Sausage Fest

So last night after work, I went to Bad Dükheim, to the Dürkheimer Wurstmarkt, aka the biggest wine festival in the world! And indeed, it was really big, and there were lots of people, but not too great after a rather tiring weekend in Amsterdam and just wandering around aimlessly on my own. So I left quite early.

Today, I went for coffee in the morning with one of my neighbours. She is so inspirational, I actually want to be her when I'm older. Later in the evening, I went round for some magical tea, and then we headed to a library for a discussion on "Why are people capable of cruelty", after which she took me out for dinner. She is absolutely amazing. I invited her to come to visit Cambridge and her response was, "if the wind should take me there..."

Oops

Got a little distracted. So the week leading up to Amsterdam, I spent a lot of time with some family friends from Austria, and then an evening out with the new Erasmus students in Heidelberg.

My presentation was on Thursday, and afterwards, went to see my colleague's horse and it was generally just a very lovely week.

Not as lovely as Amsterdam though.

AMSTERDAM

Best weekend, ever.

KABOOM

DAVID-weekend! OH YEAH.

After yet another shitty week at the lab, I was (almost) literally bursting with excitement on Friday morning! I arrived in Mannheim and bought some yellow socks. This is clearly the sign of an excellent weekend, clearly.

I first met Justin, from Freiburg. We then had the best Eiskafee, ever. Met CC next, and then we did our epic fan-girl-style run towards David as he alighted his train. We are just so cool. At Catherine’s, we had the most phenomenal cake ever. I knew there was a reason I was friends with these guys…

Through Skyping Prioty across the pond and meeting Yuliya later in the evening, the gang was finally back together again! And then ensured a plentiful of eating and drinking and a little more drinking. Naturally, this was followed by crazy dancing in a not-so-crazy German club. Stumbling home at 4.30am, we stayed up and nattered all the way up until when David had to leave for his train. An emotional “Tschussy”, and then at 7.30am, we crashed.

The following day was my 6^th tour of Heidelberg. Quite the professional tour guide by now, I like to think. Fireworks by the castle/old bridge in the evening, and then of course the drinking continued. Missing the last bus home wasn’t too great – another 5am-half-hour-walk home.

Lucky for me, I had a meeting with my supervisor scheduled for 9am. Subsequently canceled, but it meant we made it to Merlin, the pub with the awesome breakfasts!

Another Tschussy for Justin, and then it was just Catherine and myself. We nattered and nattered in the botanical gardens and found some exploding plants! I’m pretty sure we weren’t hallucinating…

In the evening, I had another dinner out with family friends from Germany/Colombia who now live in Austria come to visit. A little exhausted and all beer’d out.

Monday was shopping duty. Six whole hours as this lady’s personal shopping assistant. We had a lovely lunch and coffee out in town though! Monday was a sad day though – Monica (& Dana)’s last night in Heidelberg! So of course, another goodbye dinner!

Tonight, another dinner out.

So sad that all my friends have now left Heidelberg.

But it’s okay. I’ll see them again. Somewhere in the world. We’ll make it happen!

Fishfail

Two weeks in a row now, someone has been sabotaging my fish. Not happy.

So now I have to do my overnight incubation during the day. Which means... Shopping! Yay! Silver lining I guess. Just not so much for my bank balance.

So nothing happens on a Sunday. Apparently you're not even allowed to mow your own lawn in case it disturbs the neighbours! BUT, it's a Tuesday morning and I can't believe how dead it is. I started work at 7am. Apparently shops (or coffee shops) don't open till 10am! What is going on? Does anybody do anything around here except for kill my fish?!

KölNO

Very almost went to Cologne this weekend, but transportation difficulties and general exhaustion meant that home was the better choice.

Well, that's what I thought on Friday.

This weekend's been a bit jumbly. I don't really know what I'm doing any more. My to-do list is growing rapidly, but I haven't even thought about working on it yet. Odd.

I went to the local market on Saturday! I thought it never existed, as every other time I've gone past there, there's never been anything there. Apparently it only appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays for select hours.

Oh did I mention, I managed to lose my bike lock last week. Bike LOCK. I didn't think that was humanly possible, but apparently it is! Luckily I had a friend who could come with me to buy a new one, and afterwards, we ate at the most amazing Chinese restaurant, ever, and of course had a nice beer at Bellini's. Bellini's manager is awesome. Such a flirt, he gives us free drinks.

I guess it's nice to integrate with the local community!

Also, my supervisor bought me some bread!!! It was just the sweetest thing ever! It was a few weeks ago, I'd just asked about grocery shopping in general, and explained to them my woes. And then last week, she turned up and presented me with a loaf of her favourite bread from her local bakery! So nice!

That's all for this weekend. Weather is much cooler, perhaps too cool. I'm really cold now! Heat stroke last week, shivers this week. I miss predictable England!

I killed the awkwardness monster

So win.

We first went to Bellini's and had an awkward dinner where again, everybody was talking to German. I somehow understood the sentence when my supervisor said that she'd left me with the morpholino injections because they're bloody difficult to do.

Afterwards, my lunch group (so supervisor, technician and PhD student) then went to the Neckarwiese and we actually had fun...!

Volleyball and badminton, it was mental! Probably the first time I've understood them whilst having fun, in a mixture of German and English.

Lab ist nicht so gut. The crazy temperatures and making the oocytes go crazy, and the fish aren't in the mood for making babies either.

I'm also sleeping 13 hours a day and still feeling tired. I guess I just can't deal with heat at all.

OH, big news - I've adopted a new mum. It's amazing. She cooks me Chinese food, and is the loveliest ever. YAY!