In a welcome development, it's Italian week at the Mensa. This means Italian food every day, and also a stall selling little glasses of Italian wine for €0.60. Bellissimo.

First German class last night was a lot of fun. A good international group doing a variety of different things, and the teacher, Heidi, seems pretty cool as well. I think most people in the class are at a similar level to me too. Lots of homework to do this week.

The forecast for Karlsruhe at the weekend in -6 centigrade. Wha? I better get paid soon so I can go and buy a lot of warm clothes. The paperwork here is just insane. Today I had to sign six different pieces of paper for my contract, that's after they've seen my passport, permit of stay, registration with the police, health insurance registration, CV (one printed copy and one fill-in form), masters certificate, and bank account details. This takes my total number of pieces of paper signed since arriving to 3.2 trillion.