Finally!

I'm writing this from my new bedroom in Halle! I can't quite believe I'm actually here, though at the same time I already feel almost at home in the flat. I have my nice new bedding and my clothes are all in the wardrobe (though I need to pack soon for going to Cologne tomorrow!). I have my two books from Scotland on the shelf and my makeup in front of the mirror. I think I'll be pretty comfy here for the year.

I arrived in Halle four days ago after lots of panic and tears, feeling awkward lugging my huge suitcase everywhere in the station in Berlin, and a quick change of train at Wittenberg. I'm amazed I managed to get my suitcase packed in the first place - squeezing your life into a 20kg suitcase isn't easy! - and I only forgot my Kindle charger. My mentor teacher, Anka, met me at the train station and took me to spend the first few days at her house. She and her husband were absolutely lovely and so so helpful, making sure I was registered as a resident of the city, showing me around the lovely city centre and helping me set up a bank account. I've been well fed and there was plenty sekt and beer. Eventually though I was itching for my own space and I moved into my flat today!

Halle is smaller than what I'm used to in a city, having grown up in Glasgow. But the city centre is really pretty, tram construction works aside. Yesterday me and Anka had coffee in the inner courtyard of a castle - three euros for two. Much cheaper than I imagine it would cost in a Historic Scotland building! And in ten minutes we were back at the Marktplatz, Halle's main square. It also seems to be really easy to get around by tram. The shopping doesn't seem particularly great, but Leipzig is nearby and I can be in Berlin in less than two hours!

This afternoon I went to a mini street festival in my area with my flatmate Sebastian and his brother. There were fleamarket stalls, bands, food, beer, games for kids, and a lovely community atmosphere. I had a vegan döner, something I didn't even know was possible but that tasted really good, and a Club Mate cola, since I thought I should get into the slightly hipster vibe of the festival. My area (or "gegend" as everyone here seems to say) is gorgeous, the buildings are almost all old and renovated and the streets are lined with trees. I have two supermarkets round the corner and I can walk to the main station in 20 minutes! I can't believe how lucky I got with this flat. I'm really excited to spend the year here!

Tomorrow I'm off to Cologne for my training week. I'm meeting Emma and Ross Anne in the city then on Monday we head into the woods to the training hotel-type place. I've heard good things from my friends in other parts of Germany who have already done their training, so I'm pretty excited! And Cologne itself looks beautiful so it'll be good to catch a glimpse of it while passing through. I'll be telling you all about that when I get back! Bis dann!

Last week in Scotland...

I've not blogged in so long because year abroad preparations seemed to be very slow and a bit abstract, really. Besides the odd letter or email, there was very little to remind me I'm actually going. The last week has been a blur of goodbye drinks and staring at my suitcase willing it to pack itself, but even now I don't feel like I have to move abroad in a matter of days!

Packing is turning out to be a bit of a chore. I usually enjoy packing for a holiday or weekend away but this is a completely different matter. How do I fit a year's worth of life into a 20kg suitcase and a hand luggage bag? I'm not convinced it's possible despite my friends who have already landed in Germany (lucky ladies) reassuring me otherwise. What do I take to use as teaching materials? What do I wear teaching? What do I wear when I go out? How do I narrow my choices down to four pairs of shoes? Yes, there are shops in Germany. I know this. But how much can I buy over there, considering I have to bring it home?

Needless to say I am a stressed girl. But there are some essentials I have already put in my suitcase, ready to have clothes thrown on top:

1. Boots. Two pairs - ankle boots and knee highs. Ankle for autumn and everyday wear, knee high for snow and more formal wear. It's going to be cold over there, if everything I've read about Germany is true. So I want my feet to be well prepared come rain or shine. Mostly come rain though.

2. My diary. Because I have a feeling some of my worse moments should still be documented somewhere, as an inevitable part of the year abroad experience, but not necessarily on a public blog like this!

3. A camera. I couldn't forgive myself for not documenting the year in pictures as well as words, so both my film camera and a little digital one will be coming with me! Thankfully film seems to be fairly cheap in Germany so I should be able to snap away without the costs piling up too much.

4. A BahnCard. OK, I don't actually have one of these babies yet but I will definitely be purchasing one on arrival. I plan to visit all my friends around Germany while I'm there so getting 25% off my journeys will be pretty handy indeed!

I've been spending a lot of time recently saying goodbye to family and friends which has been a bit overwhelming but great fun too. Elsa came through on Thursday, Friday night I went for a burrito and cocktails with Beth (as she's off to Ayia Napa today!) and on Saturday night my family all came over with food and wine and some lovely presents for me. I've spent today detoxing a little from the huge amounts of food and alcohol I've been stuffing myself with! I'm going to miss everyone so much, I hope they all have skype so I can try and keep in touch a bit better than just facebook allows.

