GERMANY
Just been wondering: How do they signal Batman in day time?
So today is a bit of a special day because the 13th Grade students are having their last day of teaching before they all go away and revise for their speaking exams, after which they leave. Tonight there's some variety of party of which I'm hearing divided opinions about how awesome it will be. I may check that out.
The theme is Hollywood, but seeing as, disappointingly, my vast collection of dress-up costumes accumulated from 2 years of pub crawls and themed student parties is still somewhere in the UK, I'm finding it hard to improvise anything worth looking at.
If I can recall a Hollywood figure who wears skinny jeans and a gas mask, then I'm in business and party is a go-go. Otherwise I'm questioning what I can bring to this party short of a bog standard foreigner.
My second invitation is "would you like to get pissed with us down at the bus stop?" Less glamorous, but still worth considering.
I'm trying to take a fair few photos, particularly ones with my current 13th Grade English class because they're my favourite class without contest, and I will definitely miss them when they're gone. One thing I am bitter about though is that everyone is wearing a t-shirt or hoody emblazoned with the "Abitur 2011" logo which I designed, which I ultimately never got offered. Nor was I cut into what I can only assume were huge profits for such mindblowing artwork.
I was in Neuerburg Marktplatz earlier buying donuts and things when I got talking to another bloke in the street. Past experience is making my conscience strongly advise against this but I gave in like a great big stupid person, and to cut a long story short, I bear huge responsibility for the second world war.
As opposed to at least one person I know, who thinks that Britain wasn't really involved with that little skirmish, this guy was more of the opinion that everybody in Britain played a huge role in killing Germans. This is probably just the German small-town equivalent of the xenophobic fuckwits you can find in Britain - "what's that? Germans? Oh yeah, they're all Nazis, right?" - but hearing it from the other side was somehow even more annoying.
It wasn't exactly in the way of giving me abuse or hurling accusations, but everytime he mentioned Britain and our wartime role, he kept doing that disgruntled "hmmmm" and looking at me sideways with his frowny German eyes as if I was the re-imagined composite of Churchill and Montgomery and personally ordered the bombing of Dresden.
His best line was "lots of German civilians were killed." No mention of of the casualties of other countries. London probably doesn't count in his book.
"Deaths during the Blitz? No, 30,000 British people just all moved to a cave at the same time"
This left me a little depressed, as I'd been courteous enough for our whole 10 minute war reference-laced conversation suppressing all thoughts of "you look old and grizzled enough to have been an actual part of it", not to mention "your country started it". It may have been courtesy, but after a third fruitless war-themed repartee with the Germans, all my replies are garnished with a nice big scoop of "can't be arsed anymore" ice cream.
But whatever, the weather's turned nice enough for me to shrug off the post-war guilt of an entire country. It's properly sunny, but it's that kind of windy sunny, where you're wrapped in 4 layers while wearing sunglasses.
As I'm writing this I've just seen students getting shit ready for the entertainingly ambiguous party later on. There's sofas and balloons and all the walls are covered in black material with stars on it. I'm genuinely hoping that this party is reserved only for Abi students because there are some suspiciously young looking final years running around.
I've also just realised there's a chunky spider sitting on top of my monitor. Let's leave this here.
Just been wondering: How do they signal Batman in day time?
So today is a bit of a special day because the 13th Grade students are having their last day of teaching before they all go away and revise for their speaking exams, after which they leave. Tonight there's some variety of party of which I'm hearing divided opinions about how awesome it will be. I may check that out.
The theme is Hollywood, but seeing as, disappointingly, my vast collection of dress-up costumes accumulated from 2 years of pub crawls and themed student parties is still somewhere in the UK, I'm finding it hard to improvise anything worth looking at.
If I can recall a Hollywood figure who wears skinny jeans and a gas mask, then I'm in business and party is a go-go. Otherwise I'm questioning what I can bring to this party short of a bog standard foreigner.
My second invitation is "would you like to get pissed with us down at the bus stop?" Less glamorous, but still worth considering.
I'm trying to take a fair few photos, particularly ones with my current 13th Grade English class because they're my favourite class without contest, and I will definitely miss them when they're gone. One thing I am bitter about though is that everyone is wearing a t-shirt or hoody emblazoned with the "Abitur 2011" logo which I designed, which I ultimately never got offered. Nor was I cut into what I can only assume were huge profits for such mindblowing artwork.
I was in Neuerburg Marktplatz earlier buying donuts and things when I got talking to another bloke in the street. Past experience is making my conscience strongly advise against this but I gave in like a great big stupid person, and to cut a long story short, I bear huge responsibility for the second world war.
As opposed to at least one person I know, who thinks that Britain wasn't really involved with that little skirmish, this guy was more of the opinion that everybody in Britain played a huge role in killing Germans. This is probably just the German small-town equivalent of the xenophobic fuckwits you can find in Britain - "what's that? Germans? Oh yeah, they're all Nazis, right?" - but hearing it from the other side was somehow even more annoying.
It wasn't exactly in the way of giving me abuse or hurling accusations, but everytime he mentioned Britain and our wartime role, he kept doing that disgruntled "hmmmm" and looking at me sideways with his frowny German eyes as if I was the re-imagined composite of Churchill and Montgomery and personally ordered the bombing of Dresden.
His best line was "lots of German civilians were killed." No mention of of the casualties of other countries. London probably doesn't count in his book.
"Deaths during the Blitz? No, 30,000 British people just all moved to a cave at the same time"
This left me a little depressed, as I'd been courteous enough for our whole 10 minute war reference-laced conversation suppressing all thoughts of "you look old and grizzled enough to have been an actual part of it", not to mention "your country started it". It may have been courtesy, but after a third fruitless war-themed repartee with the Germans, all my replies are garnished with a nice big scoop of "can't be arsed anymore" ice cream.
But whatever, the weather's turned nice enough for me to shrug off the post-war guilt of an entire country. It's properly sunny, but it's that kind of windy sunny, where you're wrapped in 4 layers while wearing sunglasses.
As I'm writing this I've just seen students getting shit ready for the entertainingly ambiguous party later on. There's sofas and balloons and all the walls are covered in black material with stars on it. I'm genuinely hoping that this party is reserved only for Abi students because there are some suspiciously young looking final years running around.
I've also just realised there's a chunky spider sitting on top of my monitor. Let's leave this here.
