BUDAPEST

HUNGARY

I've not really given this much attention blog-wise, but this week I am doing a very mini trip to Eastern Europe. I should have been in Ukraine this last week, which would have been the absolute dogs bollocks, but due to circumstances that may as well have their own entry devoted to them, it didn't happen.

So the first leg of the tour is Budapest. In case anyone else wasn't aware, Budapest is actually two areas, Buda and Pest, the first one being on the west bank of the Danube and the latter on the East, which are now linked by bridges. I think historically this symbolised the division line between the bourgeois and the mad gypsy proles.

This is one of the first signs we saw, on our train towards the city centre. We took it to mean "No Austrians"

As a general rule, the place is very nice looking; most of my friends drew comparison to Prague. These pics are from just outside our hostel and I guess are fairly typical for most of the streets we saw.


I'm not certain f it was because of the time of year, or if we were in the wrong area, but contrary to my weary pre-departure fears of running into groups of moronic stag parties hunting for hookers and crack, we actually saw none. Maybe this was a dumb fear.

I think somewhere at the back of my mind there was also the image of being mugged by some Eastern European in a tight T shirt with a wrench if I left the hostel alone. Call me naive, but I felt a lot safer walking round there than in many places in the UK.

One thing we did manage to avoid, fairly successfully, was Budapest's tourist traps. Because Hungary, alongside Japan and Russia and an uncountable list of other countries, has a currency that translates into thousands for a few measly quid, it's mind blowingly obvious to see how people think they're richer than they are. We were probably loathed by a good deal of the people we bought from for our general money savvy-ness when in reality the dumb Brits abroad should just be fair game.

The previous point leads me to language. After god knows how long studying German and having no qualms about being thrown into a group of Germans and being told to socialise, to suddenly arrive in a country where the language isn't similar, nay totally unrecognisable, in comparison to others was a bit of a shock and probably a bit of a sore point for us all.

On the second day we went exploring properly, but the weather decided early on that it was going to be both rainy, windy and muggy, in whichever order it felt like. First step was windy and rainy, so we took shelter in a playground.



Another thing that didn't help us language-wise was that all we had to go on was a 30 second mp3 of basic Hungarian pleasantries, which would get you about as far as saying hello and then apologising before the bloke in front of you spoke broken but perfectly understandable English. Having said this, we did meet quite a lot of people in touristy areas who didn't seem to speak English, which was terrible purely because it intensified the feeling of harbouring the ignorant foreigner mindset of "I am in YOUR country, why do the people not have the basic courtesy to learn MY language?"

Once the rain cleared up a tiny bit, half of us went off on a walking tour of the city while the other half (me included) headed over the bridge to make the mother of all treks up a large large hill to see the city from on high and check out some old communist sculptures.

This bridge was actually a pretty awesome bridge.

Me on the bridge in rainy rainy Budapest, shortly before climbing the hill in the background.

Team Hill, halfway up, and a couple below of the view so far.

Right at the top we found the promised Communist sculpture. It was the shameless communist stuff too, y'know, like the giant of communism slaying the capitalism allegory dragon.

Yeah, that kind of laughable stuff. We insulted communism.

Sheeran and Pipsquin re-enacting Communism vs. Capitalism.

Even further up we found the world's answer to Minas Tirith. That's Lord of the Rings trivia for anyone vaguely like half the cinematically unfulfilled people on our trip who also didn't understand. Remember the dragon scene? It was basically that, disappointingly without the dragons (except for the capitalist ones).

Like this but without hobbits and a volcano

See?

We did a fair bit of exploring in this bit, although half the balconies you had to pay for so it was hardly budget tourism, nor did it seem worth paying to look at the same view but 10 feet higher. The views we got for free were pretty spectacular.


So the hill was a bit knackering at times and it was a sweaty sweaty ascent, but well worth it.

We saw this sign outside a cafe I believe, somewhere near the bottom of the hill, which presumably only lets good looking people in.

One thing that Team Walking Tour found that we discovered a bit later was a statue of horse. I don't know to what extent the Hungarians are practical jokers, but at least one tour guide gets away with "if you grab the horses golden balls it improves your sex life" every single time. Are we gullible, or superstitious? You decide.


