July: Erfurt Brennt!

Wow, the weather has suddenly changed here! After weeks and weeks of drizzle the summer has finally arrived here, albeit a little late. We've spend lots of time out in the sun, including a couple of days at the "beach" (more on that later) and a few of my friends have got burnt, so we've coined the nickname "Erfurt Brennt", a spin on "Erfurt Rennt", the run that we did back in June! The change in weather does also mean more barbecues, so there is a permanent smell of sausage hanging in the air, barbecuing being the German national sport, after beer drinking that is! I really won't be able to look another sausage in the face for a good few months after my time here!

Considering that we've all got exams, presentations and essays to be getting on with, it's actually been a great week, probably because we've been really busy thinking of other things to do! I've got a hideous amount on, but evidently by this post, I'm ignoring any of that. If I'm going to fail (which I definitely will), I might as well do so in style!

I met my tandem partner Bea for the last time this week which was sad as we got on really well. She is leaving for Britain on Thursday where she is going to be an au pair, something that a lot of Germans seem to do. With my other tandem partner Linda, I had a funny moment, she asked me what xoxox means at the end of a message, she wondered if we were just using xxx as we don't use that letter much!!!

Thinking about Erfurt Rennt, Frau Winter, who had left us for another team on the day, invited us for coffee and cake in town as an apology. So on Monday we met her and had a really nice afternoon, she gave us a mini tour of a few things the others hadn't yet seen (Lida and I had, due to our town visiting course!) and then we had delicious cake in one of the squares. Germans really do make the best cakes! There was a giant selection, eventually I chose a slice of Sachertorte, not German, but an Austrian cake, and it was absolutely delicious!

On Thursday night I came back from yoga at around 10 and was just thinking about starting some work when I had a knock on my door, and there were Orsi and Silvia, holding a whole, gigantic Sachertorte and a bottle of wine! Since Monday and cake with Frau Winter we'd all been craving more of this delicious cake, so they'd gone out and, by accident, bought the most extravagant one in the supermarket!!! They said we were having a "spontaneous birthday party", although of course none of us had a birthday! We whipped up some cream (thank goodness my housemates go to bed early, the kitchen was a state!) and the 3 of us ate nearly the whole thing! Leaving just one slice left, as we remembered that Ivan, a Russian boy, actually did have a birthday the next day! We then decided to dress up and go and serenade him and present the cake!

This was much appreciated and we were welcomed in to play monopoly with him and Sergey, another Russian. We had a really funny evening, they are really just so Russian, inexplicably so! They served us vodka and gherkins...apparently they go well together...I thought otherwise!!! Sergey had a really old version of monopoly, but what was strange, was that it wasn't from an actual town, I was expecting Berlin, as ours is London. But it appears that the German version is just streets that you might find in any town, rather than a specific town. I thought this makes it a bit boring, as, for example, the train stations are literally just, Main Station, North Station, South Station etc. It's a shame really, I was looking forward to playing Berlin monopoly. However, I have just checked it out in wikipedia and it appears that it must just be a really really old version, as they updated it to being Berlin in 1975!

As I've mentioned the weather here has been absolutely baking, so on Friday we decided to make a trip to the "beach". Of course as I'm plonk slap bang in the middle of Germany there's no sea or real beaches for several 100 kilometres. However this does not deter the Germans, a nation of sport and outdoor adventure lovers as they are! So around Erfurt there are a few lakes where you can swim and there are man made beaches around them. On Friday we visited one, which was actually quite nice, once you'd walked a few kilometres from the nearest tram stop in the basking heat to get there that is! The sand was glowing gold/yellow (about as artificial as you could get!) and the lake was beautifully clean, the water was really very blue. Not a bad idea really, and extremely popular with the Germans, the place was packed, even on a Friday.

I've mentioned this before, but it's well worth mentioning again, the Germans (above all, the East Germans, I've been told) are really into nudism! At both the beaches we visited there was a good half of the beach sectioned off for them, and it really is equally as popular as the clothed bit!

On Friday night after the beach we came back to the birthday party of Ivan, the Russian mentioned above, which was a suitably Russian affair! They really are a funny bunch and this party was very amusing. There's a bit of silent competition between the Russians and the Americans (who on the whole boycotted this party) and what with American Independence Day the next day I think the Russians were keen to show us how great their traditions are too. So the party was extravagant! There was heaps of Russian cooking and drink and lots of Russian dancing, which was highly entertaining! The guys were doing that funny thing where they hold one foot in their hand and then jump through with the other one, they were generally pretty hopeless, which made it a laugh to watch. At first they were doing it to Russian music but later this changed to hip hop and became even funnier! Incidentally, at the 2 parties I've been to there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of Michael Jackson music that's been played, people here have even set up a memorial wall in our main entrance.

