Day 6

Saturday – Rest. Although one of those rest days where you do absolutely nothing, and when you live in a foreign city with only a few new friends and with no desire to put yourself through the misery that is public transport a rest day can turn into a day of watching random TV drama on mega video. Here’s a top tip, reset your router to bypass the 72 minute limit, very handy and very dangerous. Ultimately, my whole day spent watching TV and doing a little bit of cooking resulted in an unhealthy lethargy and I ended up more tired than when the day began and with a cold to boot, maybe public transport would have been better.

Sunday is probably my favourite day of the week. I know it’s work tomorrow, but it’s the day of worship. Everyone comes together for that glorious thing. Open Mat. You know someone is a true BJJ brother (or sister) when they dedicate their Sunday to BJJ training. I had planned to take some photos of the club and the session, something I really want to do because it really is a very good club, but something that must be delayed until next week for reasons that will become apparent.

What else did I do on Sunday? I moved. I moved for the third (and final) time since coming to Berlin in October. Finding accommodation is usually not that hard in Berlin, finding accommodation at the start of University semester is a nightmare. Anyway, on Saturday I started the move, picking up the keys and taking some clothes over. On Sunday morning before training I was sitting on the U7, like the bakerloo line except where is the logic in naming your lines when you can just number them. In fact I’m still surprised that the stations have names, why not take the U7 to stop 13, surrounded by my training bag, a large duffel bag, and two large (environmentally friendly) shopping bags, thinking to myself. How on Earth have I managed to accumulate so much shit? At this point I still had to return to my old flat after training to collect yet another load. When I arrived at my new flat, with 15 minutes to empty my bags and head to training, disaster struck. It was in the form of shaving foam. I had, in my infinite wisdom, just thrown the shaving foam into a bag without a lid. Then, as if I felt the triangle closing around my neck and rather than posture, I decided to sink my head down low and place my arm across my own throat, I had placed all my electrical goods including my camera into this bag. I now regretfully remember thinking how annoying it would be if the shaving foam were to be released... ‘annoying’ is really inadequate. As the photos can attest everything was a mess. I was consequently late for training and my camera left at home covered in foam. Two thumbs up.