NEUERBURG - pub

GERMANY

Last night I went to the pub with Norbert and Jochen, P.E. teacher and I'm-not-sure-what, respectively. I think that being away from Leeds has lowered my drinking threshold somewhat. Although Altenberg was an excellent introduction to Germany for the liver, the fact that I now drink more chocolate milk than, literally, anything else, has made beer a little more potent.

This became evident last night. I don't know what the measurement is, its certainly not pints. Fluid capacity is probably measured in kilometres like everything else here. Whatever the case, we started the night with a fairly small beer each, which Norbert wasn't too taken with, and then in the second pub, we started knocking back larger glasses. I'll put last nights intake at about 4 pints.

For Leeds, UK, binge drinking capital of the world, this would be of little difficulty, without consequence. Here in Neuerburg, after a sober month, I actually felt the effects a little quicker, which surprised me. Not that I was complaining, as we all know that alcohol improves your foreign language. I think my fluency may have come at the price of the conversation topic, as apparently Norbert doesn't like the Turks, and even Jochen, who is timid anyway, seemed to share some common ground here.

To hear someone say, in German, that towns were much cleaner (in every sense) before the arrival of immigrants is an awkward thing to sit through. Old habits die hard I guess.

NEUERBURG - hols on friday

GERMANY

Yesterday I registered at the Anmelderamt in Neuerburg, which means that after 3 weeks I'm an officially recognised resident of Germany for the next 8 months. Yes, this probably should have been done earlier but I was so caught up in being abroad and meeting people that working here illegally as an alien wasn't on my list of things to be avoiding.

Today I have my Nachhilfe Gruppe, in half an hour, where I will truly and genuinely struggle trying to explain how English grammar works. I tried to explain last week why in some verbs in sentences, we use 'ing' and other times we use 'to' plus the infinitive. I ended up more confused than they did, and they were pretty darn confused.

I've also got two one-on-one sessions with a couple of kids who want to improve more than other people. One of them I'm meeting tomorrow, and the other one - what sort of child is this - wants to have our extra lesson at 10am on a Sunday. On a bastard Sunday! This child will one day grow older, learn to love the weekend and ultimately live a life of regret for what he put his language assistant through. 10am on a Sunday, I ask you.

But on Friday I'm going to go and see more of Europe. Yes, this is probably news to many of you, just like when I didn't tell you I was going to Japan, but its happening and it will be awesome because my insurance covers me the world over. With a little luck, France and Holland will have internet access.

Oh, and this has just appeared. It isn't the SAR helicopter, but its flying around like one anyhow. I think Neuerburg must have a weekly helicopter-appearance quota to fill.

NEUERBURG - I have a friend

GERMANY

Last Friday, the new Russian assistant Maria arrived at the school, which means that I'm no longer all on my lonesome, which is wicked. She speaks better German than I do, and seeing as a third of all the students here speak good to perfect Russian, she's in a better position to make quick social connections than I am.

But she's pretty cool and we get on well, and we can only speak German to one another seeing as she only knows a handful of English phrases and my Russian has never really taken off. There's only so far that "Good morning" and "thankyou" can take you in a conversation where you want to get to know someone.

This is her when we explored Neuerburg.

This one has me in it too. I was there as well.

I had my first English lesson with Frau Diana John today, another member of staff who by some incredible feat of linguistic mindfuckery isn't English or American. We were doing things associated with illness, doctors, that sort of thing. They were very impressed to hear that I was a real hayfever sufferer, which surprised me. Wait til they hear that I give blood. If itchy eyes is macho, then voluntarily pumping my own blood into a little plastic bag is gonna blow their fucking minds.

I'm also starting to think I have some sort of trustworthy, open-minded look to me that makes people take me a little too seriously. A few of you may have seen my recent facebook update concerning the way staff seem to associate me with authority and organisation, which would be the basis for a pretty good joke if the educations of 600 children weren't riding on it. And in another recent post on here, I mentioned how my Altenberg tutor Stefan opened up to me on the subject of his chronic diarrhoea, during a fleeting moment in the street.

This sort of thing is becoming a regular occurence.

I met a member of staff who I've never really seen or spoken to before today, in one of my free periods. In keeping with 'Max in Germany' tradition, his name eludes me. His English was pretty good, so we played the 'you speak English, I'll speak German' game. We talked about school and England and such crap. Then, in a moment plucked from the ovaries of Satan, completely out of the blue, he says "Mmmm, but my wife died a couple of months ago."

Fu .. what?!

I responded in the universal language of mumble.

I met this guy two minutes ago. Our relationship is moving a little fast, and not in a good way. It makes Stefan's diarrhoea story look like a love poem. And just as I thought we'd passed the moment and were just about in the clear to change the subject, maybe depart ways - anything! - he continues to talk about it. With all due respect Sir, "me and my family could see it coming for a few weeks" is NOT opening-conversation, icebreaker material.

And he enriched the story once with a heart-wrenchingly placed "but thats neither here nor there".

Actually mate, it is. It is here, there and everywhere and you're killing me inside.

And then he ended this uplifting first conversation with "but I have two children, and thats the important thing."

Yes, everyones a winner.

And after this I was utterly depressed, as consolement is difficult enough anyway, let alone in German to someone you've never met. I've never known how to react in that kind of situation anyway. "I'm sorry" or "I'm sorry for your loss" is usually the winning phrase (to which the recently bereaved respond, curiously, with "thankyou"), but I didn't even know how to say that in German. I must have looked a real tosser, but what choice did I have?

And then I went to the shop with Maria and we bought German books and beer, over which we will probably discuss something which doesn't involve the recent deaths of close family members, with a bit of luck.

But that's neither here nor there.

FRANKFURT

GERMANY

What up my African-Americanzzz?!

You'll be thrilled to hear that I now have a working camera and a shitload of memory card, so I've finally been able to go snap happy and make these posts more interesting.

I'll start with all the stuff from last night. It was the last day that everyone taking part in the Comenius project (mentioned in last post) was here in Germany. Apparently they'd spent the day cooking various things, the British contingent made shepherds pie and trifle which was ruddy awesome, and the Frogs had done pate and salads and other such things. The Danes won by my count, with these epic curry meatballs and rice. Oh, and there was horse sausage as well, which was also pretty tasty.

This is us eating stuff in our school.

And after this buffet carryonsky, kids from the Gymnasium did dancing and singing and general performing, all of which was wicked. Looked like this:

Dancing

A German Oasis cover.

And many more, but this takes ages to upload individual photos so I'll put the rest on facebook.

But today was Frankfurt, for more cultural learnings. There were 3 trips today, going to Frankfurt, Bonn and Cologne, which really made me wish they'd spread it out more so I could have seen all three, though I did see quite a bit of Cologne on my first day here, so the battle was ultimately between Bonn and Frankfurt; the latter obviously won.

The first part of the day was spent in Frankfurts answer to the Natural History Museum, which had a load of dinosaur skeletons and stuffed animals and egyptian mummies and stuff, which was pretty awesome, even if the German tour guide was a little scientific. Once again, pics on facebook to follow.

Then we had 4 hours free in the city, which is a hectic hectic city. It reminded me more of a crazy capital city than Berlin or maybe Cologne; it has a very London sort of feel to it. The first thing I found was a Bratwurst stall, which may just have been the highlight of the day. And then I looked round the 'old town' bit, with all its little stalls, before moving onto the more modern sections and seeing what was there.

The day took its oddest turn when I decided to go on the U-Bahn (underground) to a different part of the city. It was windy and pretty rainy on the surface, so I thought this was a good idea. Its worth noting that the German tube system is much easier to understand than the London one, which is always a plus point in my book.

