On being engaged.

So being engaged is lovely. Just lovely. You get to prance around with a sweet ring on your finger and an even sweetner feeling of smugness that you'll never again have to worry if he's ever going to caaaaaaaall???? People bring champagne to your house and all your girlfriends treat you like a princess. It is freakin' awesome.

Planning a wedding in four months, however, slightly less lovely and smug-making. Not the actual ceremony, food and party bit, that's fun and, you know, not too difficult unless you happen to be demented and care about things like colour schemes and having everything fit into your "romantic/casual Parisian rose garden in June" theme. No, that's the stuff I'm enjoying thinking about, other stuff not so much:

Other stuff like the fact I'm marrying an American. I mean, obviously, I love that my betrothed is American (not least because he sounds very sexy when he sings country songs and also deeply understands my appreciation for all things pie-related) but dear God and sweet baby Jesus, does it ever complicate things. We are currently in the midst of his marriage visa application, a process devised to inject your special day with the romantic thrills that can only come from endless paperwork and fingerprinting. Hurrah!

It is also proving staggeringly difficult to find (even a picture of) a wedding dress that isn't horrible. Or covered in seqins. Or feathers. Or bows. Or ALL OF THE FREAKIN' ABOVE. Seriously, so many hideous merengues, only so much time to wade through all the crap and Swarovsky. However, on my daily trawl of the few wedding themed websites I can stomach, I might just have happened upon something. Obviously, it will only be stocked in some silly boutique in Williamsburg (hipsters get married too!), so I shall have to get it made. I also want to tweak it a bit anyway, for added individuality and, if I'm honest, SEX APPEAL. So if anyone knows a Berlin based dress makery type person, hit me up. Please.

I've just come to the horrible realisation that I've written a whole paragraph about my search for a perfect wedding dress. For strangers to read. On the internet. If you'll excuse me I have to go lie down in a darkened feminist novel. Good night.

A little ray of sunshiny light...

...in the stream of sporadic moaning and rambling that this "blog" has become:

I AM ENGAGED TO THE BEST MAN IN THE WORLD.

That will be all.

BBQ! BBQ! BBQ!

So on Friday the Boyfriend (who is from El Paso, Texas, of all places) was wandering aimlessly round Gruenau (as we English teachers are wont to do. Seriously, the places they send us...) when he stumbled upon a place claiming to be an authentic Texan bbq joint, namely Wright's BBQ.  Intrigued, he snoops around until discovered by the owners (the place is still closed), who invite him in for further snooping and chatting. Turns out that not only are they Texan, but they are from El Paso, of all places. The Boyfriend's excitement is barely to be contained, and arranges for us to go out the next day for lunch.

Suffice to say we ended up staying there for about seventy-nine hours.  And oh sweet Jesus Lord was it ever good. We went for lunch on Saturday and started with brisket and ribs, with a variety of delicious sides, and then got so drunk on tequila and whiskey we had to stay for dinner, which was brisket (the BF's) and chicken (mine, and SOFUCKINGGOOD) sandwiches on homemade bread. Then we drank more.

So yes, go go GO! Go say hello to the lovely Thomas and his sister Claire who run the place (and will listen to you mumble and bumble on endlessly for hours whilst cheerfully refilling your drinks). Go eat brisket and chicken and ribs and beans and Texas style potato salad and AWESOMENESS.

Sugar in my tea.

Means I have a vague hangover. Vague, yes, but a hangover nonetheless. After no less than four beers. FOUR! Who the fuck am I? The Virgin Mary? But anyway, I have tea and gross yet delicious pastries and an afternoon of doing very little and then some mad rock party in Neukoelln to look forward to today, so all is not lost. Add to that the fact that yesterday was AWESOME and it's shaping up to be a very good weekend indeed!

So yes, yesterday. It started out sunny and awesome, particularly as I was assesed teaching a class and it went superbly well. The children were ANGELS, and I was so, so proud of them. A special shout out goes to Julian (4) for yelling "Ha, ha, you're touching his willy!" when I was helping Jonas with his fly. Good times. Then I took myself off to Potsdam for the afternoon as the weather was so glorious and I had never been there before. And well golly, aren't I glad I did. I was only there for a wander and coffee and cheesecake amount of time but I really felt that I'd been away. And it is so, so pretty. Go, go I cannot recommend it enough.

