Clara's Travel Tales: The Köln Edition

As you may know from my constant blathering, I have been learning German since January and I was scheduled to take the early September TestDaF exam. Well I realised that I wasn't perhaps as prepared as I could be, so I decided to go visit T's parents for 4days so that I could really practise my German intensively. It was obviously good for my language skills (T's mum was a teacher), but not only that, also my physical and mental well-being. I was spoilt by the MIL, and really got to relax and do nothing but hangout, watch silly TV, laugh, sleep, eat and (window)shop. It was exactly what I needed after the hectic lifestyle I had leading up to the visit, and it also signalled the beginning of my week long travels/holiday in Budapest and Belgrade. This post is just a quick update, and I will be writing about my adventures in Eastern Europe, over the next few days and weeks. Have a lovely week!

 

Had to pack 2 different luggages 

for my 2 very different trips

 

Lots of girly dates with the MIL

 

Broke my no-shopping rule to 

buy this lovely pair of rain-boots

 Spoilt rotten! I got a lovely welcome, late birthday surprise presents 

and of course a mini-haul of goodies to take home with me

 

Yet another lunchdate with the MIL, 

the theme seemed to be Italian this visit

July Happenings :)

Hello from the beautiful city of Prague!

As some of you may have noticed, thank you Duru aburo mi atata, I have been MIA again from the blog and blogosphere in general. Life has been super busy these last few weeks, and it has been showing me pepper recently. Why you wonder? It's because I apparently have a knack for over-stretching myself.

A few weeks ago, I realised that I was reaching a plateau in my German learning, and worried about it going the way of my Italian, I decided to challenge myself by registering for the TestDaF. It is a German language exam that tests from level B2 to C1, assigning the numerical values 3-5 to the three different levels. The exam was painfully expensive, so I am determined to get a 4 (equivalent to a B2.2), as this would in theory exclude me from all future German language tests. I'm far from a B2 at the moment, and with only 6weeks to go, I am having to put in a lot of work.

 Weekly German Plan

Then three weeks ago, I went back home to England because my uncle was getting married. I got to experience the Yoruba traditional wedding up close (we were the groom's representatives), and I loved it! The vocabulary, stunning outfits, customs and traditions and the theatricality of the whole ceremony meant I was completely blown away! I had previously participated in such a ceremony only once, 2years ago at my friend's wedding in Nigeria, but the stress then was so much that I decided it was not for me. However, although I could see how stressful it was for my uncle, this time I was carried away by the magic of it all, and I honestly CAN'T wait till it's my turn.

Of course in I have also been travelling a lot, as usual, because it's the summer holidays and my middle name is Ajala. This is my second time in Prague this month, for instance,  even though I have no right to annual leave in my first year of employment (the Belgians apparently like to test their employees' endurance and work-like-a-dog-ability). What this means is that I have been doing lots of extra shifts and replacements, working long periods without breaks, and then trying to group all my days off together (the last one was a 12day working streak that almost killed me!).

As you can see, busy busy busy indeed! Obviously I haven't had much time to blog, however I have been making an effort to visit people's blogs every couple of days, even if it means that I don't get the chance to leave a comment. I'm sorry about that, but it's only until I write my exams in the second week of September. Really hoping the result is worth all the effort and sacrifice...fingers crossed it is!

Last Weekend.

First of all, there'll be no language review this week because....well I only did 4/6 things on the list (conversation exchange, reading, grammar book and radio), because I was yet again very busy. The thing is that I don't actually have the right to paid holiday at the moment, because in Belgium you have to work for a whole year before you can take time off i.e. I can only take my 6week holiday for 2015 from January 2016 onwards, and if I no longer work for them, they'll have to pay me in lieu. In reality, what this means that I have to make up all the hours before or after, every time I travel. As you can imagine, I am exhausted from all the extra work because God knows February was more than crazy. Anyways enough whining for today...

