The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage

Starting with just a little get you thinking style lyric there, but today I thought for a long time about the stark differences between countries and cultures. Of all the places I have visited this is the first place which i have "lived" as one of the locals, doing as they do, something you just dont get the chance to do on holiday and there are so many differences. Some are quirky ones, like the fact that on name tags in shops they have "Frau Worth" (as an example) instead of Kirsty, which makes me laugh and would certainly put a bummer of a stop to the things that we used to get up to at currys when we swapped name tags. But there are more serious differences.
The news from England that I have been checking is so depressing, if that crap happens here you sure as hell dont hear about it! I check the BBC site daily, and I find that in 2 days there has been two terrorist atacks on the UK, one was caught and the other didnt do as much damage as would be expected..but coming up to the anniversary of 7/7you cant help but realise that someone wants to hurt the UK nd no matter how much we try to stop it, eventually someone will get through. But even on the bbc sites, the tyne area for example, there is 4 headlines, a severe assault, a sexual assult, a hit and run and a robber who attacked someone with a hammer, oh happy days. THe local news paper here this morning was talking about thee fair in Darmstadt town, which of course I was obliged to visit, being one of the biggest in Germany. Again, the culture clash was obvious when we passed 2 paramedics, where Uk ones where stab vests and radios these guys were wearing flip flops. UK police have high speed pursuit vehicles, German police have tandems, yes, tandems, and this is in a big town!
But I went to the fair with an American girl who works at the kindergarten and her dad is stationed in Darmstadt and met up with some of her friends and actually had a really good day. went on some rides, including the scariest ferris wheel ever, had something to eat and then watched a jazz SKA band, who tried to pull of Kenny G, PUUULEEEASEEE! but all in all it was fun!
The first week is offically over, im bloody knackered but still havin fun, but I do feel slightly out of the loop. I found the daily mail atthe army base...wooo English! And felt a little confused when I was reading about the London Bómb things and it had prime minister godron browns response...i was like huh? how long have I been gone....what the hell happened to Anthony? help!

The north wind does blow

In a grand statement I can proudly say that I have cheated death a grand total of twice today. Which is a very good or a very bad dayy depending on how you look at it.
Incident one - Im goin to pick Emma up from kindergarten and lolling along, and its been all stormy and really dark then it went like FREAKY dark. I glance over a field and whatdya know theres a frickin twister. Oh excellent, they dont mention that in the tourism books! I mean it was small and there was no damage (physically i mean, mentally, my nerves were shot to shit) and this woman let us hide in her car. But still people! ahhhh
Incident two - went to take the DVDS back to the shop and this walk takes 20 minutes usually, but this time I had slow and slower in tow, it took 2 hours, I kid you not to get there and back, and no, I didnt cheat death by not dying of boredom, or slipping through a rift in the space-time continuum because we were walkng so slowly. Ever heard of Un-manned train level crossings? well in England theres a little warning before the barriers come down, and even then they come down pretty slow, these are fast, and also silent... Were walking under the bastard and boom it comes shooting down on top of us and thankfully hit the buggy (which was empty, im not that callous).
There could be an incident three sooon enough because I had lunch with this American dude from thepool and he said that he would show us German food so he bought what translates roughly into white sausage...it tasted okay (not great), bitlike a cheap saveloy. I was just about to bite into it when he said, enjoy, and dont ask what its made of......I rarely do ask what my food is made of but that made me suspicious so when I got home I looked it up and I think I have just eaten horse meat and pig skin.....excuse me, I need to vomit

BARRETSTOWNNNNNNNNNNN

More about Germany later, I got accepted back to camp for halloween on the teen sib. camp nd im chaperoning, lets hope for no bomb scares this time, with any luck we will get on the right plane! I overly ecxited

Rain rain go away

Emma was showing me off at kintergarden this morning, she made me go in when i picked her up and all the kids wre like wowwwwwww and she had told them about me and she made me speak English to them. ITs obviously gotten around the mums to because they all had a good stare when we were walkin in, they wont forget my face in a hurry!
I met a french man in town today. I miss English conversation but at least I could have some kind of conversation with another adult, which was cool. I taught Emma "rain rain go away" and she has been singing it all day, but she always forgets the word "again" so she just replaces it with whatever ENglish word beginnin with A she can think of, usually apple, so its come apple another day, very cute.
We were singing ten green bottles this morning too....the word acidentally in her accent is possibly the cutest thing I have ever heard.
I went into Dieburg with Laura for coffee tonight too which was nice, we talked etc etc, shes really nice but really shy. I feel desperately sorry for her. Shes been a housewife for four years and in the last 2 of them shes been out 3 times with her husband, which is kind of tragic, so I said I dont midn lookin after the kids at night so they can go out for a meal and she looked so touched. She also said the first day she left for work she was so nervous about leaving, but today she was stallin at work, not wanting to come home because she thought she would interrupt our fun! Made me feel all fuzzy inside! SO seemingly all is well!

a very good day

Today was my first proper day alone with the kinder and both me and the parents were reeeeeeeeeeeeally nervous, which is understandable, especially since Emma was not using her English properly so they thought that maybe we wouldnt be able to talk to each other, but as soon as Lara left this morning the door banged and Emma shouts "So my friend, what are we doing today!" which was funny and so cute at the same time. so after kindergarden we went for a walk and came across an "Eiscafe" which is like an ice cream parlour. In we go and Emma and Laro order Beine Mayer and along it comes, these guys are ice cream artists! Out comes an ice cream bee with ice cream and bananas and chocolate sauce and wafer and nuts and cream and even a sparkler for the stinger! the picture really doesnt do the bee, who we called Sandra, much justice!
Anyhoosum...we ate Bees and on the way home there was a HUGE storm and we got drenched, it didnt help that Emma is the slowest walker on the planet but we came back, drank Heisse Shokolade (hot chocolate....durrr) and watched the lion king, in ENglish no less and then bed.
When Lara got back Emma told her that when she finishes her internship she is coming back to England to stay with me, Laro is staying here, but he can visit. Cute, very cute. She also introduced me to her kintergarden teacher as her best freind, which was uber cute!
All in all a good day, I think tomorrow will be much easier to because no one will be so worried. Germany is officially cool, and these kids are ACE!