Bye Bye!

Liebe All,

Since my Hamburg adventures, my week has been quiet. Well, quietish. I've quite enjoyed a quieter week of sorting Spain things (I have found a flat!) and beginning the sorting/throwing away/packing process, so as to ease this week a little bit. It is now Sunday. I now have seven days left. Eek!

I rarely write about actual school, which is strange, as it's the main reason I'm here! My week's been a lot more school based, a bit more lesson preparation than normal (which I love!) and generally staying around in school to chat to people, give extra tutoring and so on. I love my classes. I love the teachers, chatting to them about England and Germany differences, chatting away to the kids and the other little challenges that I've had along the way! I offered to take Maike's Year 5 English class last week as she was poorly, and it was hard! I really enjoyed it because the kids are brilliant, and I've been in their class since September, so I know them really well. I really missed Maike in the class though! Normally it's a case of working together, but she instructs a lot in German, whereas I always speak English in class. This time, I had to speak German to them...normally I wouldn't be afraid of speaking German to pupils, but Year 5s can be critical.....they weren't though, they were lovely, and only confused once or twice (I blame that on the grammatical rule I was explaining not me!) and it all went quite smoothly. A bit of a hurdle.....

My week passed quite uneventfully! I did a lot of Skyping last week, actually, and a lot of sleeping.....and I went running with Annette once or twice....out of character! Then fast came the weekend, my final week, and I seemed to be running about non-stop! So my restful previous week was needed to get me through..

On Saturday I met my friend Andrea in Bremen. Andi is amazing! I met her through German exchange when we were 14, we were Exchange Partners and we get along so well, it's brilliant. She comes from Bavaria (I nearly put an accent on the i in Bavaria then, what is wrong with me?!), but is studying in Kiel at the moment, which is a few hours north of Diepholz. We decided to meet up in Bremen, had a bit of a wander round but mostly a lovely catch up! We went to the Viertel, which is much like Hamburg's Viertel- cool quirky shops selling pretty clothes, books, etc. We wandered around for a bit and then tucked ourselves away in a little cafe called "Heimweh", which means homesick, because we both were so far away from our respective homes :P It was so nice to catch up with an old friend, and I'm wanting to visit her again soon.....I intend to get Bryony to come with me too, in order to recreate our German Exchange at school =)

Sunday came, and I'd intended to get up really early and whizz off to Munster for the day, but I woke up and just had no lust......thus I slept, began the packing processes and had Nathan over from Bramstedt for coffee =)

My last week at school arrived, and I couldn't actually tell you where the time went, but it FLEW by! My last week in school was a flurry of goodbyes, lesson prepping and chatting to teachers.....

On Tuesday, I went to see Kokowääh with Svenja. It was such an adorable film! It's a Til Schweiger, bordering on typical rom-com but just so brilliantly, beautifully done, as with most German films =) I recommend it highly!

On Wednesday I had dinner at Annette's with Cornell, and we chatted all things school/Diepholz for hours. Sadly I've been a bit under the weather last week, just a bit of a cold and blocked ears but it's made me very boring! I stayed quiet, but enjoyed the chatting and conversations and of course, dinner =)

On Thursday I had to say one of my hardest goodbyes. It had always struck me that saying goodbye to school would be hard, the teachers etc, but I hadn't really realised how horrible it'd be to say goodbye to my language assistant pals! We've all stuck together since about November, keeping in good contact via Facebook and meeting up every few weeks to explore somewhere new. We get along so well and I know we'll all stay in contact back in England, which is lovely. Rachel is also going to be in Spain the same time as me, so visits are bestimmt planned =) Rachel, Laura, Annwyn and I had dinner all together in Hannover, and I stayed at the very lovely Annwyn's due to trains back to Diepholz being thin on the ground! It was so sad to say goodbye, but I know we'll stay in contact =)

I left Nienburg, Annwyn's town, excruciatingly early Friday morning to get back to school in time for my official "Verabschiedung" (Farewell) at 9.20. I'd made chocolate cake with butter cream and pink sparkles which went down an absolute treat, and the lovely school said such kind words about how much they appreciated my help and work in the school. Various people had got me lovely, so thoughtful, presents and cards (one particular letter that was written to me really, really brought a tear to my eye...) My lovely brilliant mentor teacher Maike treated me to lunch, and the lovely Jasmin and another teacher (I'm bad I don't know his name...) all went for lunch =) Then coffee at the Redetsky's (they gave me a Diepholz calendar! I am so proud!) and afterwards, I popped to the school to see some Improv-Theatre that the students were putting on. It was so clever, someone would suggest a place/theme/time/feelings, and they had to just make up a play or sketch based around it! It was hilarious. I popped on home after to pack further, and then went out with the new Referendarin Steffi for drinks. We had a quiet night, but I ended up being ridiculously hungover all day Saturday, which sucked!

Saturday came. I packed. I sat with Cornell and drank coffee. She's got me a present, a little USB stick with things to further my German education on.....I haven't opened it yet but I'm intrigued, bless her.

Sorry that this post was essentially just a list of what I've done, I'm currently sat in Bremen airport awaiting my first flight of the day, as I am moving to Spain! I really cannot be bothered to write, but figured I should whilst still in Germany....whilst Diepholz is still very much in my head.....this moving to Spain thing still doesn't feel real. I am extremely intrigued to see how my first week goes.......my good friend Holly's parents live close to Almería and Holly is coming over to visit them next weekend, so I am going to visit her =) So excited to see a friendly face! Though I'm sure there'll be lots of friendly Spanish faces too.

My life is certainly not boring.