An Unbrief Roundup

So that was the not so exciting part of life here in Erfurt, now onto the reasons why I simply no longer have time to write a proper blog! Am writing this in glorious sunshine, lying on the lawn in front of the library, amazing technology advances at their best! The blog was a good excuse to take some time off from the business of German university life.

Every single evening there is something going on here, it's such a lively place. I've joined the university badminton club and so go along to that most Mondays, although it is the most poorly organised badminton club that I've ever been a member of, which surprises me...every stereotype of Germany is slowly being erased, organisation one of them! I've met a few nice people there and am gradually picking up German badminton terminology, mainly "sorry" and "out"...sport being another domain where Anglicisms rule supreme! The best bit of badminton related news is that the rather nice morphology professor that I mentioned a few posts ago is also a member of the club!

The handball team here is only for elite players so I thought that, despite my stint in France, I certainly don't come under that category and I couldn't do any of the other sports as they clash with my timetable. However, I was keen to take up something new, so my friend Orsi and I now go to yoga every week. What is funny is that we can only understand about 50% of what the lady running it says and so often we really have no idea what to do...this means that it's far from as relaxing as it should be, as we're constantly peeking our eyes open to see what everyone else is doing! My absence of any ability to do the stretches, coupled together with my partial lack of understanding, does mean that I'm pretty sure that, on the whole, we're very unsuccessful at yoga! But it's fun though, and fills up another evening.

Every Tuesday evening we have what's called "International Cafe" where students from a particular country present it and their culture etc. The presentation is always followed by a huge spread of typical food from their country, so it's a really popular night with students! So far this term we've had Afghanistan, Poland and Indonesia, all of which have been really interesting, I have learnt a lot! The most memorable would be some Indonesian dancing which was quite extraordinary. It's quite hard to explain (maybe I could attempt a demonstration!) but involved them all kneeling in a line and bobbing up and down and over each other, while slapping the floor and each other, meanwhile the music got faster and faster. It was really cool, they sort of cascaded over each other...the funny thing was that it all got a bit too much for one girl and she got walloped in the face and the entire structure collapsed! Clearly showing us what remarkable skill it takes to do it successfully!

I can't remember where I left off with my "fremd" professor in the last post, but we've met a few times since I've been here, to go for hikes in the Thuringia Forest, which is just beautiful. The whole landscape here is green: vibrant green fields, mountain sides, forests, the lot. There are so many walking trails, which all seem really popular with the Germans, who seem to spend every weekend out walking or cycling. The professor and wife are really interesting characters, I can't really describe them, I think I'd need a post devoted to them alone! I went back to their house for coffee and cake after a walk last Sunday (another German speciality...no-one does coffee and cake like the Germans!) and they showed me all the photos and treasures of their travels, just remarkable. Their house is full of unusual pieces, totem poles, dream catchers, tapestries...things from right around the world. The photos were also inspiring, after seeing it all I have no desire at all to find myself a "proper" job, I might just become a travelling English teacher (with as little emphasis on the teaching part as possible!).

I think the funniest thing that I have to report on that particular meeting with them is when Joachim (the professor) explained to me what his daughter, who lives in Canada, does. She makes clothes for people who believe that they are in fact fairies! What kind of a job is that?! And how on earth are there enough of these people for her to make a decent living out of it?!? But it appears there are, and they showed me photos of her and her stall at a fairy convention in America...there were funny looking fairies of all shapes and sizes there!

The professor is also a keen motorbike enthusiast and suggested that he take me on a tour of Thuringia on his bike. So yesterday we went out for the whole afternoon. It was such good fun, I am a proper convert now! The weather was not great, heavy showers (thus I was absolutely soaked!), but bursts of sunshine to dry me up again. We visited the southerly part of Thuringia, one of Germany's oldest monasteries, the winner of "Thuringia's best village" and the smallest ever cafe, it was so small that one room could fit just one table in it! So you can see that yesterday afternoon was an afternoon of superlatives, culminating in the highest speed that I've ever travelled on a road, how on earth I'm going to go back to my push bike I don't know!

Incidentally, as mentioned there I do know have a bike here in Germany, kindly lent to me by the professor and his wife. So that's great, although cycling into town is extremely hazardous, the trams really are a silent danger, I've had a fair few close shaves already. Plus their tracks are exactly the same width as my bike tyres and so they've got stuck in the tracks on a number of memorable occasions!

