Days since last round up: 14
Weeks spent in lockdown: 4
Kilometres run: over 100?
Reading: German Amok by Feridun Zaimoglu
Weather: bloody cold
Estimated percentage fluency: it’s actually too scary to ask myself this question, because with 2 weeks to go it should be pretty high, shouldn’t it?
The mood definitely has changed over the last few weeks: it’s getting colder and darker, the nights are drawing in, and with preparations for advent this weekend, it really is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. The end is very much in sight, with two weeks until I fly home, and things seem to be winding down for the parents at work too. There are still ups and downs with the girls, but with the younger one especially I’m really starting to feel like there’s a connection there, and as I think more about actually leaving, I do get a little sad. At the same time I’m already counting down the days until I can (finally!) see my family again and be back in familiarity for the run up to Christmas.
Last week very much flowed on from the week before, continuing Grass’s mammoth Die Blechtrommel, and opting for the same run route with a few variations. A best bit with the family included an online music lesson for the older girl - if you thought Zoom was getting old, I can assure you it’s much more dynamic when kids are involved. By which I mean utter chaos. Other highlights were mostly based around take away food, revisiting a few old favourites for a bit of socially-distanced socialising. Opportunities for meeting friends have obviously been reduced by lockdown, but walks in the English Gardens are still a favourite, along with home-cooked dinners. The start of the week was also when I finally managed to finalise my flights home, giving me a firm date to look towards amidst all the COVID confusion, but it’s only been during the last few days, as both England and Germany have firmed up post-lockdown plans, that I’ve been able to make any vaguely definite plans for returning home.
Mornings have been getting a little longer, with the younger girl erkältet and it being dark, she’s in no hurry to get up, and once up she’s in no hurry to get to Kindergarten, but on the other hand evenings have been very relaxed this week, with the the older girl having some online sports classes, and both parents finishing work earlier than usual, I’ve had a fair few evenings with a good chunk of time free. Most of the workload has been shifted to the weekend, which works well, because I can go out to the park with the girls while it’s still light, rather than having to entertain them the whole time in the apartment. My few last day trips have been fitted in on weekdays, when the parents are happy to give me time off.
Day trips have become a little more difficult with lockdown restrictions, but I managed to tick off the last two towns on my must-see list - solo trips fuelled by food to-go, they weren’t quite the same as previous outings, but otherwise exploring a historical centre can mostly be done outdoors, looking at the pretty buildings, and so isn’t too heavily impacted by COVID. Last week featured a border-crossing with a visit to Ulm (in Baden-Württemberg), a pretty and quite small town on the Danube.
The Münster and Münsterplatz dominate the old town, but a walk along the river also proved very aesthetic, and there were plenty of medieval alleyways to discover. The centre was quiet, it being a weekday in lockdown, but generally had very friendly vibes.
I was yet more impressed by Augsburg, only a 50 minute regional train journey away from Munich (as I recently discovered, a popular destination to commute into Munich from, if you get the ICE it’s only a half hour journey). It’s much older than Munich, and actually felt like a kind of Munich-in-miniature, more than anything because all of the major street names feature here too!
The old town is incredibly aesthetic, but for me it also felt like the city itself had a bit more going on than just the historical centre, at least in comparison to the other day trips I’ve made. There were lots of cool independent stores with ethical and environmentally friendly gifts, a fantastic second-hand clothes store, and some very cool vegan places.
Evidently a weathly city, it’s Maximilianstraße has some similarly regal vibes to Munich, and it was just a fun place to walk around.
It’s also famous for being Brecht’s birthplace, and you can’t do a round of the town (there is actually a signposted Stadtrundgang, ideal for a systematic daytripper who sometimes struggles with navigation), without learning about Jakob Fugger, who from what I can gather was just an incredibly rich guy. There are statues and plaques to him all over the place, but his biggest legacy is the Fuggerei, essentially a very pretty social housing complex, probably one of the first in the world.
Not much ground-breaking has happened, and it’s beginning to feel like the final push now; I’m still keen to make the most of my stay in Germany, but it’s been a long time away, and with no sign of restrictions easing here, I’m limited in what I can explore. It has given me the chance to throw myself into life with the family a little more, and it’s definitely paying off, although in the run up to Christmas with the parents being able to spend more time at home, I feel a bit superfluous sometimes, like an extra in their family unit. The mum of one of the older girl’s friends has been doing her best to make me feel at home - we’ll often go to the park together with both girls and the friend on the weekend, and not only is she super on-it with the kids, she mothers me a little as well, which has been really lovely. She even gave me an early Christmas present, a huge puffer jacket which is absolutely ideal for the frosty weather that’s set in over the last few weeks, and was prompted by a trip to the park just as the sun went down which we cut short when she realised how cold I was. I still get plenty of ‘Lass uns’ and ‘Geh weg’ from the girls, but the younger now has another little saying, after she’s tottered along to my room and asked me ‘why’ about nearly every one of my possessions, she’ll suddenly run off going ‘Tschüss, hab’ dich lieb!’.
I’m finishing off this post at the end of a very restful Sunday, when I’d planned to be on duty, and have kind of been on-call all day, but it turned out the girls were happy to keep themselves occupied and I’ve managed to get a good chunk into my new book. Times aren’t as exciting as other round-up posts I’ve done, but all the little things are going well, and with the younger girl’s birthday coming up this week, I think my final two weeks will be quite special in a low-key way. I’ll be following the girls’ advent calendars, counting down to Christmas, but mostly looking forward to being back home, and using my now finite number of days to round everything off that I still want to do in Munich.