Good morning, Hamburg!

So. I arrived in Hamburg. I decided to get off the train at the central station, rather than the other ones on offer. Firstly because I didn't know at what time I could check into my hostel and I knew there would be luggage lockers in the central station. With hindsight, I should, of course, have gone to Altona, which was the end station, because my hostel was approximately a 3 minute walk away and check in was 24 hours. So after an hour or so in a café, trying to figure out how to get to the hostel, and deciding whether or not to just turn up at the company, or email to warn them I was on my way and find out how to get there, I headed over to the hostel. The hostel was SO nice. I have stayed in lots of hostels before, but everything about this place was perfect, the staff were so helpful and a great location, nice relaxing area etc etc. So. I checked in (early), dumped my stuff in my room (early) and got ready to head out, printed off the contract for the company usw and was on my way out, when I met this Australian guy (Dave, who will feature quite a lot in these opening posts), who just happens to be in Hamburg for a year! ACE IN THE FACE. We talked some, he said he didn't speak any German and wanted to get a phone, because he was looking for accommodation and thought that phoning was easier. So off we trotted, to explore the area a bit and get ourselves some phones. We went into a shop and a guy offered us phones for 5€ (having established that we both wanted o2, on various people's advice), but the system was down and it was going to take him 3-4 days to register the phones. Sod that. We went and had some lunch, then wandered round trying to find Media Max which was da oben with a finger pointing in the direction off to the right. Of course, it was off to the left and upstairs. We didn't find it, but we did find phones! The guy even topped them up for us :) which was nice. Althouugh, the shop was one of those with about a bajillion phones in the window, I don't think either of us would have gone into that sort of shop in our respective countries..

ANYWAY. We then went our seperate ways, I sent Dave the wrong way back to the hostel and I headed off to the chic suburb of Blankenese to find the company, to get them to sign the convention de stage. I was, by this point, even more tired than was possible! I got there, and struggled to express myself, all these different languages is a bit of a head-fuck. Luckily the other intern speaks English and she is lovely, we chatted a lot and yeah, they signed the thing! HOORAHHHHH I met the boss (briefly) and the woman who I had been emailing for months. It's in a nice house, and there aren't many people in the office (I will of course, update on this situation when I have actually started!).

I then went back to the hostel to catch up with Dave, and I could officially start looking for somewhere to live. Given the state of my German, I emailed a few people and texted a few people. One of them was within my budget and in Blankenese! Which would be ideal, given that it was close to my work place, so no commute usw usw. I hoped they would be in touch. In touch they were, and they invited me to a viewing the next evening. First viewing, eeeeeek. Then Dave and I grabbed dinner at a place that offered reductions for people staying in the hostel. Dinner involved a hilarious sequence of phone-calls from some man speaking in English trying to offer Dave somewhere to live. I was crying with laughter and poor Dave had to try and keep a straight face. Kudos to him for managing to do so :) he even managed to go and look round the place, which I wouldn't have done I don't think...kind of a nutcase, this guy was. So whilst Dave was out looking at this place, I nabbed one of his hard drives and watched a film. I was so tired, I fell asleep quite early. Dave got back at about 1.30 and the GIT had found somewhere to live! NO FAIR. But that meant less competition for me to find somewhere to live, and one friend in Hamburg to help me find somewhere to live!

And that was my first full day in Hamburg :) More to come!

I'm ugly and tired

And the title of this blog (in general) is a slight lie. Because I am not homeless in Hamburg. Or particularly ugly (I hope). Hoorah! The title of this entry is dedicated to my dear friend Sarah Luebke. And it is going to recount the tales of when I was homeless in Hamburg. Which was a matter of days, luckily. So I guess I should start with the preamble, why I am in Hamburg usw (usw = und so weiter = et cetera) and all the faff that was involved in me getting here. And maybe that will perhaps explain why I am ugly and tired.

So here goes...back in time approximately one week ago. Location, Bureau de stages, G208 (or thereabouts), Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3. Of course, this requires prior information. So I will sum it up in as few sentences as possible, because it is of course, relatively boring. In order to leave my accommodation in MTP, I was required to give some sort of proof proving that I wasn't just leaving for the hell of it and actually had a valid reason. So I sent the convention de stage (a contract between me, the university and the company) over to the company via email asking them to sign it as a temporary measure for me to give it as notice. Of course, the convention was in French and English, but not in German. And of course, the company refused to sign something they didn't understand. There is a first time for everything (the first time a German company has refused to sign the bilingual French-English convention). I got on to the head of the masters, explained the situation and she got on to getting a translation done into German. BUT (fast forward to a week ago) the translation had not been done. So here I am, sitting in the Bureau de stages, being told that until the company accept to sign the convention, I can't go to Hamburg. But I have a ticket for Monday to go to Hamburg. ARGH. I was sent from person to person to try and organise the situation, even the legal services in Montpellier got involved. All very complicated.

Then packing happened usw usw, that is always a stressful situation. Given that I arrived in Montpellier in the car, downsizing required extensive effort and was a difficult operation. Thanks to all of those that helped! :) A guy from my course, Frank, who is German and happens to live in Hamburg, happened to be going to Hamburg on the same day that I was, in a minibus with a trailer. So he extremely kindly offered to take my stuff when I bumped into him in that hideous Bureau de stages that Fateful Friday. Frank took most of the heavy stuff, like my magic box, but of course as usual I leave everything to the last minute so all my stuff wasn't packed. So I didn't get everything to Frank in time.

ANYHOW. Let's get on to the move. Once everything was all packed up and I had said most of my goodbyes, I headed down to the station with a couple of friends. They helped me with 2 of my bags. To be honest, I didn't have that much stuff, but enough to perhaps require help. And help I required when I crossed gay Par-ee after arriving in from Montpellier, because one of my bags broke. It was one of the strong shopping bags you buy at the supermarket. THANKS, Shopi. I was supposed to be meeting a friend up there, but unfortunately her train got in too late. So I had to buy a holdall, annoyingly from one of those over-rated, over-priced Paris shops. Then I jumped on my train, found myself in a lovely cabin, being offered a choice of drinks for breakfast by the nice Deutsche Bahn man! There were 2 of us going from Paris, a French girl called Camille was joining me all the way to Hamburg. We spent about an hour chatting, then decided to go to bed. I was exhausted, I'd had a sleepover at Beth's the night before leaving and had slept all of about 4 hours.

12 hours later, I arrived in Hamburg...