Today was the penultimate day in Staffordshire. I've only been here since Tuesday, but we seem to have crammed in a massive amount. Having sold their house, my parents have rented a new one for six months just up the road. From the pictures I've seen, and from what they've told me about it, it looks like a show house, so its really annoying that I'm not going to get to see it for real for months (if at all!).
Speaking of houses, today I visited one of the nicest ones I've ever seen, Haddon Hall (http://www.haddonhall.co.uk). It might not be to everyone's taste, but for me it has everything (including a Tudor garden to die for). Oh well, maybe if I become rich enough I may be able to build an exact replica to live in. Possibly if I became rich enough to do that, I'd be too busy to live in it, so its probably just as well I'm not actually that rich.
Which leads me to think about my new house, and what it'll be like. I've finally located it, far in the north of Gorzow, even further out than Ul.Pilsudski, and the parks. Maybe I should consider getting a scooter... Apart from these few small details, my mind has been left to fill in the blanks, imagining thousands of different ways in which the rooms could be combined, hundreds of different types of flat (from a flat in a traditional townhouse, to a modern development, to the top floor of a Stalinistesque tower block), along with an infinite variety of room sizes. It'll all be an exiting surprise, especially seeing it for the first time.
Thinking about first times, my mind finds so many different things to worry about. I've worried about getting through Berlin by train while only speaking minimal German, about whether I'll look unteacherlike when I get picked up by the headteacher from Gorzow station, about whether I'll be able to improve my Polish quickly enough, or whether I'll arrive in Gorzow asleep after thirty hours awake. And then at the end of all that I have to become really good at teaching. Both my parents, and two of my Grandparents, were teachers, so maybe I've got teaching genes? I hope so, even if I'm only intending to use them for a year.. Although having said that, I wonder: does belief in 'teaching genes' automatically make me too stupid to be a teacher?
Didn't realise you were going by train. It can't be a problem going through Berlin to Poland, any more.
I can remember when I went to Moscow by train before the Wall came down. You got on the train at Hook van Holland, handing over your passport to the Russian train conductress. Berlin was a place of train shunting in the night: one stop for the West German/East German border, one stop for the East German/West Berlin border, one stop for the West Berlin/East Berlin border, and one stop for the East German/Polish border. You were glad that the conductress did all the border passport controls, so you could stay in bed at least, though sleeping was rather difficult.
Everyone speaks English these days anyway. Don't worry.