KARNEVAL

COLOGNE/TRIER

Now this post is another likely candidate for being one of my longest entries and the kind of post that I'd try and work into an autobiography one day. This has probably been one of the busiest and craziest 4 days since arriving here.

Customary Dom picture, just to prove I was there

For those of you not in the know, Karneval is a very popular Southern-German thing which subscribes to the school of thought that if an event has enough alcohol thrown at it, it's nonsensical existence will somehow become more acceptable.

There may well have been some interesting historical background that I haven't actually researched, but the only valid way I can describe it is like New Years Eve, with fancy dress and like I say, lots of booze.

Marina looking bootiful in one of the best costumes of the whole weekend. And how can you not love that face?

Us at Leyendeckerstrasse on saturday night. 1st prize to Heidi's hat.

Cologne is apparently the place to be, so I headed down there last Thursday complete with the half arsed Matrix costume that I'd thrown together from normal clothes lying around. Compared to most of the costumes worn by the thousand or so people I saw just at the station, I felt a bit half arsed and jealous, especially when Ellie and Heidi turned up as Ladybird and Clown.

That's worth mentioning actually: I have never seen Cologne Hauptbahnhof as rammed as it was this weekend.
I guess it's a pretty obvious assumptuion, being Karneval and all, but anyone with half a hope of getting a train would have walked away disappointed. Or rather, shoved their wheezing way through 1000 people with steel drums strapped to their groins. I feel sorry for the guy in the Service Point booth.

And curiously, the armed police were gone. I think something critical has been missed in Germany's anti-terrorist security policy; that is, that 20 or so gun-toting, flak jacketed bouncers hang around from 9 til 5 to keep the peace on 361 menial days of the year, but when there are 10,000 people to potentially protect from, I dunno, terrorism, then they're nowhere to be seen.

My favourite theory thereupon is that the Polizei simply bank on the fact that 10 people out of every 100 who attend Karneval will be wearing some variety of police/security costume. It was occasionally hard to tell who was actually someone you could rely on in an emergency and who wasn't just another drunken reveller in a peaked cap. I wonder if terrorists would really attempt an attack when the German police have been replaced by the NYPD and FBI.

ANYWAY,

So the first day I was stuck in the Neo outfit. We hit up Cologne centre and watched a parade through the streets. This was mainly just big decorated floats, some of which must have cost an absolute bomb to build, from which costumed Germans threw sweets at the crowd. Oh and napkins. After waiting about half an hour for some exciting thing to fly our way from a float, we got a pack of Tesco napkins. Not a clue.

And between the floats came brass bands and flamboyantly dressed flag wavers, as well as hordes of uniformed Karneval children, looking both thrilled and bored. My favourite bit, which in retrospect I wish I'd filmed instead of photographed, was when a horse drawn float clipped the metal canvas-covered awning of a shop and started to tear it apart.

This was especially funny because there was a fleeting second in which the guy leading the horses was considering trying to reverse, except this doesn't work with horses. True You've Been Framed material. Here it is.

And this procession went on for about an hour or so, after which we headed towards the Dom to see what was happening over there. Apart from drunk people being led away by police (real police) and stewards, there wasn't anything particularly different. A nice man borrowed my lighter and asked if I'd like to share a spliff, and a guy dressed as a bear puked into the Rhine, but that's about it.

And a man with tits on his back. Sophie is seen on the left looking a little keen. She sure loves tits.

So the first day was all hunky dory, albeit pretty cold.

On Friday, we went shopping in Ehrenfeld where Heidi lives (who is also a wonderful host who I'd like to thank again very much for having us all). Ehrenfeld is about 10 minutes from Cologne city centre, and pretty Turkish, which was kind of a new experience in Germany for me. It also had these delights:

I think 'Bob der Baumeister' somehow has less of a ring to it, but it's nice to see that he's going strong on the continent and has had sausage made in his name.

One of my favourites: "Haribo Aslan Kiosk". Run by a giant gummysweet lion.

"Arno's! Racial Genocide with every haircut!"