I wish I actually felt a bit more nervous and excited about leaving on Wednesday. I think I've just been waiting so long now it feels like it's never going to actually happen. But I'm sure once I have to say goodbye to my family at the airport it'll all come over me and I'll be crying my eyes out, and everything will feel far too real!

Six weeks to go!

Everything's starting to come together for me now in terms of preparation for the year abroad, both emotionally and in organisation. First of all, I officially have a flat! I'll be living in Halle's Südliche Innenstadt, which I've been assured by my mentor teacher is a nice and cheap area, with two other students. One studies primary teaching so I'm hoping she can give me some tips for work, and the other wrote me an adorable moving-in poem on facebook. For €221 a month, all bills included, I couldn't be happier - I can't wait to move in!

I've also got all my travel booked. Glasgow to Berlin, Berlin to Halle. Probably with many tears in my eyes. Then a few days later, Halle to Cologne to stay in a lovely hotel for the night with Emma before our induction week in the countryside! I can see these being the first of many adventures with Deutsche Bahn... time to buy a BahnCard, maybe!

I'm starting to feel totally ready to go now. I've been working a lot the past few weeks, and every time it gets me down, I remember that my last shift there is in just over a fortnight and my flight to Germany and a new life there is just over a month away! I've no doubt I'll be hiding in the toilets at Glasgow Airport the morning I leave, soggy faced and puffy eyed, terrified of stepping on the plane. And then when I do manage to compose myself, losing it again when the plane takes off. The amount of responsibility and independence I'll have over there is going to be very new to a girl who still lives with her parents. I can't quite believe they're going to let me teach kids. It's daunting. But it's incredibly exciting too.

I don't know anyone in Halle, besides people I've skyped on my flathunt who offered to take me out for drinks when I arrive (!) and my mentor teacher. I haven't met any of them face to face, so naturally I'm quite anxious that I'll arrive, nobody will like me, and it'll be a lonely year. But I've been better recently at telling myself I'm actually ok. I've been standing up for myself more, not wasting time on people who make me feel bad, and remembering how I felt about starting uni and making friends there. My friends are fabulous so I must be doing well, and there's no reason the same shouldn't happen in Germany! This might be a clean sheet, but I'll always be some version of Lauren. And maybe that'll work out just fine.

I'm ready for something new. I love Glasgow and I'll miss it, but I've lived here my whole life and I want to go exploring. I'm 20. There's nothing to keep me here for now. What could be more new than moving to a city I've never even visited before? And if I do get a bit lonely, my friends will only be a train ride away, going through the same stuff. I think we're all going to do great.

Hunting for a Home.

Sometimes I like to be organised. When I have little control over something, I want to throw myself into the things I can change and make sure I do a good job. When it comes to the year abroad, I can do little at the moment besides post forms away, book my flight and train journeys (done, oh my god), and search for a place to live. So in between working a lot in the shop and doing some work experience at a local paper, I've been consumed by finding the perfect Wohngemeinschaft ("living community", a German flatshare) to set myself up in for the year.

Everything I've read on my new favourite website Third Year Abroad and what I've heard from previous Year Abroad-ers at uni has pointed to WG-Gesucht as being the best place to find a flatshare. The university in Halle did send me a link to their residential services but I don't want to go into halls in Germany. I'm too scared of living with loads of other international students - probably a lot of fun, but not fantastic for my German skills as I think I'd be tempted to just speak English all the time. And I definitely don't want (and probably can't afford) a flat to myself. All of the WGs on WG-Gesucht seem to follow the same template: washing machine in the bathroom, and the flatmates like to cook together but also have time to themselves sometimes. Sounds ideal. I'm in.

I actually found the perfect flat very quickly, but it fell through! The room was huge and bright, the flatmates seemed awesome, there were two balconies... what more could I really want? I even started making a Pinterest board of how I was going to make it my own and looked up the best bus routes to Ikea Leipzig (though I hinted to my mentor teacher first, in case I could coerce her into taking me in the car). The flatmates chose me, I was over the moon, and I sent all my forms to the letting agency straight away like a good little slave to bureaucracy, only to receive an email over a week later saying that the owner doesn't want to let me the room. Oh. OK. My would-have-been flatmates were fantastic and tried to do all they could to help, but the new owner of the building won't play along. So it's back to WG-Gesucht and stressing out!