I've been walking not only with the professor, but a few weeks ago (probably even a month by now) a group of us Erasmus students decided to walk the Goethe Wanderweg, the path that Goethe himself apparently took and where he wrote one of his famous poems. A group of eight of us went, my Slovakian friend, Katka; my Czech friend, Lida, 3 Greeks, Angeliki, Lina and Evi; a French boy called Thomas and a Mexican, Toni. We had a great day in the sun, although the route itself was quite strenuous, 20km up and down mountains, I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, some of our group weren't quite so used to hiking and possibly weren't 100% aware of what they'd let themselves in for! Fortunately we made it in the end, just in the nick of time to catch the last bus back from a small village right in the middle of the forest.

On the last day of April there is a big festival in Erfurt (and across Germany on the whole I think) to welcome in May, and burn witches. Erfurt had probably the most spectacular witch burning fest that I will ever see! We turned up late in the evening, just in time to catch children from the local schools doing their equivalent of country dancing in traditional dress. Then, as night fell, a giant bonfire was lit in the main square, in front of the cathedral, which made for a wonderful back drop. Then banging of drums and loud music started and to my surprise witches were flying overhead! They'd got a huge crane in and had witches hoisted up it on long, long ropes, thus swinging precariously down it, and being lowered over the crowd and swung right across the bonfire! Distinct lack of any safety measures but what a spectacle! Following this, there was a parade of the most lavishly dressed witches and really scary devil like creatures who skulked round to the beating of the music. This was followed by a theatre piece for the crowd and music and dancing later. Of course, Germany being Germany, beer was flowing and sausages were sizzling and it was a really good event. And completely free in the cathedral square, brilliant!

Unfortunately we couldn't stay until the bonfire burnt out (which would have taken an extremely long time judging by the size of it!) as we'd arranged to go to Munich outrageously early the next morning, taking advantage of the long weekend. Talking of long weekends, May day was the first of three bank holidays in May, a very welcome few days off!

We were again a large group, as you can get special train tickets where 5 people can travel anywhere in Germany for 30 euros, provided they only use the regional trains, rather than the fast intercities. So in total 10 of us headed of to Bavaria, an extremely long journey! We left the organising up to the Greeks (good idea or not is to be debated!), and they told us that we had to catch the tram at 4h15am in order to be at the station for our 5am train. We arrived punctually at the tram stop only to be greeted by them looking rather flustered, they hadn't taken into account that it was the bank holiday, and thus trams are far less frequent, there wouldn't be another one to get us there in time! Eeeeek! So we power walked the entire distance, arms flapping, bags flying everywhere, determined not to miss the train, we must have been a funny sight, an odd mix of people at an unreasonable hour, most people we met were staggering back in the other direction! It must be several kms, the walk took us nearly 45 minutes at full pace, the train station being about as far from the university as possible, right on the other side of town. We arrived with literally a couple of minutes to spare, breathless, yet wide awake at this early hour!

We decided that rather than go straight to Munich, we'd benefit from being so far south and travel on to Fuessen, where there's a very famous castle, Schloss Neuschwanstein, set in the Alps, right on the Austrian border. After 7 hours of travelling, and 5 trains (!), we eventually arrived! The castle is extremely impressive, it's in an absolutely beautiful setting, there was still snow on the mountain tops, making me desperate to go skiing again! It was built by Ludwig the second, king of Bavaria and its creation nearly (or did!) bankrupt the state, it really is that extravagant. The area was crowded with tourists, but then again, so were we, so we couldn't really complain! That afternoon, as we were just about to leave the castle and walk down the mountain side, a huge thunderstorm came in. As it had previously been so sunny I had no coat or anything, but we had to leave, in order to get back into the town to catch our train to Munich. We were absolutely soaked, the rain drops were enormous and there were so many! That was my first (of many) experiences of German thunderstorms and they are remarkable, come from no where and are so powerful. Needless to say, we all looked like drenched rats on the train to Munich!

Due to many train delays and dilly dallying about on platforms, we arrived in Munich late on Friday night and so just dried ourselves out and collapsed into bed, knackered after such an early start. On Saturday, we headed out to Munich, which I really really liked, despite the vast numbers of tourists there. Our first stop was Marienplatz to watch the dancing figures moving to the glockenspiel, the square was so full of tourists in was quite unbelievable, but did make for a good atmosphere, that was felt everywhere in Munich, it was certainly lively. We visited lots of Munich, the most memorable things we saw being the English Garden, one of Europe's largest city parks; the Olympic Park, from the 1972 Olympics, debatably only interesting if you're as into the Olympics as I am and the BMW museum, where I sat behind the wheel of a real BMW for probably the first and last time in my life!