A highlight of Budapest would have to be 'ruin bars' which are essentially old buildings which have been bought, been outfitted with 3 or 4 bars on 2 or 3 levels, and filled with anything and everything. I wish I had photos of them. The first one was a building which had been taken over by someone or some group who gave the building an indoor woodland theme for an art project, the remnants of which are hanging from the walls and ceiling. In the second one we drank sitting on a dentists chair and in an old Trabant car fitted with sofas. You get the idea.

I'll finish up this entry with miscellaneous things.

Pasta called "Nakedli". Immaturity success.

And, in case you didn't see it on the pasta label, Hungary has Tesco! We were probably a little too excited about that, but after 8 months of Lidl and Rewe, Tesco was a welcome blast from the past.

Apart from which, reading signs like this just makes me wish the English language had more interesting characters.

We found a cafe selling freshly 'squizzed' juices. They get maximum points for being able to convey the accent through spelling. But the menu above seems a little more adventurous than the previous place, which simply offered -

€2.60 for cabbage. Tempting, but no.

So that was Budapest. We battled with the 18th century queueing system for train tickets at the station, then caught a train with actual compartments (kind of Hogwarts Express style) where an old man joined us to make it a little awkward and Sophie cut open bread rolls with the handle of a comb.

Viszlát!

NEUERBURG - almost hols

GERMANY

Tomorrow my easter holidays begin, yay! I think I'm supposed to have a support group session tomorrow at about 9, but going on the attendance rate of the last couple of weeks, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic that my holiday may begin tomorrow morning.

This week has not been a good week. As I've already mentioned, the 12th grade are all away drinking on some beach in Tuscany so I'm virtually all out of friends, my lesson on British humour this morning fell apart like dog shit being hosed down, and on top of everything, I've run out of milk. You can drop me somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Germany and make the internet a rare occurence, but you can't take my milk.

COLOGNE

GERMANY

Man, I'm racking up these Cologne trips, right?

Last weekend I was there once again for Dora's pre-birthday celebrations. This time was one of the best seeing as the weather was wunderschön and we managed to gather a 20 strong group to party with, including ones we haven't seen in aaaages.

I reckon I can save a hell of a lot of time by saying that 50% of our time there was spent sitting on the bank of the Rhein, getting sunburnt, eating ice cream and people watching.


There's the recent spectacle of people in roller blades showing off on the paths in front of all the restaurants and hotels, which I've never seen before, and which just seems to scream 'attention whore'.

Our first hostel was fairly bog standard, nothing really to complain about, except that the price they were asking was a little much. The second one, split between 6 of us, was awesomely swish and a big improvement, apart from the fact that they charged for bedsheets and someone had puked lasagne in the lift, which Marina slipped and fell in.

On Saturday, after an unending stream of new faces, ice cream cafes and free city travel, we met up with Dora and her family, who as real people/proper grown ups could afford a hotel with free bed stuff and clean lifts.

In the evening we all went to an Argentinian restaurant for steaks. When I say "for steaks", that's quite a literal statement, as nowhere on the menu did I see anything to the tune of "the steak doesn't come with anything unless you specifically order it". Thus this marks the first time a man has handed me a plate with nothing but a huge chunk of cow on it and said "guten appetit".


Birthdays plus British people plus foreign country equals alcohol abuse, to quote the well known equation, so Saturday night we went out um party zu machen. First stop was a cocktail bar for pre-drinks, a wonderful phrase which should shortly enter the Oxford Dictionary and the catalyst of many a good night out. We spent about an hour in here because shortly after the bartenders begun making our 20-strong drinks order, they lost the piece of paper.

After this we went to a sweaty sweaty club called Underground, which may be the only club that I've been to in Germany that isn't at least 2 years in the past as far as music is concerned. I also exploited the method of hobos this country over by picking empty bottles up off the floor and returning them to the bar for Pfand. Basically, 50 cents per empty bottle. I made €5.50 this weekend.