One of the most questionable hairdresser ads I've yet come across. I put this in the same category as a chain of hairdressers in Germany called, curiously, "Hairkiller".

Turns out we were also in the seedy area. We saw these gems in the window of one of the sex shops we walked past. I love the description that comes with the doll, the amount of detail and general unneeded stuff is almost of Japanese-English calibre.

And then this thing.

We all agreed that the knobbly thing on the top left looks like a cock that's in serious need of medical attention. It's also not unlike a sea creature that someone showed me in a rockpool on an African beach. Failing these, this might be one of the things included in the CIA's "advanced interrogation" programme.

"Jamal's not responding to waterboarding sir, what now?"

"Hmmm. Let's see how long he lasts against the sea cucumber dildo."

As ever, all explanations are welcome. Itchy poopzkid. The worst kind of poop. Poor kid.

Say what you will about Ehrenfeld, it did have a pretty swish fancy dress shop so I shelved the Matrix getup in favour of an admiral costume. The admiral costume was one hell of a buy; even though it's a costume and thus made out of that fairly shit material that saves on sweatshop costs, it still looks wicked despite a button coming off (hardly shocking seeing as they were held on by dental floss) and the trousers not doing up properly at the side.

It's worth mentioning here that when I was buying it I forgot the PIN for my German card and still haven't remembered it yet. This is one of those genuine mental blocks that people talk about; I've used this card every other day for 6 months, and now I have no idea what the number is. After spending 20 minutes in the shop wrestling with the card machine, I finally resorted to my English card and the nice lady behind the counter gave me 40% off, probably as a last ditch attempt to make me finally leave, please.

So mixed victories there. On Friday night we met up with other assistants and English-speakers, at a student accommodation which was essentially just a hotel in disguise. And after walking around Cologne again and gazing down the mile long queues outside every bar and pub, we finally found a place which was totally empty, which we promptly took over.

Oh, if any of you reading this were with me on that night, can you please tell me where you got the free beer tokens from?

It was somewhere between this pub, chicken noodles and home that Dora lost her bag, the loss of makeup and free milkshake loyalty card taking tragic precedence over bank cards, keys and whatever else was in there.

I'm gonna skip ahead now to saturday night to the "Geisterzug". This is another procession, except in scary or Halloween themed costume. This of course meant one more trip to the fancy dress shop; Woolworth's, actually. Or Woolworth as it's known over here. Apart from losing the 's' from its name as a result of the recession, it's also binned the pick 'n' mix section which now sadly puts my childhood Eden more on a par with the poundstore.

But I found a nice creepy mask, because admiral is difficult to recycle for scary themed dressup.
The first and only way to prove you're scary is by threatening a toy animal with a gun. I've only just realised now that the toy is pulling the exact same face as me.

The first part of the night we just wandered around trying to work out where the thing would begin. We spent about an hour in Mcdonalds just pondering and eating, actually. We danced to some drum music in a very busy street and then after about 2 hours waiting, the procession made it to our end of town. There were some prety awesome costumes. The best one, though not particularly horror-themed as such, was a jellyfish:

I'll hit you with a few more pics.

ZZ Top. Interesting choice, but why the hell not?

Some Americans we found. Like all Americans in other countries, they were dressed for war. We all took a photo of this, because they were posing with the guys dressed as arabs and it's ironic and funny because they're at war blah blah ha ha ha they found it ha ha funnier than we did.

Dora's take on 'scary': otherwise known as 'woman punched in face'. This probably qualifies in Watford.

It's somehow less scary seen as a still photo, but when this guy was walking around, as far as scary is concerned, that mask was a constipation aid. He was damn freaky looking.

After spending some time just watching the 10,000 strong crowd pass us by, we joined in and walked along with them. And then, after some dancing in a tunnel, we found a little raised alcove where we sat and watched some more. More pictures?

Size of the crowds a little more visible here.

And a really awesome Mr. Burns puppet thing. Big fan of that.