However possibly the best moment of our trip to Munich was popping into a C&A (which, incidentally, appears to be just as popular and trendy as in France!) where we found rows of Dirndls, the Bavarian traditional dresses. Silvia, Rosie and I each choose one to try on, which was so funny, we looked somewhere between Heidi and proper Bavarians barmaids that work at Munich's famous October festival! If only they hadn't been so expensive (starting price, 100 euros, and that was C&A, I dread to think how expensive they get!) I would definitely be bringing one home!

On the Sunday we visited a few more sights in Munich, as well as a residence on the outskirts, Schloss Nymphenburg, which was less impressive than the one in the Alps, but interesting all the same. So Munich was great, the first big city I've visited in Germany. However it was a very expensive place and absolutely full of tourists, I think I will have to go back at a time other than the May bank holiday (or Oktoberfest) to get a real idea of what it's like, any excuse to go back!

The following weekend we went to Berlin, and I fell in love with the city. It was such an exciting place, everything I had expected it to be and more. I've been desperate to visit it for years, so I finally feel fulfilled. We arrived on Friday afternoon, another large group of 10, and checked in to our hostel, which in itself was pretty funny. It had a reception out on the street and then the rooms were all in a block behind it, shared with all sorts of offices, on our floor our rooms were sandwiched between a physiotherapists and a kindergarten (or so it said on the door!). We were all in one room, 10 beds in a line side by side, it reminded me of guide camp or something, it was like we were to have a big sleepover! And at 10 euros a night it was perfect.

That evening we headed straight out to Alexanderplatz and then walked up Unter den Linden to Brandenburg Gate, passing a group who'd hired out a "beer bike". The concept is that you hire this thing, that is about the size of a tractor trailer. On it are 10 stools around a large table, each one with pedals, plus a collective steering wheel. At the back there is a huge barrel of beer, so you pedal round Berlin, seeing the sights, and drinking beer to your heart's content. Typical wonderful German invention! The problem being that by the time we saw the group they must have nearly finished the giant barrel, and were not only looking slightly worse for wear, but had also lost any skill regarding how to manoeuvre the beer bike! They were in a right pickle and hilarious to watch!

After seeing the Brandenburg Gate we walked on to the Bundestag (German Parliament), when a huge storm broke out, not the first, and certainly not the last time, that I will get soaked in Germany! We took cover in an underground station not so far away and thought about what to do. In the end someone had the idea to get on the next train, wherever it was going, find a dry pub there and experience an unknown part of Berlin, excellent idea in theory, interesting experience in practice! All I have to say is that I think we well and truly left the beaten tourist track and there are several, non blog worthy stories to be told!

On Saturday we visited every single corner of Berlin centre. All the typical tourist hotspots, the list is very long but includes Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz, the Jewish Memorial, the Bundestag (where we queued for an hour to climb the dome), the Tier Garten, Ku'damm platz, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtnis Kirche, the 1936 Olympic Stadium...the list goes on! I found it slightly odd that almost everything we saw had a link to the war in one way or another, but I suppose that's a part of the attraction of Berlin, it really is a city that was torn apart and is in the process of being patched back together. It's fascinating to see it all. There is simply building work everywhere, I imagine if you left the city 10 years ago and returned now it would be unrecognisable beyond belief.

It is also a really vibrant city, there is just so much to see, and surprisingly it didn't feel as touristic as Munich, so that made it far better in my opinion. On Saturday night, we went out to experience Berlin's famous nightlife, it lived up to all expectations! We went to a huge converted barn, now nightclub, and the music and atmosphere was great, makes Erfurt look like a small village in comparison! I now just want to go back to Berlin!

On Sunday we went to a few markets that we'd heard of which was cool, I love rooting through this sort of market, there are just so many funny pieces, and it never ceases to amaze me that people are actually selling (and buying!) some of the things there, such as odd screws, single shoes, private letters...it really does make me realise that maybe half the junk shoved under my bed could actually be turned into money! We also went for a walk along the river, slightly out of the centre and visited the DDR (former East Germany) museum, which was very well presented, really hands on with lots and lots of genuine bits and pieces, including a Trabi which I loved! Interestingly, amongst our group opinions were split about the museum. From mine and Rosie's point of view, lots of things were just fascinating and strange, where as my friends from Eastern Europe were pretty indifferent about the whole thing, I suppose for them it was just like looking back a decade or so.