Sunday I reckon was one of my best days of this year abroad. The weather kept it all together and racked itself up to 21 degrees, the cue for more ice cream, beer and river-chilling. Beer was essential for hangover repair. In the best move of the day, I cancelled my handy lift back to Neuerburg and had an awesome day in Cologne, because God knows you don't pass up this kind of day to sit on trains and then cook dinner for one in the arse end of nowhere.

Another particular highlight was finally climbing the Dom instead of just looking at it. I counted 504 steps; turns out there's 510. Anyway, it was well worth the half an hour it took to haul up the rucksack I should have left with my friends. Here's the view from the highest reachable point (about 100m high).



Here's an example of the literally millions of bits of graffiti thats accumulated on the inside of the towers over the years; not current, but still relevant.


The final act, and a pretty sweet end to a perfect day was Asian food in the Haubtbahnhof with Glen. Man, I could live in that thing. The haubtbahnhof I mean. Not Glen. But he is still pretty special.

And then I rode the 3 hour purgatory journey back towards Neuerburg just in time to catch up with all of my 12th grade students who were about to head off to Tuscany for a week. This is pretty much my entire friendship group within this school, as well as my favourite classes. This week is gonna blow.

Oh yeah, we found this in Cologne. That's not a paint job, it's furry material.


Coming home on the train I was sat near a guy with a huge beard. This really made me want to go travelling and grow a beard. I can hardly grow a beard now but I'm certain travelling would release beard growing qualities. I'd see cool stuff and embrace other cultures, but a cornerstone of the whole thing would have to be the achievement of a beard.

But, in 2 weeks I'm heading off on my mini Eastern Tour with the Leeds folks, which will be amazing as long as I remember to book everything right. Who knows, I might grow a beard.

NEUERBURG - 5th april

GERMANY

The title of this post is somewhat relevant seeing as up to today, I woke up each morning thinking "Hmm, it must be April Fools day soon". I just checked now and it turns out it's the 5th, which by some measure probably makes me one of the biggest fools of all. I actually have those little pangs of disappointment that I missed it, like when you put your hand out for a handshake and the other person doesn't see you, whereby you pretend you were just scratching your chin artistically.

It's not as if I hold it close to my heart or anything like that, but in Neuerburg, days with meanings attached to them are beacons of vague excitement.

I essentially have zero to say today; last night I played badminton for 2 hours, just to make sure I'm as unfit as I thought I was, and then sat up until 2am making exercise sheets for my grammar glass so I wouldn't have to wake up as early today and do it. I may as well have just doodled in my own shit for all the effort it was worth, but at least I felt like a fastidious worker for once this year.

This friday I'm gonna go back to Cologne for the eighth time this year, I think, because the boon DORA is having her 21st. The first threshold of success for this night out will be upon counting how many of her belongings made it full circle and how many are MIA in Cologne's clubs and bars.

Anyway, I'd better go. I think the cleaning lady wants to tidy the staffroom.

NEUERBURG - more party machen

GERMANY

It's a slow day today. I'd had high hopes for our second Abi party last night, but it was simply not a patch on last friday. The people were too many, the drinks contained too much cognac, and as for the DJ, he has a table in hell with a 'reserved' sign on it.

I don't even know if I can attribute it to drunkenness (not mine, you understand), but the whole thing just reinforced the image that everyone here is mad.

Remember in February I posted that entry about the crazy guy who had the party? Well, he was there last night. We had a couple more gems of his 'intellect' that I wish, I wish I could remember more of for you. There were plenty more plain references to the inevitable upcoming revolution (which I will now lead in the UK and he Europe, apparently) which has now been dubbed "Project 55". No, I am quite serious.

I do however remember one quote, or at least the essence of what was said:

"Max, there are very few people my age who can think and understand like I do. I've realised now that people just can't stand up to my intelligence. For example, last week I was talking all night with some guy's girlfriend, and at one point he said 'hey, why are you talking to my girlfriend so much and not to me?' and I recited a page of communicative theory to him, he had no answer. Intelligence is the most powerful barrier one can have."

I didn't really know how to respond to that. Perhaps he's right after all.

The other thing I remember is we went back to the bar to get another beer, and just after we ordered, he said "You know, this is just like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

I think I automatically laughed and nodded, but after 10 seconds of genuine thought (quick scan of the room for an albatross or something), I tapped him on the shoulder and asked "Just how exactly is this like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner?"

