Fests and Festivals: Summer in Erfurt

I think I probably start every single post mentioning something about time flying, and I'll say it again, time really is flying! This time next month I'll be on a train out of Erfurt, sad times. My exams start next week (haven't even started to think about revising for them!) and so this may be the last post for some time. However, as usual, I have plenty to say!

A couple of weekends ago we decided that we'd make good use of our Thuringia rail cards and visit a couple of random towns. So we plucked the towns of Rudolstadt and Saalfeld out of the air. We had a surprisingly enjoyable day. Rudolstadt was a typical German town, where the main sightseeing spots are the town square, the Rathaus and the castle/residence. We spent the morning pottering about there and had a picnic in the gardens of the residence, which was really nice, it was a surprisingly sunny day, a real rarity here at the moment. We then wandered back to the train station to board the train to Saalfeld. On our way we crossed some sort of fete/parade, ran by the German fire department so that was great, so many young German firemen!!!

In Saalfeld we'd heard that there were some "fairy grottos", so we walked out of the town and up a steep hill to the grotto park. Here we paid an extortionate amount to go on a guided tour of the grottos. We had to put on some brown anoraks over our clothes and rucksacks which was really funny, as we looked as though we had hunchbacks. Then we were led down into the caves by our amusing guide, who genuinely seemed to believe that fairies still lived there! The tour itself was pretty dull, but the grottos were quite remarkable, pools of water with stalagmites and stalactites, beautifully lit and really colourful (I think it's the Guinness Book of World Records record holder for the most colourful caves or something).

That evening, I went to a party at a German friend of mine's house. I only really vaguely know her, I happen to sit by her in my grammar class and she did Erasmus in Belgium last semester, so knows what it's like and is really friendly towards us. She invited me along to her party, and although I didn't know anyone there, I went along in order to live up to my year abroad motto "don't turn down any invitations". Anyway, as usual, I'm glad I went, it was good fun, and provided a story for this blog! So I was chatting to a guy and a girl and he went off to collect some drinks and when he came back I said "Prost" (German for "cheers") and he said, "wait, wait, I know this in English...ummm, oh yeah...Miss Sophie!" I was utterly bewildered by this, not sure if he thought "Miss Sophie" was my name, or if I'd misheard him or I didn't know what! So I asked him and he was totally adamant that "Miss Sophie" is English for cheers. I asked him where he got this from and then the two of them proceeded to explain to me that there's a British comedy sketch called "Dinner for One" that absolutely all Germans watch on New Year's Eve. I've asked lots of Germans since and they really do all know about it and find it hilarious. They watch it in English and apparently love it. It's well worth youtubing, it's actually pretty funny!

That week was some week of demonstrations here, the students are protesting about various things, such as the overcrowding of the university. A group of students camped in the middle of campus all week (unluckily for them, it rained constantly!) and there was a big demo in the city centre. The camp was pretty impressive with banners up everywhere and a fair few people taking part (god excuse to take a week off lectures!), but I have to say, German protests aren't a patch on French ones.

We've been out to a fair few parties recently, one memorable one would be when our Mexican friend convinced us to go to salsa with him, which was pretty funny. Despite Iliana and the others in France trying on numerous occasions to teach me I am still as hopeless as ever! Coupled with my eastern European friends who've also never done anything of the like we must have looked quite a picture!

Thinking about my friends, I had a really funny lesson with Orsi the other day. In one of my German as a Foreign Language courses we had to present our favourite book to the class. Orsi did a really good presentation, we were all enthralled by her book and really keen to read it. She of course ended her presentation by recommending it to us all and someone asked what the title would be in German, to which she replies "oh no, it's only available in Hungarian!" No-one speaks Hungarian, we were utterly disappointed! Maybe it's time we learnt!

I had a really blonde moment the other day (hmmm maybe I should call it a Henna moment, my hair still has an orange tinge!) when doing my French grammar work book. I was working through it at a decent pace when I turned over to a page whose title was "correct" with lists of sentences underneath. I immediately assumed that there was an error in each sentence and we had to spot it. I spent literally a good hour trying in vain to do it, utterly confused why I was unable to find anything wrong. In the end I left it and sent a message to my tutor to arrange to discuss it with her. The next day I opened the book again to try again, and it suddenly dawned on me that I was not supposed to be correcting the sentences...they were in fact the correct answers for all the other exercises that I'd already done! What a ninny! And what a waste of time!

