So I guess it's time to tell you.
I don't have much time left in Ponderland, people, and today is the first day of my last two months here.
This was the longest 4 week holiday of my entire life.
Next stop: Berlin. This is so far the scariest. I have never felt so nervous before moving to "another country".
But first I will enjoy 9 more amazing weeks in one of the most amazing cities in the world. So watch this space.
Wednesday 1 May 2013
Saturday 29 December 2012
Ojalá pudiera estar contigo.***
I hope you all had a lovely christmas.
Mine was boozy, cheery and quite British. Our friend Hannah brought a massive, huge, beautiful tree from Manchester and we decorated it with tinsel and coloured lights. It kind of misses the class and elegance of the German christmas trees of my childhood, which were decorated with handpainted glass baubles, real candles, little wooden figures and straw stars, and just the right amount of lametta, which we reused every year.
This one, this year's tree, looks like a grown up version of them German ones. It's very tall. And it's dressed as if it was on its way to a New Year's Eve party. (I guess, it kind of is.) Mini skirt and glitter make up, the whole shebang. She's got a cheeky, quite lovable smile on her face.
British chritsmasses (this year's was my second), are a big party. Very fun, very enjoyable and very.... well, merry. People wear silly hats and pyjamas and are very busy constantly. At least on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.
They're a daytime thing. Presents, big meals, all the important bits happen in the day. It's very different from the solemne and "besinnlich" German celebrations which happen in the evening. In Germany, at Christmas, we don't do anything. Nothing at all. We prepare in advance and then just sit and eat and read and light a few candles and recollect ourselves and sit around playing recorders. German christmasses are very dark, but full of little lights. British christmasses are very colourful and loud and more fun than German ones. But just not as classy. (Just not as... and I am only saying this, because I am German and used to the other sort... christmassy.)
You can't have it all, I suppose.
And then New Year, 2013.
When I was a teenager, every year around that time I would sit down and make a list of all the important things that had happened that year.
- went to concert in Zürich
- went to concert in Neu-Isenburg
- had a boyfriend for two weeks, his name was Manuel* and he was a bad kisser
- went to concert in Augsburg
That sort of thing.
Here's my list for 2012:
- Made a parkour video with Ros, which was fun
- Went to see Ani in concert at the Union Chapel in Islington
- Got made redundant for the first time in my life
- Found a new job, my first proper long term full time job, actually
- worked my ass off and learned lots about cat food and dog worming
- Spent a weekend in Trowbridge with Ros family
- Went to Bath, which is beautiful
- summer didn't come
- My grandma died
- I went to the funeral and felt weird. And have been feeling wrong ever since.
- Went to Brighton a couple of times
- I moved into 7c, sharing a room with Ros
- Spent 9 days in Konstanz
- Ros swam in my lake for the first time. Didn't think I'd ever go out with someone who it would take 3 years.
- My brother came to visit me in London.
- I got horrible illness/hooping coughs
- spent bonfire night burning up with fever at Anna and Rich's house
- Someone close to me took their life.
- Conny came to visit me in London
- Entered my late twenties via a bourlesque wrestling night in the resistance gallery
- Went to Berlin and fell in love a bit
- Went to Bristol to spend a weekend with lovely nephew Miles
- Spent a weekend in Konstanz, which was a bit like candy floss. Only better for the teeth, cause I went to the dentist there, too.
- A Very British Christmas
- Next.
All in all a rather weird year. But in many ways better than 2011, which, already, I hardly remember.
I don't think I went to enough concerts.
Next year, the plans are big ones. The weather's good.
Resolutions? Yes. I'll keep up last year's of being a better daughter, which, I can say proudly, I was in ways (I definitely wrote home more often and I called them more than they called me. So.) And to lose all the weight I gained in 2012. Which will be a challenge. Cause it's almost 2 stones.
Happy new year, everyone!
*Manuel Matzke, we went out for two weeks in 1997, which we spent sitting under a bridge** near my parents' house. We went out, because we were embarrassed to be the only two people in the group who were not going out with anyone. Don't remember anything about him, apart from his bad kissing and his dark blue track suit, which I swear he didn't take off once during the entire time I called him my boyfriend. In the end he broke up with me by means of a very dramatic letter written on Diddle letter paper.
** I went and sat under that bridge about 4 years ago. There was still a drawing under all those bad graffitis saying "I <3 Tara". Kind of sweet.