What I will say, though, is that I've found everyone really friendly so far! One girl who I replied to a little too late said that she would put me in touch with a friend of hers who needs a flatmate, and offered to meet up with me when I get to Halle! And a friend of my girl Lara has also passed along the details of someone she knows who has a furnished room to let. Maybe contacts are the way?

Hopefully I'll be back soon with better flat-related news! And despite my lack of success so far, I'm still really excited to move out of my parents' house for the first time. I might be terrified of the year ahead of me, but despite my general uselessness (can't cook, can't fix things, can't do much really) I couldn't feel more ready for this aspect.

Hallo, Halle!

While I was in Barcelona the email arrived that I'd been waiting for since finding out my Bundesland. Since finding out my application had been accepted. Since applying to go, even. I might have been shaking a bit when I opened it. What if I was going to a little village miles from proper (read: urban) civilisation? With two buses a day and no trains? Where everyone would know everything about everyone else because they all lived on the same street? This was the nightmare that had haunted me for months. But it was not to be! A letter from Saxony-Anhalt's education department revealed I'd actually been placed in a school in Halle an der Saale! To be honest, this was even better than I'd hoped for. I'd been gearing myself up for a medium-sized or small town. And instead I'm going to a university city, still small compared to Glasgow, but full of people my age and bars and shops. Perfect, as my Stevenson scholarship requires me to enrol at a German uni during my assistantship and Halle's Martin Luther University is huge.

I'm so excited to be going to Halle. It looks like a great city, small enough that I won't get lost but bursting with people to get to know. I've already begun looking for flats and they're all gorgeous and CHEAP. I can't believe the price difference between the flats there and what people pay for in the UK. I've had two skype 'dates' with potential flatmates, and I'm currently quite stressed but excited to finally fly the nest and hopefully land on my feet in a lovely flat. Preferably with a balcony, because that is the essence of the year abroad, is it not? Sitting in the sunset with a glass of wine, wondering how many people in Scotland can do the same. Though in my case, the glass will probably be replaced with a bottle of beer.

The school looks good. Quite normal, I suppose. It's a kooperative Gesamtschule, which from what I can figure out is pretty close to a British comprehensive school. It's in the Neustadt area of Halle, separated from the rest of the city by the river Saale, but by the looks of things still very reachable by tram or bus. From what I can figure out, HaNeu (amazing nickname, isn't it) looks a bit like Cumbernauld. Though, as my friend pointed out, perhaps Cumbernauld just looks like socialist East Germany. I'll be teaching kids from 10 to about 17 or 18, I think, and my lovely contact teacher Anka has informed me that the school is holding its first ever Highland Games this year. Interesting.

Is this an ex-Eastern Bloc country or a Scottish new town? You decide...

I'm doing work experience at a local newspaper this week and in every spare moment between jobs all I've been able to think about is Halle. Besides finding a flat, most of the worries I had are gone, and now I just can't wait to get on that plane and see what Germany's all about! I'm so happy for my friends too, as everyone's finally found out where they're going and everyone seems pretty happy! I can't wait to make Deutsche Bahn my best friend and travel around to see them all.

It's going to be a good one, I think!

Barcelona

This afternoon I got back from a long weekend in Barcelona with my friend Emma! An interesting holiday, to say the least. I'm not sure what we were expecting when we rolled up to Prestwick airport on Friday morning, but it certainly wasn't what we found over our four days in the city.

Barcelona is undoubtedly beautiful. The streets, parks and buildings we saw were gorgeous, especially in the sunshine. I especially loved the Antoni Gaudi works all over the city - it's no wonder his designs are so popular and have become a bit of a symbol for Barcelona! (Google tells me today is his birthday, so happy birthday, you genius!) Park Güell in particular blew me away with its mosaics and views over the city. Montjuïc park is also amazing, full of stuff to see and do, even if we thought our legs were going to fall off after our day there. The cable cars give glorious views, just don't go if you're scared of heights!

La Boqueria food market was a lovely surprise. It's right off La Rambla and was swarming with people when we visited on Saturday. Food paradise! Stalls were piled high with fruit, meat, nuts... I just had to buy a fruit salad and "tutti fruiti" juice (cherries, orange and pineapple), perfect healthy food for the hot weather! I could probably have spent much longer wandering around in there but we had to get back to our mission of finding a police station - more on that later - so we left before we got too distracted and started salivating. I think we could probably have splashed out more food-wise, we mostly ate at cheap cafés, but we did go to a lovely restaurant one night and found it wasn't expensive at all. Thanks to it being the night of Sant Joan, a huge deal in Barcelona, we got a three course meal with a beer for £16 euros each, and those portions were generous. I had a goat's cheese salad with walnuts and raisins, then cod in tomato and garlic sauce with beans and another fruit salad for dessert. All delicious, I want to try and copy the salad at home! Even in cafés we found some good food among the other more disappointing options, I had a great Mallorcan sausage sandwich (with crispy toasted bread, yum) for lunch one day, so I think as far as cafés go it's probably just your luck.