Thinking about grammar, I had a funny German grammar class the other week. In this class there are the top Erasmus students and a load of Germans who want to become German teachers and so need to learn the rules of grammar. Strange idea, but it kind of works. At the end of the lesson we always play a game and this week it was a variety of the game Pairs. I was working together with a German guy and we proceeded to take all the slips of paper out of the envelope and put them face down on the table. I was putting them down completely at random, while he was lining them up in straight rows. I was utterly bemused by this, half the fun of pairs is not being able to remember where the pieces are, but he said there was no way a German could play pairs without straight lines! Ha, German organisation!

Things are hotting up here, work wise. The end of term is drawing near, far too quickly for my liking! Last week I had to give a major German presentation for my Fremdwoerter course. Rosie (the other girl from York) and I had to give a presentation to last the entire lesson, all one and a half hours of it, in German, eeeeek! The presentation actually probably couldn't have gone better, so we're really pleased, I have finally reached a decent level of German! What is funny is that the topic of the presentation was "Metasprachdiskurse" and we had to read a text on it, then summarize and develop the argumentations. Remarkably, we managed to give the entire presentation without knowing what Metasprachdiskurse actually is! Now that is success!

The weekend before last was Erfurt's second biggest festival, after the Christmas Market (which, incidentally, is apparently Germany's 3rd best market, I will definitely have to come back next year!). The festival is a huge music festival, called the Kraemerbrueckefest, after the famous old bridge that's in the town centre. I simply cannot describe the sheer scale of the festival. It stretches right through the town centre, over the bridge, round the bridge, across numerous squares and up dozens of streets. On every corner there was a food stand, someone performing and throngs of people. I don't know how many people visited Erfurt that weekend, but it felt like half of Germany had come along!

On the Friday night we watched the opening ceremony with a funny play and then headed to the cathedral square where we watched numerous acts, all really good. There was such a vibrant atmosphere there and fortunately the dicey weather held out! On Saturday, I spend the early afternoon with Nadine and some others and we wandered from square to square, sampling German cuisine (sausages of course!) and enjoying the music. There was a market beside the river and that was probably my favourite part, the theme was the middle ages so there was old cooking, costumes, music, the full works.

Then in the late afternoon I left that group and my tandem partner Linda and I went to watch a hockey match, which was great, I haven't watched hockey since Roses last year and I haven't played since Easter, it really made me want to pick up a stick. What was peculiar is that the match took place on the roof of a supermarket! What an odd idea! But somehow it worked and when you think about it, it's a really good use of space inside a packed city.

After the match we wandered back into town and met up with the others. Together we had a really good evening, watching many more live music performances and then we headed back to the main square to watch the closing ceremony. This consisted of simply the best firework display that I have ever seen, with the cathedral and Petersburg in the background and great music to accompany it. Ahhh Erasmus life doesn't get much better!

The next morning I was up like a lark as I had a trip planned with my friendly professor and wife. We met in Weimar and then headed down towards Apolda (I never thought that I would return there!) and out to a village, whose name I can't recall. We went on a really beautiful walk, along a river and then up the mountain side above it and then to a traditional restaurant in an old castle for lunch. We then headed down off of the mountain and up another, to a cafe for coffee and cake, mmmm, we'd really earnt that! After a walk, we drove in the car to something really strange, that I really didn't understand. It was a sort of wall, really tall, maybe 10 meters and fairly long, probably 40 or 50 meters, made of twigs. There was water seemingly trickling through the twigs and apparently this makes the air around extremely healthy and good for people with asthma. Well I didn't feel affected by it, but maybe that's just because I don't have asthma!

