BRATISLAVA

SLOVAKIA

Ahoj všetci!

Slovakia is the second stop on my whistlestop tour of eastern europe. I'm taking advantage of the Hotel Kyjev's free internet while my friends nurse their hangovers and sleep off breakfast.

So Bratislava has a very Moscow vibe to it, in the sense that you can gaze out of any window and just smell the remains of Communism. It has the same kinda drab, grey, depressing feel to it, which the shite weather isn't doing any favours. It feels like the former Eastern block that everyone kind of forgot about, then remembered it existed before promptly forgetting about it again.

I'm starting to feel that time is being wasted on computers while having exotic ex-communist holidays, so I'll finish this boring as hell entry by telling you that the hotel cashier has just started having a mad argument in English with some guy checking in. Like, passers by stop and watch kind of argument. Apparently the new guy hasn't paid his 50 euro deposit, but is adamant that he has. Hotel man not happy.

I'll do the proper entry when I get back.

EDIT - Monday 16th May

I'm back! So yeah, Bratislava. I wish I could have written this entry a little sooner, because everything that happened has gone and done that annoying post-holiday thing where it all melds into one day. I'll do my best.

I think it's safe to say that Bratislava was very much the middle ground of Eastern Tour; not that it was unenjoyable in any way, it just felt a little more low-key than Budapest and was a little rest camp before Vienna. I'd actually pictured it being a little more wild than it was, what with its reputation as party city, but maybe we just didn't look in the right places.

I think we've established from the little bit I wrote while there that Bratislava is a little more architecturally drab than the other two. This is the view from our hotel.

And a couple of streets. Second one could almost be Huddersfield.

But, on what I think was the second day, the weather cleared up and we managed to find the bit which I'd describe as 'Old town' Bratislava, let's say, with lots of little souvenir shops and cafes and restaurants.

Having just read that back, let me rephrase: We found the tourist area.

Either way it looked a hell of a lot better than the other parts of the city we walked through.

So we looked round here at strange bits of art and various shops. One thing worth mentioning is that it seems to be hockey season at the moment, presumably hosted in Bratislava, or at least Slovakia, and there are statues all over the city of hockey players, each painted a different way representing a different country. Nobody seems to have pictures of them though.

We found a couple of good signs here though:

Happy pig - roasted pig. Click for full size.

A polite sign to please bin your dog.

This next one was for a restaurant shaped like a UFO that was suspended about 100ft above a bridge, there's a picture of it in the boat trip entry. I don't know about you, but "Progressive Mediterrasian" sounds more like a music scene than a type of cuisine.

Walking on the footpath underneath this bridge, we found this, which I presume is Bratislava's answer to the love-padlocked Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne, except .. just not as popular. There will be no displays of love in Slovakia, it seems.

Another view from the bridge; our boat left a little further up-river.

And us walking on the railing, because we could.

One place we did want to go was a club called SUBCLUB in an old fallout bunker sort of thing which was built into the side of a hill. Sadly it was closed, but it looked pretty good (albeit grubby and terrifying).

In the hills just above the bridge, we found a castle and a wicked playground, but me being a moron, I hadn't charged my camera the night before and this is where that day's photos ended. I managed to get a couple before the battery died completely of the city and the bridge (UFO restaurant visible here) but any others I might have to steal from my friends.

I think you can kinda see the difference between the nicey bits and the shitty bits further into the centre quite well here.

So that was Bratislaaaaaaaaava.

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.