I stalked you for a year - you didn't notice.

It's been a busy few weeks, so there's my lame excuse for not posting over and done with. And in the first sentence, too! I'm quick to make excuses. Honestly, it's just the end of the term and I'm holding out for Christmas holidays and Jayne's visit and travelling. I have absolutely no interest in the Deutschkurs right now, I'm been putting off writing my seminars until the last possible minute, and I haven't done my homework for over a week. Two more weeks, that's what I need to repeat to myself to get through. Two more weeks.

Of course, it's been two weeks since I last posted. As you can imagine, the weekdays have been filled with the usual; German course, coming home for lunch, drinking tea in the kitchen with Steffi, and avoiding Lukas and Doro. It's not that they're that bad, they're just so loud. They just scream at eachother all the time, and not with violence, either: they simply think nothing of the thin walls or yelling for eachother from one end of the hall to the other. I'm beginning to think that it would actually be easier to deal with if they were fighting. I think Steffi's going to have a word to them about it, which would be lovely, because that means I don't have to attempt to do it. Lukas takes offense to absolutely everything (only child) and I don't know Doro very well, so it's much easier for Steffi to talk to Doro. She'll take it on board a bit more easily. Still, only two weeks more of putting up with it...

Last weekend was Matt's birthday, so I went up to Muenster on Saturday. I made the same brownies that I made last time, except that this time I actually followed the recipe... so, of course, they didn't work out. This is what I get for following recipes!! I'm never making that mistake again. Anyway, I'm going to adapt my own version and blog it, but I don't want to do that until I'm over the sheer sugar influx of the last batch. In training to be a diabetic, at this rate. So, I also brought the bottle of Hendrick's gin to Matt & Tash's house, and Matt and I did our best at polishing it off. I ate more food that I have ever eaten before, to the point where I actually felt sick. I blame the garlic dip, it was addictive. Anzacs near me? Oh yeah, that was me. Probably why I ate about 10 of them. Ughhhhh. Anyway, I was happily drunk and lolling around on the lounge that I can't sit up straight on (it's more comfy if you're slouched to nearly vertical, cos then you can rest your head on the back!) and had a good time talking to lovely people. Was an awesome night, and I think Matt should have birthdays more often.

Got a few hours sleep (precious few!) and didn't manage to get back to sleep after the Fitzgrundy kids woke up at some ungodly hour of morning, but did stay in bed for a lot longer afterwards. Long enough not to feel too seedy, anyway, or at least in comparison to Matt! Poor guy. Tash was an absolute champion and managed the kids on her own so that everyone else could sleep in. I don't know how she does it, honestly. I don't do very well on so little sleep... anyway, everyone (minus Matt) headed into town to see off friends to the airport, and I caught the train back to Padders. Started to feel a little seedy at about Hamm, and went to bed at some ridiculously early hour. Of course, I got woken up by Lukas and Doro not using their inside voices, which meant that I then stayed awake until about 2am again... but ehh what can you do.

Another highlight of late is that Mona invited me over for lunch on Friday. She also invited Nevin, who couldn't come in the end, but it was fun even without her. Mona shares a rather cute loft apartment in Auf der Lieth with her sister. She made me awesome Iranian food! The main dish was rice and lentils, cooked to allow a crust to develop on the bottom. Best style of cooking ever, I love rice crust! Crispy and delicious. Anyway, with that was as accompaniment of fried onions, sultanas, tumeric, powdered persian lime and cinnamon, which got mixed into the rice. Ahh delicious. And a chopped cucumber and tomato salad, too. Mona also ate yoghurt mixed with powdered rose petals and powdered mint, which sounds like a heavenly meal if ever there was one. I'm going to have to get my hands on some powdered rose petals and try that with soy yoghurt. I'm also going to have to get my hands on powdered lime, so I can make the same rice dish... so good!

After lunch we lazed about and I drank tea. Iranian snacks were awesome - dried white figs, dried white mulberries (yes! best ever!), little dried cherries that might possibly have been barberries or something similar, fruit (ate quince raw, and it was pretty good!), nuts, and little biscuits. So good. I was stuffed to the gills! So awesome to eat new foods - definitely going to have to track them down back home in Australia. Anyway, food aside, it was nice to hang out. I was a bit worried that we wouldn't have anything to talk about, but we managed nicely. Turns out that she's an awesome artist, too. I stayed too late and missed going to the bank, which means I was managing the last of my cash pretty carefully not to ruin my plans.

On Saturday I went to Koln and saw the Roman-Germanic Museum. It wasn't that great, honestly, but it only cost me 2 Euro, so what do I care? I then went back to the Ludwig museum, to raid them of the last of their supply of Kaffeebechers. Lucky timing. I was right next to one of the Christmas markets, so I wandered out for a look, seeing as I had 40 minutes before my train. It was crowded, unpleasantly so, and I decided to try a Gluhwein (mulled wine) to warm my freezing self. Admittedly, the Gluhwein was terrible - tasted like rocket fuel, but definitely not as cool as rocket fuel. Much more daggy 70s. Anyway, I managed to choke it down because I wanted back my 2.50 cup deposit. However, the one positive was that it was very warming - the alcohol was more responsible than the heat of the beverage. It started to snow, suddenly and heavily, and I got to watch snowflakes collect on my scarf. They kept falling into my cup and melting on impact, which made me think that my wine was like a snowflake slaughterhouse, which was pretty appropriate considering the colour of the wine. I bought some sugared macadamias with my change (I was scraping it together at this point) and headed for the train.

Train back to Pb, half cut because I'd practically skulled my wine on an empty stomach, nibbling on macadamias and the olive bread that I bought in the train station with my last dollar. Got into a short conversation with a lady who I let order ahead of me, which doesn't happen too often. It was fun, anyway, which put me in a good mood. I've been in a much better mood since I started taking some vitamin D every day... begone, winter blues. To hell with you.

Today I tried to dye my hair (epic fail; it didn't lighten the brown, and it was too close to the natural colour to show any difference on the roots of my hair) which made me miss the product I used to use to strip colour from my hair back in Australia. Anyway, afterwards I cut my hair. And, yes, I voluntarily gave myself an undercut. It looks awesome. However, it's insanely messy, because I can't cut my own hair and the back of my head that short and keep it uniform. Really, it needs some clippers, but I don't have any, so it'll have to deal with being messy. Anyway, I trimmed the top and sides much shorter and gave myself a slightly thicker fringe. Love it.

So, plans for this week: well, write the seminar at some point. Tomorrow I'm meeting with Manfred to discuss plans for some kind of booklet based on the contents of my lectures. Tuesday is a Christmas Party at the Pienemann's Pb apartment for all the people who work for Manfred, to which I've decided to bring tarts. Except not quite; the puff pastry sheets come in small rectangles, and I don't have appropriate tart cases, so I'm just going to leave them as-is, top them with roasted pumpkin, olive and morroccan-style spices, and bake them. I bought the olives at the market yesterday (they were the first thing I bought, being the most essential, and other fruit and veg were just to top up what was in my fridge; managed to spend less than usual, just because I didn't have my usual 25 Euro to spend!) and anyway, they're delicious. Only let myself try one... I'll be sure to eat all the leftovers, though.

Anyway, time to give up on actually getting anything done tonight. I really want to go running, but it's cold and wet and icy, and that will only end with me breaking something. Sigh.