Week Two In Deutschland

My second week has been mostly dominated by work - I have been working until 6 or 7 every night at the office and then taking work home with me too. There is a lot going on at the moment and there are some things that need to be done as quickly as possible so I have taken it upon myself to throw myself into work the only way I know how. I am enjoying the work although some of the stuff I have to do right now is a little monotonous and quite tedious but the stuff I am doing right now is not what I will be doing long term - there was a massive need for this work to be done quickly and I am probably the most suitable person to do it given my skillset.

I have not really been out anywhere this week as I have been so busy with work but I did pop out for a few beers last night in my local, the Trio pub. I didn't leave work until just after 7 last night and went straight to the pub - it took me 45 minutes to walk there so the first beer was all the more enjoyable! I had my work laptop with me so spent a couple of hours trying to get a little ahead with the work. I know my employers don't expect me to be putting extra hours in away from the office and the official requirement is only for me to do 40 hours a week but I am just not that type of person; I would rather sacrifice my personal time to ensure that the work is done in time.

I headed home at about 10pm last night so that I could get something to eat. Once I had eaten something and freshened up (with the assistance of a very strong black coffee!!) I headed back to the pub to see if I could get a few games of pool going with the locals. Sure enough there was a group of guys in there happy to play pool and table football so I ended up drinking with them until about 3am! I have never been particularly good at pool but I suddenly seem to have gotten the knack. I won a few games and was delighted to learn that not only does the winner stay on but the loser also has to buy the winner a drink! My choice of drink was tequila shots and I had quite a few!

I got to bed at about 5am after playing far too much Football Manager - I have a save going with Fiorentina at the moment and I am really enjoying it. I started out as Frankfurt manager but got offered the job after about 6 months so thought I would give it a bash; best decision I have made on the game for a while!! I expected to have a feel a bit off this morning when I woke up given what I had drunk but I feel remarkably alright. I feel a little tired but a few strong black coffees have helped that!

I am now on my way to Frankfurt to meet my stepmum and her sister from the airport as they are coming over for a few days to see me. It will be nice to see them again and have a little bit of familiarity for a change. Although I am making friends here it's not quite the same as people you know well and it makes a big difference to be able to have a fluid conversation. I am trying to learn German but have very little spare time at the moment and I am also waiting for Rosetta Stone to download so that I can start using that - I have literally no vocabulary in German so need some help!

Most people here speak at least broken English which is good but I always feel bad not being able to speak with them in their language. I am picking up some words here and there and I am finding German words easier to pronounce but I think it may take some time before I can have decent conversations. When I was learning French and Italian I had so much spare time and also had lots of opportunities to speak the language with people. I also had a basic vocabulary in each of the languages which really helped a lot.

I have been looking at apartments on the internet this week as I would like to find one that will allow dogs so that I can bring Roman over here. I am really missing him loads and can't wait to be able to take him for long walks over here. One big problem I have with the apartment I am in right now is that there is no washing machine. This wouldn't be such a big problem if there was a launderette in Heppenheim but there isn't so I have to get myself 5km into Heppenheim and then get a train to the next big town and then wait for the washing. This means that washing takes up a day at the weekend as well as costing me far too much! I am taking the opportunity today to do a load while I am in Frankfurt - two birds one stone...