There are actually many occasions where we just simply do not share the same opinions on things, or where they will argue among themselves about something, which I cannot understand, because we come from different backgrounds. One example of this is how there is always a slight friction between my friends from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and my friend from Hungary. Regularly they will talk about the role of Hungary and the history of the other countries and will genuinely get very worked up about it, something which I genuinely can't understand, and find it hard to see how they can use this historical/political difference as a reason to argue amongst themselves. It's also interesting to see how they've learnt the history of the relationships between their countries from completely different sides. On a lighter note, the same goes for a Russian acquaintance of mine, who holds the opinion that "Russia won the Second World War, almost singlehandedly, with a little help from the other Allies", you wonder what sort of education he's had!

So our trip to Berlin was a massive success, I will definitely put it on my list of places to visit again and again. We had another long train journey back and we all had work to be doing, being away for a weekend in Germany is not like it was in France. In France, I had absolutely nothing that I had to do outside of school hours, whereas in Germany there's always some (or a lot!) of homework hanging over my head, which is a bit of a downer. On the way back, my Greek friend Evi had brought her German homework with her. She didn't speak German before she came here, so it was basic stuff, but she needed some help with it. She was sitting next to my Slovakian friend Katka, so she offered to help. The funny thing was she had to help in English, as that's their communal language, so the situation was: a Slovakian helping a Greek with their German homework in English, what a very strange mix! But that's everyday life here and I love it, I've never heard so many languages flying round! And I'm slowly picking up more vocabulary, all be it not German, my favourite new phrase is the Hungarian for "cheers" which is pronounced something like "Eggey shay ge de"!

There is absolutely always something going on in the city, from the witch burning evening to the "Long Museum Night" a couple of weeks ago. The idea behind it is that you buy a ticket for 4 euros and then have free entry to all the museums, galleries etc in the city, of which there are plenty. So we went along and visited no less than 5 museums in the evening, pretty heavy going, and we were knackered by the end of it. It was good for me, as, like in La Roche, I'd been saving the museums for "a rainy day" which was obviously never going to come, not only is the weather too good, but there's always something better to do. So the night did give me the push I needed to actually visit them, and it paid off, we saw some interesting things. However I did find it a very funny way to spend a Friday night, in Britain it's usually a pub crawl, not a museum crawl!

Last Thursday was the second of the bank holidays in May, which they actually have of because of Ascension Day. However, for some reason I don't know, it is also popularly also known as Maenner Tag (Men's Day), and lots and lots of men go off and do "manly" things together, such as sport, barbequing and, of course, beer drinking! I went into town for brunch with some American friends and we sat and watched them all, which was very entertaining. A popular thing to do is take a small truck on wheels full of beer out into the countryside, so there were lots and lots of groups of men pushing these funny trolleys around, quite bizarre!

Over the long weekend we decided that we'd make the most of it and go on a few trips around Thuringia, which we can do for free with our semester ticket. On Saturday we visited Eisenach, which is a small, but very famous, town in the West of Thuringia. It is there that there is a castle called Wartburg, where Martin Luther spent some time, so we visited that and Bach was also born in the town, so we visited his house and had a general look around the town. In the town square there was an SPD stand, SPD being one of Germany's biggest left wing political groups. At the stand they were giving out platefuls of chilli-con-carne and bread, yum! Of course we took our share and I think they thought they had a good catch when 10 of us looked keen, but they were highly disappointed to find out none of us would be voting in Germany's elections!

On Sunday, Nadine and I went to Weimar for the day, which was also great, not least because of the hot sunshine. Weimar is famous for its links with the German writers Goethe and Schiller, and their statue is apparently (according to a tour guide we over heard!) Thuringia's most photographed thing (of course I took photos too!). Nadine and I visited their houses, plus a Bauhaus museum (Bauhaus being a long standing theme of my time in Germany!) and a famous library (don't ask me why!) where we saw a really interesting film on how books were (and maybe still are) made, honestly it was absolutely fascinating! We also enjoyed the best sausages and ice cream, mmmmmmmm!

Thinking of ice-cream, they have become my new take away of choice after a night out. Unlike in Britain where fast food stands are all the rage, here ice cream parlours are open really late and you can pick one up on your way home, excellent! However, I'm pretty sure that all the cake and ice-cream are certainly not doing my teeth any good, which brings me onto another topic of today's blog.