This weekend just gone I spent with Linda at her home in Wiesbaden, not far from Frankfurt. We headed down on the Friday and arrived mid afternoon to be welcomed by her parents and taken back to their apartment. Their apartment is typically German, I'd forgotten just how differently Germans live. For starters, far more Germans live in apartments, I cann't think of hardly anyone in Britain that I know that lives in a flat, even students in Britain tend to live in a proper house with garden and all. Secondly, (and bearing in mind that I have only visited about 5 German apartments, so this could well be a major generalisation) they are all really modern, above all this effect is probably due to the severe lack of carpets, they're missing out!! Thinking about modernities, we had a funny conversation about dishwashers: Linda's Mum commented how backward they are in Slovakia where the women must always wash up and they don't have dishwashers. At first I misunderstood, and thought they were talking about washing machines, but then I realised and had to confess that we don't have one at home in Britain either, apparently this is unheard of in Germany.

That afternoon we went to Mainz (I think!) and had a quick stroll along the Rhine (again...I think!!!) before having a drink in the sun in the cafe where Linda's brother works. We then headed back at that evening we went to an outdoor theatre on top of a hill looking over the city. The "play" was completely improvised and pretty funny, although I couldn't understand everything, I could follow quite easily and learnt a fair few useful (or not!) bits of vocab! Afterwards we took a water powered cable car down into the town which was quite unique and gave us nice views of the town at night.

The next day Linda and I took the train into Frankfurt. On route between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt is the Opel factory (the one that's currently in the news a lot), apparently without it the area would be completely dead as everyone works there. As we travelled along the tracks we could see the road and more than every second car was an Opel, must be pretty hard to find your car if you park up in a car park in town!

Frankfurt was really pretty cool, more like Beijing than Erfurt, towering skyscrapers dominating the skyline and really bustling shopping streets. We pottered around, enjoyed a hot dog on the banks of the Main, strolled through a flea market, walked under the shadows of the skyscrapers and nipped into a seriously modern shopping centre. I can't actually describe how modern it was, it really was an architectural masterpiece, I have photos! I was really surprised to see both Accessorize and New Look inside, I'd previously thought that they were completely unknown on the continent, but evidently not.

That evening we went out into Wiesbaden a bit and as it was getting late Linda gave me the choice, either we go to a converted abattoir, which is now a night club, or go home and get up early to go to watch a football match. Sport fan as I am, I opted for the latter and did not regret it! So, on the Sunday morning we went with Linda's dad and brother to watch the final of the German under 18s, the winners being the best team in Germany. The match was between Mainz (where we were) and Dortmund and was great fun. 11000 German football fans, certainly not a bad atmosphere! We won 2-1 so there was plenty of chanting, cheering and general banter, a really enjoyable morning.

We headed home, where Linda's Mum had been cooking lunch all morning. In fact we probably ate more Italian food that German (all very tasty!), but a couple of notable things spring to mind. Firstly, German breakfasts are very meaty! It's probably a bit rich coming from an English girl considering our traditional breakfast, but I did find hams and cheeses very strange for breakfast, although I could easily adapt! Secondly, in Britain when I am a guest I would always always wait to be offered something to eat and not serve myself, where as it appears in Germany they don't have this custom, so that's something I've learnt, although it's definitely an intuition it's hard to change.

So all in all it was a great weekend, it felt like a proper holiday to be away from Erfurt and uni life, not least because the climate down there was much better! It's a bit of a thud coming back to lectures and work, but fortunately there are many parties to be looking forward to, in July alone there's American Independence Day and French Bastille Day for us Erasmus students to celebrate, as only we can!

Well, that's all that I've been up to recently, I will leave you with a few random observations and anecdotes that might interest you.

Firstly, I have come to realise, that although if you go out here in Germany, Germans, above all girls, do not dress up like we do in Britain, for example, trainers are completely acceptable (and normal) on a night out. However, I also think that there is a large contingent of German girls who really really do care about their appearance. There are a couple in one of my German classes, both of whom have bleach-blonde hair and serious fake tan. Last week they had one of the funniest conversations that I've heard in a long time about how to get a great fake tan. One of them came to conclude that in order to get the best all over natural looking tan it's advised to drink 2 litres of carrot juice every day! She said she swears by it! I'm pretty sure that could lead to an illness of some sort or other!

