Flying Home for Christmas ♫
So apparently, the ice age has arrived to Newcastle - Including frequent snow flurries, howling winds and absolutely freezing temperatures!
What a perfect timing to just leave Geordieland's bleak winter behind and go home for Christmas! Finally, after over seven months of not being in Germany, I guess you can imagine that my anticipation to be reunited with my friends and family for Christmas was beyond boundaries.
So after a very long, exhausting travel, I eventually arrived at Frankfurt International Airport on a Sunday morning and was welcomed by my family. And my brother and dad nearly killed me with their bear hugs then and there. But toughened by living in the rough English north though, I survived and made it home safely, where the welcome got even better. My mum had prepared a massive brunch with all my favourite foods that I hadn't eaten in months. And the eating didn't stop there, my parents had also planned a massive dinner with all my other family members in our favourite restaurant later that evening. They probably thought I had lived off bread and water for the past few months or something ...
All in all, this first day left me feeling rather light-headed (thanks to the combination of food, whine and a considerable lack of sleep, I guess), so I was looking forward to the most important reunion yet: My dearly missed, big, soft, comfortable, beautiful bed.
Actually, let me correct that. That was only the second most important reunion. The best reunion followed the day after when I finally (!) saw my best friend again for the first time in nine months. She had gone to Australia to work as an AuPair even before I had left to England, so the excitement to finally be back at home in the same time zone together was huge. And from then on - as best friends do - we were inseparable for the coming few weeks. We went to all our favourite cafés together, visited Mainz' Ice Sculpture Exhibition, had mulled wine at our city's gigantic christmas market and just generally soaked up as much German culture as we possible could.
And more importantly, with an amazing, cozy Christmas passing by and New Year's Eve coming up, she helped me planning the party my brother and I had at our place (My parents conveniently decided to clebrate the new year with family in Cologne). I couldn't have asked for a better way to start off 2018!
Having seen all my friends and family again and just generally done everything I wanted to during my Christmas holidays, I felt sufficiently recharged to start the last third of my EVS and when the time came to go back to Newcastle, only a little part of me was sad to leave Germany ... Okay, maybe I was 50% sad, 50% happy to go back.
Anyway, Space2 immediatley kept me busy enough to not dwell on that for too long. The Loan Shark Project had launched late 2017, a workshop to educate young people on the dangers of illegal money lenders and how to spot, avoid and report them. A part of the project involves designing informative leaflets and a wall mural, so that fell into my hands! I spent endless hours on my laptop, but now the leaflets are being printed an the mural soon to be printed on canvas. Watch out for the window display if you happen to pass by Space2!
