An update

It's been 7 months since I last posted... how time has flown!

A lot has happened, and I'll try to summarize some of the key things, if I can remember it all.

● I've been travelling a bit - going on weekend adventures and taking some days off to go a bit further. I've been mostly around Germany - Freiburg, Nuremberg, Berlin (twice now), Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Trier (and side trip to Luxembourg). I also spent a weekend in Dublin, and a couple of snowboarding trips - twice in the Zillertal valley (in Austria), and once in Feldberg in Germany's Black Forest.

My family also came to visit me and we went on a two week trek around Europe, hitting Amsterdam, Paris, Munich, Lucerne, Florence, Pisa and Rome.

● Work has kept me relatively occupied and my current work contract (and work permit) officially lapses at the end of the month. Theoretically I would then return to NZ... but long story short, I got two really great offers - one is with a position in our division's main office in Amsterdam, and the other was in another department in the Fulda branch here.

I indicated that I would like to go for the job in Amsterdam, but after some administrative issues, looks like that can't be turned around quickly, so I will stay in Fulda and for the interim take the other job offer while they work on the paperwork to get me to Amsterdam. Main thing is, I'll still be in Europe, and while in the last weeks I've started to feel homesick, I'm happy to stay here and have more experiences. As much as I love NZ, to return after just nine months, feels like a little bit too soon to me.

● I broke my arm during one of the aforementioned snowboarding trips right after Christmas. You know something is wrong when your arm looks like this:

I had surgery back in Germany and was in hospital for about a week. It was not a fun time!

● Looking back to when I first arrived, my German language skills have really come a long way, and I'm quite proud of myself. I've started to use it more confidently and even with strangers... over the telephone even! I still have a long way to go, but today I don't feel so handicapped and am slowly being able to interact with people on a more personal level.

● I bought a scooter! For the time I had planned to be here and the fact I am living in town with no parking spots, buying a car didn't make financial sense. Not having ridden one before, it was quite a cool new experience. I even got to experience slipping and falling off my scooter one wet morning, running late for work (I wasn't too hurt, just a few grazes). All was well for about two months, when one day everything seemed to go wrong with it - engine wouldn't start, wouldn't run properly etc. Wasted a whole lot of money trying to get it fixed. In the end, I just gave up. I hate dealing with auto mechanics.

● Living in Fulda has been quite okay. An update on my housing situation - I ended up not needing to find a completely new flat at the end of my sublet agreement. Luckily there was a vacant room in the flat where I was already was, so I ended up hauling my stuff across the hallway before Christmas.
Oh, and I've been cooking pretty much all of my meals - and not doing a bad job if I say so myself. Mum would be proud. The next place that I move to will need to have a fully equipped kitchen, that's for sure.

When I'm not travelling, time is spent in Fulda mostly at home (especially over the winter when going out into the cold just isn't an appealing prospect). But some nights have been out with workmates or occasionally with my flatmate's group of friends. I've been also doing hip-hop classes - which is great, but just a little weird with the average age of participants being somewhere in the teens. (But since when have I let being 'weird' stop me from doing anything?)

On reflection, although Fulda is a nice town (there could have been worse places to be living in), I definitely would prefer to live in a bigger city with more to do and see.

As I mentioned winter earlier - it seems to be finally over and it is starting to warm up nicely. After two winters in a row, I'm ready for some sun. In comparison to NZ winters, the German winter has been bitterly cold and just a constant grey. It is really quite depressing, and although it isn't as wet as a NZ one, I think I prefer a NZ winter instead. As the daylight hours have started to get longer, I'm definitely more of a happy chappy.

This is near my bus stop which I take from work to go home

...

I think that covers all the interesting things that have been happening in my life so far. I'm gonna aim to add a whole lot more photos and go into a bit more detail on some on my travels and some of the experiences I mentioned in this post.