there's no headline for so many things

sooo, it's time now for a new entry.

since I've put off writing for so long (I posted my last entry exactely 3 weeks ago), I think it's better to divide it into the three weeks, makes it easier for both you and me.

week 1:
a basic problem is that I can't really remember what I did during all these weeks, so I'll probably jump from weekend to weekend. though, I do remember that the first week (of these three) was characterized by disney - we watched tarzan, mulan, lion king, the emperor's new groove & the others also watched atlantis. all in all, a week of simply amazing entertainment.
on saturday, we had our first dafna day. basically, the idea is that one day in the month all the people from our house spend some time togehter; that week we went to the coast, more precisely to brighton. however, on this first dafna day two of us couldn't join due to work/other plans..
in brighton we were picked up at the train station by daniel, another csv who's living in that city. together we spent some time at the beach and the pier before our group split in two smaller ones due to different interests. daniel, bianka, julie, katrin and me, we relaxed for a while in a park at the royal pavillion and later went to the seaside. daniel, katrin and me actually really went swimming, was great, quite big waves!
after that, daniel showed us a nice café and some sort of shopping street which is made up of a mixture of "alternative" and tourist shops. btw, there were loads of graffiti in brighton, pretty cool. also I got two awesome posters for my room, £ 1 each.

f.l.t.r. Bianka, Julie, John, Finn, Diana, Daniel, me and Katrin

Selfieee :D

royal pavillion and Daniel

week 2:

on that week's time scedule there were the first two trainings for most of the dafna people. "introduction to norwood" & "jewish way of life" - as the names already reveal kind of basic courses which would have probably been more useful at the beginning of my placement. anyway, I found the training about jewish culture including festivals (especially shabbat), food rules etc very interesting.
moreover, in that week for the first time I supported one of my residents in the swimming pool. since a lot of the other volunteers had already been doing that for a while, I had been truly wondering if I had done something wrong which possibly could have made my managers believe that I'm not reliable. :D but now I'm going swimming more or less regularly, so it's fine (:

on saturday morning, julie, minji (volunteer from southkorea who is currently living in oxford), pamela (one of minji's friends; she's from mexico) and me started our journey to creamfields festival which we all had been waiting for excitedly. unfortunatly, the wellington boots which I had ordered two days before (naturally with "next-day-delivery") had not been delivered, so from the moment we left the shuttle bus at the festival area the next two hours were a really muddy experience for me. I put two plastic bags over my feet and fixed them with duct tape which was good in terms of preventing them (and me) from the mud, but on the other hand that was really bad for my stability since it made the whole thing even more slippery. however, somehow I managed not to fall down.
after some time (it felt like ages), we found some vacant place at the camp site, pitched the tents and finally enjoyed our first beer with our new neighbours.
creamfields' shows were incredible, so much lights and lasers, pyrotechnics and absolutely mental music, of course. apart from deadmau5, steve aoki, showtek, armin van buuren and nervo, the show of calvin harris was absolutely mind-blowing!

f.l.t.r. clean Julie, me, Pamela and Minji on our way to Creamfields

copyright by marc de groot blah blah

calvin harris

f.l.t.r. not clean anymore; Minji, me, Julie & Pamela

week 3:

we returned from the festival on monday - bank holiday. the following days I was very tired but had to clean all my stuff, terrible..
on thursday my parents who before had been travelling for about 6 days in the UK arrived at ravenswood, they would stay here for a couple of days. in the evening we had dinner at the prince, our pub in crowthorne, but before we went to the rugby training, my parents were watching.
I finished work on friday earlier in order to have enough time to go to windsor with my parents. although the weather was not perfect it was a really nice afternoon in this tiny but pretty town. on our way back we had some difficulties with finding the right way (my dad drove the car, I read the map :D you might not believe me but it was not my fault :D).
in the evening we had a nice birthday party in dafna, elisa and katrin were our birthday "children".

mummy and me in ravenswood

julie and my daddy with nice colours

me, john and bianka (new caps btw !)

> only two days left, yeay <

saturday: after about 3 or 4 hours of sleep I got up, but not as tired as I should have been. my parents and me, we went for a walk around the village and then to heath lake which is quite near. not only was it very good to see and to speak to my parents, but also it did me good to hear and speak my language, especially my dialect which I'm sometimes really missing.
in the afternoon our paths separated again, my parents headed towards stansted and I went to oxford together with julie where in the evening the birthday party of pamela would take place. there we met several people from different countries (all in all there were mexico, venezuela, italy, south korea, spain, germany and austria represented). sunday was very lazy, we first made burritos and then in the afternoon enjoyed the lovely weather at some incredibly idyllic place near to the river thames.

three myselves

I can't believe that I'm finished now, has been soo much to reflect.
my goals for this week are now to sort out some things, clean up my room, write some postcards, stuff like that. moreover, I have to plan my next trips in detail and think about the following months.