And he did that thing people do where they kind of tap the side of their nose and then half point towards you in one movement, and said, knowingly, "Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink".

And I was all "What the fuck country am I in?" which seemed grammatically correct at the time. Men reciting poetry at a bar is just disconcerting. This was the only memorable event in an otherwise fairly boring night.

I also met the cashier from our local Rewe, who I don't think has ever been linked in any way to our school.

The best news is that my wingman has finally made it to Germany after another long 6 months of being apart. He's kicking ass and taking names. We'll probably hit up the kneipe fairly soon in the future, and I'll be darned if it doesn't look exactly like this.


This boy is pretty awesome. He deserves a shout out for this pure fineage.

NEUERBURG - all aboard the fail train.

GERMANY

Hey there. You have what? Yeah, you should see a doctor about that.

If a lamb is a huge miserable onslaught of rainy grey, then yes, March came in like a lion and left like a lamb.


It's thursday night, which means my weekend effectively begins here. I'm actually fairly excited this time round, seeing as this week has been a fairly boring week and on saturday we're having a school party to go with the 13th finishing their Abiturs. Yeah, I swear we had one of those last friday.

Next week 4 English teachers are going to Birmingham as part of this Comenius project thing that was happening last September. I think I did a couple of posts about it. There's the potential prospect that I will be in charge of a weeks worth of classes. Me in charge. I'd allocate myself the title Chief Executive Awesomer. That's probably something like Der Eindrucksvolle Hauptgeschäftsführer. Who can challenge that? And if they did, I'd be all "Quiet, dick. I'm in charge."

Remember a couple of months back when I put my blood card instead of my bank card into a cashpoint? Today I gave it to a cashier in Rewe. I think I must have come across a real tosser, because I gave her the blood card accidentally and started to bag my things. I saw her holding it up out of the corner of my eye, which to me was just a generic red card.

And then she says something like "Uhh .. was?" and I said, probably a little too condescendingly, "Ja, ich will mit die karte bezahlen". I wanna pay by card. Then I looked closer and realised that my account number was 'O RH Positive' and something clicked. It's gonna be so much fun seeing her every day now. There's probably a capture of me from a security camera behind each checkout now, with an asterisk and "Vorsicht - Schwachkopf" next to it.

They're both red, get off my back. And that's right, identity fraudsters; didn't expect the card details to be photoshopped out, did you?

I'm gonna go and try and cook chicken without causing a fire hazard. Wish me luck.

NEUERBURG - fire

GERMANY

2 entries a day isn't a usual thing, but this qualifies.

I just set the smoke alarm off by sticking a red hot pan under the tap and partially evacuated my building. I've just finished explaining to everyone outside that it was my bad and there isn't actually a fire.

I give maximum comedy points to my flatmate Bernd who walked out of his room wearing shorts, flip flops and sunglasses, literally ripped the alarm out of the ceiling, said "yes, well, never mind" and went back in. I think that fact that it looked like he was walking through a smokescreen made it even better.

fire?

NEUERBURG - tuesday feeling

GERMANY

I royally knackered my ankle last night playing badminton. It is the size of a satsuma. What was most annoying is that it was during the warmup piss-about game, after 5 minutes or so. At the end I can deal with, but right at the beginning?

Still, it's a better reason than the last time, which was falling down the steps at Cologne Hauptahnhof. This time at least I can be all "Yeah, I have a sports related injury" which sounds a lot better than"I'm still grasping the concept of putting one foot in front of the other on a stepped slope." And, just like last time, when I walk I look like that white Honda robot, Asimo; halfway between limping and a desperate person searching for a toilet while holding in an imminent shit.

Remember a few posts back I mentioned that feeling I get on a tuesday where I feel all warm and fuzzy because I managed to wing another grammar class without making too much of a fool of myself? I have that feeling now. The lesson was pretty shite, but I still have that feeling.

Tomorrow I'm doing my lesson on the British Political System for the 5th time and baby, this time it shall be fucking perfect. Without blowing my own trumpet, it was pretty successful the first time, but after another 3 re-jigs, this one should be the winner. This lesson will be my Beethoven's 5th.

