My birthday: a brief chronology

Here, perhaps to compensate for the great length and introspective meanderings of the previous post, is a short history of the last 28 hours or so of my birthday. I will use it as a convenient juncture to introduce a few of the emerging main players in my new life in Germany. Self-indulgent? Well, this is a blog...

8pm Saturday - Bowling with course-mates
Ah, games plus beer. What better way to lubricate those ol' social wheels? Bowling and drunkeness have always gone hand-in-hand for me and this jaunt was no exception. The evening was a lovely advert for booze- and pastime- assisted camaraderie.

It should be noted that, although in this photo there are no women, the course is actually pretty close to 50/50. For some reason competitive games and beer just don't get the chicks in like they used to.

My course-mates are of a reasonably predictable stock. Intelligent, well-bred/read, conventional. This is fine. You need some conventional people in your life and, in the absence of a job, a degree course seems like a fair place to have them.

Which brings me neatly onto my next point:

12am Saturday/Sunday - Partying with flatmates

My new housemates are a total delight: controversy arose at this week's regular Thursday-night student-bar-going slot as it turned out that another girl, a friend of the guy whose room I'm now living in (more on which later), had the audacity to also have her birthday on the 20th. But they got me invited and the English-speaking-only curry evening they had been organising for me is to be next week.

And here they are:

Marcus, Steffi and Romy hold a basket of goodies

In this very blurry photo you see the three people I'm now sharing a flat with. Not present is Günther (known universally as the faintly rude-sounding Günni) seen below in his last moment in our flat.

His departure was something of a heartbreak for Steffi (pronounced, in slightly hilarious German style, with an initial Shhh) and Romy. He seems to have been a celebrity figure around here. He worked for a local underground radio station and had some involvement in a prison-squatting arts organisation. He seemed to know everyone and everyone who speaks about him does so with a slightly starry look in their eye. This made for an awkward first morning in the flat as my new flatmates cried at the departure of the person I'd been brought in to replace. I felt like a new head-office appointed middle manager. This is being forced upon me by the powers that be. It's really not my fault.

Anyway, the three remaining Germans are lovely, as I've said. Steffi is a half-crazed southerner with an odd dialect and a hyperactive personality. She's temping at a half-way house for council-adopted children. Romy is a sweet-natured Social Science student. She works in an continuing-education institution. Marcus is a philosopher. He divides his time between reading the great works and working part-time at a peace research organisation (I'm not making this up).

So, three warm, alternative, interesting people. And they bought me a basket full of German nosh for my birthday. Excellent.

1pm Saturday - Birthday Brekkie at home

A lovely, lazy day ensued with the following highlights: Romy and Steffi made a sumptuous feast for breakfast. I had a snooze. Steffi made me a cake.

Off to uni again tomorrow. This time it's 'Mathematics Part II - Real Analysis' (I have no idea what this means).

Till next time.

Rob (aged 29 and one 365th)