In other more important news *drumroll please* T met the fam! We both left our respective cities on Thursday and travelled down to England to spend the weekend with my family, and I honestly was amazed at how loving everyone was. My naturally shy T completely opened up and really made the effort to talk to and get to know my siblings, my parents outdid themselves with all the cooking/driving/spending/etc., and my siblings...gosh, I have no words! They all told me so many times how good/respectful/sweet T was, and they made such an effort with him. At some point on Saturday, I was completely ignored while all the boys chatted football, then later on hung-out around the XBox. Honestly, I was super worried about this meeting and had been trying to put it off for as long as possible, but that became unsustainable because my parents (mum in particular) were really pushing for T to meet them. Well I'm glad to say that my fears were utterly and completely unfounded, as even the English weather cooperated! 

I stayed one day longer in England to rest, and will be going back to Brussels and real-life tomorrow, at least for a few days....I'm off to Paris on Friday for my younger sister's graduation. Hoping I'll be able to get back on the language horse this week.

Have a lovely week everyone, I hope your weekends were as happy as mine!

P.S. Many thanks to Duru who checked on me when he noticed I'd gone AWOL online. I'm fine, and the busy times are (mostly) behind me now so I'm back.  

Funny Happenings...

So my baby sister, hereafter known (in the words of our brother, as the "dirty little rasta" of the family), was allocated this as her university email address T.A419. Abeg blogfam, do you think this is a coincidence, abi na just him papa people wey follow am reach administrator's office? ;) Answers on a postcard please. As for me, I'm on nights this weekend, so I'm off to sleep work!

Ein schoenes Wochenende/Have a fantastic weekend.

Last Post for 2014....A Mish-Mash!

 Source

End of the Year

December was a very busy time for me, as I travelled a bit and then worked/hosted some guests over the Christmas period. I went to Vienna as usual in the first weekend, then Germany in the third weekend (met Jen from Ibibiogirl and visited T's family). Vicky, my Argentinian friend, arrived on Christmas eve and stayed until the 27th when Mr T got here. I was so tired from working full-time  and all the fun I had with Vicky waka dugbe-ing around Brussels, doing longer throat and eating all manner of mede-mede. Anyway by the time T got here, the temperature had really dropped and it even snowed sef, so we just stayed home and I slept a lot. He left yesterday, and I'm back to work today and tomorrow before packing my bags again and heading off, this time to mama Charlie's country (England for my non-naija readers).

My 2014 in Books

I started the year with Adichie's Americanah and it was definitely worth the hype for me. The issues that come with moving to a new country and finding yourself a "minority,"  the fight to affirm or (re)create your identity, doing the adjusting/adapting required, and merging your new culture with your home culture...these are all things that meant I recognised myself very strongly in Ifemelu and the other immigrants. On the other hand, I really didn't enjoy Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go. I had seen an interview of the author on RAI1, an Italian TV station, and was really impressed so I actually spent some of my Amazon vouchers on the book. Unfortunately, I was bitterly disappointed. I did not like her writing style one teensy bit.

I however liked Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowlands, Khaled Hosseini's And The Mountains Echoed, Swallow by Sefi Atta, A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif Unaccustomed Earth again by Jhumpa Lahiri, and Adaobi Nwaubani's I Do Not Come To You By Chance. Special mention goes to Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist, Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh and Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives which I particularly loved. These books made me laugh out loud, literally  and I really enjoyed reading them. They were (in the words of T about me), "kleine aber feine!"  I also loved Christie Watson's Tiny Sunbirds, Faraway. She wrote about Nigeria in a way that was very realistic. Even though the story was sometimes sad, I felt a kind of connection with the Nigeria she described, it felt neither over- nor underdone... 

Of the 75 books I read this year, only about 12 were written by "white, mainstream" authors, and even then 11 of them talked about "others." "Atypical" situations, places and people, for example transracial adoption, immigrants and immigration, being an expatriate, being Amish, polygamy, Jewishness and the second world war etc. I am apparently attracted to and fascinated by difference and otherness...

