18h30 and one 18h30 – 20h. However, I have absolutely no resources prepared for them. I guess I’ll just turn it into a discussion to find out what types of things they want to do. It’ll be interesting, as I’ve had no help from our office with this. It’s all up to me.

14h24 – Off I go again. I’m going to explore some more of the outlet shops and then go to my next job. More later tonight.

23h44 – Random thought…I really miss Poland. I can’t believe that I actually left! That country suited me so well.

28 June – 11h43 – Now I’m at the laundry mat. I’m in the middle of the wash cycle and I’ll be here for a while. Washing costs €3 including detergent. I don’t know how long the washers take, as I left for an hour and when I came back, it was finished.

While this is happening, I’m going to the train station to check on the weekend tickets that Deutsche Bahn offers. They’re supposed to be very good deals.

12h45 – I’m drying now. Drying costs 50 cents for each 8 minutes. There is a weekend ticket for either Saturdays or Sundays that costs €28 and you can travel anywhere in Germany for the entire day on Regional Express (RE) and Regional Bahn (RB) trains. They are the slowest trains in Germany, so you can’t go to far. I thought there was a ticket specific for my state, but she didn’t tell me about it. I’ll have to go back and ask again someday. Be that as it may, my state isn’t very big.

After this, I’ll go home and put my clothes away, pack what I’ve unpacked, as I should be moving to my flat on Sunday, and clean a bit.

21h06 – Good News!!! I’m moving into my flat tomorrow!! Hooray!! I absolutely hate the place I’m living now and can’t wait to get out of here!!!

29 June – 18h18 –It’s been a busy day and life is much better now.

I woke up at 6h30 to catch a 7h43 bus down the hill to work. I wanted to go to the place I found a few days ago for a slice of apple pasty for breakfast, but they were out of it, so I had something else.

I stopped at a drugstore kind of place called Schlecker to pick up the photos I had dropped off on Tuesday. It was a good deal. 33 out of 36 photos came out and the total was only €4.25. That’s less than I would have paid at Rossman in Olsztyn, not to mention the bus/train to get there (getting photos developed in Mragowo was a compete farce, as they charged at least 2 1/2 times what was charged in Olsztyn). I’ll continue to have photos developed there, as I dropped them off on Tuesday evening and they were ready Friday night, plus it’s literally right next to work. Very convenient. I’m glad that they came out well, as it was a very important roll of film to me. It was the second part of the photos I took of friends before I left Mragowo (just before I left, I really annoyed everybody by taking photos of them).

Arrived at work at 8h and found that no one was there an it was locked. Great. Now what? I went for a cup of tea at the bakery two shops away from the office. I went into the office at 8h20 and went to the administrative part. The older lady was working three hours today and told me that she was given money for me, which I gladly accepted. I assume it’s because I don’t have a bank account, as paychecks are directly deposited into bank accounts in Germany.

After work, I drove to the landlord of my new accommodation and got the keys. I went up and looked around, and instantly fell in love with it. Basically, it’s a two level flat shared between three people. The lower level has an eating alcove and refrigerator, and the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen are upstairs. I took this flat over from the same teacher whose classes I took over. He’s told me that one of the others in the flat is a German college student who speaks very good English, and the other is a Chinese girl in Germany to learn English. My room is the biggest of all, about 33 m² (As a reference for some of you, it’s about as big as the living room, toilet & kitchen of my Brzozowe flat, or about as big as, but a bit wider than the master bedroom and bathroom of Chesterbrook). It has a vaulted ceiling, the side walls are white and the front and back walls, as well as the ceiling and entrance door are wooden (not wood panelling). The floor is a while and grey mix that is meant to look like it’s wooden, but it’s not. It reminds me of the kind of studio one would gentrify in a place like NYC. I love it.

I bought a tea kettle when I was shopping. It’s a small one (1 litre capacity) and only cost €5.99. It’ll do for my morning cups of tea, which I’ve been without for a couple of weeks now.