I've been talking to a few German friends and my tandem partners (who are both really nice, I think I've landed on my feet there!) about stereotypes that they have of Britain. Of course all the usual ones have come up, about our humour, love of talking about the weather etc, but a new one has come up, apparently many Germans believe that the British have very bad teeth! Interesting, I hadn't heard that before, and was very scared to smile and show my wonky ones for the rest of the evening!!! I asked a few others about this and they all agreed it was true and went on to say how our health service is also thought to be extremely poor. Well I suppose that in comparison to Germany efficiency maybe it is!

Another even stranger comment that she made is that all foreigners think that our taps are strange. I just couldn't for the life of me think about what my friend found odd, until she explained that for them it's unheard of to have two taps over a sink, they all have those modern mixer ones. She found the idea that you can only get really cold or really hot water ridiculous! Funny, the more time I spend abroad the more I look at things I completely took for normal at home as slightly quirky!

A typical German thing that absolutely drives me mad is doing a supermarket shop. At the tills, the shop assistants simply throw your things through them, as fast as they possibly can, giving you absolutely no time to put anything away before it's time to pay, and the next person's things are coming through, it's genuinely absurd! Everything gets squashed and then mixed up with the next person's, I just can't understand the logic! Patience please!

I genuinely really like being here and know lots of nice people, but I have to say that as a nation, I do find the majority of Germans that I see in the street impolite and stony. People never smile at one another, in the way you might if you catch the eye of a stranger and they quite simply don't laugh very much, it's strangely noticeable. Of course this might be because I have a particularly smiley attitude but I do find it unusual. The other day I held the door open for a man and two girls, and as I passed through the door my shoe got caught on something and I fell over, none of them said anything and they literally stepped over me to get through the door, that I was still supporting open! Moreover, and I think this is just me being typically British, they rarely say excuse me (you will get pushed past) and simply do not appologise like we do, maybe for being in the way or accidentally bumping into you. Or maybe it's just because the word "Entschuldigen" is so much harder to say than a simple "sorry"! I do get a lot of funny looks for saying it, but I will keep doing so, chiefly because if I get out of habit when I return to Britain I will be considered rude! It does make you notice how cultural misunderstandings can easily arise though, it's just normal for them and not rude in the slightest.

Another thing about Germany that hits you straight away, as it did in France, is people smoking everywhere. Here the law isn't half as strict as in Britain and pubs and clubs all have smoking rooms, which tend to be where most people are and thus the most popular areas. Outside the lecture rooms there are hoards of students smoking, it's just so unbelievably like York in this respect.

Thinking about students, there are a couple of other things that really jumps out of you here. Firstly, they all carry backpacks, and these backpacks, like in France too when I think about it, are identical, absolutely everyone has an Eastpack or Ripcurl one. Eastpack is seriously popular here (I really can't se why!), the majority of people also have an Eastpack pencil case, and my friend Orsi even has an Eastpack bumbag that she wears often, that's just taking it too far! German students are also always walking out of seminars to go to the toilet (I presume), they just get up and go, even 5 minutes from the end, or in the middle of someone's presentation. They are also always eating in classes, there is absolutely always someone there who's enjoying a bread roll, the snack of choice here!

This has been an outrageously long post, if I wrote this much for my university work, I'd have already written the word length for my York essay more than twice over, ah I've got my priorities all wrong! I will leave you with one final thought. In morphology today we were presented with the word "Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher"... I ask myself why I am learning such a complicated language and know why I'm having such problems with it!

Life in the Lecture Theatres of Erfurt!

Well I couldn't let it get to over a month without a post, so this self-imposed deadline has made me find the time to write a long overdue update. Time has simply flown by, which is slightly worrying...I don't really feel that my German has improved at all, it's probably not even returned to it's pre-France state, and meanwhile my ability to speak French is fading rapidly! However language problems aside I'm having a great time here, more work than I have ever had in my life but equally many exciting things having been going on. Spring seems to have come and gone and we're now just touching on summer, sunny days and thunderstorms, of the most dramatic kind, my favourite! I took a minute the other day and actually looked properly out of my window, and was highly surprised to see that the view has completely changed, in fact I now have no view! The trees in front of my window have suddenly become green and bushy, I have absolutely no recollection of any actual growing happening, last time I looked out I could see fields and the city! So what've I been up to during the last few weeks?

Well sadly a large portion of my time has been in lectures, but these themselves have provided comedy moments! Not least because of the lecturers themselves, who really are an odd bunch, far more so than in York! I had one man for a lecture (whose course I subsequently dropped) who was exactly like one of the main characters from Last of the Summer Wine, in appearance AND character! So much so that I couldn't for the life of me concentrate on the course I found it so amusing!