I hope I manage to write the next entry sooner, it's horrible to sum up so many days and weeks..
enjoy yourselves and stay tuned.!


ps today we had a power cut for about 40min, and for the first time I really realized how dependent we are.. no telly, no wifi, no charging, no playstation - all these essential things are not possible without power supply. no, seriously, for the first time I was really a bit worried due to a blackout, all our food in our freezers and fridges, no information, no landline, etc.. just saying.

little sleepy and his adventures in the rainy country (:

hello people (:
another week over.. a lot has happened, as well as in the week before. but I'm still alive :D

just kidding, the last two weeks were great! so nice that I don't really know where to start..

I'll just start with last weekend. on friday evening (01 august) we could really enjoy one of the benefits which come with living in a multi cultural house. yi-wen's parents who had stayed in our house for two weeks cooked a taiwanese dinner for us in order to say thank you and also goodbye. it was a really nice evening, a fantastic meal and eventually all of us got invited to taiwan by yi-wens grandfather who had been our guest as well.
after dinner bianka, julie, katrin and me went to the prince, our pub in crowthorne. even though all four of us are from german speaking countries (germany and austria obviously) we hardly used any german words, as well as in our everyday's life. I had been a bit worried before I left austria that we might speak german to often in our house but in fact we do not.

delicious !

the next day was spent in oxford, my favourite city so far. although it was a rainy day our group which consisted of finn, bianka, julie, katrin, elisa and me enjoyed that day trip. we walked the way from the trainstation to carfax tower, a building right in the centre of the city which provides an awesome view. up there you realize how small and beautiful oxford is. after that we went to covered market (since it was still raining) where we had our lunch at a lovely little cafe. the ceiling was covered with loads of old movie posters and the room nicely done up.

after lunch our group split and two people each explored the parts of the city which interested them most together (I'm really not sure if the grammar is right in this sentence..). julie and me visited some shops like an antique shop, a picture and poster store and a few more other ones. bought some stuff to personalize my room, as well as writing paper, postcards, etc.
our plan for sunday was going to some city at the coast as we thought we should take advantage of the beautiful weather and spend a day at the beach. however, when we returned from oxford we were so done that we cancelled that trip. instead we had a tasty BBQ at our place.

georgina's coffee shop (:

next week.. the first few days consisted of only working and sleeping, didn't really have any energy. sometimes I have the feeling that this tiredness goes along with living in dafna (by the way, I got a new nickname - sleepy). but on thursday my mood changed: first me and julie went to tesco's, a vast supermarket which is located two trainstations from crowthorne. there we bought the things we would need for a little party at the weekend. the both of us carried at least 15 kilogramms each..
in the evening julie took me along with her to the training of crowthorne RFC, the local rugby club. honestly, I had no clue of any rules except that you must not pass forward, but that didn't matter, was really funny! at least I am fast and since I used to play handball for some years I'm not totally clumsy when it comes to throwing or catching a ball - these two facts kind of compensated my lack of knowledge a bit. tomorrow I'll attend the next training, I am really looking forward!

for the weekend we had invited a lot of csv volunteers who currently are like us placed in the south and east of england to our place. unfortunately, only a few (three :D) found time, others had to work or were too far away. however, we had a great weekend, going out on friday in reading (finally :D), comfy saturday at dafna (relaxing, eating, playing monopoly, cod and cluedo, watching kick ass 2, etc) and a short trip to reading on sunday.

from somewhere to somewhere Sarah, Elisa, me, Yedun, Bianka, Daseung & Tobi

f.l.t.r. Julie, tree, Daniel and me

that's enough summary for now, I'll only give you a short prospect of the next few weeks and activities and then you'll be released :b

future plans:

• creamfields Festival 22-24 august
• my parents will be in the UK between 22 august and 01 september
• edinburgh 23-25 september, long distance walk to glasgow 26-28 september, glasgow 29 september
• the 1975 concert 01 october
• kraftklub concert 27 october
• more to come ;D

biggest british dance festival together with Julie and Elly - 10 days to go

scotland's great trails

rainy country?

cheers dear blog-followers :P

again, we're enjoying an absolutely beautiful day here in crowthorne, berkshire. since I arrived in the UK we had about 5 days of rain, that's exactly what I had expected - NOT ! but I won't complain, I'm very grateful for these warm days here at lattitude 51° north, so against all expectations it was not totally absurd to bring tank tops to the UK.
however, here are some pictures of our first real rain (it was pouring heavily, I was almost soaking wet after stepping outside for about 4 seconds to close the door):

on friday evening we started to celebrate bianka's birthday, at 12 o'clock her birthday cake (a real austrian sacher torte, had taken me about 2.5 hours) was presented. although she didn't succeed in blowing down all the candles at once, we wish her all the best for her future (:

we've got blacklight :D

happy birthday !

