The wedding

Over a month has passed now since our wedding. We both had an absolutely amazing day and loved every minute of it. In fact if I could re-live it over again I would. What they say is true, the day goes by an an unbelievable speed.

What did I love about it? It was just so nice to be surrounded by family and friends on such a special day. And also seeing all the hard work planning the wedding finally pay off! A lot of people travelled from all over to be there for the wedding which we also really appreciated. My brother and his girlfriend flew from Australia which was the furthest distance. But we also had a lot of friends there from Germany. And the great thing about the day was that everyone was mingling, I didn't even have to worry about making introductions. We had 80 guests which I felt was a perfect number for us.

In the morning I enjoyed getting ready with my bridesmaids. We all had a glass of wine at the hairdressers, and it felt strange to be drinking at 10am! Everyone looked gorgeous. It was my first time seeing the girls in the dresses I had picked for them. Then in the house the photographer took some photos and all too soon the car had arrived and it was time to go! Our wedding ceremony was at Trinity college Dublin and being August there were loads of people sightseeing there. When my Dad and I got out of the car outside the chapel there must have been about 50 tourists standing around taking my picture! I found that a bit overwhelming as I was already feeling nervous at that stage! But I turned around and gave them all a little wave before making my way into the church and they all clapped and cheered which was nice.

Walking up the aisle I burst into tears, and the GerMann was also teary eyed. The ceremony itself was beautiful. The sun came out and we got some fantastic pictures outside before it was time to go on to the hotel. The GerMann and I had a moment just the two of us travelling by car to the hotel which was lovely. Then in the hotel we were able to chat to people at the reception drinks a little before the meal. After the dinner there were three speeches, father of the bride, the best man and the groom and I thought everyone did a fantastic job.

After the dinner it was time for cake and dancing! We hadn't rehearsed the first dance at all but amazingly it went really well and people told me afterwards that it looked like we had taken lessons. And then the rest of the night was spent living it up on the dancefloor and chatting to people. It was all over too soon. The next day we had a lunch at my family home with the GerMann's family and we ate leftover wedding cake for dessert. The following day we flew off on our honeymoon.

There is lots to get used to now, having a husband, being a "Mrs", having a new surname! At the wedding dinner, after the meal, one of the waiters asked me if my husband takes milk in his coffee and it sounded really strange to me, "my husband!". It's sad in a way that the wedding is over now, but we have some beautiful photos, and a lovely video that my cousin made and lots of memories.

Once I got back to work everyone shook my hand congratulating me on being married. And I think I am expected to bring a cake in. Better get on that soon! Getting our marriage recognized here was interesting. We went to our local "Bürger büro", citizen's office and handed in our wedding certificate only to be told, it will have to be translated as they don't accept non German documents.

So then we email a translator for a quote and it's going to be 100€. Yikes. The GerMann phones the Standesamt and finds out there is another option where you don't need a translation but you need your birth certs but they cannot be more than 6 months old and it costs about 70€ and it takes 4 weeks. Okay..

Anyway, then we decided to try going to a different Bürger Büro as we heard that it can depend on the person you get, sometimes they are nice about it. So we go in to a different one and hand in our marriage cert and it was no problem at all, the lady there just accepted it as it was in English and had no issues with it and didn't charge us anything!

The next big project is to send out all the thank you cards and then to create a wedding album. And in the meantime we have also started house hunting. Buying a house actually feels like a bigger commitment and a more difficult decision than deciding whether to get married, funny that!

Two hens are better than one

Summer has finally arrived to Germany after what seemed like a never ending Winter! The GerMann and I actually did manage to escape the cold though for a one week Easter trip to Gran Canaria.

Gran Canaria, or any of the Canary islands are great spots to visit when the weather is bad elsewhere as you can normally expect temperatures of around 23 degrees. There are also long sandy beaches though the water is a bit on the cold side! I'm sure we'll go back again sometime as we had a great trip.

Back in Germany April and May were pretty miserable months, cold with lots of rain. My hay fever which I only developed since moving here (a little "welcome to Germany present") was also really bad for a few weeks. It's worst in April and May when the trees are blooming.

In Germany there are a lot of public holidays which is fantastic but for some reason most of them seem to fall in May! It was brilliant to get four extra days off in May, but I would much prefer if the public holidays were more spread out- like over June, July and August. As it stands, the next bank holiday here isn't until October. Since June the weather has changed quite dramatically for the better. And it was a great month since I got to have not one, but two hen parties!

Since the wedding is in Ireland, I knew I wanted to also have my hen party there with my good friends. This was the "official" hen party, planned by my bridesmaids- mainly my maid of honour, my sis. But my circle of friends here also said they would like to celebrate with me and they decided to plan a party for me. Both events were kept secret- I knew the time and day but not what was going to happen, and both were in June, only two weekends apart. I had given a few guidelines beforehand on what sort of things I wouldn't like- nothing too tacky or embarrassing! The two parties were perfect in their own way.