Highlights and Lowlights

• Travelling! I visited 6 countries and 10 cities/town. 
• Moving houses 5 times between July and November. It was hectic, phew!
• Putting up only15 blog posts (pitiful)
• Improving my Italian, then abandoning it for German
• Going to the seaside once this summer with T
• Going to a European zoo for the first time (the other time was in India), and visiting the circus, also for the first time, thanks to the generosity of a dear friend
• Turning 30. I had 3 birthday parties and got many wonderful presents. I especially love my churidar, my alabaster necklace and my Aya de Yopougon comic book.
• Discovering a good naija restaurant in Paris, then moving. Now I have to find a new one here in Brussels :(
• Drinking a million aperitivos whilst on holiday in Italy
• Seeing my friend K after 8years
• Having an amazing summer with my sisters and friend, while living in another friend's beautiful Parisian flat. I so want something similar when I grow up!
• Getting my turn at the annual mummy-and-me-only holiday
• Getting my current job

I am grateful for

1. Life and health. I turned 30 this year and became a bona fide adult ;) And everyone in my entourage (family and friends) is alive and well.
2. A wonderful summer. I had the best summer of my life this year with my sisters, a wonderful sister-friend and T.
3. Christmas with Vicky, which meant I wasn't alone in a new city during the festivities.
4. The online community of which I'm part. I feel like I have made so many new friends this year! I'm thankful that I discovered the blogs that made my 2014 interesting - Duru, GNG, Ibibiogirl,  Nigerian Scorpio, Berry and Pynk amongst many others.
5. Journey mercies. Not one train/plane/road accident or incident in spite of the many many miles that I covered this year. Truly a miracle, if you think about it.
6. The most uncomplicated cross-country move ever. My move to Brussels has been ridiculously coordinated and everything has fallen into place so easily...making friends, work, finding a flat and church, getting along with colleagues and even my day to day life!
7. My job. I love it so so much! I enjoy the work because it's very different from everything I've known up until now. It is really challenging me as a nurse
8. Progress with my finances. Thanks to nagging from T and him constantly telling me off for accruing unnecessary interest, I've increased my student loan repayments substantially and have started making serious inroads into paying back my debts, slowly but surely.
9. My parents. They are finally starting to enjoy middle age, this season of their lives where all the children are more or less independent and there are no grand-kids yet. They're taking up travelling again and making plans to really enjoy each other.
10. My family-in-law. I met them this year and it seems they love me as much as I love them. I even went there alone for a weekend and things went better than the first time when T was with me. I particularly love his mum because we're very similar (it's so uncanny!) and it feels like she's a friend. Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am.
11. My siblings. One sister finished her masters last October and did fantastically well; she got 18.99/20 and was valedictorian. She then basically gave her French university the middle finger salute by giving her speech in English. Yep, my sister is gangster like that ;) She now has a place at university for next September to do her PhD in law. My brother is doing amazing things and is going places with his new startup and little company. I feel like this year was a very important one for him in terms of making progress and knowing what direction to take the business. The baby sister loves her course this time round and has really settled into university. I'm thankful that she decided (and my parents insisted) early on that she "drop out" of  last year's hated course,  and take a gap year. She really grew up in the 9months she spent in Paris. As for her twin brother, he is also doing great at uni, working/playing hard and getting fantastic grades. My siblings are such superstars and for that I am grateful
12. Mr T. This year has been difficult, with him moving to Brussels and then Vienna, but I think our relationship has become much stronger as a result of it. We've both had to make a lot of sacrifices this year in terms of time and money so we could see each other, and it really makes you ask yourself if you truly want to be with the other person.  I know now,  for sure that I love him and would go to the ends of the world to be with him. It's been 2years of ups and downs, but our relationship (and both of us!) has matured a lot. Like good wine, it just keeps getting better.
13.  Favour wherever I go. People have always described me as someone who makes friends easily, but this is the first year I've actually noticed that it is true....for some unknown reason, people are drawn to me and want to be friends. I spent a lot of time thinking this year about why this is so, as well as trying to figure out what it is about me that attracts others. I'm certainly not the most intelligent/beautiful/cool/fashionable/whatever-attribute-you-like person in the world! In the end I figured it must be God's grace, some special dispensation, a particular blessing in my life, because I know for sure that I haven't done anything to deserve the undeserved and unreserved love that often comes my way.  I am just immensely grateful!

