Kirsten Tattoos

Tattoos by Kirsten Stevenson

[kirstentattoos]

Made a start on this today :) fun times! 😍 #tattoodesign #ink #tattoo #wolf #love #tattooer #chains #tattoosformen #menwithtattoos #smokingbarrels #ezcatridges #hannovertattoo #neustadtamrübenberge #germantattooers #scottishtattooist (at Smoking Barrels Tattoo)

[kilpatington-blog]

Sprechen Sie English?!

I decided to start writing my experiences abroad down, I know I am at the risk of looking like a self obsessed, pretentious hipster but I can assure you that is only 90% true….

I moved to Germany in January. Long story short, the girlfriend and I had an opportunity to live and work in Deutschland. We haven’t just moved to any part of Germany but balls deep into the German countryside… This can lead to a lot of issues, not just the language barrier but day to day activities become military style operations, where you need to plan out what you might have to say and translate it beforehand.

Since moving here life feels like some sort of 90’s after school show; where each week something weird happens, I overcome it, learn a little and end up at home waiting for the next episode to start.

On a side note; English was never my strong point at school, took my 3 years to scrape a higher C, so expect the grammar and punctuation to be shit, I may throw in a semi colon here and there to try and make it seem a bit more tarted up.

Living in a different country is strange. At first I never though we were actually going to do it but it kicked in when I was on a Ferry in the middle of the ocean with the car filled with everything we owned. Which in itself was depressing to think we could fit our whole lives in a Mazda 2. 19 hours later we pulled up to a small house at the end of a village, with a depressed looking, overweight horse in the garden. It was -10 degrees and the house was empty but we were here.

*song from the end of the Titanic starts*

This isn’t some sort of road to glory blog, I’m still pretty shite at speaking German, driving still freaks me out and everyone in the village still stares at my glowing Ginger head but I’m a little less useless than I was when I moved here so that’s got to be some sort of achievement.

We live in a small village near Hanover. Now imagine Germany as a video game. Berlin is set on easy… It’s touristy, everyone speaks English, it’s nice. Now imagine Hanover in this game. It is set on Hard(as fuck) and I haven’t even done the tutorial. I’ve jumped right into the battlefield, knowing no controls other than crouch and call for aid.

It became apparent that living here was going to be difficult the first time I tried to order a croissant and Jam. So I got good o'l Google translate up and managed to spit out the phrase,” Ich hatte gerne einen Laugen croissant mit marmelade bitte.” As the waitress started prepping what I said, all I could think was, Fucking dancer, Germany is a piece of piss… “sitzen oder zum Mitnehmen.” I was not prepared for a follow up question, this wasn’t in the script.

At a later date I learned it meant, to sit in or to take away. In Scotland you hardly even think when you answer that question. However I just found myself staring at this old German women as if she had just asked me if it was okay to shit on my lunch. I just laughed as if she said a wee joke but then she said it again more forcefully, I had a system and I thought it worked, So I laughed until she decided for me and put my order in a bag. I paid up and left confused and disheartened from a simple pastry purchase.

And so to finish this on a high the croissants here are fucking class.

That day I learned the following words.

Hilfe – Help

Ich verstehe nicht – I don’t understand

Es tut mir leid – Sorry (it literally translates to, “It does me sorrow.” which is a bit grim if you ask me)