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...