v.l.t.r Julie, me, Yiwen and Sarah

my following days were characterized by extreme laziness, nevertheless I managed to leave the house three times. the first time to pick up the new volunteer from albania - her name is elisa - at saturday evening (she was not on the expected train, so julie picked her up later). then on sunday to show elisa wellingten college together with julie and last but not least at sunday evening finn, julie and me went to the bowling center in bracknell with some staff of tova, finn's house.

now I have to go to work, it's the afternoon shift today, 2-9.

byebye (:


PS: today I found a very pretty place in the forest while I was running - some pictures, don't know if they can describe the aura of this place.

distances

our village & CSV volunteers day

hello (:

day 22 in the united kingdom, though it seems way more. having a lazy sunday, yesterday most of us weren't very active eighter.

I really have the feeling that I've already settled in well, a lot of things are much more familiar than at the beginning, of course. british bank account and debit card, mobile phone contract, having registered for NHS and the GP, beeing owner of a young-person's-railcard - that all supports me in feeling at home. now we're all waiting for our first pay day (since we're volunteers we don't earn a fortune, but we get some money for covering our daily expenses and our food).



... just realized that I haven't even written a single word in order to explain what I'm doing here :D
alright, as I said, I am here at Ravenswood village "which is home to 130 people with learning disabilities living in 13 registered care homes set in over 120 acres of Berkshire countryside" (taken from the website of Ravenswood Village). we, the volunteers who live in Dafna, work in these care homes, mine is called Kadimah. in kadimah there are 11 residents and about 20 members of staff. in my house all except two residents are capable of speaking, so depending on their level of self-dependance the residents need more or less support. often you just have to give them prompts to do some things, like focusing on preparing their cereals as most of them get distracted easily. others have to be looked after continously since they tend to do things which can harm themselves. at the beginning it was quite hard, I had to learn all the names of the residents and also staff all at once and what's more, I'm still busy getting to know all the residents' habits and their daily scedules. but now, after three weeks at work everything is much more familiar and therefor it's not that hard anymore. due to the fact that I've not had any trainings yet, my current tasks are limited to supporting the residents at breakfast and lunch, doing the laundry, loading and unloading the dishwasher and sometimes accompanying staff and residents to activities (going shopping, for a coffee, to music therapy, swimming lessons, etc). I'm really looking forward to my trainings, I hope I'll get a bit more responsibilities and opportunities then.


on friday 11 june, five of us Ravenswood-volunteers attended the CSV volunteers day in london. CSV is a british organisation which coordinates lots of projects for volunteers in the whole UK including Ravenswood village. all the volunteers who currently are placed in south and east england were invited to this volunteers day; effectively we were about 20 people, I think. our journey to regent's park in london took about 90 minutes and was about 17 pounds each (including return and day-travel-ticket for all zones in london), which is quite cheap. when we arrived in london, british weather was welcoming us. nevertheless, we had great fun with all the other volunteers. we played some games at regent's park and then walked to the CSV headquarters where we had a multicultural lunch. every volunteer had been asked to bring some food which is typical for his or her country. as there were people from great britain, south-korea, germany, costa rica, columbia and austria (and maybe also some other country, I'm not sure) we could choose out of quite a wide range of different meals. after lunch we went to king's cross for all the harry potter freaks, very cool !!! also we spent some time in a pub before everybody headed into different directions. daseung, who's been staying here in dafna longer than us new volunteers showed us some nice parts of the city, camden market, china town, etc and then we went home aswell.


finally, I only want to tell you one more little story. a huuuuuge fail :D this friday evening we had been playing some funny games (which included the consumption of alcohol) at our house, when I came up with the idea of going out in Reading which is the next bigger city to our little village. collective approval - no sooner said than done. everything worked out well, at about 12pm we were in reading where we asked some locals where to go best. soon we found some club which seemed to be nice, but then.... our dear girls (all three of them!) suddenly realized that they hadn't brought any ID with them!!! we boys couldn't believe how anybody can forget to bring any proof of age, especially in a foreign country. facing the fact that our first train back would be at 6 o'clock we had to think of some alternative. after a short break at mc donalds we just took a taxi, which costed us 50 pounds.
hopefully next time nobody will forget anything and we'll be able to go out properly :D

stay tuned, more to come (;
cheers

King's Cross

f.l.t.r. Finn, Juliane, Bianka, Daseung, me