Sunday was chill out day. Karneval is not designed for prolonged use. I actually can't remember what we did, I just know it was fairly lowbeat and calm. This thing doesn't end here, apparently. Monday is Rosenmontag. I don't know what this means, but the theme of the day is - you got it - dressing up and drinking while watching a procession and maybe receiving sweets and napkins.

However, I got a nice early train to Trier to meet up with some of my students and do all the things that I could have done in Cologne on a slightly smaller scale. It was also an ICE train, which means I made it in 2 and a half hours, as opposed to just under 4. WIN.

The stuff in Trier was nice purely because it felt more chilled and small-town. The processions were slower and more people were sober (ourselves not included in the latter category) and it was just less mad.


As you can see, the weather was a little more glorious than Cologne, so drinks outside a bar were on the cards. As a lesson now learnt in 4 countries, Long Island Iced Teas are never a good starter drink. Anything with 5 spirits in it is asking for a bitchy hangover.


We then went to the unimaginative-but-no-nonsense-ly named 'Irish Pub', where I gleefully ordered "3 pints of Guiness and a chocolate brownie please". If you are ever in Irish Pub in Trier, HAVE the chocolate brownie, I implore you.

After this we dispersed, and that's pretty much where it all finished.

There are many moments during Karneval, in between the unending stream of terrible, terrible kids party music, in which you just want to scream "Stop! For one schnitzel-licking second!" and demand that someone explains what it is exactly that everyone's doing. Karneval is a hyperactive adult with the mind of a child, shoving a big placard with 'FUN' written across it in your face and going "Phwoaarrr".

And as well as this, the tone constantly flits from "traditional southern German custom" to "let's get pissed in a clown outfit!" As Dora put it, there's a ridiculous amount of pressure to have as much fun as is humanely possible, but it's such a boozed up costumed clusterfuck that this can sometimes be a challenge. But Karneval does so many things right you can't help but enjoy it.

NEUERBURG - Abitur stuff and the war, again.

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.

NEUERBURG - school internet

GERMANY

Today I am whoring the staffroom internet because the internet in my room came for a fleeting visit earlier, excited me with it's presence at such a convenient time of day, before realising after 40 seconds or so that it had better places to be and marched back out into Neuerburg cyberspace with it's middle finger in the air.

Today has been one of those days so often lamented about by language assistants where you haul your sorry self out of bed on these cold dark German mornings, stumble into school with a half arsed Guten morgen before you're abruptly told that your classes are doing a test today and your invaluable work as an assistant is, sadly, not required.

The morning ones are the worst, but when it happens 4 times consecutively in one day, you get the feeling that you're missing some crucial piece of information along the way.

The only lesson I had today was Henkel's. This is my 13th grade, who will be finished pretty soon, and whose lessons are now "do the most useless things you can to pass the time". As one who gets paid to take part in these periods of ignorant bliss, I won't start raising objection just yet. Today we took a break from the Simpsons and watched Charlie the Unicorn for 45 minutes. It's been stuck in my head since half 10. Candy Mountain, Charlie.

Tomorrow however Karma is going to peek over and bitch-slap me into something of substance; I have my grammar class where I'll be teaching the present perfect progressive (damned if I know) followed by my lesson about UK accents and dialects. I think I milked the hilarity of Germans trying to do Scouse last time, so this week I'm gonna go for Cockney. Here's looking at you Dora.

It's a Liopleurodon, Charlie.

The Cockney part of the lesson may also be the perfect way for me to try and wing Jason Statham or Only Fools and Horses in somehow, which'd be nice.

The last thing, as ever, is my latest stats check. The most recent search engine hit was "max likes penis in chocomel".

Disturbingly, I am the third result. Of the millions of webpages that exist in the world, mine ranks third for containing the words "max", "chocomel" and "penis". I think the only thing that tops this is if you then look at the image results; on the first row there's me standing with a little Chocomel car. Then further down, a nice picture from an Amsterdam sex museum of me sitting under a massive cock statue.

Maybe the stats are right after all.

