Germany

Costumes found!

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Prestwick, Lubeck, Hamburg, Hannover and Berlin. All in less than 48 hours!

University is officially over. Finished. Completely. Had my last ever exam on Wednesday and since then it's been all out celebrations (also celebrating getting a job on the AIESEC national team in Venezuela!), very little sleep and quite a bit of drinking :-) :-)

After what some might call a heroic journey I made it to Germany and two days blurred successfully into one very long but fun one! Saw the sights in Hamburg - notably a sex street which they don't let women down and the enjoyment of a traditional nice fish sandwich at a very summery looking market while it was pissing down with rain!

Then it was to Marco's parent's house just outside Hannover to grab a lovely homemade meal and a much-needed shower. Occasion number one for Marco to leave the car key in the door!

In Hannover we met up with Ullie, a friend of Marco's who had visited him while we were in California, so it was cool to see her again and go out for some nice cocktails. Then we went to a party and I tried to speak English, German and Spanish to people with varying degrees of success. I did learn to say "My hamster is dead" in Polish though just to add another language to the repertoire for that so incredibly useful phrase, then we went to a few clubs, the last one of which we stayed at until the very early morning. The atmosphere in the clubs is pretty different to the UK. For a start, it appears to be mandatory to drink Becks. Nothing else is allowed. But they have about 10 different kinds, including one pre-mixed in bottles with lime juice. Also there was quite a lot of smoking going on, which kind of made me nostalgic for the old days in Scotland. And it is just pretty relaxed, everybody dancing and having fun and not trying too hard to look super cool all the time (or maybe that was just me). You could buy beers in one place and just take them to the next one to drink there. It was good. We stumbled back to Ullie's just after the sun came up and I finally got my sleep!!

Today we had a look around Hannover, took part in a fire demonstration and drove to Berlin. Berlin is huge, with trains everywhere and lots of graffiti, cool looking buildings and kebab places. Met up with Till (another CA intern, sort of), Marco's flat mate and Pearl, an AIESECer from Seattle on a 6-week CEED over here. We all went to a very unique beer garden, on the side of a canal, beach-themed with deck chairs and loads of sand and palm trees. Unexpected but really nice for a first night in Berlin.

Tomorrow: let the hardcore sightseeing begin! I might even see my friend Declan, and his friend Nico. And it'll be back to being a slightly-lost looking tourist without my translator as he'll be at work. Cool.