The journey turned out to be a lot longer than I expected, so I took advantage of the lack of rain and decided to sketch. Naturally, being in a tube carriage, the only thing to draw was people. So draw them I did. A few stops down the line however, I discovered I'd made my first ever public nuisance. I don't know which fucker raised the alarm, but at the next stop a german policeman stopped me, just as I'd stepped off the train and was putting my book away.

"Kann ich dass sehen?" (can I see that?) He says abruptly, pointing at my little sketch book. He had a pistol, I didn't argue.

He had a flip through the 5 or 6 sketches of people that I'd just done on the tube, then asked me something which I didn't understand, so I played the 'dumb english person' card. Year abroad advice no. 2 - the 'dumb english person' card works far more effectively if you don't explain the fact in German.

He seemed to soften up at this though. In all fairness, I didn't think it bothered him that much. He explained in simple German that someone in my carriage had reported me doing something suspicious. Seeing as everyone else was just sitting doing nothing (I know this, I drew them) and I was the one hunched over a little book watching people, this was probably a fair assumption. But seriously, "something suspicious"? Did they think I was compiling a hitlist for illiterate assassins?

The general gist was 'don't do this again please because German people might not respond in the same way as they might in England'. No, really. That was pretty much his final line. There'd been a fair few people waiting for trains who'd watched this exchange, but I think I was too surprised to be embarrassed. So in the future, I'll have to be more subtle somehow.

And it was a bloody waste anyway, because I was in the wrong part of town after all. Maybe the German tube isn't easier than ours. So I walked half an hour back to the station through the really seedy bit of town, full of sex shops and strip clubs and barely disguised brothels. There was a Thai restaurant in the middle of some of these shops, advertising food "from all 4 corners of this asian gem". Which was endorsed by some ladies who looked as though for the right price would show you all 4 corners of their asian gems. It was pretty creepy.

It was in this dodgy corner of Frankfurt that I had my second cringeworthy fuck up. Yes, it was cringeworthy, but hilarious in a retrospective way. As I was waiting to cross the road, a bloke from one of the strip clubs started talking to me and trying to entice me in. He twigged I was foreign pretty fast and started speaking in English. In this situation, any normal person would have made some excuse. A simple 'nein danke' would probably have sufficed.

But, in a moment of weakness - don't ask me why, or what pushed this to the forefront of my mind, I found myself saying to the man, simply "Männer gefällt mir besser" or, "I like men better". The silence that followed was just long enough for the traffic light man to turn green and for me to cross over, again feeling more surprise than embarrassment. It got the message across anyhow.

For confirmation purpose, Frauen in fact gefällt mir besser, but not in the face of seedy club doormen.

This is me by Frankfurt train station, after more 'meeting the authorities abroad'. I'm looking a little windswept because it was windy and pretty sweepy.

This photo isn't brill because I took it quite quickly so as not to miss the moment: The guy on the left by the black car was staggering along shouting "Arschloch! Jeder ist ein Arschloch!". The black guy on the right, who looked a lot like Marsellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction, wasn't impressed. It was a pretty special moment.

And the last things I'd like to share are the names of two restaurants which lead me once again to question my levels of maturity, but which are pretty funny nonetheless. The first one was The Little Wiener Shop, which thankfully wasn't in the sex district, and, my personal favourite, Gaylord's Indian Restaurant. I think I love that one the most because its so shameless. Obviously, it probably has less meaning here than in the UK, but for all the tourists that must pass through Frankfurt on a daily basis, Gaylord's must draw some pretty hearty laughs.

TRIER

GERMANY

Gather round bitches, it's story time.

Today we went to Trier as part of the 'Comenius' programme, which aims to bring together the Brits, the Germs, the Frogs, the Danes and the Norwegians (last two probably picked out of a hat) and introduce their students to one another so they can learn about culture and acceptance and such like.

Because Germany was the venue this year, Trier was chosen because its all historical and whatnot. There were about 60 of us altogether, staff included, including the one and only Hildegard who is possibly the most awesome lady in the world ever. The pretty good thing was there was quite a big English contingent, which meant I could speak some English for a change and sound like a normal person again. I called people 'mate' again today for the first time in over 3 weeks, it felt good.

So in Trier the kids were split into mixed nationality groups and we did a tour of the ancient Roman city, looking at the walls and the bath houses (or remains thereof) and how it was all destroyed by barbarians. It was quite odd in the sense that our tour guide was a 50-something year old woman with a strong New York accent, dressed as a Roman woman, who did the tour all in English, which surprised me. Granted, all the countries present all probably spoke perfect English, but it would have thrown me if English wasn't my first language, especially with that accent.

It wasn't uninteresting, it was just offputting because she told us the history of the city as if she was a Roman herself, and made frequent references to things like cameras as "light machines" as if she didn't know what they were. Yeah, I guess it would have been a little dry if she'd just lobbed facts at us but at the same time it got a little cringy.

The coolest bit was by far the old Roman gate to the city, with all its defensive aspects, with a picture of what it used to look like. It started out as the coolest bit, until I read some Roman writing that was engraved into the stone. It started out in latin, "strength and honour", or words to that effect, except it was a much longer sentence. And then at the end, painstakingly engraved into the wall were some more words. They were a little illegible, I thought it must have just been the effects of time. But I was keen to read it, so I looked closer and made out the letters one at a time.

sean sucks dik yeah.

Please note that the 'c' is deliberately missing.

That killed the entire moment for me. Welcome to this hallowed, historical ground, where a legion of Roman soldiers defended Trier against invading barbarians, before being overrun and seeing the city laid to siege. And all we have to show for it is a message accusing Sean of being gay. Seeing that contribution after all the interesting stuff sucked more than Sean sucks dick.

Then we were let loose on the city and, what with me being all about cultural experience and Roman history, I found myself in Germany's answer to Meadowhall, where I bought a microphone (take note, you skype monkeys) and then went for a döner kebab with Christian, one of the English teachers.

I offer this as a general piece of advice for all fellow language assistants who may be dining with the staff for whatever reason: if the choice of venue happens to be a kebab shop, for gods sake have it on a plate instead of in the bread thing. Sure, it's tastier in bread, but it's difficult - nay, fucking impossible! - to eat this in a manner which says "I am fit to work with children". They pack it so full of meat and lettuce and whatever else goes in when you say "Oh, mit alle bitte" that you can't eat it without looking like a retard. Its like wearing all white to a spaghetti bolognese convention. Don't do it.

This bit is for all of you that did Haus Altenberg when I did; remember the awesome Rheinland-Pfalz teacher, Stefan May? For the Leeds contingent who were there with me, he sat at our table on the last night and I kind of abandoned you with him because I was drunk as shit. (in case you don't know, shit is drunk). Anyway, whether or not you remember him, I ran into the man himself in Trier today, just in the street!

I have no idea what the German policy on 'too much information' is, but if its anything like the British one, me and Stefan must be on some sort of very 'open with each other' wavelength. I asked him what he was doing in Trier and he said he'd just been to the doctors, to have stitches in the back of his head.

"Oh my god!" Says I, "What happened"

"Well," he explains (in German) "Yesterday I wasn't very well, I was sweating and had terrible diarrhoea and I passed out and cracked my head open"

This took me by surprise. But I guess if I can't handle the truth I shouldn't have asked. It was nice to see him anyhow, regardless of the head-splitting liquid shits he seems to have.

So all in all, there wasn't much in the way of really introducing different cultures and nationalities to one another, but it was a good day. And it was pretty sweet to be able to speak english.