I've mentioned before that Germans generally seem to be environmentally friendly but I don't think I've mentioned the deposit system on bottles before. Whenever you buy any liquid in a supermarket or a drink in a bar, you have to pay extra for the glass or bottle, which you then get back when you take it back, this system is called Pfand (German for deposit). Of course in a bar you do so as soon as you want another drink or leave, but with supermarket bottles of course you don't do so. I had therefore been very lazy/forgetful as regards taking mine back, but was collecting them diligently all the same. Last week I finally got round to taking literally bags full back to the supermarket and was rewarded with a nice sum of money, it feels rather like a present, rather than extra money that you have in fact paid the supermarket. With the said additional money it feels like you should be spending it on luxuries, so I bought us what we now know as Pfand Punch, a delicious collection of "free" drinks, which we enjoyed this week at our campus festival. Am hoping to collect lots more bottles before the end of term so we can have a big Pfand night!

The campus fest mentioned above was an all day music festival on our campus, a bit like the last official party before the exams start. I'm really getting into German music, there's a surprisingly good amount of decent stuff around. What is amusing is that I often mishear lyrics completely and when I ask Linda who sings a certain song she is totally confuddled when I attempt to sing one of these songs to her after hearing it somewhere! Maybe I have a little more respect for those French karaoke singers now! Linda has pointed out that I need a really musical tandem partner next time who can decipher my singing!

Linda has also recently made me aware of something that I was totally unaware of...you can actually buy fresh milk in Germany! After 6 months of living in La Roche where it was impossible to buy anything other than UHT, when I arrived in Germany and went to the supermarket I immediately spotted the crates of UHT (which there are loads of) and assumed Germany was the same. However after whining about this to Linda she told me I was wrong and it is in fact available in Germany, I can't believe that I lived so long without it, but oh my, what joys to have fresh milk again!

Although my German is far from as good as my French, or anything like as good as it should be, it has come on a lot. Probably one of the reasons that it hasn't improved as much as my French did is that I spend most of the time with Erasmus friends, whose German is little or no better than my own. This has interesting consequences, such as that I've picked up a hilarious accent and quirky phrases, that aren't really German at all, but we Erasmus students have developed ourselves. Another observation is that I've become remarkably good at reading body language, I'm just so used to being in a situation where either Germans are speaking really fast or 2 foreign friends are speaking their language together and I simply do not understand, yet can follow feelings and the gist with relative ease.

Final comment for tonight is how being abroad has made me realise how much I love Britain, it's funny ways and the English language. I've become surprisingly defensive of all things British and far more aware of cultural differences. A recent anecdote, probably not the best, but one that springs to mind, about how funny the English language is, is when I spoke to a friend who speaks excellent English and I said "I'll give you a bell", of course meaning that I'll phone her, but she was both flummoxed and entertained by this, although to me it was just completely and utterly normal. Thinking about it, the image in your mind of actually giving someone a bell is quite funny...!

Drunkenly tottering down the train!

I made myself a promise after writing last week's huge entry that I'd do my best to keep up to date with the blog, so I'm back, it's Sunday night and I'll do my best to recount the memorable events from the days recently gone by.

Last weekend was, yet again, a bank holiday although sadly the last that I'll have here in Germany. The week was made even better as one of my tutors has been ill, thus meaning that I did in fact have a 2 day week this week, brilliant! Maybe that's the reason why I've got the time to be writing this, and already have so much to tell, I have been treating the last week as a holiday rather.

On Saturday, Katka and Miao (a Chinese friend I don't think I've mentioned before) decided that we'd like to go on a bike ride, testing our rickety second hand bicycles to the extreme! Germany is brilliant for bike trips, there are loads of cycle paths and routes so we looked one up, a 46km route, exactly 23km from here to Weimar and then 23 on to Jena. We made excellent progress, leaving here mid morning and arriving in Weimar at the perfect time for a lunch break. There was a signpost in Weimar signalling that we'd done exactly half the route, with half to go. We wanted a photo with this post and assembled ourselves and bikes underneath it, then proceeded to ask Germans to take a photo for us. We had 0% success! We finally persuaded about 3 people to take a photo...but despite us explaining what we wanted none of them actually took a photo of us with the sign! We're not sure if that's because of our poor German or their photo taking ability!

