GERMANY
So this weekend just gone I took a cheeky spontaneous trip to visit Lolly and Ena in Mainz, which was pretty awesome. It was one of the most spur-of-the-moment trips I've done so far here in Germany, which is saying something. It was a pretty awesome weekend. There was beer, sightseeing, steak and some domestic violence, the cornerstones of any successful trip away.
I'll blitz you with some pics, if blogger stops being a whiny bitch and throwing up its "Error 400 - Bad request" box.
So this is Mainz, looking across the bridge that divides Rheinland-Pfalz from Hessen, over the Rhein. This technically means that I also visited my 3rd Bundesland this weekend. As you can see in this picture, the weather was sort of depressing.
This is Ena looking special next to the Rhein when we hunted for where she might be living from February onwards. That was an adventure.
This is part of one of the little markets that we walked through.
Possibly my favourite one. This ones for you Dora; check out these partner towns. You're twinned with Mainz. With fucking Mainz. You should be well chuffed.
There are more but these ones will have to go on facebook, because photos take quite a while to upload on here.
The annoying thing about Mainz is that its yet another German city that cultivates the 'angry cyclist' mentality. I've found this virtually everywhere I've been. Unlike England, there aren't always dedicated paths or areas for cyclists, so pedestrians get in the way more. You'll be more likely to survive if you walk in the road than on most pavements.
If you're just walking along, probably tired because you've been walking all day and thus not really on the ball, this isn't taken into consideration by German cyclists. If they're heading towards you at speed, they'll ping the bell a couple of times, often when they're only about 3 feet behind you. Regardless of the distance, this isn't an "Excuse me please, you're in the way but I'll manoeuvre if possible", signal, it's more of a "heads up, I'm about to hit you and theres jack-all you can do about it" sort of ping.
And then, if you don't do a very quick side step or jump, they slam the brakes on and give you a mouthful as they carry on, as if to say "was that completely nonchalant ping not enough to make you give me clearance space for a bus?"
They so crazy. For realz.
But, sadly, I'm back in Neuerburg now. Apparently we've just submitted our application to host the 2020 Olympics, pretty awesome.
I've only done a little bit of teaching this week, which was today. On Tuesday my class that I teach solo said something along the lines of "We have a class test this week, can we not do english stuff and just revise our German quietly by ourselves?". Yes you can children. Hell yes you can. But today I did a listening exercise, and wrote answers on the board, spoke Denglisch to some 12 year olds and generally caused confusion. Apparently, the phrase "Do you want me to schreib that auf the tafel?" is not acceptable classroom lingo.
Reading it back again to myself makes me think it would be an excellent first line of a song chorus. Or even the band name.
And tomorrow I have to give my lesson on Yorkshire and the North. This wasn't actually my idea, but hopefully I'm well informed enough to plan 45 minutes worth of talk of yorkshire pudding and real ale.
I'm also quite lucky in the sense that I'm getting away a bit more soon. This weekend I'm going to Bitburg with a few of my students; the general, repeated theme of the trip seemed to be "drink gin" and "go to shisha bar". We'll see how that one turns out. And then I have two trips to Cologne planned, so all is looking pretty special.
So this weekend just gone I took a cheeky spontaneous trip to visit Lolly and Ena in Mainz, which was pretty awesome. It was one of the most spur-of-the-moment trips I've done so far here in Germany, which is saying something. It was a pretty awesome weekend. There was beer, sightseeing, steak and some domestic violence, the cornerstones of any successful trip away.
I'll blitz you with some pics, if blogger stops being a whiny bitch and throwing up its "Error 400 - Bad request" box.
So this is Mainz, looking across the bridge that divides Rheinland-Pfalz from Hessen, over the Rhein. This technically means that I also visited my 3rd Bundesland this weekend. As you can see in this picture, the weather was sort of depressing.
This is Ena looking special next to the Rhein when we hunted for where she might be living from February onwards. That was an adventure.
This is part of one of the little markets that we walked through.
Possibly my favourite one. This ones for you Dora; check out these partner towns. You're twinned with Mainz. With fucking Mainz. You should be well chuffed.
There are more but these ones will have to go on facebook, because photos take quite a while to upload on here.
The annoying thing about Mainz is that its yet another German city that cultivates the 'angry cyclist' mentality. I've found this virtually everywhere I've been. Unlike England, there aren't always dedicated paths or areas for cyclists, so pedestrians get in the way more. You'll be more likely to survive if you walk in the road than on most pavements.
If you're just walking along, probably tired because you've been walking all day and thus not really on the ball, this isn't taken into consideration by German cyclists. If they're heading towards you at speed, they'll ping the bell a couple of times, often when they're only about 3 feet behind you. Regardless of the distance, this isn't an "Excuse me please, you're in the way but I'll manoeuvre if possible", signal, it's more of a "heads up, I'm about to hit you and theres jack-all you can do about it" sort of ping.
And then, if you don't do a very quick side step or jump, they slam the brakes on and give you a mouthful as they carry on, as if to say "was that completely nonchalant ping not enough to make you give me clearance space for a bus?"
They so crazy. For realz.
But, sadly, I'm back in Neuerburg now. Apparently we've just submitted our application to host the 2020 Olympics, pretty awesome.
I've only done a little bit of teaching this week, which was today. On Tuesday my class that I teach solo said something along the lines of "We have a class test this week, can we not do english stuff and just revise our German quietly by ourselves?". Yes you can children. Hell yes you can. But today I did a listening exercise, and wrote answers on the board, spoke Denglisch to some 12 year olds and generally caused confusion. Apparently, the phrase "Do you want me to schreib that auf the tafel?" is not acceptable classroom lingo.
Reading it back again to myself makes me think it would be an excellent first line of a song chorus. Or even the band name.
And tomorrow I have to give my lesson on Yorkshire and the North. This wasn't actually my idea, but hopefully I'm well informed enough to plan 45 minutes worth of talk of yorkshire pudding and real ale.
I'm also quite lucky in the sense that I'm getting away a bit more soon. This weekend I'm going to Bitburg with a few of my students; the general, repeated theme of the trip seemed to be "drink gin" and "go to shisha bar". We'll see how that one turns out. And then I have two trips to Cologne planned, so all is looking pretty special.
