Arghhh I totally promised myself that I’d write more, but I’ve been such a lazy arse – actually strictly speaking, for once, it’s not down to laziness, it’s been down to being so goddamned busy!

However, as I did want to document the Germany year abroad process, this is a bad move on my part as I’ve failed to write about this whole shebang finally getting a move on! Last time I updated, I’d just received a letter about the induction course near Cologne. About a week ago now, I received a big fat scary German letter through the post – after trying to decipher it by myself, I eventually got to the bottom of what it was actually telling me to do with the help of my old German teacher.

So! I know where I’m going, finally! Dortmund, Nordrhein Westfalen is where I shall be spending the next academic year as a Foreign Language Assistant in a Gymnasium. The next step : making the scary phonecall… I had planned on emailing or using good old snail mail, but my German teacher pointed me towards this handy website which details when the schools in each German state break up for their holidays. Mine was closing for the Summer holidays the very next day, so I had to act quick and take the plunge.

My Betreuungslehrerin (the teacher who’ll be looking after me) sounded really really nice, and I think she could tell that I was ridiculously nervous. I didn’t want to just take the easy route and speak English, but I didn’t exactly speak a whole lot of German either – mostly just sentences I’d pre-prepared and an awful lot of ‘ja’. Unfortunately, the school was unable to secure me any accommodation, but I don’t mind too much. The way I look at it, this gives me a chance to make some friends outside of the school, which can only improve my German.

Since then, I’ve been trawling through German accommodation websites, sending emails left right and centre. So far only one bite, but I haven’t emailed them back due to my computer going stupid on me, and wanting to have a few more options before choosing. I really hope I can get this sorted by the end of the month, or I’m a bit screwed.

So there’s a real quick update for you. Things seem to be happening really fast now, will probably be booking my flights to Cologne tonight.

Other than all the German stuff, I’ve been getting all crafty and stuff this past week! Will probably blog more about it later… well, we’ll see how successful it turns out!