*** Oh, why this title? I am also going to learn Spanish in 2013. At least a little.
Mine was boozy, cheery and quite British. Our friend Hannah brought a massive, huge, beautiful tree from Manchester and we decorated it with tinsel and coloured lights. It kind of misses the class and elegance of the German christmas trees of my childhood, which were decorated with handpainted glass baubles, real candles, little wooden figures and straw stars, and just the right amount of lametta, which we reused every year.
This one, this year's tree, looks like a grown up version of them German ones. It's very tall. And it's dressed as if it was on its way to a New Year's Eve party. (I guess, it kind of is.) Mini skirt and glitter make up, the whole shebang. She's got a cheeky, quite lovable smile on her face.
British chritsmasses (this year's was my second), are a big party. Very fun, very enjoyable and very.... well, merry. People wear silly hats and pyjamas and are very busy constantly. At least on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.
They're a daytime thing. Presents, big meals, all the important bits happen in the day. It's very different from the solemne and "besinnlich" German celebrations which happen in the evening. In Germany, at Christmas, we don't do anything. Nothing at all. We prepare in advance and then just sit and eat and read and light a few candles and recollect ourselves and sit around playing recorders. German christmasses are very dark, but full of little lights. British christmasses are very colourful and loud and more fun than German ones. But just not as classy. (Just not as... and I am only saying this, because I am German and used to the other sort... christmassy.)
You can't have it all, I suppose.
And then New Year, 2013.
When I was a teenager, every year around that time I would sit down and make a list of all the important things that had happened that year.
- went to concert in Zürich
- went to concert in Neu-Isenburg
- had a boyfriend for two weeks, his name was Manuel* and he was a bad kisser
- went to concert in Augsburg
That sort of thing.
Here's my list for 2012:
- Made a parkour video with Ros, which was fun
- Went to see Ani in concert at the Union Chapel in Islington
- Got made redundant for the first time in my life
- Found a new job, my first proper long term full time job, actually
- worked my ass off and learned lots about cat food and dog worming
- Spent a weekend in Trowbridge with Ros family
- Went to Bath, which is beautiful
- summer didn't come
- My grandma died
- I went to the funeral and felt weird. And have been feeling wrong ever since.
- Went to Brighton a couple of times
- I moved into 7c, sharing a room with Ros
- Spent 9 days in Konstanz
- Ros swam in my lake for the first time. Didn't think I'd ever go out with someone who it would take 3 years.
- My brother came to visit me in London.
- I got horrible illness/hooping coughs
- spent bonfire night burning up with fever at Anna and Rich's house
- Someone close to me took their life.
- Conny came to visit me in London
- Entered my late twenties via a bourlesque wrestling night in the resistance gallery
- Went to Berlin and fell in love a bit
- Went to Bristol to spend a weekend with lovely nephew Miles
- Spent a weekend in Konstanz, which was a bit like candy floss. Only better for the teeth, cause I went to the dentist there, too.
- A Very British Christmas
- Next.
All in all a rather weird year. But in many ways better than 2011, which, already, I hardly remember.
I don't think I went to enough concerts.
Next year, the plans are big ones. The weather's good.
Resolutions? Yes. I'll keep up last year's of being a better daughter, which, I can say proudly, I was in ways (I definitely wrote home more often and I called them more than they called me. So.) And to lose all the weight I gained in 2012. Which will be a challenge. Cause it's almost 2 stones.
Happy new year, everyone!
*Manuel Matzke, we went out for two weeks in 1997, which we spent sitting under a bridge** near my parents' house. We went out, because we were embarrassed to be the only two people in the group who were not going out with anyone. Don't remember anything about him, apart from his bad kissing and his dark blue track suit, which I swear he didn't take off once during the entire time I called him my boyfriend. In the end he broke up with me by means of a very dramatic letter written on Diddle letter paper.
** I went and sat under that bridge about 4 years ago. There was still a drawing under all those bad graffitis saying "I <3 Tara". Kind of sweet.
*** Oh, why this title? I am also going to learn Spanish in 2013. At least a little.
Sunday 2 December 2012
Winter Wonderland
It happens like that.
You go a place, fall in love and stay - for years! You have your ups: romatic walks, great parties, interesting discussions, passionate nights and fascination, you have your downs: lonely moment, fights, feeling lost, sad, being broke and miserable.
But you hold on and really, after a couple of years you are still in love, and if not in love, at least, you still love them. Because you know them well, at least the important bits, you respect them and you have all those memories...
And then something happens. You go some place you've never been before and you just fall, or crash, head over heals into a new romance. It's exciting. It's interesting. It's a little un-real and scary. But mostly good.