The next day, Saturday, we decided to go to the beach again, but try another one. This one was even nicer and we had another really fun day, enjoying lots of activities in the sun, from kite flying, to cards, to of course ice-cream eating! This trip had a couple of funny moments, notably one when a group of extremely vicious, fearless swans came and invaded our spot, literally forcing us abandon camp and get the life guard to move them on with a long rake!

That evening, as I've already mentioned, there was a party to celebrate American Independence Day. Now if I thought that Russians threw an extravagant party, that was nothing compared to the Americans! The sheer amount of food, drink and people was impressive! They had tried to get as much typically American food as possible, so they had a roaring barbecue going with hotdogs and burgers, and then later smores (chocolate/marshmallow biscuits) were toasted on it, simply the most sickly thing that I have ever eaten! In fact much of the food was just so sweet, like a nutella cake...literally just pounds of nutella on a cake base, with a sprinkling of berries! Apparently it's typically American. Makes me realise that I could never ever live there if all the food was like that, I would need two chairs on my flight home! There were some American games and they also had fireworks, as this is typical for Independence Day celebrations in America. Unfortunately, in Germany this is illegal! So we had a visit from the police: 2 police busses each with 6 coppers inside...I think they'd heard about the number of people there (we must have been 100 or so) and thought they'd need riot control or something! However the best moment of the party definitely came later when a guy arrived in the most souped up soft top corsa we'd ever seen: I just can't describe how ridiculous it looked: neon lighting in the foot wells, speakers as big as the boot, you get the idea...if only Vivien looked like that! We added a few finishing touches to her by adding the American flag!

An interesting observation I made that night is about Germans and their shoes. A good proportion of the students at the party were exchange, but there were a few Germans there, and of course, if they need the toilet or something, they have nowhere to go. So I let a German friend of mine use the loo in my flat. What was funny is that the toilet is literally next to the door in, and she didn't have to walk anywhere, yet she insisted on taking off her shoes. Our flat isn't in good nick at all, and it's only a student place, but all the same, she took them off, despite my protests. In fact, it's the same everywhere, whenever I visit Germans I always have to take of my shoes and wear a pair of guests house slippers! On the one hand, I can sort of see the logic, and Germans really are extremely into hygiene. On the other hand, what on earth do they do if smart adults have a drinks party? Surely they can't have enough guest slippers for everyone...do guests bring their own?!

Another thing I've noted since being here, is just how "cool" leather jackets are. Loads of my friends have them, but I have to admit I find them really funny, I don't know anyone in Britain who'd be seen dead in one. According to Thomas they were all the rage here last season, maybe I'm just out of touch and I missed this in Britain too, but I do find it very amusing, everyone looks like they've just stepped out of the 50s! Especially in all this heat, to think that so many people wore one to a party in July!

So life in Erfurt has been great this week, really busy and I've met a fair few interesting people at the parties, new faces crop up all the time. We must be around 100 exchange students here, so there's a really big friendship network here. I'm pretty good at knowing people's nationalities (although people are notoriously bad at knowing ours!) but for me what's hard is actually remembering everybody's names, they're just so complicated! Orsi has had a funny moments with people at parties: there's one guy that we met last week and chatted to a while. She then saw him at the Russian party and, completely forgetting she'd already met him, introduced herself again, much to his amusement, as he clearly remembered us. What's even funnier is that she did exactly the same thing to the same guy on Saturday at the American party! It really is that difficult to remember who you know and who you don't! Thank goodness we'll not see most of these people again once we leave Erfurt, I think they have a really bad impression of us!

Just a couple of other things to mention before I log off. Firstly, it's absolutely astounding the number of Germans who speak perfect English, without ever having visited an Anglophone country, and know almost nothing about our countries. I really can't understand that, why you would learn a language without being interested in the culture, the two really go hand in hand. But a few Germans have told me that it's simply not possible for them all to do Erasmus in Britain as there simply aren't enough places for them all. If doing a year abroad was compulsory for them like it is for us, Britain would be simply swimming with foreigners, as they literally all learn English. Secondly, they learn languages for a completely different reason to us...they learn English because it's useful for business or whatever, rather than out of interest, and learning the language is as far as their interest goes. Interesting.

What's really frustrating about Germans is their determination to speak English. I never once experienced this in France, yet see it almost every day here. Even if I speak perfect German, they will often reply in English, which really bugs me. However it's far worse for my friends who aren't British or American, as Germans reply to them also in English. At this American party there were a few Germans like this, and to be honest they were just rude: My poor friend Orsi's second language is German, and she speaks it very well. She hasn't learnt English since secondary school, and really doesn't like to use it. Just imagine her frustration when she speaks to Germans in good German and they insist on replying English. When she told a couple she didn't speak English they looked on in horror and scorn. However I feel that they should have been pleased to meet someone actually interested in learning German and about their culture.

Final comment of the day is just how great walking through campus is at the moment. There are loads and loads of cherry trees and blueberry (I think!) bushes and the fruit is now ripe, mmmm, it's delicious and free, I've been having a healthy few feasts on the way to and from lectures!