NEUERBURG - Deutschzeit

GERMANY

Vor kurzem habe ich gedacht, dass ich etwas auf deutsch schreiben muss, weil ich in Deutschland bin und deswegen muss ich auch meine Schreibung verbessern. Ich kann mehr oder weniger sprechen, im allgemein, aber ich schreibe nicht so viel auf deutsch. Sogar, wenn Jemand google translate benutzt hat, klingt diese entry voll scheisse.

Heute nachmittag hatte ich nachhilfe mit der 8. Klasse. Es war ok, aber ich habe noch einmal realisiert, dass obwohl ich Englisch fliessend sprechen kann, unterrichten ist etwas anders. Und ja, ich weiss, dass ich schon mehrmals gesagt habe, aber heute war schlechter als normal.

Ich habe eigentlich keine Ahnung warum ich auf Deutsch schreibe. Ich brauche Schreibkentnisse nur um meine Prüfung in der Uni zu bestehen.

Aber, ich muss ehrlich sagen, sprechen ist für mich am wichtigsten.

Lalalalaa.

Jetzt will ich eine deutsche Tastatur. Die deutsche Tastatur hat Knopfen mit Umlauten. Für diesen Eintrag wäre das viel mehr hilfsbereit. Wie die Dinge liegen, muss ich jede Buchstabe kopieren und einfügen fur jedes Wort und das ist wirklich ganz ärgerlich.

Noch etwas dass ich jetzt realisiert habe, ist dass es viel schwieriger ist, auf deutsch zu scherzen. Ich konnte etwas lustiges schreiben. Es klingt aber total quatsch im Vergleich zu Englisch. Vielleicht habe ich den Grund gefunden, warum die Deutsche so humorlos sein können.

Naja. Egal.

Ich bin fertig. Wenn ihr Glück habt, werde ich vielleicht mehr auf deutsch schreiben und euch verwirren. Wie ich schon sagte, sprechen ist das wichtigste Aspekt meines Auslandsjahres. Ich gehe jetzt in Rewe um chocomel zu kaufen. Auch Ausländer können das ohne Übersetzung verstehen.

NEUERBURG - untitled

GERMANY

Yeah, this post is deliberately titled 'untitled' because there's no non-wordy title that could effectively sum up everything in this entry. I'm so post-modern.

It's Tuesday at 5pm, which means all my lessons which require an ounce of effort are done and dusted and the rest of the week with my other 6 hours is now a sweatless toil free slog.

I tried to teach British past tenses today in my grammar class; man, I sure do suck. Trying to explain the difference between "have done" and "had done" isn't even worth the tears. It also seems impossible for learners to grasp the English use of non-specific time phrases, like 'just' or 'yet', which are another thing that I swear requires specialist tuition to be able to clear up for foreigners.

Tomorrow I have my other English support group, which always starts well but descends after 20 minutes into "let's see how many racial slurs we know in English' and 'I bet I can do a better fart than you'.

I've been given the latest textbook to work with, so we'll see how that one goes.

I'm also in a very thinky mood at the moment. I was speaking to some kids from the 7th grade earlier today, I think they're about 13 or 14. I don't usually talk to students this young, because pre-teen kids don't have any concept of sympathy for foreigners and when I start floundering, not only will they not understand but usually just laugh among themselves, and this makes you feel a twat.

Anyway, we were talking about school and other such crap and then we started talking about England. I had my England head on since I'd been talking about stereotypes the previous lesson. A girl asked me "do you feel really tall here?"

And this is what got me wondering. I don't feel particularly tall here; in travelling experience, Japan is where my shorties at. But then I remembered how people stared at me here, just as they did in the far east, and now I'm questioning whether I am actually taller than most people here (which it doesn't feel like) or if I'm still "that english kid in town", 6 months on. Who knows.

The other last thing is that a picture of a witch I drew to go with the Abitur (A-level) parties has been printed on t-shirts for students. Unpaid commissioned artwork success.