It happened to me last week, people and I never thought it would - I am totally and utterly in love with Berlin.
KACHOOOM.
I always thought it would be Hamburg.
(And to be honest, it still might be, once I give it the chance... The few times I gave it the chance it paid off, I remember cranes, prostitutes, a shaman, fires at the beach, and the best toy train show in the entire world ever.)
But Berlin is beautiful - in a very subtle, RuPaul kind of way.
It's so interesting I am going to wee myself on a regular basis. And it is cheap. Hello.
I live in London right now, where the tap water is free, but gives me a rash. In Berlin, I could occupy my own two bed room ex-bunker or ex-stasi flat for 450 EUR a month and that includes a bottle of Jaegermeister and excellent plumbing.
Only a matter of time, really.
Today we spent the day in Winterwonderland/German Christmas Market in HydePark, which is fun, too, and with 8 quid a Stein quite reasonably priced for a British Octoberfest-mock-up (which I think it must be). It's the least christmassy thing I have ever seen. But I also love it dearly. They sell paella and pizza and have a massive spook house with an even massier slaughtered (fake, I might add) shark on the roof right next to "Santa land". It is all a bit weird. They do Gluehwein, though and play DJ Oetzi. I feel right at home.
PS: I secretly love Winter Wonderland so much, it is sickening. You should all go.
You go a place, fall in love and stay - for years! You have your ups: romatic walks, great parties, interesting discussions, passionate nights and fascination, you have your downs: lonely moment, fights, feeling lost, sad, being broke and miserable.
But you hold on and really, after a couple of years you are still in love, and if not in love, at least, you still love them. Because you know them well, at least the important bits, you respect them and you have all those memories...
And then something happens. You go some place you've never been before and you just fall, or crash, head over heals into a new romance. It's exciting. It's interesting. It's a little un-real and scary. But mostly good.
It happened to me last week, people and I never thought it would - I am totally and utterly in love with Berlin.
KACHOOOM.
I always thought it would be Hamburg.
(And to be honest, it still might be, once I give it the chance... The few times I gave it the chance it paid off, I remember cranes, prostitutes, a shaman, fires at the beach, and the best toy train show in the entire world ever.)
But Berlin is beautiful - in a very subtle, RuPaul kind of way.
It's so interesting I am going to wee myself on a regular basis. And it is cheap. Hello.
I live in London right now, where the tap water is free, but gives me a rash. In Berlin, I could occupy my own two bed room ex-bunker or ex-stasi flat for 450 EUR a month and that includes a bottle of Jaegermeister and excellent plumbing.
Only a matter of time, really.
Today we spent the day in Winterwonderland/German Christmas Market in HydePark, which is fun, too, and with 8 quid a Stein quite reasonably priced for a British Octoberfest-mock-up (which I think it must be). It's the least christmassy thing I have ever seen. But I also love it dearly. They sell paella and pizza and have a massive spook house with an even massier slaughtered (fake, I might add) shark on the roof right next to "Santa land". It is all a bit weird. They do Gluehwein, though and play DJ Oetzi. I feel right at home.
PS: I secretly love Winter Wonderland so much, it is sickening. You should all go.
Sunday 16 September 2012
Is autumn
Well that was one short rubbish summer.
In the meantime, they got rid of the Friday beers, as the guys in the warehouse started drinking earlier and earlier on Fridays and ended up snoring on piles of cat food by four o'clock in the afternoon.
It is not so new anymore, this job. But it is still a blessing and I am happy to have it. I am slightly bored and unmotivated occasionally, but most of the time so busy that I don't even notice.
It is September and that means it's been 2 years. Two years of the Old Smoke. And look how I have worked my way up.
From cooking borscht and washing up in Wandsworth to saving cats' and dogs' lives in Willesden.
I have learned a lot about arthritis in Dobermans and struvite problems in cats. I have won a mug with my face on for becoming employee of the month. I have felt a bit silly at times.
But way happier and more relaxed.
I feel like it's been ages since I have seen something new.
It hit me the moment I walked into an almost-sold-out Olympic stadium on the last Wednesday of the Paralympics.
That was a sight I had never had before, trruly gigantic and you know what a sucker I am for all kinds of sporting events. And then, suddenly, I was a tiny part of this big, this biggest one and Cheesus (I recently learned I pronounce the word Jesus all wrong) was that impressive.
I watched 4 German Paralympians win bronze and felt inspired and unsettled, because, as I then realised, it was the first time in a long, long time that I had seen something new. Had had a new experience.
