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!