NEUERBURG - blog-hunting

GERMANY

Stats check - latest search engine hit: "neuerburg chocomel i love maxy"

Pushing the boat out here guys :D

NEUERBURG - visitors

GERMANY

As of this weekend just gone, Dora and Bertpfeife officially win at year abroad for making it all the way from their respective cities to come visit me in the 'burg.

Yeah, thats happening for real.

I guess the highlight of both their trips would have to be meeting cats at Neuerburg's little castle. Now, cats are a pretty tame suggestion in the grand list of 'things worth travelling 7 hours for in Germany', but these ones qualified just for old fashioned entertainment value.

General fun with cats. Ever held a cat out in front of you like in the opening scene of the Lion King? I have.

Since this activity comprised about 80% of Neuerburg's fun and games industry, we headed to the park.

I'm still trying to work out exactly what this thing is. If there was some picture or some reason for it to have faceholes, it might be understandable, but as it stands, it's just something that lets you see what you'd look like if your face was part of a disproportianate football pitch.

Watch out, Neuerburg. Watford's 'ere.

On the saturday night we were also in Trier, drinking and eating and being cold. Me and Bertpfeife and Anna checked out all the old Roman stuff (what's left of it) and Dora joined us about half 5 for steak and mahoosive beers.

It actually felt pretty weird having English friends in the 'Burg, seeing as all I've come to associate it with is old people, crazy people and trees. Now I can associate it with happy people. And cats.

Oh, and snow. It snowed again like it did in January last night, which means I'm shelving the converse in favour of better shoes and wishing that whoever moved my scarf from the staffroom (I'm looking at you, 3p.m. cleaning lady) would give it back because my face is getting cold.

Tomorrow I'm being expected to teach the 2nd lesson, apparently. According to the email I got about an hour ago "we are looking forward to your lesson max", but I didn't know what the German was for "don't get your hopes up", so I think disappointment and the crossing of my name from all future lessons is on the cards.

I think I might try and blag this one with some shit about English stereotypes or Yorkshire pudding or the Queen. We'll see.

Today, my fortune cookie tells me "you are vibrating of energy and power". Wise words China.

NEUERBURG - good lessons

GERMANY

It's coz I's a language teacha, innit?

I'm gonna write this while I'm still in my teachy inspired mood which strictly only ever comes about on a tuesday lunchtime. Tuesdays are when I have my actual lessons which I lead without a real teacher (possibly illegal for assistants), and which are now coming together because I do real things.

There comes a point in these lessons where I feel all "these kids are learning something from me! I am sharing knowledge!" which lasts from about halfway through the lesson until about half an hour afterwards until my head shrinks and I'm me again. I imagine this feeling to be what teachers have all the time after 40-50 years on the job.

My new grammar class is the old one which I often lamented about because it was so mixed, now combined with another similar one. Their coming-together has thankfully given me a large number of motivated and interesting pupils, but this has come at the expense of the crap disruptive ones upping the game. We're talking paper planes and sitting on desks.

But, being the responsible and persevering person that I am, I say "fuck these kids", not like that, and carry on regardless. It's kind of inspiring, not in a cliched way, to have kids still be enthusiastic and ask questions and ask me to do one-on-one grammar with them when the classroom equivalent of the Gaza Strip is taking place at full volume in the background.

I'm also having stirrings of potential German lawsuits against me after I pitched my last stub of chalk at a kid who was pissing me off, except far harder and faster than I intended to and got him square on the forehead. Kind of accidentally on purpose, y'know?

Regardless: this is getting better.

NEUERBURG - in the war

GERMANY

Some German person I got talking to in the street today told me that our market place in the centre of town is bigger than it should be because the row of houses that used to be there was completely destroyed by a British bombing campaign in 1944. Hundreds died, apparently.

I spent the next 10 minutes trying not to sound British.

I'm also still trying to work out the tactical advantages of bombing Neuerburg, short of deforestation and disrupting cows.

NEUERBURG - crazy people

GERMANY

This could turn into a long post.