So, here I sit..in my loft without a television. It’s just as well, as all of the programs are all dubbed into German, so I wouldn’t understand them anyway. I need a new hobby… Painting? Nope, I’m hopeless at it. Writing? I’ve never been good at writing stores and things like that, only keeping journals like this. Photography? A definite possibility. I love to take photos. Reading? Sure, a few books here and there, but I want something even more fun. Learning German? Of course. It’s at the top of my list of things to do. Any other ideas?

I really feel good today. It took eight days, but everything has finally worked out. I love my new job, I love my new city and I love my new flat. Life is good.

The weather has been cloudy all of today and overcast. It’s looked like its going to rain all day, but we haven’t had any yet.

19h12 – I’ve just had a rethink about something. I don’t think I’ll get internet access at home. If I did, I would spend the entire weekend in the house using it. Having it at work will be great, as I can use it as much as I like during the week, and not having it (or a television) at home will force me to search out other things to do during weekends.

22h51 – I still love this flat. It has so much potential. It could be funky without being wild, and still very cool. However, I won’t fix it up like that, since I’m only a renter and know that I’ll be leaving some day.

22h55 – I’ve just filled up the kettle for the morning, so it’s time for bed.

30 June – 9h – A wonderfully sunny day.

9h55 – So…what to do today, what to do today…I’m thinking of going to Cologne (which, from here on out, will appear on these pages in it’s German form as “Köln”) again. I liked it there. There’s a plethora of trains from Koblenz to Köln, even on Sunday. If I take an interregional train, it’ll take 1 hour and 1 minute. If I take a regional express, it’ll take 1 hour and 31 minutes. The next interregional leaves at 10h48. Köln, Here I come!!

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which is where I am now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:

Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which is where I am now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:

Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.

The Trip to Germany 20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing …

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which is where I am now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:

Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which I am on now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:
Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which I am on now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:
Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which I am on now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:
Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.

The Trip to Germany

20 June – 5h06 – I’m writing this from the hostel on Karolkowa in Warsaw.

It’s early and I barely slept a wink last night. Yesterday was a sunny and hot day, about 32C. I was unprepared for it to be so hot, as I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and trousers. All of my big luggage was in a luggage locker at the Warsaw Centralna train station and I didn’t want go there and unpack everything to look for shorts and t-shirt, so I managed.

I arrived in Warsaw and went to the stadium market to buy a few 10 zl CDs. I didn’t find a lot that was good, so I saved quite a bit of money. After that, I tried to find a few shops that I wanted to visit, but was unsuccessful. Also, I only had two photos left on my roll of film, and the rest of it was with my big luggage. I went to Rossmans, hoping to get a double pack of theirs for 11.99 zl, but they were sold out, so I had to buy a 24 + 3 roll of Agfa (why don’t they just put 27 on the outside of the box?) for 11.79 zl. From there, I took bus 130 out to Wilanow, a palace 6km from the centre of town. I visited it before, however my film didn’t come out, so I mainly went to take photos. I took both film and digital photos.

I met my friend Kuba at 17h at the statue in Plac Zamkowy. He’s been a friend of mine for three years now and I appreciate his friendship a lot. We hung out for a couple of hours, talked and had a good time. Interestingly enough, he was the first friend I saw when I arrived back in Poland last September and will be the last friend I see before going to Germany.

21 June – 9h – I’m writing this from ICE 827 train somewhere between Berlin and Cologne. I don’t know how long my battery will last, so I may have to continue it later.

I left the hostel yesterday morning and caught the 6h05 tram to Warsaw Centralna station. There, I caught the 6h45 Warsaw – Berlin express train. It was an uneventful ride, except for the lady who spoke no stop from Warsaw to Poznan (3 hours). I was glad to see her leave. After she and the guy who was with her left, I had the whole compartment to myself.

