Starting my Leben in Leipzig and some stories before that

Hallo Hello Bonjour Hola Hei!

Finally I have a couple of hours at the computer to write something about my trip so far. When travelling you don't want to waste more time than really necessary at the computer. Well well, everything has gone just fine and I'm now in Leipzig for a couple of days as my father wanted to celebrate (or escape?) his 60th birthdayon 9th March in Leipzig - my parents are thus coming here tomorrow. They are leaving on Sunday so then I'll continue my interrail to Amsterdam my love.

So what has happened so far? Quite a lot but nothing really drastic. Santander was lovely, sunny and very hilly. Ruska and Aura seemed to be doing fine, though both of them were missing some male companion. Riku is in Finland and well Ruska had heat and she had escaped and had to have some expencive the day after -injections to avoind the possible puppies. The weather treated me very well in Spain, it wasn't raining and windy as usual, I heard. I got into a holiday mood and we were not doing much except for going for a day to San Sebastian (a city nearby) on Friday. There we climbed a hill and saw some old old fortress with a saint on the roof - and the saint was reaching up to God with a antenna on his head... We were also offered some socialist condoms on the street, which was very strange. We were just crossing the street and some guys gave us some leaflets and a little pack, which we thought might contain marmelade. Well, not, condoms thus. The pamphlets were about some basque socialist thing and the condome pack had also some socialist adds on it... ;?

In San Sebastian we already got a foretaste of the catholic carneval celebration with people in unbelievably well-planned and expencive-looking costumes. Saturday we ended up dressing ourselves also and had some great time at the Santander carneval celebrations. The music was some spanish schlager but I guess we had enough to drink and were dancing like crazy. I was portraying the colour pink with Aura's roommates pink bath robe and the others were hippies - although in the end Aura looked more like a late 19th century explorer in Africa. The night had also some drama as Aura's Estonian roommate's romance with an American guy was in a crisis. This crisis was going on the whole of my stay there and was the main topic af almost all discussions and I'm very eager to hear what is the outcome, Kerttu! ;)

When I left Santander to travel 12hrs to Barcelona I was really proud of myself as I was able to understand some Spanish, like the price when buying things. I also got interested in the Basque language issues and the extremely difficult grammatic of the language. In Barcelona I was trying really hard to distinguish Spanish from the Catalan. Barcelona was lovely and sunny, I stayed in a hostel with almost too friendly staff and had a nice afternoon exploring the fabulous Gaudi park. I also spend an afternoon in a Picasso museum and thus got to know two new artists, Graudi and Picasso, which are now more than just names to me. I was very sorry I didn't have the time to visit the huge Salvador Dali museum located near Barcelona. I really have to go back there some time.

The trip in the night train to Paris was a bit surreal but went okay. I first took a local train to Cerbere, a little town in France, and had to wait for the night train on an almost totally empty Cerbere train station. First there was also absolutely nobody else in the train and it was quite spooky. Luckily I got the first taste of the French friendliness from the helpful conductor - and I was able to utter some words in French and get his point although I have been neglecting my French for years.

The weather really changed when I went up to the north to Paris. I arrived 7.3o in the morning and got my stuff to the hostel which luckily had a room for me although my internet reservation hadn't arrived. I was freezing the whole day exploring Paris as I couldn't get to my room to get more clothes before 2pm. No wonder that I woke up feeling not so good next day. A traditional cold, which made the rest of my holiday a bit unpleasant. In Paris I went to the huge Pompidou modern art centre resembling a shopping centre and walked around til my back was hurting like hell. Pairs is full of incredible old, beautiful buildings and churches - I was really wondering if the coffins in the Pantheon really contained the bodies of people like Marie Curie and Renes Descartes or whoever, as they told us. Nice surprises were things like going to a store to buy food and noticing that it's a natural food shop full of the things I was selling in Amsterdam that one summer - and finding finally may way to the hostel after walking in circles forever. When I wasn't even especially lost some cute, small and fat French elderly gentleman asked me in French if he could help and well, I did go a gauche as he told me. Oh the friendliness...!

I was very happy that my next stop was to go to see more friends as the cold really put me a bit down although I didn' have fever. I've been to Brussels two times before but this was even more exciting as I was going to see Tim, a Kenyan guy who I last met in Kenya 5 yrs ago. He finally got to Europe, she and Annelies got married a year ago and Toto is going to be born in June. It was incredible to see him and hear him trying to learn Dutch! Great kabisa! I spent most of my 4 days in Brussels at Annelies&Tim's house outside Brussels in Grimbergen. I was suppose to go to Gent for a tourist day on Tuesday but I was still feeling too sick and just had some waffels in Brussels tourist city centre. On Monday I spent like three hours in the train station (don't ask me why.. I got a bit lost and didn't have a map and was not feeling well) but although frustrated I ended up in the European parlament after all. I wend to the Federation of Young Greens in Europe office to find out where some papers I sent them have ended up and if I was going to get by Berlin flights reimbursed or not. Thus I got a visitor status to the parlament building and saw some of the corridors embodying the EU.

What else? I've been obersving the pedestrian traffic light men in different countries. In Santander the men were running and in France they were very skinny. Here in Eastern Germany there are the little fat DDR guys that I met already in Berlin in December - where the people in the traffic lights are different on Eastern and Western side. Travelling in the train is fun because even if you're sitting your ass off for hours you actually experience the change happening when moving from place a to place b. It was interesting for example to follow how the language starts to change little by little - how the announcements in the train are at some point first in German and not in French anymore.

So here I am, starting mein Leben in Leipzig or something. It's a bit confusing to be here for a couple of days only but I think it's easy to settle here when the orientation cource starts at the university on 17th March. I'm now writing at my friendly roommate Saskia's computer, who is working. The apartment is very nice, my room is big but cosy and the kitchen and bathroom are excellently equipped (bath tub, dish washer..). My both roommates Susi and Saskia seem to be very nice girls. I went today to the city, it's only ten minutes with the tram from the house and seems not too big and not too small. I've been a bit confuced about speaking German after this Spanish-French-English-Dutch-some word in swahili to Tim and memories from Kenya-hassle but well I guess I'll be quite fluent in some weeks... And of cource this blog in English is a nice addition to everything but well what can I do as I my friend are scattered around the world and I'm too lazy to tell the same things a thousand times.. ;) I hope I'm being clear enough and not making too many mistakes.

The cold is gone and the medicine is safely but not totally undamaged in the fridge and my back is hurting but what the hell everything's just fine. I'm already getting some date querys from visitors coming - have no idea when and what I'm going to do before the school stuff starts. But yes you're all welcome, I'll mainly be here and I'll get back to writing my blog when I have time and something more to tell.

Auf Wieder..sehen/hören?
Iida