My everyday life lately had merely been interrupted by two trips to my parents or other relatives, a trip to Brighton, the occasional long weekend with too little sleep.
Weekday nights I sometimes go to the cinema, sometimes go to the pub, sometimes go for a run, but mostly just go home, eat, have a cup of tea (fruit tea in my case. My belly rebels against too much tea in the British sense.) and go to sleep.
And it is Good.
But it is also weird for someone, who, for years, could not sit still. I needed new experiences on a regular basis for years and years, whether they were good or bad, glamorous or rough, legal or illegal, safe or dangerous, I welcomed every new thing, place, activity, possibility with open arms and DID THEM.
This sounds like I was some sort of adrenalin junky crazy person, which I wasn't, but compared to now, I was running wilde.
Hello, I guess I have grown up a bit.
In the meantime, they got rid of the Friday beers, as the guys in the warehouse started drinking earlier and earlier on Fridays and ended up snoring on piles of cat food by four o'clock in the afternoon.
It is not so new anymore, this job. But it is still a blessing and I am happy to have it. I am slightly bored and unmotivated occasionally, but most of the time so busy that I don't even notice.
It is September and that means it's been 2 years. Two years of the Old Smoke. And look how I have worked my way up.
From cooking borscht and washing up in Wandsworth to saving cats' and dogs' lives in Willesden.
I have learned a lot about arthritis in Dobermans and struvite problems in cats. I have won a mug with my face on for becoming employee of the month. I have felt a bit silly at times.
But way happier and more relaxed.
I feel like it's been ages since I have seen something new.
It hit me the moment I walked into an almost-sold-out Olympic stadium on the last Wednesday of the Paralympics.
That was a sight I had never had before, trruly gigantic and you know what a sucker I am for all kinds of sporting events. And then, suddenly, I was a tiny part of this big, this biggest one and Cheesus (I recently learned I pronounce the word Jesus all wrong) was that impressive.
I watched 4 German Paralympians win bronze and felt inspired and unsettled, because, as I then realised, it was the first time in a long, long time that I had seen something new. Had had a new experience.
My everyday life lately had merely been interrupted by two trips to my parents or other relatives, a trip to Brighton, the occasional long weekend with too little sleep.
Weekday nights I sometimes go to the cinema, sometimes go to the pub, sometimes go for a run, but mostly just go home, eat, have a cup of tea (fruit tea in my case. My belly rebels against too much tea in the British sense.) and go to sleep.
And it is Good.
But it is also weird for someone, who, for years, could not sit still. I needed new experiences on a regular basis for years and years, whether they were good or bad, glamorous or rough, legal or illegal, safe or dangerous, I welcomed every new thing, place, activity, possibility with open arms and DID THEM.
This sounds like I was some sort of adrenalin junky crazy person, which I wasn't, but compared to now, I was running wilde.
Hello, I guess I have grown up a bit.
Saturday 23 June 2012
I can do cow
Hello.
How are you?
I work a lot. It is nice, it makes me have money for shoes and strawberries.
But there's not a lot of time for fun things.
Yesterday I froze a can of beer in Ros' freezer by accident. That is about as exciting as it gets.
I miss home and everyone there, but I am stuck on this island like Robinson Crusoe.
I applied for a passport, which I can't get, because I am still registered in Germany. I can't go to Germany, because my passport is expired. The Constance registration office wants me to unregister in person.
Come visit me, anyone?
Wednesday 7 March 2012
18 months and on the way out
Aaaaaah I have been 26 for almost 4 months now and I guess I will have to breathe some life back into this little blog if I don't want it to die at the tender age of 18 months. 18 exhausting, lovely, crazy months (ha! that'S probably what actual parents of actual 18 months olds say!) since I moved to London town and started this blog and who would have thought I'd still be here now? Not me. This is the longest I have lived in any one place since 2005. ARE YOU PROUD OF ME?
In these 18 months I have:
- sat around the Church of St Martin's for 5 hours on a sunday morning 14 times
- raised zero money for different charities as a charity foundraiser
- felt rather awkward cleaning someone else's flat
- annoyed a lot of Swiss Orange customers as a market research interviewer for one company
- annoyed a lot of doctors and IT specialists for another
- served approximately 75 Londoners a burrito for their lunch one day
- translated a stupid amount of texts about overpriced mattresses
- pretended I was in Germany for a minute on camera for Nike and
- assisted old ladies with ordering dog food over the internet
One can't say I didn't spend my time in a productive way.
This last point is an important part of the newest job I would have. It is brand new, all it does so far is screaming and pooing.
