After a pretty laid-back time last weekend in preparation for the Munich 10km a group of us took part in, we got back in touch with the late-nights-and-alcohol side of ERASMUS. Although I’ve been enjoying the lazy days in the sun and not consuming anything stronger than Nestea, it’s had been a while since I’d had a big night out – despite being (apparently) the youngest ERASMUS student in Munich, I’m kind of an old soul that way. A friend from England had some friends visiting and so she decided to cover as much of the Munich nightlife as possible. After some cocktails at Sarborsitos (anyone going to study in Munich – they’re slightly overpriced but a little piece of alcoholic heaven) we bought wristbands for ‘die Lange Nacht der Munchner Clubs’. This was a 12 clubs/10buses/ 10 bars for 10 euros bonanza that resulted in my forcing myself not to fall asleep all over the airport employees in the S-Bahn at 5am. I live fairly near the airport, so I’ve met a lot of the ladies who do the early shifts at MUC over the last 8 months – they can tell I’m foreign and like to make sure I can find my way home. We made it to about 5 of the clubs, and did the Macarena for the first time in about 10 years (for me, at least), so I’d say is was a successful.

The long night of the Munich clubs was followed by the discovery that Bavarian shop employees are happy to break the ‘no payment by card transactions under 5 euros’ rule so long as you’re buying painkillers and say something about a hangover (“einen Kater”, which also means ‘Tom-cat’). I did a few hours of studying in our kitchen and chatted for a while with my new Italian neighbour, who’s taken to laughing and saying ‘jumanji’ every time he sees me. This is because ‘jumanji’ means ‘really bad’ in Italian and I once mentioned Robin Williams in front of him.

Last night was, of course, Eurovision. After the Long Night we couldn’t quite muster up the requisite enthusiasm for the big-screen display in the town centre and had a night in instead. Although we had to put up with a German commentator who said “Achtung” whenever one of the hosts took too long to announce a vote and utterly lacked any form of humour (the comedic stylings of Grahame Norton were very much missed), Eurovision will never be boring. Germany seems a little disappointed with Lena’s 10th place (despite the fact that she seemed to be coming on to the entire arena for most of her song) but at least the UK finished on the left hand side of the voting table.

Over a post- Song Contest brunch today in the Sendlinger Tor part of town, a friend pointed out that we only have 10 weeks left in Munich. It seemed like we had a long stretch of summer in Germany ahead of us, especially as other friends from Edinburgh are beginning to finish exams and head home and I’ve only just chosen classes. This week I’ve hidden from a thunderstorm and discovered chocolate chai lattes, got embarrassingly tipsy from peach flavoured alcopops in a rooftop bar, discovered chai iced latte (interesting life I lead), had a spontaneous staying-up-til-2 chatting and drinking wine night with ERASMUS students from my halls and gone to another beer festival. I can only hope that the rest of the 10 weeks are as good, and stop mooching about how fast time flies.