The plan for Wednesday was always going to
be to go with A to my Uncle’s English lesson and observe. I managed to get up
and shower and be ready to leave all before 10:30am, I think that’s a record
for me!
We made our way to the language school
taking the U-Bahns. This was actually the first time I have seen a controller
on the trains. They literally look like the dodgey men on market stalls, in Adidas
tracky bottoms, sports trainers and a little bag around their waist, if they
had taken my ticket out of my hands I might have been suspicious. They are so different
to the conductors in the UK, who wear a uniform and actually look like they’re
paid to do it.
The lesson was good, at first I wasn’t
going to get involved, being the massive chicken that I am, but then my Uncle
paired me with one of the students and I really got into the lesson. The man I
was paired with was really interesting; he had worked in several different
countries and learnt several languages. His English was really good and I
enjoyed talking to him a lot. I was also paired with a woman, and she told me
about all the holidays she was planning to go on. One of them was a survival
holiday, which sounds so cool! Basically she and a friend are going to go to a
forest and have a guide who will show them how to survive after a disaster.
He’ll help them make shelter and find food and show them what to do in the
situation. I’m not sure I would be cut out for that though, but it sounds so
exciting.
The rest of the lesson was focused on the
TV series The Long Way Round, which just made me think of my mum who is in love
with Ewan McGregor.
I went home with A and resigned myself to a
day of catching up on sleep and chilling out at the house. This was going along
nicely until I was invited out for tea by Redditor D who I met at the reddit
meet up the night before. Going out? Past 6pm? How exciting! I swiftly made
myself presentable, shoved everything into my bag, and rushed out of the house.
I asked my Aunt for some advice on where to go and she suggested Hackesher
markt, so that’s where we went.
We met on the platform at about half
8 (I haven’t felt this independent and grown up since university, its funny how
much living at home with your parents makes you regress to thinking like a
teenager again: “home before dark”). We talked easily and I felt very
comfortable with him, which is really good, I was nervous it would be awkward;
I’m not very good at talking to new people or at having the confidence to keep up conversation.
Thus begun our epic quest to find food. We
had to be wandering around for at least an hour, we used navigation and Google
maps, trying to find a restaurant my Aunt found online. I managed to get an
address and we had more luck. On the way we passed an American restaurant that
I would quite like to try sometime, so will keep it in mind. We traversed the
dodgey-est streets, sometimes with no more than torch light to find our way.
Luckily we found the place eventually. It was an Italian place called Oliva’s
and it was good food and quite cheap!
Overall a successful night; bonding with my
new friend and having a nice meal out. There’s something to be said for
spontaneous adventures after all.
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