The Irish one was more "girl's night in" style. We stayed in a lovely spa hotel in Westmeath and got beauty treatments and had a pyjama party. I also got lots of time to catch up with everyone, and it was so lovely meeting my friends again, especially the childhood friends who I have known a very long time! That's a lot of shared history there! It was such a lovely weekend. It felt so strange at the end saying my goodbyes knowing the next time I see everyone will be when I'm back in Ireland again for my wedding!! I'll see the bridesmaids on the wedding morning but everyone else not till I'm at the church in my wedding dress!!

One of my friends from here also travelled with me to Ireland for my Irish hen. It was really nice to mix both my worlds- for my Irish friends to meet one of my best friends in Germany and for her to meet my friends from home. When I was back for the weekend it was also fun to see Ireland from a tourist point of view, the weather was phenomenal- it didn't rain once and we had deep blue sunny skies. So now she thinks that we Irish just tell people it rains a lot in Ireland in order to not have to share our wonderful country! The whole weekend reminded me how much I love Ireland, my family and my friends from home, and made me really want to visit more often. I was also very homesick for the few days after I got back to Germany- until I settled back into my German life again.

It was nice having my German hen to look forward to though. I should mention that it was not typical German style hen, or "junggesellenabschiedsfeier" as they call it auf Deutsch. A typical German hen involves the girls going around with baskets and selling little trinkets such as little bottles of liqueur to people to fund their drinking for the night!

For my German hen we had a brunch followed by a treasure hunt then afternoon tea (with champagne of course) and then dinner and dancing in a club. Feel so lucky to have made such a nice group of friends here. The majority of whom are also ex-pats like me. Our group is a mixture of Americans, Canadian and Irish. A good mix.

When I went back to Ireland for my hen party I also brought my wedding dress on the plane. It was less trouble than I was expecting. The bridal shop folded it into a box for me which I just put into the overhead compartment and once I was back at my family home, we hung it up in one of the wardrobes.

Now that the hen parties are over and the dress is in Dublin, the wedding feels that bit closer. The GerMann was saying to me recently, that in less than 6 weeks time we will be married! The time has seriously flown. And now I can even say- next month I'm getting married which just sounds so close!

Up to now I've been counting down in weeks till the wedding but soon I'll need to switch to days..Yikes!

A weekend visit back to Dublin

Last weekend I was back in Dublin, for another one of my flying visits- where I basically go home for about 3 or 4 days and try to fit in as much as possible during that time and practically plan my time down to the minute. This time I actually didn't fully book myself in advance as I wanted to have more family time. And also not stress myself out! I had one free afternoon and at first I did feel a bit guilty that I should be meeting someone during that time, but I ended up just hanging out with my sister and doing a bit of shopping.

I arrived home on a dull rainy Friday afternoon. Why is it always raining when the plane touches down in Dublin airport? Murphy's Law I suppose! Still to me it felt familiar and nice to be back!! Here's a picture of Dublin airport in the rain.

And Sandymount strand out the window of the aircoach:

Friday evening I visited an old friend- old in the sense that we have been friends a long time! Since I was 4 and she was 3 to be exact! One of the things I love about friends from home is that we have such a shared history. Was lovely having a good catch up over a bottle of wine.

On the Saturday evening I went to a friend's 30th birthday party. Mine will be the next one! When I just turned 29 I did go through a stage of freaking out a bit at where on earth my 20s went and feeling incredulous that I would turn 30 in the non too distant future when I still feel like the maturity level of a 25 year old! As you get older, I think you feel exactly the same (though a little more forgetful), but all of a sudden you are expected to do more and more "grown up" stuff! Friends start buying property, getting engaged or even having babies! It's gradual but it's becoming more frequent! But once the "woah I will be 30 soon" phrase passed I started to feel better about it. People who have passed the "30" milestone tell me they feel better in their own skin, more self confident and happy with themselves, and I am feeling that way too now. I have decided to embrace turning 30 and along with a friend, we are planning a big joint birthday party in Dublin.

Speaking of big events, last weekend I got some exciting news from that friend. She has asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding next year in France! This is the first time I shall be a bridesmaid and I have no idea what it all involves yet but I am very much looking forward to it nonetheless! I am also grateful that we have been able to maintain our friendship so well despite living so far away from each other.

The morning of my flight, it was a nice dry mild autumn day and I went for a walk on Dun Laoghaire pier.

What did I bring back with me? A suitcase full of irish goodies and a cold from the plane.

Here's a pic of some of the stuff I brought back. I might have gone a bit overboard!

It was a really great weekend back home and I love that I am only a two hour flight from Dublin. But the bad side to my frequent trips back is that I get hit with an extra big wave of homesickness once I get back to Germany. It normally takes a few days of feeling down before I am back into the swing of things with my German life!

This week I am looking forward to attending two Thanksgiving parties! Yep, you heard it, two! That is the advantage of having lots of American friends. I am hoping to try to bake something irish to bring along- like irish soda bread or tea brack.

My GerMann and I have also booked flights to visit Berlin next year. I love to travel but trips back and forth to Dublin don't count. Lufthansa were having a flight sale and Germans cannot resist a bargin so my GerMann came to me with the idea of a trip next February. Since we both have not yet been to Berlin we have decided to go there as I have only heard good things about it!