I have to say, that although there are some aspects of the German university system that I like (such as the massive number of courses on offer, despite the uni being half the size of York), I do find Erfurt a bit stuck in the past. There are blackboards in every room, an OHP if we're lucky and that's about it. And we're all called by our surnames! Being known as Frau xxx (insert name here!) cracks me up every time, especially as most lecturers don't find it the easiest name to pronounce (anything that puts them off asking me a question is a positive!). What's even stranger as it means that I don't know the names of most of my fellow students, just their surname, if it's simple enough to remember.

In the courses that I have with other exchange students it's no better, how the teachers navigate their way round Ting, Ping and Xing I have no idea, I certainly can't, which is really embarrassing, especially as they have no problem with my name. Although it being written on most of my hoodies is probably a great help for them...however, no-one has referred to me as UYNC yet!

I have one course called Fremdwoerter, basically learning about the foreign words in the German language, of which there are plenty! A lot of the words are obviously English and so Rosie and I are often called upon to pronounce them to the class. One time, and unfortunately I can't remember the word, Rosie (who's from Birmingham) and I disagreed on the pronunciation of this word, much to their interest. They then got rather excited about hearing the different accents of English, and before we knew it we were putting on all sorts of accents for them, with limited success, but much banter! I really think that one week we should say everything in a particularly strange style just to see if they take it in...I think they would, anything we say about English language is taken as gospel!

My French courses are great, except one, where we are studying comics. COMICS! I hate comics! I really can't think of anything worse to have to read: Asterix, Lucky Luke, Isnogoud... horrific! I have to do a presentation on one this week, eugh! Reading them is just awful, words and pictures just do not go together in my head. Bring on the real literature later in the term (and I genuinely never ever thought I'd say that!).

As regards my fellow students, I have to say the whole university atmosphere is different to that in Britain. Students are a lot less friendly, they tend to arrive at the lecture, open their book and read, listen to the lecture, then go as soon as possible. Of course there are exceptions and I do have friends from my course (mainly those that learn French too) but that appears to be the norm. One friend of mine was really funny the other day, we were copying some morphology tree of the blackboard and I hadn't left enough space so it all got a bit crammed, but still completely readable. However she turned to me, tutted, and with a shake of a head said it was a shame it'd have to copy it all out again! I was shocked, and having absolutely no intention of doing so, said I'd do it at home later!

My German housemates are also very diligent, always working, never seem to go out and are tucked up in bed at 10 (I must really annoy them...at 1 am the other day I decided to rearrange my furniture, so was dragging my bed etc across the room for a good 45 mins!). Plus they go home on either Thursday or Friday and come back as late as possible on Monday morning, it's almost like they don't want to be here, but see going to university as something they have to do to get a good job etc. But we Erasmus students have a different mentality and of course there are some exciting Germans around.

Unsurprisingly, the most interesting Germans are those who also learn foreign languages and have done Erasmus themselves. I signed up for Tandem (where you meet someone and speak your language for half the meeting and then German for the other half) and now have two nice partners. What's funny is that it almost feels like I'm "two-timing" them, neither knows that the other one exists, and I'm forever having to juggle them around!

Thinking of people who learn languages, a girl randomly got in touch with me, she had a 40 page thesis in English, and she wanted me to proof-read it! I was slightly overwhelmed at the prospect but at an offer of £2.50 a page I couldn't resist and have to say it was debatably the cushtiest money that I have ever earnt! Am seriously considering setting up business here, I think it would be immensely popular. Now the only question is, is my English really up to it, I will be intrigued to find out if the girl requests a refund once she gets her mark back!

Unfortunately I have to pass a large amount of my time in the library, but this in itself has provided me with some entertainment, chiefly because they have a really funny system regarding bags etc. Nothing, except paper, pens and books (duh!) are allowed in the library, so this means that there's a locker system and then you carry your things into the library in a basket. The baskets are exactly the same as those in the local supermarket and I am beginning to wonder if they have been stolen one by one over the years! It does make for a funny sight, lots of students wandering round the library with a basket on their arm, they literally look like they're shopping for books! I find selecting books is much more fun once you feel like you're shopping, I could spend the whole day in there browsing, and then feel particularly pleased with myself for going shopping without spending any money!

So, student life in Germany is really no joke, not even for us Erasmus students, but I certainly can't complain, I do get the chance to travel and the last few weekends have been spent aound Thuringia, in Munich and in Berlin, living the life! I will evaluate (oooh, haven't I got my essay voice on?!) the exciting things in the next post, coming soon I promise (depending on the progression of my presentation on comics!).