Two weeks

So, I have been here for two weeks now. Two weeks and some. I can find my way around, enough to get where I want to get and to buy food. I still have no friends, but one mustn’t rush these things, you know. Finding friends takes time. Also, language skills.

Actually, the language skills are coming on in leaps and bounds. I can now construct vaguely useful sentence fragments, describing little bits of what I am doing or will do, and can also construct whole sentences, as long as one is not too fussy about the grammar.

I had a visitor these past few days. She actually came prepared with an itinerary, and we went out and did a variety of interesting things.

On the first day, we went for a tour of Münster. This was in two parts. First, we walked. Second, we went on the bus. It was expensive, but I now know about a few of the important bits of Münster. Some of the churches have lovely organs within them! Then we had a tasty meal and a few drinks.

On the second day, we went on a boat ride on the Aasee. This is an artificial lake, through which the river Aa flows. Afterwards, we made ourselves beautiful, then went to an event in which restaurants which sell particularly expensive food participate and sell their food at a much reduced price for a couple of days. It’s a publicity thing.

We arrived there slightly later than we should have done, apparently. There was nowhere to sit. We sat on the grass. For the first course, I had crab with courgette capriccio, whisky cocktail and caviar sauce and quail’s egg, on a nest of cress. It tasted good. For dessert I had Valrhona chocolate torte with anis mousse. Except that I didn’t, really. The torte had gluten in – it was basically a cake. The other dessert was goats’ cheese in milk and white chilli chocolate. We swapped, except that she had the jam stuff with mine, and I had the anis mousse, which was the main thing that I wanted, anyway.

We also had some expensive prosecco, both with and without lemon sorbet, and some local strongly alcoholic stuff, which tasted a bit like brandy. Then we went to the pub. We had cocktails. It was good. Then we went home and had some Martini. I also had a cup of tea. That was better.

In the morning, I felt OK. I said goodbye to my friend at lunchtime, then returned home. Then the effects of the gluten hit me, and I was glad to be at home. Then I slept. That was good.

Today has been my first day alone for a while. It has been good. It is far more fun having a day to oneself after three days with another person than after ten days alone. I spent the morning and afternoon listening to German CDs, and the evening visiting a church for an incomprehensible service (although those around me appeared to understand what was going on) and then spending time on the Internet. I sent some e-mails and caught up on some blogs. It was good.

However, the really exciting thing, other than that fact that this visit seems to have taken me away from despondency, is that I have found the wire to connect the computer to the speakers! This means that I can watch DVDs. Of course, I do not have any DVDs, but at least if I manage to get hold of some, I can have entertainment which does not consist of listening to a German CD, or reading a book about how to speak German.

I have decided not to post any more updates unless I actually have something to say. My definition of "something to say" may well not be the same as that of other people. We shall see. Less of the "diary of utter boringness" format from now on, though.