I thought that after 5 and a half months and meeting a plethora of Neuerburg inhabitants, they couldn't possibly be any new, stranger ones. The ones which immediately spring to mind are the lady who walks round talking to herself, the man who lives on the corner of Tränkstrasse and gazes out of his window at people, all day every day, and the guy who occasionally runs around naked at night in Neuerburg and Sinspelt, with very very wide eyes.

I was walking back from Rewe today when a car pulled up with two guys who I initially thought were from my school. Turns out they weren't, but he said he was having a party that night and would you like to come along too, English stranger? He actually spoke fantastic English - apparently he learnt it from Shakespeare.

So I figured, y'know, When In Deutschland, and because weekends here are boring as shit, I'd take a plunge and speak some bad German to some people I've never met before. Sorted. I was more than a little bit skeptical when he said "yeah man, there's gonna be about 50 to 100 people coming tonight".

In my experience, anyone who proclaims the arrival of 50 to 100 people for their birthday party is the same person who will take 50 to 100 negative phone calls an hour before the party begins. But, this is Germany, so I was cautiously optimistic.

Anyway, we were talking abaout crazy people. So, it's this main guy, the birthday guy, Gary. I arrived at the house at about 6 which turned out to be a little early so we sat in the kitchen and talked for a while. Ohh man. This kid was strange, not in a crazy way, but in an intellectual way. There is no way I can quite describe how it felt. The conversation included, but was not limited to:

• The ENTIRE breakdown of the philosophies of Kant and Nietzsche, including aspects that he agreed with and ones that he disputed.

• The art of Michelangelo, including a famous one of well-known philosophers such as Aristotles and Plato, what he imagined they were discussing and the "simple power of the paintings beauty".
  

• Comparisons between aspects of his own life and childhood and that of Jesus (like, seriously)

• Bizarre, incomprehensible comparisons between his family's names and various real-world situations -

Him: "Y'know that US congresswoman who was shot in the head recently?"
Me: " .. Gabrielle Giffords?"
Him: "Yep. Guess what my mum's name is?"
Me: " ..."
Him, quietly, knowingly: "Gabrielle"
Me: " ..."
Him: "And my dad's name?"
Me: " .. erm"
Him, quietly, knowingly: "Carl"
Me: "What the goddamn fuck does Carl have anything to do with?"

(I didn't say this, but I thought it)

• His place in the world as a young boy, advanced and knowledgeable beyond his years. He has the power to "read people" and feel their thoughts. He also told me this wasn't limited to people he was with, but "in a 1km radius as well". So, Neuerburg. I can read people in Neuerburg too mate. They're batshit insane.

• His awareness of a higher power, that he and he alone can tap into.

• His ability to "feel and not care". I think the phrase he used once was "feeling more than people want to feel". He promptly shows me a self inflicted gash across his wrist and points out "this wasn't suicide, I'm a very happy person. I just wanted to feel"

• He continued the suicide theme with "I was once stood on a roof about 7 metres high. I jumped off it, because I wanted to feel pain, something real. So I did, and broke both my hands. Now a normal person would have just lay on the floor crying for at least 10 minutes, but I was able to stand for about a second before I fell down. And there were no tears."
  
  Now, that's still pretty lame, but the next bit however: "I felt as if there was a feather or something brushing my face, and I just knew then that it was an angel who had broken my fall." That is bullshit.
  

• Various references to the revolution, of which we will be the leaders (it started off just as our generation, but he whittled it down to just me and him as the night went on) and comparisons between himself and Barack Obama in terms of childhood and rise to power.

• A detailed explanation of the Illuminati, which as we all know is a secret underground sect controlling the whole world from behind the scenes. Turns out they're Jewish as well. He knows. Who'd have thunk it?

Thats probably about 80% of the whole hour and a half long conversation. I say 'conversation', it was more just him talking and me nodding blankly. Strangers with this kind of honesty make me go a big uncertain one. I couldn't have joined in if I wanted to. It was like talking to a German composite combining Jesus and Dr. Manhattan.

