You should all be glad to know that I found a lovely man on the train who helped me with my suitcase almost the whole way. Bless him the journey was an interesting one.

It took 4 hours in total and I had to change trains twice. I started in Cologne and went as far as Karlsruhe, then on to Winden and finally here. When i got on in Cologne, all the seats were reserved so I (and the lovely man, named as this cause he was so helpful and I never found out his name) had nowhere to sit. He was studying in Germany and came from Africa. We ended up in the dining carriage (yes not all trains are like NIR!) where I ate creme brulee and drank water from a glass bottle as we travelled along the side of the Rhine. Nice or what?
When we stopped in Karlsruhe we had no idea what side to get off so we got off the side the door opened, which turned out to be the wrong side. The conductor on the platform soon realised this and walked us along the tarmac between the traintracks until we could cross. I then proceeded to defend myself as he began to tell us off! I´m glad to say that I held my own against him and he shut up. Proudest moment yet.
The rest of the journey continued smoothly without anything worthy of putting up here. Total journey time:3hr55

But yeah, so I´ve been here since yesterday evening. I met Jana at the train station and she took me to my apartment. Its quite old fashioned and smells a little like old lady but I can fix that!
She was really helpful as she took me shopping to aldi etc so that i had all the heavy stuff and i´m sure there is enough food there to last me a month.

I´ve managed to unpack and I spent yesterday evening watching Home Improvement in German and the news.

Today I started off in school. To make you all jealous, I work Mon-Thurs and my day finishes no later than 1215. Is that not awesome? I was introduced to all the teachers and got sorted out with a library card and a code for the photo copier. I even have keys to the classrooms and the staffroom. It is crazy to be on the other side of the desk!

Feeling more settled today. I´m officially registered in Germany, I have a bank account (albeit an empty one) and I have a structure to my week. Yay!

Bad Bergzabern is really pretty and is about the size of Larne. The transport connections are better but still not perfect. I will get photos up soon of the area and my travels etc.

Bis bald
Dani