Theres also a possibility that Hildegard, who seems to know everyone in Neuerburg (not the most challenging of tasks) is going to ask the little bakeries and other small shops if they want me to draw pics for them; she quite likes the sketches that I've done so far, which is awesome. If I can pull off German fluency and commisioned artwork in the same year, then I'll be a happy man.

Thats all for today. Oh yeah, and Sean sucks di(c)k.

NEUERBURG - new timetable

GERMANY

So today I had my first lesson with Herr Henkel teaching students who are probably older than me about British media. Today's subject was the TV and film industry. Their english is so good it makes me sad inside.

Herr Henkel (or 'Markus' as I should probably refer to him as) is pretty much a legend in his own right. He must only be in his early 30's but he dresses like a black gangsta rapper, with baggy jeans and a big shirt and white trainers, though he's about as far from being a rapper as you can get. His response to two girls who weren't really paying attention was "Oy. No lesbian games in my lessons".

I laughed more than most of the other people, which has probably made them think I'm a twattish little boy who laughs at the word 'gay'. It was pretty funny though. He seems to have a really good rapport with all his students, which means he can get away with accusing people of lesbianism. I'd probably be less successful.

I went to the bank for the first time this morning to withdraw cash, which was an absolute task in itself. I can't speak for all of Germany, but the bank here in Neuerburg will only open its doors for you if you scan your bank card on a little machine outside, which begs the question "how do you get in if you want to set up a bank account?". This task is easier said than done. It seems German card reading machines read cards the other way up; you have to put the card in with the shiny strip on the back facing upwards.

This was offputting, as it took me 2 or 3 minutes to realise I was doing something wrong, and a couple of workmen inside the bank occasionally stopped working to watch me struggle with this machine. I think devices like this would put hilarious new spins on bank heist films. Think the opening scene of The Dark Knight where the Joker and his henchmen can't get in because they don't have a card.

It was all a waste anyway, as when I finally got to the cash machine I realised I'd forgotten to transfer any money into the account. This was pretty nerve racking, as when you own an account with £800 in it and you're told that "your available balance is €0", the first thought is more along the lines of 'oh shit' than 'oh, never mind'.

So today I have no chocomel because funds wouldn't allow it, and even though I could very easily go back to the bank now, having transferred some pennies, and quench my cravings, I just can't be arsed. chocolate milk withdrawal symptoms should kick in shortly.

And there are still no photos, which I know a few of you are after at the moment. I have my camera which made a miraculous recovery to the tune of "I will only charge with a charger that is meant for another model of camera" but sadly forgot to bring my memory cards, which means I can only take 3 pictures at a time on the internal memory and then sit sadly and realise I don't even have the means to transfer them onto my laptop anyway. Ho hum.

I leave you with one of the finest moments of my time here so far. On the way back from Lidl earlier, a lady asked me if I knew when there was a bus to Bitburg.

"Lady," I said "There are no fucking buses to ANYWHERE."

That's a lie; I actually said "Yes, if you wait here, they come every hour on the hour!"

That was a lie too. I actually said something along the lines of "I'm a tourist so I don't know things". And she thanked me, and we went our separate ways. I've no idea where she ended up or whether she found a functioning bus service in Neuerburg, but I will say with some certainty that she is probably dead now.

NEUERBURG - the internet

GERMANY

Hey God, you busy?

Obviously, I’m God.

Sorry, silly question. Spare me a second?

Go on then, what’s up?

Any chance of making the internet here in Rheinland-Pfalz accessible for more than an hour at the weekends?

The internet?

Yeah, here in Neuerburg.

Well, I am pretty busy. A load of Afghans were just killed by a suicide bomber.

Yeah, thats bad and all, but this internet is so sporadic. It comes and goes at the maddest of hours.

Whoa, so its not like you have no internet at all?

No, but it makes entertainment and lesson planning really difficult. Its only round for a couple of hours at the weekends.

Thats still a pretty good time slot.

Yeah, but think how much fun I could be having if it were here more! How much better the lessons would be for the kids!

Hmm, well a man who I was about to bless so he could see his children again was just killed by a roadside bomb.

God, I'm aware theres a lot kicking off for you now, but I think far more lives are dependent on the internet speed and availability in Neuerburg. Think of the children.

Alright Max, just this once. The internet will now be fast in Nuremburg!

No no, Neuerburg

Ok, Neuerburg.

Cheers God, I really think that made a difference!

No problem. Aw, man.

Whats happened?

When I blessed the internet in Neuerburg, some of those Chilean miners died!

Tough times. Thanks anyway God.
________________

All of the above has clearly worked. I now get 30 minute brackets on a Sunday evening.

NEUERBURG - Weekends in Neuerburg, take 2.

GERMANY

This week has gone stupendously fast. I mean it feels like a second since It was last saturday. I never really realised before that when you only work 12 hours a week and do shit-all except food shopping otherwise, the week goes very very fast.

I had another lesson with the 11th grade yesterday, the guys I was with last Friday, except today I wasn't doing the teaching solo. Apparently earlier this week they did a vocab test, the vocab that I'd gone over with them last Friday and helped talk them through the meanings and stuff.

They all did crap, apparently.

I don't know if its right that I feel partly responsible. I mean, some of them were so poor (even by learner standards) that they can't have revised anything like they were told to, in no uncertain terms. One kid got 2 out of 30. I'm not that shit a vocab teacher. And anyway, they're doing it again next monday to improve. I regret nothing.

And man, the weather got balls here! Yesterday Neuerburg had that kind of 'long summer day' kind of feeling. There were literally no clouds in the sky; I thought that was just a kind of gay sentimental phrase that never really happened. Turns out it does, but last night we had the mother of all thunderstorms and its only just stopped belting it down 24 hours later. The whole sky is cloud now.

What with the weather being so crap, I didn't hit the town and have the wild friday night that I usually do, so I stayed in and watched Terminator 3 in German. I dunno why, but there was something terrible about it. You'd think with Arnie being Austrian, he might have dubbed his own voice, or at least found someone of the same calibre of German accent to voice him. But they didn't. It was like Arnie doing a bad impression of himself, if thats even possible. Pinnacles of robot engineering shouldn't sound like the mentally impaired.

This also meant that this was the latest I've gone to bed since I arrived here, at the grand hour of 5 past midnight. I had in mind visions of having a really fat day and not waking up early for a change. But at about half 8 this morning, the German builders invaded the proverbial Poland to build something in our building. I have no idea what it was; I can't see anything new. It certainly sounded like they were just smacking the same bit of wall with a hammer for no real reason. Hammer practise. Either way, it was a balls start to the day.

This example makes me realise once again that I seem to reach for material for this blog. When I was in Leeds, I got woken up in the morning for a plethora of other better, weirder reasons, but I never blogged about it then. This was because, in Leeds, you only had to step out of your front door and other things would practically scream "write about this, motherfucker!"

Here, when I leave the apartment for my food shopping trips and I gaze nonchalantly for inspiration, the vast expanse of forest just sort of sighs at me, and the castle looks over at me resentfully and says "What? What were you expecting?"

So the next time I'm in Germany, I will go somewhere just as quaint, just as picturesque, but one hell of a lot more vibrant. Dangerous even. I can start all my posts with "I won another knife fight yesterday."

NEUERBURG - Promotions

GERMANY

Yeah, I'm getting a little keen with the frequency of these entries, but the internet in Neuerburg is a nomadic being so I'm gonna take advantage of it whenever available.

Today Frau Kipping told me that I am moving up in the world of education. Rather than being a walking dictionary, I've now been given a class who speak barely a word of English between the four of them, and it's my new task to teach them English grammar.

