Can you believe it? A year today we arrived in German lands to start our 3 year "Life Experience" course! I tried to remember what our thoughts and challenges were in those first few weeks... finding our way round, finding the shops and coming out with food we knew how to cook (or finding McDonalds) and also finding that driving on the left was just too dangerous! Slowly picking up a few important words in the language to get by and trying to find a few like minded folk who you hoped would become your friends. It all sounds so drastic now... but at the time it was our lives! After 2 weeks we managed to buy a car (thankfully with Sat Nav!) and on the 1st Dec we moved into our house in Herzogenaurach, which had no light fittings so we had to buy a tall lamp and carry it around with us! Darren then had to fit lights every night for 2 weeks and ended up with neck ache! Ahhhhh, poor love!
Then it was Christmas and we had a whirlwind of visitors which we really enjoyed! Having gotton a little more confident with our new surroundings, it was great to be able to show people around and laugh with people we hadn't seen in months! Nine months on, we are happily settled, with a MAD church to attend, good friends to eat, drink and be merry with, we can fool the Germans into thinking we can speak their language, with enough to cope with shops and restaurants. We've been visited by many friends and family which has been great fun, and for which we are most grateful! We have felt very supported in our adventures so a big thanks to everyone for all your thoughts and prayers! All in all we both feel we have achieved a lot this first year, seen many wonderful sights and grown in knowledge and confidence both individually and together. If you fancy a trip to Germany next year... just let us know!