My Weekend in Pictures: Köln and Bad Münstereifel

St. Petersglocke, the largest of the 11 bells at the Cologne Cathedral

 

Cologne Cathedral

 The Xmas market from the roof of the Cathedral

 The Xmas market or Weihnachtsmarkt

 Supercool toilet at the Café Reichard, glass door which becomes opaque and artsy when locked! I was lucky my FIL told me about it before I went in; some woman started peeing without locking the door (she just closed it),  and I had to mime to her that we could see her through the glass! 

Nativity story in progress. The story is told throughout Advent until the 24th when the final piece of the puzzle is added...baby Jesus enters the manger.

Tag, I'm It!

I've been seeing this tag around the blogosphere lately, and it seemed fun, so I decided to tag myself and do it in the spirit of YOLO and all that... ;)

Anyway here are 20 previously unknown facts about me.

1. I am the oldest and smallest in my family.With 50kg for 161.5cm, it's easy to see how this is possible. I have always been quite small and can in fact remember my mum telling me that my twin siblings were each bigger than me at birth even though they were premature and I was full-term! I used to hate being so tiny, especially while I was in secondary school (end of adolescence and moving to England made me gain a lot of weight) since I felt I was often overlooked because of my stature, bookishness and late physical development. I love myself now though because people never ever believe me when I tell them my age :)
2. I love writing and hope to get published at least once in my lifetime. 
3. I am ambidextrous, but not naturally so. My left-handed cousin broke his arm when we were kids and seeing the trouble he had with using his other hand, I got worried about all the potential future accidents, and decided to put my girl guides' motto  into action. I taught myself slowly but surely to use my left hand. You can imagine how frustrating it was for my parents and everyone around to watch me take an excruciatingly long time to do anything (I realise now that I must have been a really weird child). Anyway I stuck to my guns and today my left hand and leg work almost as well as the right ones.
4. I am a psychiatric nurse who stumbled across the speciality and who ADORES her job. I studied adult nursing in the UK, and there, I'm not allowed to work in psychiatry/paediatry/learning disabilities without further training. However, since I'm registered as a general nurse here in France and can work in every area, I decided to explore my options and luckily fell in love with psychiatry.
5. I have a love-hate relationship with food. I really enjoy eating, but sometimes I am so unbothered and lazy, that i just go for hours even a few days with really eating. I will also not eat unless I am actually hungry. This is something that drives the boyfriend bonkers, since I will often refuse to eat one minute, only to stop everything and demand sustenance the next. He's all like "you said you weren't hungry 10minutes ago when we went past that restaurant!" The poor boy is getting used to it sha.
6. I love going to the cinema and the opera (although the cost in Paris has killed that habit for me). Apart from these two things, I like sleeping and me time. I'm such a homebody and I really really really enjoy hanging out with my boyfriend, or being alone in my room :)
7. I make friends easily, maybe too easily! People seem attracted to me for some reason, and we often become close friends very quickly. To my eternal shame however, I am bad at staying in touch (with both friends and family). It often seems like my life revolves around my current friendships, but then I move away, make new friends and forget the old ones. Luckily, I have the best friends in the world! People (including my siblings) who will write/call/prod me into keeping in touch and force me into remaining in their lives.
8. I abhor prejudice/discrimination of any kind, and I have been known to end important friendships over racist/sexist/homophobic/religion-ist comments or jokes. However, in spite of my intolerance to intolerance, I realise I am far from perfect and an example of this was when I laughed at a racist joke about Germans on BBC radio 4. The boyfriend was appalled and I was so ashamed of myself :(
9. I am a nomad. I enjoy travelling and have visited more countries than I can count. I have also lived in 5 countries (Nigeria, England, Sweden, Bangladesh, France) over the last 13 years, and I'm moving to the 6th in 5days.
10. Going hand in hand with number nine, I enjoy learning languages. I currently speak 4 (English, Yoruba, French, Italian) but would like to get to 10 before die. German is next on my list, then I plan to spend the rest of my life on Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, Hausa and Edo.
11. Linked to number ten is the fact that my English has really deteriorated recently. I've been known to forget words for things in English, translate literally from French to English, and speak the language using the French sentence structure. My anglophone friends and family sometimes look at me like I'm crazy, but my fellow multi-linguists get me immediately!
12. I have a strange relationship with money. I love love love saving, and often hyperventilate when it seems like I've been overspending, only for me to check my account and realise I have hardly touched it. I however never mind spending on my siblings, boyfriend or on travelling. 
13. And as incoherent as it may sound, I also sometimes have inexplicable bouts of spending urges where I buy useful/nice things that I don't particularly need. I just go out, look for 2-3 things and buy them while sticking to a set budget.
14. I love reading. I read everything I can get my hands on including when I was little, lists, medical books, textbooks and the catholic bible. I haven't had the time to read that many books this year, yet I am currently on my 66th.
15. While reading said catholic bible as an 8year old, I discovered a previously unknown type of  bible. It was different from what I knew, and I spent a lot of time reading all the stories in the  Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books. Falling in love one with with one of the stories, I decided I'd name my future son after one of the uncommonly named (in Nigeria/England/Anglophone/Francophone world) heroes. I managed to get to adulthood with meeting only one person with that name in Sweden, yet 20years later, within the space of a few weeks my French friend used the name for her newborn, and I met T who has the same name! I was so bitter that I could no longer use it for my darling future son.
16. I have banned myself from bookshops. I had to take this drastic step after I realised a huge chunk of my monthly budgeted spending money was going on books. Realising that my love for books was impinging on my love for ice-cream and my purchasing power, I made the rule and have more or less stuck to it.
17. I collect postcards and books by foreign authors, particularly from countries where I have visited.
18. I went to the circus for the first time in my life this weekend and I loved! I see more of it in my future.
19. I love close-cropped hair and have had my hair this way for the majority of my life. My poor mum was happy to have a girl to dress up, so imagine her surprise/sadness when I asked to have my hair like daddy and kept it that way most of my childhood. I have also had natural hair more or less all my life. I tried to relax it for a year after moving to England, but I had no clue what to to with it. It was flat and lifeless! I sharply cut the thing and went back to my afro :)
20. I am moving to Brussels in 5days and you might be able to tell that I'm a tad bit excited!!!!

