This week was filled with long days having started my internship. I’ll leave the house around 7 and often not get home until about 10 or so having to run errands that I didn’t get to do during the day or, on a nicer note, because of post-work dinners with Maddy or Corina.

On the whole though, I’m really enjoying it. The people are beyond helpful, the work is extremely interesting, the table tennis lunchtime competitions are laughable and it’s made me excited for full-time design (bar the hours.) The German dialect is proving difficult but we’re getting there. On Thursday arvo-night I got to take some footage in Bregenz by Lake Constance and enjoy what was a really beautiful afternoon. The requirement was a “time-lapse” sort of thing so I was standing in the same spot for about 8 hours starting and finishing a book. I had THAT many elderly people (and the occasional youth) come up to me and start conversation. It was actually really warming to make so many new friends over 70 years old, who I will probably definitely never see again.

The rest of the week was dotted with different hang outs, dinner at Maddy’s, seeing Corina’s apartment, having coffee with Flo as well as jumping in on Michaela, my housemates birthday brunch. That was really lovely to meet her friends and enjoy their cake. Afterwards her and I went ‘pilzen’ which is picking mushrooms up a nearby mountain. We didn’t find any mushrooms but we found a tiny cat. It was a good day.

This morning I went to church and sat with Verena who has kindly offered to give me pretty much everything I’m still missing here. Corina was the same on Friday. It’s made me so thankful for the generosity of the people I have met in Dornbirn with their time, patience and money.

The train ride home – real life Windows XP