We left Weimar in the early afternoon, following what we believed to be the right path to Jena. There were lots and lots of cyclists there, benefiting from the bank holiday sun. I kept getting mixed up in a group of pensioners, who'd keep turning to me to say things and then looked rather surprised to see that I was 40 years younger than the friend they thought they were chatting with! After about 15km we arrived at another sign...but to our surprise Jena was not signposted at all. We then got out our maps out and realised that we must have taken the wrong path out of Weimar, and were heading in completely the wrong direction, to a town called Apolda. The scenery on the route had been absolutely beautiful, so we decided that we'd keep going to Apolda (which was another 15km away) and see what awaited us on the route, rather than doubling back and seeing what we'd already seen. So we sailed on, and eventually arrived in Apolda, where we headed as straight as possible (there were absolutely no signs!) for the train station, so as to catch a train to meet our friends in Weimar, a little later than expected.

Apolda did not impress me at all. Admittedly we didn't see the centre, but the outskirts were just grey and the station was almost neglected, despite there being regular trains. Not only do regional trains stop there, but the fast intercities also fly through. While we were waiting for our train, we passed the time studying our maps to see exactly where we'd gone wrong. These fast intercities came through 3 times, and every single time we were caught off guard, there was no warning, and by the time you'd heard them they were gone. Anyway what was funny was that as they passed through there was a massive air suction and maps and everything were blown around, the force was so strong it felt that our clothes were going to go too!

Eventually our rumbling train arrived and we made it to Jena in good time. Jena impressed me more than I thought that it would. It's not particularly well known for being a nice city, but was lively and there was enough to see to pass the rest of the afternoon there. Jena is a university city (Thuringia's only university was there when it was part of the East German state) and so the university is still very big, giving it very studenty feel. It also boasts a sky scraper, the only skyscraper in Thuringia, and I think, the tallest in East Germany. So that was a change from the usual greenery and countryside that I see so much of here! After visiting Jena we took the bikes back on the train, a little too tired to make the return journey!

The next day was wet and none of us really felt like doing any work, so instead we decided to dye my hair! What a way to fill a wet day! My friend Katka had some henna and so she said we'd do it with that, and I willingly agreed, my year abroad is the time for trying new things after all. It was a success, in that the colour is obvious...but far more than we had intended! In bright sunlight you could even compare me to Prince Harry! Fortunately in normal light it does look far more like copper and it's already notably faded after the first few washes. The quote of the process was from Katka, "I'll put more at the front, after all that's all that anyone really sees"...I placidly agreed, and she went ahead. However after contemplation, and seeing the result, I realise that that was a very bad idea, the colour is definitely not evenly distributed, and so the worst hair colour is at the front! Ah well!

Anyway, the reason that it's stronger than we expected is because we left it on while we did some cooking, and that took far longer than expected. I have been learning lots of recipes on my travels this year, and this week have added two exciting dishes to my repertoire. On that Sunday we made some yummy potato things, somewhere between a pancake and a hashbrown, typically Slovakian I am informed. Yesterday was Orsi's birthday and so we made a huge vat of Hungarian goulash to take to her party for everyone, and that too was absolutely delicious. The funny thing is, bar the crepes and biscuits that I made in France, everything that I have learnt to cook comes from countries other than the two I've lived in. Ah well, maybe I'm not missing out on too much by not knowing any German recipes.