And then, to top it all off, I spent the evening with some good people, sitting by the canal (complete with full moon and about seven million swans) and in a bar, drinking delicious German beer and shouting about things.

Happy weekend!

To try to counteract the disgusting levels of depravity reached last weekend*, I am having a quiet one this time around. It's going well, I'm in my amazing lesbian jimjams already, and it's only 21.55! I am busy downloading season one of Glee, and am about to stream the shit out of some It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Tomorrow, unfortunately, I shall not be going on an exciting mullet-themed adventure as my bastarding work are dragging us all in for a workshop. Whoopee. Seriously, I work for such an unbelievable shower of fucks. They literally have no idea how to manage staff, and their reasoning is, eternally, that as long as it's in our contract, and they pay us on time, they are in the clear. In fact, as long as they do that they actually don't understand at all why we get angry with them when they give us extra classes at short notice, few holidays, and barely any fucking money. It's almost pathetic watching their funny little minds pack in when confronted with requests for courtesy, respect or humane treatment. "But the money is in your account every month, why don't you trust us?". Oh sorry, yes, well done, sirs. We're pissed off with you, to a man, but you haven't mistreated us to the point of actual breach of contract. Excuse me while I heave the medal of Employer of the Year around your weird scrawny neck. Seriously, both of my bosses have weird necks. Like chicken necks but on backwards or something.

Good Lord, sorry, this was supposed to be a happy post! Which it is. Will be. Trying to think of happy things....fuck it, go watch the episode of It's Always Sunny wherethey go to the Grand Canyon. If that doesn't make you happy to be a human you're a lost cause.

* At one point on Friday night my contact lense fell out. I found it some time later, stuck to the top of my shoe. I spat on it, and put it back in. Oh yes.

Ooooh la la!

I was in suuuuuuch a good mood today. That's what an enormous coffee on an empty stomach before going to dance around for an hour with a sweet group of kids in a lovely, tiny Kindergarten way down in the wilds of south Neukoelln will do for one. In an attempt to balance out the CRINGING HORROR of the last post, here are some other things that will make you happy:

Making delicious (almost, I need to tweak it about somehow...) apple and blueberry crumble because it's cold and piss-rainy outside.

Sharing homemade apple and blueberry crumble with someone (definitely) delicious.

Planning weekend adventures somewhere exciting (or even somewhere totally shit, it's all about the attitude, Leute) where you're going to run around like a tourist and have delicious picnics and drink beer in weird places with people with mullets.

Realising that when you have the above planned already, you can move on to planning the day's OUTFIT.

Reading this blog and wondering, since you've never been to Texas, WHY THE SWEET HOLY DICKENS YOU MISS THE FOOD SO DAMN MUCH?

Spending hours youtubing American comedians. This dude is freakin' hilarious:

Oh God, take me away.

You know, I think my love affair with Berlin may have come to an end. There, I said it. It's painful to admit, but its purpose for me has been fulfilled, namely allowing myself to drink and party my way into listless stupidity, teaching me the valuable life lesson that I don't, in fact, want to be an alcoholic It-Girl. With this accomplished, I am left stumbling round a city that can offer me very little in terms of career advancement, and that has started to feel less like home the more I live here. Subsequently, I am bored out of my mind and miserable. I am also soooooooo broke, wie immer.

Oh, Gott. Woe is me. How horribly, horribly self-indulgent, moaning on about one's problems on a blog, of all places. It's disgusting, and I apologise. What I need is to do is to start doing some stuff to entertain myself. As the Boyfriend (who is both wise and sage) says "only boring people get bored". And the irony is not lost on me that I am posting this on a day when I have actually failed to leave the house. Shame on me, I'm going to make a list entitled "Things to do to avoid being bored and getting so whiny that you end up losing all your friends not to mention what little self-respect you have left", and follow it to the letter. Lists make everything better.