I don't understand English grammar. As a general rule, native speakers of a language do not understand how their own grammar functions, nor do they know the phrases associated with it (unless of course they've have studied it to a higher level). Just as many of the German people I've spoken to here, teachers included, couldn't identify or give examples of the 'Konjunktiv II' when I asked them, I in turn have no idea what the Past-progressive tense is in English.

I don't know the difference between the Simple Past and Present-Perfect for example, which is what I watched Frau Kipping teach her kids today. These 10 year olds may be far from fluent English speakers, but they can explain how it works damn better than I can.

Pfft. We'll see how that one goes.

One good thing about this teacherly upgrade however is that I get to go to Trier with Frau Herschbach's class next Tuesday. Just as it was on the last trip when we went to Saarlouis (fortwerke, remember?) I have no idea what we're actually going to be doing there, but at least this time it's a place name I recognise. I'll regale you with stories of that one next wednesday.

I've also just realised I refer to teachers like the students here would. Frau Kipping, Frau Herschbach; even though I know their first names and was introduced to them all on a first name basis. I think this comes from my fortnight of observation, where I just sat in their classes like a student. And then all of a sudden one of them says "Herr Martin?" and eh? Whut? I realise they think I'm someone in authority. Then I remember that, theoretically, I am.

Damn, Altenberg. You didn't prepare me for this.

NEUERBURG - Tuesday was a busy day.

GERMANY

I've spent the last 4 hours with the guy who did the scary interview with me. He's part of a theatre group run by the school, apparently, and the other day he decided we should meet up today to "find music for some of the scenes" and "choreograph a couple of swordfights".

Neither of these ended up happening. Its been a long and surreal day.

To really get this into context, you need to know a little more about the guy himself. He's very enthusiastic, but with not a lot happening on the charisma front. 'Utterly monotone', you might say. Now, together, these combined aspects makes spending time with him a great strain, as he likes to elaborate on music and swordfight choreography and whatnot, but the delivery makes it a little tough to really focus on for more than 3 or 4 minutes. Consider that its in German as well.

We've spent the last 4 hours searching for a place in the school where my laptop could find the internet. We checked pretty much every room until we ran into Bernard, my epic teacher-flatmate guy, who said we could use the music room and look at some of the CD's to see if there was any music suitable for this fight scene. It was naturally a very musical music room, drumkits and music posters and a piano in the corner, y'know.

So I sat down in the room, the student begun his long, long search through the collection of CD's while I continued to sit and prayed for it all to be over soon. This was where the surreal section began.

Bernard came into the room with us, and asked me if I played instruments. Then he announced that he quite enjoyed playing piano, and, unprompted, sat down at the piano in the room, and suddenly played a perfect 10 minute long rendition of Chopin's 2nd concerto.

Words can't say how unexpected and mad it was. Yeah, he'd just said he enjoyed playing piano but that's such a limp, nothing sort of comment that I never really took it as seriously as that. Then the other bloke comes back with a stack of CD's to torture me with, plugs his headphones into the side of the laptop, gives me one of the earpieces, and we're away. And Bernard played on.

The first piece on the laptop CD was 'the circle of life', the Lion King opening theme. I never, ever thought I'd listen to it while a monotone German kid talks me, for reasons unknown, through the plot of the play Cats by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, while Flight of the Bumblebees is blasted out at 150 decibels in the background by a 50 year old German bloke on a piano. Seriously, imagine it. Actually try and envision this scene. The human brain isn't designed to deal with confusion of that magnitude.

We didn't do any swordfighting, thankfully. I managed to make my escape, after explaining in German every conceivable reason why the internet hadn't worked for us, and now I'm drinking Chocomel, and wishing I was doing this.


Courtesy of the wonderful Kellie Snowden. Lets buy a giant pumpkin.

NEUERBURG - Again, really?

GERMANY

Satan is mowing his lawn in the skies of Rheinland-Pfalz.

That is to say, the Search and Rescue chopper's back. Its making a noise how I'd imagine Satan's lawnmower to sound. A 57 foot long lawnmower with a 48 foot wingspan.

What possible trouble can you get into that requires rescue by helicopter in Neuerburg?

That takes REAL effort.

NEUERBURG - Lesson planning

GERMANY

Tomorrow, my Ü-klasse is being upgraded from doing Heads, shoulders knees and toes. We are going to play that game called consequences, the one where you write a name, then fold the paper over, pass it on to someone else, then they write what happens etc.

I just read that back to myself. If you've never played consequences before and don't know the rules, then I imagine you're still in the black, but I really can't be arsed explaining it because I'm so bored of thinking.

After consequences, if I haven't managed to drag it out for 45 minutes, we will play 20 Questions (idea courtesy of Daniel Brooks, thankyou for that one mate) probably with varying degrees of success. If both of these fail, I'm taking my laptop so I can improvise and we can look at British things, maybe songs (Thankyou to Sophie Walker for that suggestion) and see how it goes from there.

No onslaught of boredom or whingeing can't be silenced by the Internet.

NEUERBURG - flatmates

GERMANY

10 minutes ago I met my last flatmate who I hadn't met before.

I guess this means I know all of my flatmates now, though I only know the names of 2 of them. The other three I should know but have forgotten because, sadly, its not the kind of flat where you can sit about and drink and get to know each other very well.

But this last guy; we talked about Leeds, England, international football (fucking how?!) and the general gist of what we did at the school.

HIS NAME IS NORBERT.

How awesome is that?

NEUERBURG - Official first day

GERMANY

Yeah, I know I've already titled one post 'First day at work' but I did fuck all that day. Yesterday was when I actually did stuff.

The first lesson was with the 11th grade, which is like 17-18 year olds (I think). We went over homework and talked about volunteer work and political activists and gap years and whatnot. Then I turned the mini-essay we were meant to do in lesson as homework and we talked about England in a little Q&A thingy, which only reinforced the fact that I know very little about Britain. But it was pretty good. Dare I say I made friends?

And after that I went to Frau Gorjew's* lesson, the one she'd promised would be a 'team-teaching' kind of thing, but which ultimately turned out to be "Max will lead this class with the material he was expecting to use with 2 or 3 students at a time, which lasted all of 10 minutes, while Frau Gorjew sits at the front and watches like a student". Clearly the Germans have never heard the phrase 'there is no I in team'.

And this second lesson pissed me off because I'd been feeling all teachy and inspired and had spoken lots of German, and then all of a sudden I was that English retard again, not really knowing what was happening. I got asked to translate 'honeycomb structure' and 'osteointegrated' into German for christs sake.

And then I went home and drunk some chocomel and wondered if chocolate milk could induce some kind of 9 month long coma. Yasser Arafat had it so easy.

Oh, and tomorrow is international Talk Like a Pirate Day! Who even thought of this? I tried using facebook in Pirate but it pissed me off after a week. Why is there a day dedicated to going 'Arrr' and stuff?

Brush up on your Somali, people.
___________

* 'Gorjew' is a fucking misleading name. Turns out it's not 'Jew' in the sense of 'one who follows Jewish ideals' (like the Christians. OOH! controv.) but is actually pronounced 'yev'. Gore-yev. Who'd have thunk it?

NEUERBURG - new things, long post, no chocomel, gay cowboys

GERMANY

So after a week or so of going to the wrong classrooms or finding out that a particular teacher isn't scheduled to have me, I've finally started re-arranging my Stundenplan (thats timetable to some of you) so I know where I'm meant to be, at what time, and with whom. This will hopefully see an end to me knocking on the doors of classrooms that I've had to hunt down* because there's been a slight change, only to have the door opened by some teacher whose name I don't know, wondering why there's an English kid stalking their lesson speaking pidgin German at them.