Today we had a lesson outside because the weather is still great. I've noticed a trend recently that the teacher for this lesson always seems a little more lost each consecutive lesson; he's a good teacher but of late we seem to be doing next to nothing every hour. Or just sort of menial crap that isn't really important. And this point was just kind of validated today when we had a lesson outside. By 'lesson', it was "everybody read the book amongst yourselves. Max, stay here and .. yeah, help them if they need help. Ciao."

They needed no help whatsoever, so I spent an hour just lying next to the class in my sunglasses and doodled. This is the best year of my life after all.

NEUERBURG - another sunday

GERMANY

The internet came back! On a sunday! Take that, boredom.

I've just worked out after 6 months that if I plug my laptop cable into the socket next to the bed, I can keep the laptop on my bedside table when not in use and then not even have to get out of bed to use it when I wake up at whatever hour in the afternoon. If I then put my TV remotes next to the laptop, I can live out my Neuerburg weekends as if I was a morbidly obese bed-ridden person.

Is it bad that this is genuinely exciting?

Twilight is on TV at the moment. It's somehow better in German, possibly because I don't understand every word of the terrible dialogue. It's also just struck me how much all the foresty-rivery bits look exactly like Neuerburg. I might start pretending to be a vampire.

I was talking with my students earlier; apparently some of the 12th grade are going to Tuscany in a fortnight for a week. Tomorrow I'm gonna try and wing myself a place on this thing. I'm not sure what it may cost, but I get paid in 4 days so it shouldn't be an issue.

Last thing I guess is that someone got to this blog by searching "big knobs". Whatev.

NEUERBURG - hangover take 3

GERMANY

Today marks the third intense hangover since being in Germany. Last night was the party for the final years who've all done their abiturs and will soon be leaving.

The party was marketed as being in Neuerburg's town hall, or Stadthalle, and this made me a bit excited that I might not have seen everything after all. I was thinking along the lines of Leeds town hall, or at least some very large old building. Turns out our town hall is a biggish room on the second floor of our local supermarket.

Still, it was 10 euros all you can drink, and I'm gonna properly miss all the ones who are about to leave so it seemed a good idea at the time. I remember talking to Jörg about the Fukushima power plant, and with my friend Peter about scientology. Next thing you know, their hands are on my crotch. Just kidding. Checking you were paying attention. But I'm fairly certain my German is far from good enough to have said anything worth hearing on either of those topics.

I also remember spending the last hour of the night sidling away from some guy with a moustache and nothing in the Respecting Personal Space Department. I made poor small talk at the beginning of the night, but after that he just followed me and stared at me. I felt like Blackbeard and this guy was my moustached parrot. I think this was actually half the reason I left.

So I'm gonna take the blunt and gross direction now by telling you that I woke up surrounded by a shitload of blood; apparently my nose decides for itself when it bleeds when I'm too drunk to do it myself. Cue washing of entire bed. This wasn't the best thing to see on top of a thumping headache and a mouth that 5 tooth brushings couldn't quite solve.

I killed my morning hangover by trekking round Neuerburg. Retrospectively I should've stayed in bed and tried to sleep the bastard away, but at the time I was just hungry for sweet pastry things. Maybe I was still drunk.

There was a mum and her small child in Cafe Brunker browsing cakes and things in the line in front of me. Mummy orders a coffee and a donut. "Tell the lady what you want" she says to her child. The kid ordered a donut, and mum looked far more startled than was really necessary. I wish I could remember the conversation in German, it was just better, but I can only remember that I understood everything.

Mummy: "But you said before you wanted a croissant?"
Child: "No, I want a donut now"
Mummy: "But you don't want us both to have donuts, do you?"
Child, tears forming: "Donut!"
Mummy: "Ok, two donuts" He stops crying.

There's a great deal of emphasis these days on not talking down to your children, but Christ, mummy, your kid must be only 2 years old. Grow a pair or at least draw some sort of line. Kids can be impulsive even when they're two.

Last thing: if I ever die in a roadside accident, please don't let my family or friends set up one of those roadside memorial things with flowers, teddys, a cross etc. Crap like that. I saw one today about 300m down the road out of Neuerburg and I still don't understand them. Cheers.