On Monday we decided to visit a random town in Thuringia (we can travel overall in the state for free), so we plucked Meiningen out of the air, and it beat all expectations, chiefly because there were none. We had a really fun day out, the journeys there and back alone were eventful! On the way we had a hilarious run in with the ticket collector, who almost refused to accept my driving licence as valid ID, not because it's not accepted here, but because she got VERY confused about what it meant. She looked at the European flag, where the letters UK are surrounded by stars, and jumped to the conclusion that I was from Ukraine (although Ukraine isn't even part of the EU!). She then read it in some more detail and noticed that I was born in England, and just couldn't put two and two together (chiefly because in this case two and two don't go together!). How I was Ukrainian, but born in England, she couldn't figure out, so instead jumped to the conclusion that it was fake ID! We had a really long conversation trying to explain it to her (and avoid paying the train fine!), which became even more confusing when I said that I was British, thus from the UK...of course I couldn't say I couldn't United Kingdish! But trying to explain the difference between England, Great Britain, United Kingdom and Ukraine was a challenge, oh it was such a muddle! But eventually she either clicked or gave up and we were let off. At least she didn't try speaking any Ukrainian to us!

Meiningen is a pretty town, standard German: market place, castle, museum...you get the idea! The market had a thriving market and we were persuaded to have a go on a tombola type game, where we were delighted with the bottle of wine that we won, until we tasted it later that was! The town also has a very famous cave, but sadly that was shut, so we couldn't go in and had to opt for the museum, which took us all by surprise as it was actually great for a small town museum. They had a temporary display on theatre set and costume design which was really interesting. The only bad thing about Meiningen was all the people that we came in to contact with, the lady in the tourism office and the museum staff were particularly rude!

We left Meiningen late in the afternoon, and caught our train back to Erfurt, the journey lasting about an hour and a half. We decided that the journey had the potential to be a productive time slot to do some vocab revision for one of the German as a foreign language courses that we do together, as we were supposed to have an exam that week. I'd brought my notes with me, so as they were in English, I was the "teacher" and they my "pupils". The lesson that we were revising for is a particularly funny course that we do, which is all about broadening our lexicon, so we learn about 50 synonyms for one word. In this case it was the verb "to go". Plus we've been learning animals in more depth than we ever learnt at school. We started learning the "go" vocab, words ranging from simple alternatives, like "hurry" and "run", to more unusual, including "to waddle", "to prance", "to drunkenly totter", "to walk on stilts" etc etc! If I was learning the vocab with English people the logical thing to do would be to say the English word, and then they'd repeat the German equivalent. Of course, with a Slovakian and Hungarian whose English is extremely limited, you simply cannot do this. So all was learnt through the means of miming, which was absolutely hilarious, I did my best impressions of "drunkenly tottering" up the carriage aisle, but "drunkenly tottering" occasionally became "doing one's utmost to avoid sitting on a stranger's lap as the train goes round a corner at high speed!"

Thinks got even funnier once we'd finished that word group and moved on to animals: we were learning German animal sounds (did you know that a German cockerel says "kikeriki"?!) and more elaborate terms for animals, so not just how to say a simple sheep, but more detailed vocabulary, such as the German for a male castrated sheep! Of course this too had to be done by the means of mime and onomatopoeia, I can't describe how funny it was, I was hopeless, and their guessing was often far from the mark! Added to that, we were of course sitting amongst ordinary Germans who didn't know what we were doing and were utterly bemused by the whole thing, I heard a couple make grunting pig noises as a farewell to us as they got off!

Luckily for us we haven't had to sit that exam yet, as it's that teacher who has been ill all week, giving us a welcome couple of days off and extra, much needed, revision time! My lessons this week also threw up a couple of amusing moments, one being, as usual, in my "Foreign Words in the German Language" course. They were discussing what the plural of campus should be, one alternative being "campi", which was immediately scorned by one girl, on the grounds that it sounds far too much like scampi to be taken seriously!!! The German pupils do like a good debate in seminars, something I must say they are particularly good at!

On Tuesday evening there was trip to the town's puppet theatre that I went along to. They were putting on a performance of Faust, and realising how difficult the German would be, let alone the concepts of the work, I read a wikipedia summary before I went. Thank goodness I did, if not I think that I would have understood absolutely nothing! Oh woe, my German needs so much more work, and now that I think about it, yesterday was my 2 month anniversary in Germany, which means just under two to go, my time here is flying. So the play was highly complicated, but the theatre and puppets were amazing, at least I was able to appreciate them! They're putting on a performance of Moby Dick later this term, maybe I'll go to that, it might be more reachable for my level of German!