But there is croissants on wednesdays and - apparently - free booze on fridays, but I have to see about that yet, that's how new it is.
Will keep you updated (I will, I will! I know I always say that...)
But yeah. I am back, I think.
In these 18 months I have:
- sat around the Church of St Martin's for 5 hours on a sunday morning 14 times
- raised zero money for different charities as a charity foundraiser
- felt rather awkward cleaning someone else's flat
- annoyed a lot of Swiss Orange customers as a market research interviewer for one company
- annoyed a lot of doctors and IT specialists for another
- served approximately 75 Londoners a burrito for their lunch one day
- translated a stupid amount of texts about overpriced mattresses
- pretended I was in Germany for a minute on camera for Nike and
- assisted old ladies with ordering dog food over the internet
One can't say I didn't spend my time in a productive way.
This last point is an important part of the newest job I would have. It is brand new, all it does so far is screaming and pooing.
But there is croissants on wednesdays and - apparently - free booze on fridays, but I have to see about that yet, that's how new it is.
Will keep you updated (I will, I will! I know I always say that...)
But yeah. I am back, I think.
Thursday 17 November 2011
26
I have had a birthday and it was a good one. Global warming hugged me tight and I enjoyed the afternoon in a beer garden. Outside. On my actual birthday. And I wasn't even wearing a hat or gloves.
My housemate Mirjam asked me as we were clinging glasses in the middle of London Fields (on my birthday! And we were sitting! And there was no snow!) what I would do with the year.
I guess I will mostly make plans. I need a plan now. At least one. If not more. Enough of the bumming around in gift shops and call centres. I want to go somewhere and do something. But not like I have been going places and doing things for the last six years. I want it to mean something.
I think that is a good start.
Also, I want to get counselling. Have already started contacting people there, actually. Why now? Why not in my closeted baby gay palm-cutting runaway days?
Cause I have now discovered that I am an actual nutcase who needs some help. Or maybe I just need someone to talk to. Someone who doesn't judge, doesn't tell anyone else I know, doesn't pitty, doesn't lie about what they think about it all.
The last 18 months have been so emotionally draining, I can hardly explain. I am mentally in a place that is completely foreign to me and I feel lost and it exhausts me. I have discovered sides of me that scare me and that I don't want. I want someone to take them and crumple them up and burn them. Or at least fold them up neatly and tuck them away somewhere they won't ever be found. I will probably need to do that myself, but maybe a counsellor can tell me how to.
And I want to do something that is not dishes and laundry, which is basically all I have been doing since May. I would like to learn something. Favourite on my list of things I could do is take sewing classes. I really WANT to do that. But apparently the cheapest beginners' sewing courses you get for 400 quid. Which I don't have. Alternatively of course I could waste 65 quid on a cushion making workshop, but I was shown how to make cushions in second grade when I was 7 and I think I still remember. So meh.
Most of my possible new hobbies cost a lot of money, tho. Will have to rethink. Any suggestions?
My housemate Mirjam asked me as we were clinging glasses in the middle of London Fields (on my birthday! And we were sitting! And there was no snow!) what I would do with the year.
I guess I will mostly make plans. I need a plan now. At least one. If not more. Enough of the bumming around in gift shops and call centres. I want to go somewhere and do something. But not like I have been going places and doing things for the last six years. I want it to mean something.
I think that is a good start.
Also, I want to get counselling. Have already started contacting people there, actually. Why now? Why not in my closeted baby gay palm-cutting runaway days?
Cause I have now discovered that I am an actual nutcase who needs some help. Or maybe I just need someone to talk to. Someone who doesn't judge, doesn't tell anyone else I know, doesn't pitty, doesn't lie about what they think about it all.
The last 18 months have been so emotionally draining, I can hardly explain. I am mentally in a place that is completely foreign to me and I feel lost and it exhausts me. I have discovered sides of me that scare me and that I don't want. I want someone to take them and crumple them up and burn them. Or at least fold them up neatly and tuck them away somewhere they won't ever be found. I will probably need to do that myself, but maybe a counsellor can tell me how to.
And I want to do something that is not dishes and laundry, which is basically all I have been doing since May. I would like to learn something. Favourite on my list of things I could do is take sewing classes. I really WANT to do that. But apparently the cheapest beginners' sewing courses you get for 400 quid. Which I don't have. Alternatively of course I could waste 65 quid on a cushion making workshop, but I was shown how to make cushions in second grade when I was 7 and I think I still remember. So meh.
Most of my possible new hobbies cost a lot of money, tho. Will have to rethink. Any suggestions?
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