*There's actually not a great deal of 'hunting' for the classrooms, seeing as the whole building is one big square, and the rooms just go round the edge on 2 levels. No corridors or anything like that, but it still throws me when I have a room change.

Today I forgot that my lesson with the 13th Grade had been cancelled, which means that I did all of the above but to a meeting of teachers and probably some important Germans, instead of just the one teacher and some kids. Unfortunately, the teacher who had told me that the lesson was cancelled was present too, and she embarrassingly pointed this fact out in front of her many colleagues. It was like the German school equivalent of being in a busy supermarket checkout queue with an unsubtle cashier - "Hey, can I get a price check on the No-More-Farts Medicine? And the Dr. Shits-a-lot Constipation Tablets?"

Ohhhhhh, I'm a retard.

Tomorrow is going ahead with my teaching solo debut; the teacher isn't even going to be sitting silently in a corner like they suggested would be the case at Altenberg. I could deal with that, but apparently Frau Biehl is off doing something else. She might just regret that at the end of tomorrow. I've been given quite a lot to work with, and it's a Grundkurs (basic course) which means that I can stretch out the hour and a half I'm with them by speaking English very slowly.

I'm pretty grateful for all the material I've got actually, some writing exercises, going over their homework, matching words to definitions, that sort of thing. It can only go better than my first 'class' yesterday, which was a fucking shambles. This is my class that I've been given free reign over; apparently I can do anything with these kids. Not in a weird way, dickwads. I mean the topics we focus on and the content of the class is totally up to me.

Now, I can't deal with that. I can't work without instruction. I need to be told something to aim toward, or I'm lost for ideas and inspiration. "But Max", you say, "this time you get to choose which topic you aim towa-" NO. No, I need a little more guidance than that. This class in particular is a difficult task for me. I have little to no teaching experience and its near impossible to pick out a topic that can suit all of them.

I've started; I'll continue: the different skill levels in this group make it really difficult to gauge what kind of material I can use. Out of 11, there are 3 whose english is good enough for me to converse with them at a pretty decent standard. The others range from 'not much knowledge of english, but just enough to get by', all the way to being able to say 'my name is __' and virtually nothing else.

And apart from that, they're all 'kiddy' kids. Theres one girl from Portugal, one who's English is pretty good, and she's great in the sense that she seems to understand I'm not a born teacher and that I'm finding all this malarky a bit of a challenge, even though she's only 11. Then theres a group of boys who are polite and want to improve, but piss about too much for me to really help them. And theres a girl from Kenya, again who speaks good English, but can't be arsed with half the stuff I suggest, because its either too simple for her or too boring.

Theres a Romanian kid about 10 or 11 who thinks he's Gods gift to the English langauge, but he's one of those kids who, initially, you think 'wow, this guys enthusiastic!' which descends quickly into 'I am gonna beat you with this dictionary. Shut up. Shut up.' And rounding off the team theres an Italian guy who looks like I did when I was 17, but with the personality of a dead sloth, and a French girl, who's a bit pretentious and flamboyant and French.

So I have to come up with something new for them for Monday, seeing as last time the only way I scraped back some shreds of dignity, by the skin of my fucking teeth, was teaching them all Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, which was .. lets not go there.

Fun. Fun fun fun fun. So that's school.

Did any of you guys in Germany see Brokeback Mountain the other night? Oh, my god. I'd never seen it in English, but in German? Theres something about it being in German that makes it so much more gay than it already is. I mean, even by English standards, its pretty gay. There's not a lot in the way of breaking it to you slowly either. The first 20 minutes or so kinda goes "Right, lets herd some sheep. Brrrr, bit cold out here. You better come in this here tent, away from the cold. Brr, still a bit cold. Spoon me, Heath Ledger. Spoon me up the bum." Then they fight and have families and Jake Gyllenhaal dies. And Heath Ledger is left with the bloodied shirts they wore that day when they fought, aww. Warning! Spoilers.

Whatever, it didn't make me cry or anything. Probably it being in German took most of the emotional whatnot out of it.

But, sadly, Brokeback Mountain has truly and utterly destroyed the 'Gay german men are easier to understand' theory, of which I so often speak of. Brokeback Mountain + German would theoretically support my idea, but it doesn't, so I'm back to square 1. Rachel Lane-Dixon, I'm sorry.

Disclaimer: Watching Brokeback Mountain alone does not make me gay by default.

NEUERBURG - More from Neuerburg

GERMANY

I did a little more class observation today, just kind of sitting about and being a human dictionary for times when the book version just won't cut it. I don't know how long it'll take them to cotton on to the fact that I am vastly inferior to the book in the way of definitions. Pronunciation fine, but not definition.

So I did that and was then interecepted by a kid who wanted to interview me for the school newspaper. It was actually a little unnerving, as he's about my height, and speaks German in a very low, thickly accented voice. And he decided we should do our interview in a little classroom on the first floor with only one very high-up window. A lot like the prisoner cells from the 80's at Hohenschönhausen prison in Berlin.

And then, in that low, German accent, he asked me questions like "What are you doing in Germany?" and "How long have you been here?". I felt like the bloke at the beginning of Das Leben der Anderen. It was scary.

Other than that, I'm helping to teach kids about the media on Friday in a lesson which I hope to God will be a 'team-teaching' sort of thing, as I can't talk about British media for 45 minutes in any language. I have a copy of The Guardian and The Times, whose political bias I'll probably exaggerate a bit for a little more food for thought. We'll have none of your moderate bullshit here.

Lidl is officially out of Chocomel. I've watched the number of cartons decrease on that shelf for 2 weeks, clinging to hopes of 'they'll have a new batch delivered tomorrow', but it never did. I have officially single-handedly veto'd Neuerburg of chocolate milk. At the moment I'm drinking the replacement, stuff called Latte Nocciola, which is pretty much liquid Kinder Bueno. This should also have been wiped from the face of Neuerburg by the time the week's out.

I'm still hunting for Hobbys while I'm here. I'm far, far from the point of 'maybe I could get a weekend job in Neuerburg!' before any of you even suggest it, but apart from sketching, theres not a lot to do. Yeah, I'm probably not doing the whole 'completely embracing the culture' thing just yet, but thats partly the reason I need something to do until then. I went for a walk in the woods today, that was a new thing. The shitload of woods that surround us for miles and miles.

I'm gonna try and bring something new to this town, something they've never seen before. Just to liven it up somewhat. Waterboarding suspected terrorists, performing abortions in the town square, riding round town on a cow dressed as a gladiator. Anything.

NEUERBURG - Theory disproven.

GERMANY

Yeah, you get two updates today. I hope the presence of a second entry in the same day shows the gravity of the situation.

Remember my theory about German gays? The gayer they are, the easier they are to understand and speak to? Remember we talked about Dieter and Herman?

Today has forced me to re-evaluate this theory.

I was sketching earlier, and a woman walked over to have a look. Her appearance and demeanour just screamed 'I am a butch lesbian' and I truly, genuinely expected the theory to work. But man, she was impossible to understand. The one thing I did take away from that conversation was that she really enjoyed using the word 'Wunderschön'. Literally, every 5 words or so.

So the new theory stands thus: the gayer the German man is, the easier he is to understand. The gayer the woman, the more difficult it gets.

This also, and worryingly ties in with my theory that all German women go through this vaguely lesbian phase. That is, the short to ultra-short hair and the general butch demeanour. For those of you doing Altenberg tomorrow, look at for Frau Wasserberger or something bringing out food at mealtimes; she is a prime example. Kind of Eddie Izzard in the late 90's looking.

And, bar the contingent of over-65's and children in Neuerburg, I'll wager that women at this stage make up another 30% of the population here.


Wunderschön.

