My body is weak

I thought I was strong, I thought I could survive a lot. Turns out I don't know my body that well. Thought I was going to skip the morning coffee today and see what was going to happen. I waited with having my first cop of coffee until around 12:00, and the one I had was not as strong as I usually like it. As punishment for this foolish experiment with my body I have had a monstrous headache the whole day and no pills seem to help.



Argh me and my body are not friends today.

Progress

I finally made it to the third day of my learn German in 30 days course. I can't say that I feel any smarter or any better in speaking German, but at least I'm making progress and that feels good.

Phrase of the day:
Das Auto fährt gegen den Baum - The car drives into the tree.

How may we loose your mail today sir?

I wasn't a very big fan of the Italian post and banking services when I used to live there. In fact, I have almost had nothing but trouble dealing with either one of them. Today's events didn't help that situation I can assure you.


I called the bank to ask what the H!#L was going on with my money. Turns out that the letter I sent hasn't even arrived. So that's two weeks of waiting down the drain, thank you very much. So today's productive action is to write them a new letter and hope that they can please please make it faster this time.

Will be interesting to see where this one ends.

Spare some change please...

Splendid, the households total amount of money is now down to € 10, and we have at least a whole week up ahead of us before we will see any new money.

The situation is the following:
I have money, on my Italian bank account from when I worked there last year. To save me from the trouble and possible loss of money involved in transferring the money to Sweden and then to Germany, I figured I would stick with my Italian account and just use the Visa card to get the money in Germany. BIG mistake it turns out. About the first things I find out after leaving Italy is that my Visa card has stopped working, its the second time that happens to me, thank you very much! No problem I thought, with the wonders of modern technology this can be fixed with the help of Internet banking. Second BIG mistake from me. It turns out at a closer look that it is only possible to transfer money to other Italian bank accounts, so no luck there. After being in contact with the bank they tell us that a personal letter to my bank office in Catania will fix the problem and transfer the money to my girlfriends account. The mail was sent over two weeks ago, and still we have seen no signs of action. Soon it will seem faster for me to walk down there personally and get the money. Also we found out today that the bank account of my girlfriend is as far bellow zero as possible and her bank simply refuses to give us more money, so no luck there either.

Ironically today's word from dictionary.com is:

hardscrabble \HARD-skrab-uhl\, adjective:

1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty.
2. Marked by poverty.

so,
Spare some change please.......or what ever that could be called in German

Because everybody loves a know-it-all

I figured I would use some of my blog space and time to guide who ever ends up reading this to some interesting Internet sites for the person who simply needs to know more.

Dictionary.com : Subscribe to their newsletter and get a new English word in the mailbox every day. A good and not too cumbersome way to improve the vocabulary.

Todays word is:
hoi polloi \hoi-puh-LOI\, noun:
The common people generally; the masses.


There is also a similar site for the chosen few who speak Swedish. The site is omettord.se and you get a newsletter everyday with the explanation of a Swedish word.


The site, weirdfacts.com has a lot of eh, weird facts about stuff that makes for hours of fun and educational reading. And remember that in Tennessee:

The definition of "dumb animal" includes every living creature.

On the right track

What I am doing in Germany right now is that I am looking for a job. I told my former Italian employer that it was time to move on and to go live with my girlfriend in Cologne. Actually I wasn't that persuasive and ended up with a 6 month support contract, well at least it brings in some money and keeps a laptop in my hands so I shouldn't complain too much.

I managed to get three application letters sent today. Feels good, although I have a feeling it's not going to be enough. I have applied for two jobs as software developer in C++/C#, not exactly my dream job but it would do, and as a long shot, I applied for a developer of GIS applications in Java. I hope I have better luck with these than with the earlier ones from which I haven't heard a single word in weeks.

As a final note, spring is sort of here. Actually today it is raining, but you can hear the birds and feel it in the air that spring is about to come. I hope my friends back home are not all snowed in by the time they read this.

Ich heiße Strupsi

I bought myself a German In 30 Days book in the hope of improving my German beyond the point of drinking words and pissing people off. I will be accompanied by Frau Glück and Yuki through my studies, my guess is that I will hate both of them before my 30 day struggle with the German language is over.

So far I have made it to Day 2 so I am on my way. Problem is that we have already made it to the accusative, and if there is one thing I do remember from my German classes in school, it is that accusative is just hopelessly difficult to learn. I hope my language brain has matured since and will be able to understand it this time. Lets see how this turns out.


Phrase of the day:
Das ist die Küche. - That is the kitchen.

The Startup

Ok, So I'm not really a donut, and I don't actually live in Berlin. I live in Cologne, but it just doesn't make for quite as funny title if it would be called "Ich Live in Cologne", so I will stick with my title.

To make a long story short, I moved here to find a job and to live with my girlfriend. I come from Sweden, but have spent the last year living in Catania in Sicily. Why I write in English is just because my German doesn't go much further beyond what I used in the title, and my keyboard lacks the, for the Swedish language so very important keys, "å", "ä" and "ö".

So far living in Germany I have seen.

• Too much rain.
• Too much beer, this can prove to be dangerous in the future ;-)
  
• Nice Germans
• Not so nice Germans
• Moustaches

//B