The last 3 months (since December 17, 2009, to be exact) have been an extreme mixed bag of experiences. I have to be honest and say that not everything has gone fantastically. In fact, some of my time here has been downright awful but it is all part of finishing school and going out into the world. On the other hand most of the time has been great and fun but I want to write about both times.

I left what I now realise to be an extremely easy, comfy and little decision making life behind on the 16th December to spend 11 months in Europe with Offenbach, Germany being my base. My memories of my first few days are; being as cold as I've ever been in my life. Kempsey doesn't have a habit of being -13°C, thankgod. The people in Germany aren't happy campers, I remember saying to Steffen that everybody looks like they have the shits. The only happy ones were the kids, probably because it was Weihnachten (Christmas). And finally, wearing 5 layers of clothing just to go outside is, quite frankly, a huge inconvenient pain. But all this was put aside as I had finally got my first real Christmas tree which was awesome and I could spend days in snow.

Christmas itself was so different. I don't think I'll be spending a Christmas away from my family again for awhile. I celebrated a German and Italian Christmas and both were fun and great but, of course, nothing beats a hot Aussie Christmas with your own family and mum cooking the Pav after my annual gingerbread failure.

After Christmas Steffen had two weeks off, in which we went to Berlin ( I'll do a separate post for Berlin) and just spent some nice time together. I also got to make good friends with Marco and Patricia and we'd do things like ice-skating outside and just general hanging out. All this time I was still excited to be in a new place, snow, and that I have no school or work. Then Steffen returned to work at the hotel meaning I was left alone pretty much everyday. At the start this was fine but then it got worse and worse. I rarely went outside because the snow was constantly there and it was too cold to even bother. I had done everything possible to do inside the apartment and all I really did was sleep till ridiculous hours in the day, talk to everyone back home on msn and facebook and eat. If I had lost any weight due to the HSC, well, it's returned and brought a few extra fat cells with it. A diet of 30cent Ja! Schokolade and coke with alota pasta in between does do great things.
This all hit a low in about mid feb. My German wasn't coming along fast enough to work at the Waitz hotel and England was being considered. I had gone from a person being extremely self sufficient. I had a car, could drive anywhere and mostly at anytime, I had everything to keep me busy, work, school, friends. Here I was dependant on Steffen for almost everything. It was one afternoon when Steffen had gone to work and I went to the attic to hang the clothes up that I found myself in uncontrollable tears and just sitting on the dirty floor. This continued down to the bottom floor where the apartment is and then for a long time after. I was convinced that my Gap year was a fail and I was extremely lost.

It was this same night that Steffen came up with an idea that would be the turning point of this miserable state. It should be noted that for the weeks that this state was occurring he was constantly trying to make things better, he never just let me be this way. Steffen was always thinking of something for me to do and I know I was sometimes being a cause of stress for him being the way I was. Anyway so on this night he came up with the idea that I could work at the orphanage at which he lived for a few years. I thought it was fantastic, so Steffen made all the arrangements and we went for an interview, practising my bio in German the whole trip there and then another change of plans. The boss of the orphanage decided that I could work at the conjoining school for high intelligence yet socially impaired students. I just said yes to everything and that is now where i am today as an assistant English teacher.

Through the last 3 months I've now come a long way to how I was. I have no problem doing the food shopping by myself (though Steffen comes most the time as it's just a thing we do together). I know my way around the city of Offenbach, I walk to the city centre or ride my borrowed from Marco bike into nearby towns. I spend alot of time at the park, which i love. I clean this house, I do the clothes washing which i never done at home. If I want something from a shop eg clothes or food I just ride to the shops either in the city centre or at the nearby food stores whether Steffen is home or not. This independence has taken alot of stress out of the relationship which is definantly a positive and I'm no longer miserable. I'm so glad I never went to England and that I stayed and worked through all of this...