Phew, that was much harder than I expected! Everyone made it seem so easy, but I really had to think of the things that others might consider interesting about me...

Have a lovely weekend!

So I Met The Parents Last Weekend...

It thankfully did not go like this!

Source

After almost 2years of being together, many invitations, and one almost-visit, we finally bit the bullet and went to see T's parents. 

The whole thing started in a very inauspicious manner, beginning with the fact that we got our dates mixed up, with T and I booking different weekends off. Then I made a mistake when booking my return ticket, had to book another one and lost money because the original ticket was non-refundable. And to crown it all, the evening before T was supposed to leave (he was going one night before), we found that that there was an airline strike! At this point he asked me if we could cancel the trip, he said he could change his ticket and come to Paris, but I refused. Initially I felt that if we cancelled, it would take an act of God for me to ever try again. However, 10mins later, I started to hyperventilate a bit, and my superstitious side came out. What if this wasn't meant to be (at least at that time)? What if something bad happened to us on the journey? I mean you often hear of stories where people cancel their plans at the last minute and they end up being saved from horrible fates. I am usually one of the most rational people I know, so it was strange for me to have such weird thoughts! Luckily my friend (who was around at the time) and my mum (who I telephoned in a panic), together with T convinced me to get a grip and move on with the initial plan.

Why was I so stressed? It probably had to do with past experiences. So, let's step back in time (sorry, I'm an ex-avid nollywood viewer ;) )

You see I had done another meet the parents a few years ago with my then boyfriend's family, and the visit went rather poorly. They were Finnish (yes, I like my men foreign thank you very much!), and spoke practically no English. I spoke/still speak no Finnish, and the boyfriend who played squash professionally, had a tournament that weekend. Long story short, I was left alone with the family (parents, sister and godmother who had travelled down from another city!) most of the time, and so I did what I always do when stressed, whipped out my book and started reading. They initially tried to make conversation with me, but we found it too difficult to understand each other and things were becoming awkward really quickly, so I decided to save the situation by ignoring everyone and withdrawing into myself/my book. Not the most polite or elegant response I know, and you can imagine how that went down with them. In fact I can remember the boyfriend later asking me if I hated his family!