And throughout all of this, he decided to play the musical score of Inception in the background, which made it oh so much more terrifying. Apparently that film realigned his perception of dreams and subconscious and has given him some form of partial enlightenment. His words, not mine.

And the crowning comment came just before I was rescued by more of his friends arriving - "Today I'm only 18, and I'm already more aware than anybody else in the world. Seriously, no-one has considered the world and the universe more than I have. And I only needed 18 years. Tomorrow I'll be 19, and I'll be reborn. I mean that, Max."

Sir, the only thing you'll be reborn with is a hangover and a bedroom that smells of cannabis and chinese food.

As I expected, the whole "50 to 100" thing was an optimistic lie, I think we had 14 at the very most. His friends seemed a little more down to earth, so I spent a lot of time talking to them about normal things.

At about 10 however our hero invited me to come get some beer with him, which I agreed to. We bought beer, and were on the way home, when he decided to take a detour and show me "the highest point in Neuerburg". For me, looking at stuff in Neuerburg is "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, the hoodie and the matching bedsheets" in it's most extreme form. This was no exception, except it was at night.

As we were standing there, on this tiny lonely road, in complete silence, he said "I love this place. Sometimes I come to read the stars. All you ever hear is animals and nature; nothing will disturb you here". And then, in the most perfectly, perfectly timed piece of unintentional comedy, a guy on a moped buzzed over the horizon at about 20kph, coming towards us. I couldn't even help myself laughing. It was moving so slowly, making that 'bbvvvvvvvvvv' sound that mopeds do, and the whole scene was just so prolonged. That may have been one of the funniest moments of this year, but it really was a 'had to be there' moment.

That's all I have for you today. That was such a ridiculous night it's hardly true.

I also just checked my stats again. The irony of someone finding an account of a year in Neuerburg with this post as the opener after putting "way to hell" in a search engine is just beautiful.

NEUERBURG - february so far

GERMANY

Word up!

Yup, I'm in Neuerburg, and this week has been one of the best so far, purely because I did like 4 hours of proper teaching (leading the lesson as opposed to watching, sighing and nodding) and just had general good times. Turns out Neuerburg has a pretty awesome slide, which I reckon is gonna definitely become a tuesday night ritual (not alone, you understand. Not yet).

The only hiccup I had was trying to coax a response out of a girl I had in one of my support groups. I'm being very careful to explain this well, as usually when I make critical comments about a lack of student response, I get a ridiculous backlash consisting of "oh maybe they're really nervous and/or not confident and/or scared of foreigners and/or recently bereaved and/or mentally disabled". The list goes on.

I've studied that list in depth and have confirmed that she is none of these. I can't even begin to describe how bad it was. There's unmotivated lack of response, and then there's this. It was like interrogating a hardened criminal.

Me: Und wie heiss du?

silence

Me, louder: Wie heiss du?

Her: *indecipherable mumble

Me: Wha ..? noch einmal?

silence

Me: .. noch einmal bitte?

Her: *mumbles some vaguely recognisable name

Me: Right, cool. Uuuuund .. was sind deine hauptfächer in der Schule?

silence


And it went on like this for 20 fucking minutes. If I'd had a taser, I would have used it, just to provoke a response of more than one indistinguishable word. And then I would have gone home insulting this needlessly poor aspect of my job while she twitched and drooled into the floor. This was pretty much the only downside to this week.

See, it's all looking quite good at the moment, because my new timetable is pretty easy while still fitting the year abroad requirements. It's gonna change again sometime in Easter and if anyone's planning on me having a less-than-3-day weekend, they can have it over my cold dead body. And, I'm still getting paid, so I must be fulfilling at least some guidelines.

The only other new thing is what I assume is lack of exercise. Back in August and September last year, when it was ridiculously warm here in the 'burg, I did a lot of walking about in our forests, or just doing general exploring.

Now it's colder, this is less fun, and I think my health is suffering. I broke a sweat putting my converse on the other day. In October time I pulled a muscle putting a sweater on. I think that's my bodys wake up call.