We arrived at the Berlin Lichtenberg station, instead of the Berlin Zoo station (when I had taken this train in December 2000, we arrived at the latter). I spotted a luggage trolley as the train pulled in, took my bags off the train and got it. I had kept a 50 cents Euro coin that fit in the slot (it accepted 50 Euro cents and 2DM coins, the former of which I had from when I was in Spain in January). I loaded my bags on and went to find customer service to see how to get to Berlin Zoo, as I knew that that was were I would have to catch the train on 21 June and also had directions on how to get to my hostel from there. I found a “Service Point” and went to ask them. I asked if the spoke English, and they looked at me like I was from Mars (the kind of stares I get when I ask that in Poland). Both of the young ladies were about 19 years old and didn’t. They directed me to the S Bahn people by pointing, and I took my luggage trolley and went up the escalator. I asked the lady there if she spoke English and received the same look, so I left. Quite frustrated, I saw a guy in a Deutsche Bahn hat and went back down the escalator to ask him. He spoke English. Hallelujah! He told me that no DB trains were running into Berlin, as they were working on a new station THIS WEEK ONLY!!! Just my luck. He told me that I’d need to take the S Bahn to Berlin Zoo and, after I asked, agreed to accompany me to the S Bahn people to help me buy a ticket my friend Eddie (who lives in Berlin) recommended buying a AB day ticket (€6.10). Back up the escalators we went. After buying it, we went down the escalators again, in order to get to the S Bahn. While we were going down, two of my bags (my backpack and little white suitcase) tumbled off of the luggage trolley and all the way down to the end of the escalator (sometimes I hate gravity).

After saying a few choice words (I think one phrase was ‘Please kill me now’), I told him that I had been having trouble finding people who spoke English, and he told me that there went many in Germany. I asked him if it would be better for me to ask them if the speak Spanish, Polish, Italian or French (I can manage in all), and he said that it wouldn’t, because IF Germans speak a second language, it would be English, however most only speak German. I found that to be strange, being that Germany is part of the European Union, and their official language is English. We went up one more set of escalators and got to the S Bahn. I put my luggage in it and said good-bye to the guy and the luggage trolley, as the trolleys aren’t allowed on the S Bahn. Also, he told me that there wouldn’t be trolleys at the S Bahn stop at Berlin Zoo. Great.

Twelve stops later we were at the Berlin Zoo station, and sure enough, there weren’t any luggage trolleys. So, I picked up my four bags and attempted to move. It wasn’t easy, but I kind of managed. I was having trouble on the stairs and a young man with long hair and a pieced bottom lip said something to me in German. I explained that I didn’t speak German, and he offered to help me down the stairs and out of the station. I was very grateful. He took me to the road and told me that I needed to go across the street to the DB office. He wasn’t going that way, so he said good-bye. I thanked him again.

I made it across the street and was so hot, tired and frustrated that I drug my duffle bag into the station. Of course, there weren’t any luggage trolleys to be found there either. I remembered where the luggage lockers were, so went there. I remembered that Berlin, as well as most train stations in Germany, had huge luggage lockers that would easily fit all three of my bags that I wasn’t taking to the hostel…make that “would have fit,” as they were all full. I stuck my little white suitcase into a small locker, along with my winter coat and fleece (the winter coat was hanging off the duffel bag and the fleece was strapped to the outside of my backpack) and went to the left luggage place. At this point in time, I really didn’t care how much it cost. I put the two bags up there and they took them (the cost was €2 of the were picked up today and €4 per bag for pickup tomorrow). What and ordeal!

I had prebooked a bed in a hostel for the night and now was off to find the hostel. I had got their address and directions off of their website and went in search of bus 146. It was quite easy to find, just outside of the main train station. I got on and asked the driver if he was going to Rathaus Schoenberg. He said that he was, so I asked him if he knew where the street I was going to (Meninger) was. He got out a small map of Berlin and pointed it out to me (he didn’t speak English). I thanked him and off we went. The hostel turned out to be very nice and was also well located. It’s called Studentenhotel, is located at Meininger10 and cost €12.50 per night. I highly recommend it. It’s about a 7 minute bus ride from the train station and is well located as far as getting around Berlin goes. It doesn’t have a curfew and the price also includes a decent breakfast (bread, cheese, meat, cereal, tea, juice, etc). After that, I caught the bus back to the train station, found a luggage trolley, collected all my bags and went up the elevator to wait for the train, which I am on now.