NEUERBURG .. Sunday, Sept. 12th

GERMANY

Maaaaaaaan it's quiet here today. Granted, weekends in Neuerburg are a quiet affair but today is really pulling the strings. There's only one car in the school car park. Which poor sod's having to do overtime in Neuerburg?

I'm quite glad now I stocked up on food, seeing as the shops close here on a Sunday. And not even just the little boutiques and whatnot, Lidl and Rewe and all the other basic foody shops. I say 'all the other' ones, Lidl and Rewe is pretty much it. I guess I lament it the most because my chocomel intake is gonna droop and make me sad.

I didn't actually get round to eating the uber feast that I raved about on facebook last night, because a spur of the moment choice made me buy a fuck-off bag of plain crisps. And I ended up eating the whole bag with a bottle of orange juice. And the banana and express microwave rice and all my other German culinary delights remained untouched. So TODAY, I will eat like a king.

I've also just realised that this edam cheese in my sandwich has an after taste like an armpit, and I'm really regretting it now.

It must be the equivalent of Sainsburys Basics, or Asda smart-price because it doesn't taste how cheese should taste. The equivalent of the 'really cheap crap stuff' over here seems to be a brand called, simply, 'JA!'. So, 'YES!' cheese. To go with my 'YES!' cereal and 'YES' milk.

So since Lidl and Rewe are shut, 2 of my 3 Neuerburg activities have been scratched from the list. I'd better go sketch something. Oh, and stuffs happening in the news, which means I'll plug where the mild things are with a couple of updates for y'all.

NEUERBURG - 1 week.

GERMANY

Praise fortuitous circumstance! The internets come back!

I don't know why it's taken so long to kick in today. I'm assuming it runs on an hourly use kind of basis, as in each computer accessing it is only allowed 12 hours straight or something. I was able to use it this morning, which is unusual, which might explain why I was then denied it for the rest of the day. Whatever, I have it back now.

I did some more classroom stuff today, little more hands on, helping with reading exercises from a book, that kind of thing. All seems ok, kids are alright so far. Still working on finding out which kind, kind teacher will give me a lift out of this town at some point. To confirm for all who keep asking/haven't asked yet: There is no train access to Neuerburg or the immediate area, buses come twice a day at inexcusably retarded hours.

Pfft.

Theres not a lot to report from today and yesterday.

I watched some German telly again last night. There was some weird German equivalent of The Price is Right on. Granted, it was never the best gameshow when it was on in the UK, but last night, there was the most boring contestant ever considered for public viewing. He didn't do anything. He just stood and looked bored. And then he won, and just shook the presenters hand, no jumping, no 'yay'!ing, nothing. I felt kind of sad for him at one point, because no-one came to hug him like they usually do on The Price is Right. Yeah, he'd only won a bed, but that still doesn't deny him the right to look excited.

My first thought was why the hell was this guy alone in the first place? I've been to the pub alone. I've even been to the cinema alone, but national television? Only the Germans would find it fitting to broadcast their crushing loneliness so publically.

But eventually his wife did turn up, and she seemed excited about the new bed that they would probably make love in. The most boring love imaginable.

This is what Germany has done to me. It's made me addicted to chocolate milk and it makes me imagine gameshow contestants having boring sex.

I wish I had more to say. I haven't seen any more car factories or fortwerke or anything. I've got 2 other tabs open about the Pope. The old pope, y'know. The real one. I've been reduced to researching Jean Paul II.

I met another member of staff today, damned if I remember her name. Our conversation started well, but quickly descended to:

her: "Und wie alt bist du?"
me: "Huh?"
her: "Wie alt bist du?"
me: "Do you mean how old am I?"

My grasp of this language is simply failing like a giant whale. It should be the other way round, surely? The other day I was on fire, I forget what it was I said, but it had about 12 verbs on the end of it and I made 2 real germans look impressed. Maybe they were humouring me, but it would have fooled you anyhow. And now I'm losing it again! Why has it not improved? Why was I thwarted by the second thing I ever learnt in this language?

I guess this sums it up so far, really. There's nothing of interest thats happened in my first week that you can't read about on here. I miss you guys. Every one of you. But, I'm enjoying living by myself. It's not until you live in your very own apartment that you realise how much stuff you forgot to bring with you. Oh, and you can poo with the bathroom door open.

SAARLOUIS

GERMANY

So yesterday was our excursion to a place called Saarlouis. I said in the previous post that we were going to see a fort. Ohhhh, no. This is just my piss poor standard of German. When they told me it was a history trip, and we were going to a walled city, built to withstand siege, and that we were seeing 'fortwerke', I thought this was some fancy German word for all the above. It has the word 'fort' in it, right?

But, as many of you Germs will have probably realised, 'werke' is in fact the German word for factory. A fort factory? Nope, not 'fortwerke', but the Ford Factory. As in a car factory. I won't deny it took me by surprise when, after two hours on a coach looking out for a medieval looking town, we pulled into the Besucher Eingang of a big grey block adorned with the Ford Logo.

We were greeted by this small guy with a moustache who then gave us a pair of safety goggles and a pair of headphones so he could talk to use through his microphone, and loaded us onto a little bus, a bit like a rollercoaster train. And he drove us around the factory for an hour, which was actually really interesting; we essentially saw the entire process of building a car. Those robot things are real, and move in a weird, freaky way which makes them a little bit real. And the bit at the end was a lot darker, full of robots doing welding and blasting sparks and looking ridiculously like the ending of every Terminator film ever made.

Most of the car-making machines honestly looked like this.

I say it was interesting; it was certainly good to look at. Whether or not the commentary lived up to the sightseeing aspect, I'll never know, because my headphones didn't work.

I discovered this after about 10 minutes in, just after I'd started wondering what they werefor and if anything was going to be explained. Then, everyone else on the coach laughed at something he said, which confused the absolute hell out of me at first, and then I put two and two together. So I had a silent trip through the Ford Factory and just smiled and gasped and laughed when everybody else did.

Then we piled back onto our coach and drove on to the city of Saarlouis itself, which had more in the way of what I personally would describe as 'Fortwerke'. It had big impenetrable walls and a moat. It still has a moat and its a wicked hexagon shape but thats difficult to see these days because of all the buildings and whatnot.

This map pretty much shows our exact journey. The dot is Saarlouis, the other end of the arrow is Neuerburg.

But, we went to a couple of museums and I understood about 30% of what we were told, mostly peoples names and dates, and just sat blankly but looking damn interested for the rest of the time.

I drew another nice picture of a church there as well, which from a scale and perspective point of view is a fucking abomination because I was strapped for time, but it still kinda proves I've been there. There were also some - what were they? German gangsta types? - who seemed to like it. "Hey Muchacho, sieht gut aus!". After looking up that word, I've decided I'm not a muchacho. I'm an Hombre, you bastards.

And I turned in pretty early yesterday, because I was pretty darn tired. I blame Herr Reichert and his BACKSTABBING USE OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN TIME PHRASES for this. See, in Germany, when you want to say half past the hour, it is said in the sense of 'halfway to the next hour'. For example, if I wanted to say 'half past 6', I would say 'Halb sieben' or 'halfway to seven'. Likewise, 'half past two' would be 'Halb drei' or 'halfway to three'. So after Herr Reichert kindly pointed out that we would be leaving at 'Halb funf' ('halfway to five, or 4.30am) and I rolled out of bed at 10 past 4 to walk through the pissing rain to the lonely lonely coach stop, I quickly realised he meant 'halb funf' in the way that we in England say it - half five.

Which left me unsure as to the meaning of every time given to me here, amid thoughts of why did he not use time phrases like I've been taught? Why did I not say 'thats a bit early', as I considered, and realised the truth at the time? Why did I not stay in bed an extra 45 minutes? Why is the internet not working again? Why can the Germans be such dickwads?