So with this kind of history behind me, I was more than a little hesitant to take the plunge this time round. Fortunately for me, things went really well. Beginning the visit with T's parents both ignoring my outstretched hand and giving me hugs as soon as they saw me, put me right at ease. The fact that they speak fairly good English and a bit of French (such a pleasant surprise!), and made A LOT of effort to communicate with me also helped a lot. Even though we were managing fine with the two languages and T translating from time to time, at one point, his dad went to find the German-English dictionary and the conversation really started to flow. They didn't seem to mind answering all the questions I fired at them, and even seemed to enjoy "gisting" with me. In fact most of the time I spent chatting with them, T was upstairs being antisocial in his room. On top of that, T's mum (and dad apparently, although he didn't cook while we were there) is a very good cook. I think I finished everything on my plate at each meal, and only complained to T later that I felt a bit greedy going back for seconds, thirds and fourths! And to top it all, they wouldn't let you lift a finger to help with anything. They kept repeating "you're on holiday, you should rest," so I listened to them and did :) . I slept, ate, went for walks and slept/ate some more. On the last day I woke up to find a hearty lunch packed for my journey home, with a second package containing the German "blackbread" I had mentioned liking so much. I was so touched by all the care and attention, and I actually began to see where my T gets his loving nature from.

The "problem" now is that T's mum (and dad) have invited me back several times. His mum kept telling me that I could come without him, and reminded me several times that Brussels is actually closer to them than Paris! She also tried to tempt me by saying we could do the Christmas markets together with T's sister and have a girls' weekend. I really am tempted to take her up on her offer because I genuinely enjoy talking to/hanging out with her, and I'd LOVE to see a traditional German Christmas market (they live in a small town), but I think it's a bit early especially with my move to Brussels, plus it might be weird explaining to T that I'm off to visit his parents without him....What to do?!

In other news, I told my mum every single detail about how things went that weekend, as soon as I got back to Paris and she became even more determined that T and I visit England very soon (she's invited us both, many times in the past). I'm sure it's because she'd like to reciprocate and show off her hosting skills too, although knowing my mum, she'll go above and beyond because this is like a competition now. Seriously, parents can be so funny sometimes. Although to be honest, I don't mind people competing to show me love hehe!

Noël/Xmas 2012

This year my sister and I spent Christmas in Paris because of her job. It was a bit sad, but we tried to make our flat as festive as possible (my sister eventually agreed to get a tree!), invited one good friend and ate till bursting point. Best of all, my presents are waiting for me under the real Christmas tree at my parents' in England :)

Cette année, ma sœur et moi, on a passé Noël à Paris à cause de son travail. C'était un peu triste, mais on a essayé de rendre notre appart le plus festif que possible (finalement, elle a accepté qu'on puisse avoir un sapin), on a invité une très bonne amie et mangé jusqu'à se faire exploser. Le meilleur de tous, c'est que mes cadeaux sont en attente pour moi sous le vrai sapin de Noël chez mes parents en Angleterre :)

Bûche de Noël, 30€. Cette ville est fou chere!

30€ yule log. Phone to emphasise size, Paris is bloody expensive!

Notre petit sapin, tellement mignon

Our cute mini christmas tree

Repas de Noël, a l'anglaise

Christmas dinner, British-style

Stupeur post-prandiale

Postprandial haze

Et pour finir, le cliche obligatoire de fin de soirée

The requisite end-of-the-night photo

La Ville Éternelle

In July, I spent three days at my aunt's and cousins' in Rome. It was a much needed and well-deserved break! As I had already visited the city many times before, I wasn't too fussed about doing touristy things , and so spent the weekend basically sleeping, eating and partying. I was able to try out Italian-style clubbing for the first time, and I can confirm the stereotype....it's definitely true that the men are STYLISH and GORGEOUS!

En juillet je suis partie à Rome pour  trois jours de repos chez ma Tante et mes cousins. Comme j'ai déjà passé pas mal de temps dans cette belle ville, j'avais pas trop envie de faire la touriste, donc c'était plutôt un gros weekend de bouffe et de clubbing. J'ai pu profité de faire la fête a l'italienne, et oui, les hommes italiens sont sûrement des beaux gosses!  :)