The train is pretty nice. I’ve been on high-speed trains before in England/France and Spain. The first was the EuroStar in 1998, when I went from London to Paris). It was just basic high-speed train with no amenities (perhaps it’s changed in the lat four years). The AVE in Spain was great. They had movies, gave out free headphones and served free snacks. This one is of the same quality as the AVE, however is a bit different. There are movies in a couple of the cars (3 & 10), but they are only available in German and you have to either buy headphones or use your own (Walkman headphones fit). There are a few different music channels as well. I thought about it for a minute and realised that on the AVE, the movies were only in Spanish, but that didn’t bother me, a I speak Spanish. Also, this ICE train is an ICE 1, one of the first generation of ICE trains (there three generations, ICE 1, ICE 2 & ICE 3). In ICE 2s & 3s, there are laptop plugins, but not in ICE 1s. The lady told me that I could take a train an hour earlier or later and would have them, but I had already arranged to have somebody meet me from this specific train when it arrives in Koblenz at 13h51. Just my luck. I’ll post more specifics about the speed of the train later. Also something I don’t like about this train is that it doesn’t have luggage racks. You have to stuff your bags near the small jacket hanger in the middle of each carriage. In many other countries (Switzerland and Spain come to mind), there are luggage racks just inside both entrances to each car. Whoever designed it without them was not thinking properly.

9h40 – I’m down to 34% of my battery left, so I have time for a few thoughts…

I wonder if everything will work out for me. All of it seemed to be too easy. I applied for the job and had it within a week. Basically, all I had to do was get to Germany, as they’ve found a studio flat for me. I hope it turns out to be a good company and I like the students and town I work in.

9h45 – My battery is down to 28%, so I’m shutting down. We’ll be in Hanover in 15 minutes.

11h – I found a place to plug my laptop in! I’m currently in wagon 7 of the train. The lady conductor told me that there were plug ins in this car only, so I came here to charge my laptop and use it. However, I ended up sitting near four Germans who all speak very good English, and we’ve been speaking the whole time. They’ve told me a lot about Germany and Germans and were surprised that I’ve had such a hard time finding English speakers in their country. They also told me which beer to drink in the part of the country I’ll be in. Here’s the list:
Cologne – Kolsch
Koblenz – Wine, Bitburger
Frankfurt – Pils, Applewoi
Dusseldorf – Alt

12h – The conversation changed to various different things. I learnt something quite interesting that I’ll report later. Right now we’re at the Duisburg train station. 1-½ hours to go, but there are a lot of cities, so it won’t seem like long.

12h32 – The guy with the laptop and the girl just got off at Dusseldorf. Her name was Ania and his name was Thilo (pronounced /tee’ lo/).

13h35- The other guy just got off in Cologne. His name was Moritz (Maurice in English) and he was a photography student at university. He was a very interesting person.

What I learnt..I was talking to Moritz about the fact that this train didn’t have luggage racks near the door. He told me that that’s because Germans wouldn’t use them. He said that Germans like to be able to see their luggage in the overhead rack or the small place near the wardrobe.

16h – I’m now where I’ll be staying for a few days until my flat is ready. This place is suburban hell. It’s well out of the city, but I think I saw a bus stop near it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but desperately needs to be fixed up, which is slowly being done. Also, the walk from the town to this house is straight uphill!!!! As if that’s not bad enough, when you walk in, all you smell on the ground and first levels is dog, as they have a dog named Samson. As if it couldn’t get any worse, there’s a really weird guy named Silvano staying in the room next to me. Thank goodness this is only temporary. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to share a bathroom and kitchen with this creep.