NEUERBURG - weather

GERMANY

It's been another three days without the internet, so I'm nicking it from the staffroom again.

However this isn't so much of a problem seeing as the weather is

fucking glorious

BITBURG

GERMANY

Shalom y'all.

I'm in Bitburg tonight purely because Neuerburg made a special effort to have absolutely nothing going on. Like, less than usual.

For those of you like Dora who make links between names and places a couple of months after the general public (sorry Dora), Bitburg is indeed the home of Bitburger beer. There's even a big statue with "Bierstadt" on it, just so nobody forgets.

So it turns out that the pesky oral exams that the last-year students are doing at the moment conveniently made today and tomorrow free days. The thing that I find weird is that oral exams here aren't limited to language related subjects. I mean, today was geography, biology and chemistry. What's up with that?

But, this invariably means more free days, so this weekend I'll be hitting up Cologne again to go to what I'm told is a very good club which will soon be shutting down. Pictures should follow.

I also got my first 100 euro note today; they're green. And apparently 100's still count as legal tender, unlike England. This was because I drew out quite a lot of money to do important things like paying the rent. I had that mafia don feeling I sometimes get when I go to see the landlady in her little office and I'm peeling 50 euro notes out of a rolled wad of cash. Good feeling.

I've just realised I worked three hours this week. Three. Last week I worked about five. Eight hours in one fortnight, for which I receive about 400 euros.

Last year, during our pre-departure lectures, lots of the current 4th years, as well as a fair few lecturers and British Council staff were raving to the very specific tune of "Your year abroad will be one of the best of your life so far".

I don't know if I should feel bad about having a feeling of underwhelming guilt. I really believe I've done my best at the 'embrace the culture completely' thing; there's not a lot of choice where I live. But at the same time, I occasionally think about the full scope of what I've done, and will continue to do this year .. and I wonder just what it was exactly they were expecting to make this year qualify as 'best year of life' material, and whether I've missed something along the way.

I can't think of any specific aspects as such, but within the realm of having jack-all responsibility and getting paid for it abroad, they were spot on.

They surely can't have meant that?

NEUERBURG - weather and grammar

GERMANY

I recently stopped checking the Neuerburg weather forecast because it was simply too depressing. Today it is 15 degrees, which is still a bit chilly compared to when I arrived in September, but this is such an awesome difference to the -3's and 4's of the last 3 months.

I have my grammar class in half an hour, today we're doing the difference between "I have" and "I have got". I'm not certain exactly how this one will pan out; when I first looked at the exercises in my book and online, I was all "whoaaa, this is gonna take some deciphering". Then after 5 minutes further study, I realised there isn't actually any difference whatsoever. It's just one of those useless rules of the English language that need to be taught but which are never relevant.

This is especially annoying seeing as this will hardly win the affection of my class, who will probably think along the lines of 'why are you teaching us this shit, Max?"

It's so complicatd to explain a grammar rule that's so menial and then find work that is as equally challenging. As far as easy grammar goes, 'have' and 'have got' is certainly a welcome change from complex tenses, but this one overshoots the 'easy' mark and keeps going until it can't hear you shouting "Ok, stop" anymore.

Does anyone else using German WORD think that the bold, italic and underline buttons are secretly saying "fuck you"?


I'm still immature.

AMMELDINGEN

GERMANY

Today I made the foolish mistake of buggering my body clock, which is gonna get really annoying next week when I have to start getting up early again.

Last night was the birthday party of a girl in my 12th grade English class, so at 8 o'clock last night about 50-60 of us headed to a place called Ammeldingen, another place which I was surprised was even named.

This was all pretty awesome; we drank lots, ate food and had general good times. Most of the crowd dispersed between 3 and 4 in the morning (I didn't know this at the time because there were no clocks and I didn't bring my phone) and then 7 or 8 of us hung around afterwards just talking and drinking. I'd been under the impression that it was about 3am when we were talking, until I went out for some fresh air and realised I'd already missed sunrise.

So I went to bed at half past 8 this morning, and slept until 5. Rectifying this is gonna be interesting.

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.