"Hello, Max? Sort yourself out."

Apart from this, healthy eating is a no-go in Germany. It just can't be done, certainly not unless you sacrifice all which is good and tasty in this country. If anyone wants to be my year abroad nutritionist, do get in touch.

I'll finish up with some pics I took from just outside my flat this morning at about half 8. Today was actually a good day, it was kind of 'cool British summer evening' barbecue weather at about 4 or 5 this afternoon, which incurred a lot of England student-life nostalgia. Ho hum.


That's all I have for you today.

I'm gonna put my post about my recent trip to Maastricht on indefinite hold because it'll involve uploading more pictures which I simply can't be arsed waiting for. By way of a teaser preview, there was a boat, a pub, a spliff, a gas mask and breadcrumbed sausage.

What I will leave you with however is this mother of all tunes here, the second half of this sentence in fact being one big link to said tune.

If you haven't had an eargasm by 14 seconds in, then I lump you in the same class of person as the girl mentioned above.

AACHEN

GERMANY

This post, along with the upcoming Maastricht entry are kind of late; Neuerburg's had a 4 day internet shortage, which isn't the worst it's ever been but it's far from the best.

So yes, Aachen, for the third time.

I'm gonna keep this one fairly short and make it more of a pictures entry, because I'm tired and have überhaupt kein bock auf schreiben.

I think the one thing we took away from this trip was rediscovering our ability to go out clubbing and drinking properly. At least in a capacity which involved more than sitting in a smoky pub drinking a lonely bitburger that took 10 minutes to pour. Unfortunately, being away from England where binge drinking has become a partial rite of student living, the effects here were more potent.

This is Glen looking his best at the tame hour of 1.30am. Bringing him home wasn't too much of an adventure, but we did end up seeing the Chinese takeaway he had earlier for a second time, proving to all that free drinks are a mixed blessing and he needs to chew his food a bit more.

He also apologised to the point that we were begging him to stop apologising, to which he promptly apologised more. Glen is fun drunk.


This is us enjoying hungover jam on toast. Never let it be said that REWE own-brand condiments are shit; that jam was awesome.

I simply have to put these pictures up. Background - during our walk round the park, we found a fountain with no water. Dora and Glen took this chance to go 'swimming'. To watch it was like bearing witness to some bizarre cult ritual, which I simply can't describe. A picture is worth 1000 wtf's.

After a few minutes of general swimming about, they held a short seminar on drowning.

That's all I have for you. On the saturday we also hit up Maastricht, over in't Netherlands, but it qualifies for a post all of its own.

NEUERBURG - another new timetable

GERMANY

Today, thank the lord, my new timetable got sorted to a degree that I'm pretty happy with. After 5 months, the old one was getting a little stale and dry, like warburtons left on the windowsill. Or like German bread when you buy it fresh from the shop.

Until this time I'd been balls-deep in one of those occasional time periods of "meh, whatever" and I reckon it's time I got everything back in gear and started pretending to be vaguely professional again. In school and university experience, this affliction, for want of a better word, usually comes about post-christmas time; it emerges early to mid january, takes one look around and flicks the switch of morality, motivation and general outlook to 'indifferent'.

This shit has to stop. Thus: New timetable.

I have about 10 hours a week so far, including lunchtime finish on thursday, free fridays and not-too-early starts on a monday, so cue travel every motherfucking weekend until May. This is by far the best development.

Today in one of my English lessons we spent about 35 minutes talking about national anthems; who knew the British one had 3 verses? It's also made me realise, possibly for the very first time, just how uninspirational and drivelly our national anthem is. The German one is fairly upbeat, bar the controversial nazi verse, and content-wise it's pretty much limited to "We have women and alcohol, yo".

And then there's America with the Star Spangled Banner, which has become a cliche of itself now but the lyrics are still more inspiring than ours.

Later on I was lightly reprimanded for forgetting to sign the class book yesterday, but since it was the same teacher who suggested last week that Britain just kind of sat on the sidelines and watched during the second world war, I couldn't give two shits.