We've also watched a fair few films since I've been here, on dvd in one of our rooms. The films we've watched have mainly been British or American (except one AWFUL German film, put me off German cinema for life!), so we've watched them in the original language. We generally try to get German subtitles for it, but on a couple of occasions this hasn't been possible, so we've had English one's instead. One memorable film was About A Boy, we couldn't get German subtitles, and the only English ones were for another edition of the film, so although the words were perfect, they came 5 minutes before the action! My poor friend Orsi had a proper challenge on her hands, she said that she didn't understand much!

What's also interesting watching British films with them is how I've come to realise that there are so many things they don't get, not because they don't understand, but because films are simply littered with cultural references, that only British people really get. They really do miss out on a lot of the jokes and undertones. However they also have their own private laughs, which we don't have! For example, in About A Boy there's a Christmas scene and they're all sitting round wearing the crowns that come in crackers, they think this looks absolutely ridiculous, and just can't see why we all do so! Thinking about it, I really don't know why either! There are so many moments like that.

Surprisingly, that's the second time this week that I've talked about crackers! My French friend Thomas made a comment that he went to Britain in December a couple of years ago and bought a couple of packs to give away as presents, as the French too find crackers a very strange concept! Another part of everyday (well not in the case of crackers, but anyway!) British norms that I've discussed with people this week is that of carpet! Many, many people find them really awful, especially in bathrooms! They simply can not understand why they are so popular in Britain. I've tried converting them, by saying that it's very nice to walk around on plush carpet etc, but they just won't agree! Does remind me of my time in France with carpeted walls, now that really was a pleasure!

Thinking of home decorating, our corridor here has been painted this week, I'm rather upset. We previously had white walls with an apple green strip running down them. Now they're repainting and it appears that the green has been replaced with a colour that resembles vomit, in colour and smell! Oh, bring back the green!

I've been into town quite a few times this week, if I do have no lessons I might as well go shopping! Quite often when I go into town, there are groups of women hanging around, often with a pram or trolley filled with miscellaneous items or running some sort of game. I've been very confused as what has been going on, but Thomas, who says the same thing happens in France (although I never saw it) has finally explained to me what is going on. Apparently, this is in fact the German equivalent of a hen night! The girls go out during the day and ask people for donations, and in return they get something, I've seen prizes ranging from a toilet brush, to a rose, to a massage from one of the girls! We're not sure what they do with the money, I imagine that historically it went towards the wedding, but nowadays probably a bottle of tequila for the bride and bride's maids! What is interesting, is how many people actually do agree to take part and give money to a random bride-to-be!

Yesterday was the start of sport week in Erfurt, and it kicked off with a charity run called "Erfurt Rennt", which I'd entered a team for, me, Katka, Orsi, Lida and the lady from the International Office at the university, Frau Winter...a funny mix! It was a relay, the aim being for the team to run around the cathedral as many times as possible in an hour and a half, quite a dizzying experience! Unfortunately Frau Winter was capturered by another team who were 2 members short, so then there were then 2 teams, both 1 member short. Lida, who is completely unsporty and who we conned into doing the whole thing then gave up after the first few laps...so we were then only 3 and my was it hard work! However, it was a really good event, hundreds of participants and supporters, and despite the pouring rain, spirits weren't dampened, in fact it was rather refreshing!

Well I think that's the lot for this week, it's been busy! I will leave you with a couple of awful quotes that I picked up yesterday. The first I got at a street festival, where all the organisations that the university has put up a stall and advertise themselves. A bit like Freshers' Fair I suppose. The quote comes from the tent for international exchanges. They had a quiz about countries of the world, and one of the questions was "What is the patron saint of Great Britain?", the answer being "St Patrick", awful! And the second, is from an American friend of mine (who incidentally studies politics and international relations!) that I was chatting to at a party yesterday and he said "I see Britain's got political problems at the moment, Tony Blair won't be prime minister for much longer, his cabinet is falling apart around him!" And it wasn't even a slip of the tongue! I really should have replied something like "Yes, Margaret Thatcher, leader of the opposition, is hoping to regain power soon" but I was far too horrified to react!