By chance, we found ourselves in Barcelona on the night of Sant Joan festivities. It's an old Christian festival celebrating John the Baptist, and it seems to have taken on a life of its own there. After our lovely dinner we wandered around the old town finding bars, including a rock bar in the Gothic Quarter that seems to have just been called Tequila and sold "mortal shots" named after musicians who died young... bit weird, but hey, they played The Clash for me! Then we grabbed a taxi to a beach club our hostel had got us free entry to. It was absolutely amazing. The only time I've experienced such a party atmosphere at home was on Hogmanay. The club was packed and we could walk out the back door straight onto a beach full of young happy drunk Catalans with bonfires. It was like nothing I've ever experienced. If you want to go to Barcelona, go on this night. Lots of things shut down the next day, but it's totally worth it for the night before.

As much as we enjoyed our holiday, it was definitely marred by two things, one of which we'd been warned about and one we did not see coming. On the first night, Emma's phone was stolen as we were eating. Almost everyone I'd told about Barcelona warned me about pickpocketing but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly! Spending our second afternoon in a police station wasn't the nicest holiday experience, even if the policeman writing the report was rather attractive. The second was harassment and catcalling on the streets. As young women we experienced constant obvious staring, as well as comments and gestures being thrown our way from men, mostly middle aged but a few younger ones too. These ranged from the annoying but ultimately harmless "hey sexy, wow, so white!" to men beckoning us to sit near them or in one case, on their knees. I did quite a bit of reading up on Barcelona before we went and never found anything about this, and now having googled it most of the websites I've found said that it was no worse than any other European city. But it was certainly worse than anything I've ever experienced, as a European who has travelled to a few major cities. We found ourselves very uncomfortable walking around at night. It was truly bizarre and a little frightening. I know if I was to return to Barcelona I'd want to travel with some guys because I really don't want to experience something like this again.

So all in all, I'm not sure what I thought of Barcelona. Beautiful and not at all hectic for a big city, it also didn't feel very safe for us at times. Perhaps that's to be expected everywhere as a tourist, but I definitely didn't feel so vulnerable in Berlin or even Paris. I'd go back, but as a young woman I'd want to go with male friends and I'd probably try and wear clothes that covered my legs at least (which I did, mostly, but Emma had only brought shorts and dresses and felt twice as uncomfortable as I did). I'm trying not to let our bad experiences ruin my opinion of such a cool city, though, and it was lovely to get some sunshine for a change!

I'll be posting again soon cause I've had some big news about my year abroad and I'm so excited to finally get more organised! So til then, hope you're all enjoying your summers!

Scottish summer: on the Glasgow tourist trail.

My friend Manon returns to France very soon, and before we all end up scattered around Germany she wanted to experience Glasgow like a proper tourist! When you're studying and living here, it can be surprisingly easy to let some of the city's attractions pass by unnoticed or unintentionally ignored, and the tour bus we decided to take even had some surprises in store for me! We set off on our bus tour a couple of weeks ago and though the sun hadn't heated up the city quite as much as it has this week, we were still lucky enough to find it shining happily all day long. I even got a little bit burnt!


My favourite parts of the tour were the two I'd never experienced before: the Necropolis and the People's Palace. Despite it looming over part of my daily bus route, I'd just never found the time or motivation to visit the Necropolis. I was surprised by the size of it - I didn't realise there was quite so much round the back! - and the views over the city were stunning. The People's Palace has never been on my beaten track, being in a part of the city I rarely have reason to visit, but I knew I'd enjoy a social history museum, and I certainly wasn't let down. Glasgow's social history is so important to the city's identity and the museum did justice to all of it, both the wonderful and the terrible parts. The exhibit on the Red Road Flats, currently being demolished, was especially poignant. We had fun trying to learn to dance old time Barrowlands style by following footprints on the floor; definitely not a success. We'd never have got a winch at the dancin' with these moves.


If you're in Glasgow and have never been to either the Necropolis or the People's Palace, go! Both are free (ahhh, lack of museum admission fees - another reason why I love my city) and definitely worth a visit. Plus, you can finish the day with a visit to West Beer and grab a pint of their gorgeous made-on-site German-style beer. Only a 10-15 minute walk from the city centre, so what are you waiting for? I really don't know why it took me so long to visit.