Yvonne is not confident in her language skills, but her English is pretty good…very good, in fact. She struggles with certain sounds, like anyone who takes up a second language past adolescence. Her body language and face all change dramatically when she’s forced to speak in English, but she really wants to get better. What troubles her the most isn’t “th” or “st” or “xth”. Believe it or not, it’s a plain ol’ letter R! The word “register” just gets the best of her.
I would like to learn a little of the Deutsche mother tongue. I’ve given up trying to correctly say Frischkäse (cream cheese), not because I’ve mastered it, but because it was extremely frustrating! I pretty much just gave up. 
But I did get a little German dictation lesson. I think I was reading about a city someone’s father is from, some small town. I dunno… But everyone in this flat knows at least a little of 3 other languages (English, German, French, Spanish).
Anyway, there’s a beautiful pedestrian bridge in Newcastle called the Millennium Bridge. It’s the bridge in the Northumbria University logo. Each night at 7pm it “opens” as the sun is going down to make way for a boat. It’s actually more like a pivot, but it’s nonetheless interesting to witness. The few pictures should give you an idea of how it moves to allow traffic underneath. It’s about a 25 minute walk from campus. Luckily, it wasn’t raining and the sky wasn’t too cloudy. You will also see The Sage and the view down the Tyne River around Quayside (pronounced KEE-side)
Wow. Beautiul campus.