Things like that.

The final note is that after a very educational day out where I did lots of cultural things, on the way back home I saw signs to 2 places called Coxhausen and Bitche, and I turned into a 12 year old. Someday I will realise that I have to be more mature, but yesterday was not that day.

NEUERBURG - day 6

GERMANY

I begin this entry after downing my 8th carton of Chocomel in 6 days. That's a depressing amount of chocolate milk. This has been one of the fattest weeks of my life, but the stuff is just awesome. Words cannot say.

Today was a bit of a bummer as all I managed to achieve was sorting out a timetable for thursday and friday. Apparently 5 days at once is a bit of a mental strain, so we're taking it nice and slow it seems. Fridays got 2 hours on it, so with a bit of luck I can still try and grab Monday off for a 3 day weekend sort of thing.

Specifically this friday, I'm being expected to cover Frau Biehl's English lesson. I wish, wish I could say that I know more than you do about what to expect. That's literally all I've been told. There's been no mention of the age, or their level of English, or even a darned topic. If they're under 12 I can probably blag it, if they're my age, they'll probably be mature enough to settle down and give me the gist of things. Anywhere inbetween, not a chance. I'd better get told something pretty soon.

Other than this, tomorrow I'm going to a place called Saarlouie about 2 miles south of us. Once again, I don't know a great deal about whats going on, other than it's a Geography/History trip and I think we're seeing a fort of some kind.

_____________

I think I mentioned in a previous post the little mini-fairground that we seem to have going on here. Well, today there was a clown. His name was Koko the Clown, and he was a large, large clown. There wasn't a lot going on on the tricks front; he just sat on a chair outside the Kolner-Hof Gasthaus and for €1.50, you could get your face painted. He never stood, at least not in the half an hour when I was enjoying my beer. This was probably due to the fact that he was about 250lbs. He'll probably be called Bed-ridden the Clown soon. He will paint your face. With salami and sauerkraut.

NEUERBURG - 1st day at work

GERMANY

Don't be misled by the title of this post. My grand academic inauguration was less in the way of me leading a class, but standing by the teacher after a short introduction of myself, and then sitting at the back to watch the kids do short presentations on Britain's history from the Romans to the Normans. Then we did stuff on phonetics and word pronunciation, which threw me a bit as I've never used, let alone learnt the phonetic alphabet and all it's fun little symbols. But, seeing as my English has really come on these past 20 years, I wasn't in the black too badly.

This class was made up of kids predominantly from former Soviet-Bloc countries who need a little extra assistance with pronunciation and whatnot and the class is taught entirely in English. Its also made the whole name learning process a little more difficult; I'd mentally prepared myself to remember a decent selection of German names for emergency use if I'd forgotten someone. And now all of a sudden I have Olga and Svetlana and Anastasia taking up my brain space. God bless that kid called Tim. What considerate parents he has.

NEUERBURG - fairgrounds and cats.

GERMANY

I don't know exactly what the occasion is, but in the little kind of town-square thing that we have here, there's suddenly sprung up a selection of fairgroundy stalls and a stage for dodgems. It's kinda bizarre to see it here, seeing as it's a quiet row of cafe's and guesthouses attended by Neuerburg's elderly contingent, who number in the hundreds, and all of a sudden there's a load of screaming kids and bad fairground music blaring out.

Neuerburg also continues it's ongoing mission to disrupt any attempt of mine to sketch its buildings and beauty-spots. However, whereas yesterday was a group of excited kids, today a cat found me. After just kind of prowling around a bit and sniffing my bags, it jumped onto my sketchbook mid-drawing and did that kind of 'mehhhh, give me attention' thing that cats do. So I stroked it a bit to see if that would be enough to make it go.

Instead, it went to sleep on my picture. At first I thought it was just chilling while I stroked its head, but then realised it wasn't purring or doing anything, so I half tipped it onto the floor without realising it wasn't awake. It didn't seem to like that, but it got the message across. Eventually, it left and I carried on drawing, thinking I'd seen the last of it.

Had I shite. 10 minutes later, it came back. But it wasn't back for another stroke and a power nap. No, it had brought me a dead fucking mouse, which it dumped, as affectionately as one can dump a mouse, onto my bag strap, off which I've since sluiced the blood.

Throughout the entire sketching session, there'd been an old couple sitting opposite, enjoying the sun. I only really drew attention to the fact I was there however when the dead mouse appeared. I think I must have made some noise, perhaps "Aagh!" or "Whoa!" or "Shit!" because they both looked up and asked if I was ok. And then, in perhaps my most cringeworthy moment in Germany so far, without even considering the fact that they hadn't seen the cat, I gave them the honest explanation, "Es hat mir eine Maus gebracht!"

After the painful silence that followed that one, I wonder in retrospect what must have gone through their heads.

Ahh, look Hans. Zat boy, he is drawing a picture of ze church!

Ja, Helga. Aber was! he cries out! Ist he in pain? BIST DU OK?

He says zat something has brought him a mouse!

Mein Gott, Helga! Zis boy is fucking insane!


So yeah, it'll be fun if I run into them around town. Stupid cat.

NEUERBURG - day 3

GERMANY

I don't know how long this will keep being updated on a daily basis, but seeing as it's still the first week and I'm still in the odd transitional phase between seeing everything for the first time and being a bit more settled, I guess it's acceptable. That's the excuse anyway; I'll keep it at hand in case I'm ever accused of posting every sordid detail a little too often.

Today I branched out in my exploring of Neuerburg; I went up a street I've NEVER BEEN UP BEFORE. Coincidentally its the last road that I can find that I haven't already seen, but thats ok.

Anyway, this one was a special one. Turns out there are 2 castles in Neuerburg, theres a white one with some red trimming on the tower which seems to appear in all the photos, but there's also a 2nd one which I visited today up the SECRET ROAD which is a kind of aesthetically pleasing off-beige with brown trimming and a grey shingled roof. Man, what the hell am I talking about?

But I drew a nice picture of this latter castle, which some of you may see one day. The perspectives a little off in some places and there's a window which I had to move and resize slightly so it looked better, but you wouldn't have known if I hadn't just told you. You and I both will probably have forgotten it ever exists by the time I get back anyway.

The high point of this however was a 30-strong group of kids about 10 years old on a trip from Trier, and to whom this English bloke with his sketchpad was God's gift to entertainment. I actually seemed to hit it off quite well with these kids, which made me more sad that I'm not at the Realschule in my town, as younger kids I can entertain far more easily.

This was also the ultimate test for my german skills, because we were about as skilled at the others language as each other, meaning that any word we didn't understand we then had to explain, which made it difficult. There were a couple of ace kids who explained their words and sentences really well when I got confused, but there were also some who chugged out german like a machine-gun, leaving me lost after the 2nd sentence and staring blankly for the explanation which never came. They liked the drawing though; the most frequent question was 'is this your job?'. It might be one day, children, but until then I have to help you speak English apparently.

I managed to get some adult speak in as well, with their teachers/minders. I was a little worried at first, because when they found me I was just kinda sat there; a foriegn person surrounded by a lot of children he'd never met before, which could have been interpreted badly. I thought they might shout at me and take my name, but they were ok in the end. I'd also have gone a bit Braveheart on their asses if that had happened though. "You can shout at me, but you'll never take my NAME!"

And then, en route back home from Lidl with a shitload of meat, cheese and chocolate milk, I accidentally scared the hell out an old lady, which turned into a walking discussion about Neuerburg. Encouragingly, it's a place with "no hate" which is always nice to know, and then she said something about influences. I heard "America", "War", and "Multiculturalism" in a short monologue that could have come straight from one of my last year's university modules, but I still didn't really get that bit. Still, no hate in Neuerburg. I'm a fan.

