Breaking the blackberry addiction

I've not been the best at updating my blog - mainly due to trying to break all habits that involve addiction to technology. This is mainly to start focusing on my studies rather than keeping up with the Kardashians… Although I do have a blackberry, when I have no one to text and no job pinging me every 4 minutes - it seems not so hard to break the addiction. Imagine - a world with a $10 phone bill. Yup, thats me!

So what have I been doing with myself (those of you who know me and my phone addiction)? Absolutely nothing but study (the diploma via correspondence I'm doing) and getting used to solitude. Learning German in silence isn't quite the easiest thing to do and in 2 weeks we are paying for someone to teach me german - may as well get them to do it right in the first place rather than teach myself bad habits in the meantime.

Ok Ok, doing absolutely nothing is a lie. We have done lots, but to ensure I don't bore you with touristy things here is what we've done: visited princes castles, old churches (with dead kings in the basement - yup smells like dead kings too!), drank new wine, old wine and drank at a wine festival, visited the surprisingly CLEAN Rhine River, dropped into the SAP headquarters and became familiar with the local city we are currently residing in: Neustadt an der Weinstrasse.

View of our little town Neustadt from the local castle

At the princes castle in Schwetzingen

My Prince in the Princes very manicured gardens

Catholic Church in Speyer - approaching its 950 year anniversary!!!

The water of the Rhine, not an inch of moss or oil to be seen

Funny things: They don't seem to use rubbish bins for when you put out your trash - you just pile your rubbish outside where you live or work (see photo below). I also found it very amusing, you can't translate the word "Dude" so easily in Germany (below also).

There has been lots of house hunting using up our time, but nothing promising or even remotely close to sealing a deal. Housing here is like a rare truffle… either super expensive to get or impossible to find.

Next post will be way more exciting (I hope!).