German phone number. CHECK.
Sends messages outside Deutschland. CHECK. Though apparently not to my mother’s phone.
Registered as a furrriner living here for more than three months. CHECK. That one took some time, due to not being able to read the signs very well. Furrrriner fail.
Bank account so I can get my scholarship. CHECK. Easiest bit. Nice bank lady who was happy to speak English to me.
I live here now.
I’m working up to the bit where I do some work.
After yesterday’s adventure to find the International Office was done, I explorationed into the city centre and saw the cathedral (quite stunning but v. busy due to something called Domswallfahrt – I may venture thence for Vespers or Evensung tomorrow though) and meandered a bit, and had my first proper Köln brewed beer, and it was all very civilised. I spent this morning running around doing busywork, and then pootled back into the Neuemarkt where I had spied a Habitat, for I needed pillows. Don’t do your household shopping in Habitat, ye godes. I whimpered and fled from the one-person €30 coffee presses and €50 towels towards a nice department store called Karstadt, where I spent about half the amount on a pair of pillows, a towel and flanel, the fluffiest blankey you ever did contemplate snuggling up in, and a coffee press. Mmmm. I can have coffee tomorrow morning.
I think tomorrow that I might take myself to the Römisches Museum by the Dom, to see all the ancient things, and then I might be about ready to think about doing some work from next week. The new supervisor is in the States, but I think I can be brave enough to go and find the department and say hello to the department before he gets back. Hopefully they’ll have heard I’m coming. Oop. Are all visiting scholary things so disorganised, I wonder, or is it just at this stage of my career. Do I get to have a monkey to do all this organising stuff for me, and tour me ’round and introduce me to people, when I get higher up the academic food chain? That would be nice.