I found that today actually. It's through interacting in German and realising your linguistic shortcomings that makes you want to be fluent. And you know that the only way that fluency will come about is with further interaction. And, even though the prospect is daunting, you know that ultimately it's never as bad as you expected. I guess I offer this to people I know who are feeling nervous about this year. Take it from me - It's never as bad as your mind convinces you it will be.

Obviously you might be tempted to take this with a pinch of salt seeing as it's only day 3 and in the grand scheme of things, I haven't spoken a vast amount of german yet. But on the other hand, it's still a good sign that I can feel as confident as I do after such a short while.

Check out me being all corny and inspirational.

Oh, and you know what would be wicked? Send me your addresses so I can send postcards and whatnot. This may take a while but it will happen eventually, even if it's a case of me giving it to you when I see you again next year. The thought that counts, right?

NEUERBURG - day 2

GERMANY

This post is predominantly for the benefit of Rachel Lane-Dixon, who it seems has been reduced to scouring the finer details of my life as they appear in real-time on the internet. I know the title says "day 2" but in all honesty, its only quarter to 1 in the aftenoon, which leaves a shitload of time for something REALLY interesting to happen. And, if it does, you're gonna have to wait at least another 12 hours before you know what it was because the internet is temperamental in Neuerburg. Shot yourself in the foot really, haven't you Rachel, what with your impatience?

I'm only mean because I miss you all.

So yeah, what can I tell you? I've mainly been pootling around with Frau Biehl looking at the classrooms and meeting the staff. I'm struggling to remember the names, even though I remember all the faces.

We ran into a bloke I met yesterday and he asked me jokingly if I could remember his name. Completely nonplussed, and with the names of staff I'd met today still roaming round my head, I fired about 4 names at him before he cottoned on and just told me it again. The worst part was that the guys I met earlier all had classic German names, whereas his was something quite elaborate, so to him I just looked a bit like a twat shouting out all the stereotypical names I could think of.

There's also a very swish swimming pool, which I might try and start using, and a weights room, which will probably never, ever see me. There's also a room full of exercise bikes which I might have been tempted to try out, but not until I know the students who use them a little better. Making small talk on a static vehicle is somehow more awkward than when you're actually bound for a destination, because you can't pretend you've arrived or that you've taken a wrong turn.

I also opened a Girokonto at my local bank, with a woman called Claudia who was just so brilliant I wanted to give her a hug. We did the whole thing in German but she explained it all so well and spoke like such a normal person that the whole thing went really smoothly and I now have a German bank account. Karma will probably rear its ugly head in time and have the account accidentally cancelled, or Claudia will be run over by a cement mixer when I need to speak to her, but for now, all is good.

Oh yeah, and I guess its worth elaborating on a couple of things that have already qualified for facebook material: Nummer Eins - I have found a shop that sells Chocomel! And not those gay little ribena size ones, proper ones, big cardboard rectangle .. thing .. yeah!

Chocomel is the better of the two, seeing as Nummer Zwei is, rather worryingly, a big green UH-1 helicopter with 'Search and rescue" printed in orange on the side. It's been making passes for about an hour, as it did a couple of times yesterday and once earlier this morning. It's the type of helicopter that you always see in photos of the Vietnam war, a big American thing, and the noise is ridiculous as its only flying at about 100 feet. I dunno who they're searching for and rescuing, but I wish they'd bloody find them.


Does this satisfy your cravings, at least for the afternoon?

NEUERBURG - day 1

GERMANY

The second set of training events ran yesterday, the aforementioned 'classroom scenario' one most prominently. Contrary to initial expectations along the lines of 'a child is ill. What should you do?', we worked in groups to prepare a 45 minute lesson which was then presented by the group (though as if it were only a single teacher) to the rest of the class and our German overseer.

I've never really been worried about speaking in front of people, but subtlety when things go tits up and rapid improvisation are not my forte, which isn't a redeeming feature for this line of work, but hopefully it'll be ok on the night.

Because yesterday was the last day and we're now considered fully fledged foreign language assistants (which doesn't bode well for the english skills of Neuerburgs teenage contingent) we celebrated accordingly and made sure that beer to the brain took precedence over oxygen. Sadly, a steady stream of finest Bitburger and Kölsch made todays 6am start an absolute motherbitch of a task. There was grunting, cursing, shivering and other mixed feelings of general 'I feel pretty shite today'. Good vibes, good vibes.

But, after planning my train journey to Bitburg-Erdorf for pickup, I was lucky enough to grab a lift off one of the guys on our course who's living not too far from where I am, and to him I am eternally grateful. At 7am, we were bombing down the Autobahn away from Haus Altenberg (note for readers: he's an excellent driver, and our lives would probably have been more at risk if we pootled along at 70 like some loser from Britain, as opposed to clocking 120 like everyone else around us. The Autobahn is a mad and awesome place.

But, after about 50 miles or so the houses became fewer and fewer and the fields and forests became fuck-off massive. Seeing as I can't speak for all of Germany, I'll confirm on a more local level: Rheinland-Pfalz has more wind turbines than you can shake a stick at. Nor are they the gay little ones that we have, these things are absolute monsters.

The scenery is crazily idyllic. Most of the forests we drove through are so dense one can only see past the first couple of rows of trees or so, and there's this vaguely creepy perpetual fog that rolls through the canopies from time to time. It's bloody beautiful.

And after 100 miles, we entered Neuerburg itself, and contrary to popular belief, the first bastard thing we saw was a bus. There is no denying that its a tiny town in a remote spot, but it has a lot of charm. Y'know the stuff. Its one of those places you look at and go 'aahhh' at in a kind of sentimental way. The houses are pink and things. You know what I mean.

And then of course, the Gymnasium itself, which is what these here folk call a 6th form college or a grammar school. I got down with the kids immediately and confidently asked for directions to the main office. I pretended to understand where they told me to go (golden rule from Altenberg: never let on to the children that you don't have a clue, wheyyy) and confidently strode off in the wrong direction. They spoke a little German to one another as I did a 12 point turn with my suitcase, and it was probably less along the lines of 'cool, new language assistant!' than 'this English bloke's a fucking moron'.

Then I met some of the staff, including the one and only Gunther, and a friendly bloke called Herr Reichert with whom I spoke some long exchanges of kick-ass Deutsch between painful, painful silences.

After this I was shown my apartment by a friendly lady called shit shit shit I've forgotten what her name was, and its actually pretty awesome, far more so than I'd envisioned. I operate my blinds by pressing a button on the wall, and they respond to sunlight, how wicked is that? There seems to be something amiss in the ratio of 'cool technology' to 'necessary technology': solar powered blinds, modern-art style lamps and wall mounted flatscreen TV's are all lovely, but was it not even a bit possible that you could have fitted more than one plug socket? I either charge my phone, use my laptop, or have the big lamp on and just sit for a bit.

And that's it thus far. I've yet to meet my flatmates, or eat anything, or check out the Kuche downstairs, but this should happen this afternoon, unless I have the mother of all power-naps. I also need to work 'subtly find out friendly woman's name again' into my agenda.
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I was considering starting this entry with something poignant and romantic, something like "From my window, I can see the morning dew adding a tranquil sparkle to the already perfect scenery. A few students, each walking separate paths but with the same destination, stroll calmly through this surrounding natural bliss. All I feel is a subconscious satisfaction that nature has somehow preserved this recurrent beauty."

But it made me feel like a pretentious wanker, and it was a lie anyway.