I just finished my trial shift at the cookie cafe. The girls I worked with were lovely, so helpful and friendly! They are very young (in or just finishing school and living at home). The owner seems nice enough, she’s a hard business woman but friendly and fun at the same time. She’s lived through a lot I think, she came to Germany from the US in the 1980’s.
 
I was so excited and surprised to be paid at the end of the day and the girls laughed at me waving around my first properly earned Euro’s. I hadn’t expected it. The Australian pub have a form that says the first 3 shifts are a trial and training and will not be paid. Which isn’t so unfair I don’t think, it shows commitment, if they keep you it would be nice if they paid you back the time. But anyway, back to the Cookie cafe, the pay was only 5 euro an hour for the trial day, when I work properly it will be 8 euro an hour. This is nowhere near enough but anything will do for a start. I ended up with 30 euro at the end of today plus tips of 6.40 euro and I got to eat dinner there for free on my break and then at the end of the day got to take home two left over sandwiches and a bag of cookies. Yum!
 
It was nowhere near as hard as I had expected it to be. That’s not to say that it won’t get harder. I still need to learn how to make the coffees. How not to shake when I take people’s drinks to their tables, and how to properly and politely address customers. It sounds odd but I haven’t had to do this and in German there are different word formations for when you speak to strangers or people older than you to be polite. 

I’ve been given another training day on Thursday and then my first real work day on Saturday!

Somehow, between this, the pub and whatever else  I can find, I will hopefully be able to piece together enough work to be able to live without eating into my savings. Not sure how though, I need to investigate the tax system more. You have to pay a lot of tax in Germany.
 
So now I am at home, with my chamomile tea and my hot water bottle and a new iPhone app called ‘Deep sleep’ which really I can’t use properly until I get a set of headphones but the cheapest I’ve found so far are 29 euro and that’s too  much. Especially when it takes 6 hours to earn it!
 
Still need to sort out  a tax number on Monday, hopefully I can get everything through the German Bureaucracy by Tuesday.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone!
 
Much love
 
Amanda in wonderland (keeping in mind that wonderland was weird, scary if not horrifying at times not to mention full of really odd characters both good and evil!)