COLOGNE

GERMANY

So this weekend I've been in Cologne with Kathi on another of my growing number of spontaneous trips. I think maybe from all my travel experience so far, Cologne may be one of my favouritest cities ever, simply because its interesting and dynamic in a London sort of way, but its also loaded with culture and history and general good vibes. All this makes it a winner in my books, as I've only ever been there twice and still bum it.

I guess the first thing that never fails to amaze me is Cologne cathedral, or the Dom. No picture will do this building justice. If you haven't seen it in the flesh (in the brick?), then it's the kind of building that might make you say ".. magnificent" out loud. Its that good.


The unnerving thing was there were more police than you could shake a stick at, what with the increased terror threat in Deutschland. Pretty much the entire Dom and Bahnhof were surrounded by patrol cars, surveillance vans and guys in flak vests with submachine guns.

On saturday there was also a big rally protesting against attacks against Christians in Iraq. Only this wasn't immediately obvious; their placards were more in the way of big Iraqi flags than banners with slogans. So a 200 strong crowd of chanting people brandishing Iraqi flags while the armed police shift about a little nervously at the sidelines. It was tense, despite the obvious lack of a threat.


The other main highlight would have to be the Christmas Market. I had bratwurst, currywurst, Gluhwein and all the other special things that they have. It was pretty awesome, even if it was damn cold. Other than this, there seems to be anti-christmas sentiment, such as an effigy of Santa strung up on a lamppost. This wouldn't look out of place in the Middle-East.


And after this we went to see the latest Harry Potter in German. This was actually better than expected; I reckon I understood about 50% of everything that was said. I'm planning on seeing it again sometime in English if possible but until then you can read a more dedicated review here

I'm now back in Neuerburg, where the snow has finally arrived. We ventured outside on friday when there was a gay kind of sleet going on, but now its proper snow and it looks cold and you're gonna have to wait for pictures.

NEUERBURG - Christmas activities

GERMANY

Facebook informs me that the coke adverts have hit our screens once again which means that anything to do with christmas is now acceptable and encouraged. This is certainly the case chez Eifel-Gymnasium Neuerburg, where a fuck-off christmas tree has been put up, right in the middle of the building. The words "safety", "major" and "hazard" were the first to spring to my mind when the caretakers were putting it all together; if it doesn't collapse, then someone will be killed by a falling bauble, I can just tell.

Other folks out here in Deutschland seem to be getting snow already. Neuerburg was scheduled for snow today but none so far, with highs of -8 predicted for next week, which I'll be thrilled to roll out of bed for at half past 7.

I'm also starting to think that constant exposure to shameless German bluntness during conversation is desensitising me to everything. I've been subject to a nice spectrum of material that would probably be considered antisocial in the UK, such as Stefan and his diarrhoea induced cracked-skull incident and the bloke who's wife had recently died, which I discussed in previous entries.

Yesterday I was doing some theatre group work with a guy in the equivalent 6th form, fairly serious, not sarcastic, who announces in the middle of our work session with far too happy a face that "the chicken I had for lunch has gone right through me" and went to the loo for 10 minutes. Upon returning, he explains that he'll probably have to go back in 5 minutes or so. Translated roughly as 'I've had a nice big shit but ohhh, I'll be darned if there isn't plenty more to come!'

1 nil Germany, you and your big chicken shits.

LUXEMBOURG CITY

LUXEMBOURG

I continued my Luxembourg adventures yesterday by visiting the capital city, which is unimaginatively also called Luxembourg. Their lack of thought is compensated by the simple wickedness of the city itself, which feels a bit like York except everyone speaks French. Plus, in comparison to Neuerburg it felt like switching from sniffing a finished glue stick to overdosing on LSD. Neuerburg wishes it could do the catering for Luxembourg's parties.

An example of Luxembourg's tasteful modern art.

Wish I'd seen the lower town on this sign at the time. "In South-Western Luxembourg, born and raised .."

Hopefully I'll be back there before too long; I'm back in the 'burg now, which means the seat tray is back in the upright position and life is stationary once again. I did a couple of hours assisting today, which was alright, and then met a tiny child in the staffroom who had more interesting conversations with the teachers than I've achieved in 2 months here.

I also got an email from the demi-goddess of Leeds University herself, Angie Willshaw, telling me that I'm one of the last people not to have received my grant because the all-important form which I sent back at the beginning of this month is MIA somewhere over the English channel, presumed lost.

I consider this partly the fault of a lack of clarity on the part of Neuerburg's Post Office. A sign on the door politely explains that it has been shut since 2003; the replacement is a stamp machine outisde and two post boxes. This is the crux of the problem - is there a difference between the two post boxes? The instructions on each one are the same, as are the pickup hours, yet one is bigger than the other. Is one a postbox specially for international post? What even warrants two postboxes in this god-forsaken town? I hardly think vast amounts of overflow post are an issue in a town of 1800 where the currency is seashells and vegetables.

My conclusion is thus: One postbox is for normal post, international or otherwise, and the other one is for suicide notes and pleas for a functioning public transport service. Or a Search and Rescue Helicopter. The latter is presumably the larger postbox.

Whether or not this is the case I have no idea; Angie, if by some Christmas miracle you read this, then please send the money on now because you know I've made the effort, even if the document isn't physically in your hand. That'd be swell.

I see there's also some fun stuff springing up on the VLE; apparently there's some variety of "weblog diary" which we have to periodically update, which is a steaming pile of gay. This is particularly so because of its reasoning; there's considerable emphasis on 'the lecturers will not read these entries, nor will they be accessible to other students. This is mostly for you so you can look back and re-live all your year abroad experiences in the future.'

What's the point in that? I have this blog here, as well as several thousand photos. If I want to return and revisit my meaningful experiences in this country years from now, it sure as hell won't be by reading through my poorly written German blog entries that I wrote out of obligation for University credits. The first entry was meant to be enitled something like "6-week milestone". Looks like I'm writing that one retrospectively.

The other fun activity is podcasting, which suggests only one thing: The man with dreads may be in the far East, but he's still pulling the proverbial strings. God love 'im.

VIANDEN

LUXEMBOURG

Well, today I took another spontaneous trip akin to the last one I told you about, except it was in a car and a hell of a lot easier to get to and from. I'm still not sure of the reasons, but me and Maria and a new member of staff from Russia took a trip with one of the German teachers to Luxembourg, where we walked round a little town called Vianden and looked at a castle there.

The town itself has a very Neuerburg feel to it, with all its pink and yellow and white houses, except here they all have shutters on the windows, and signs with stuff like "Wilkommen zu le petit brasserie", because they're still deciding which language to speak.

So I got some pretty sweet pictures of the town, but by the time we got to the top of the castle and all the wicked views of the Eifel and other general 'pretty scenery' opportunities, the battery on my camera ran out, so you'll have to just imagine it for yourself. We also spoke to a real Luxembourgish person; he spoke German in a French accent, which I enjoyed.

Then we went to a little bakery and the Russian lady bought a tartes aux pommes, which I was then elected to carry back home, holding it flat. This confused me a bit, as she'd made such a fuss 2 minutes before of "I am buying this cake for us". I was all like, "Was machst du, lady? Am I the confectionery bitch now? The designated apple pie carrier?"

I didn't say this, but I thought it.

And after this we went for tea and tartes aux pommes at said teachers house, which made me feel a bit like I was in an 18th century drama, as we used the kind of stuff that you'd imagine to be known as "the posh china" and had tea in a teapot. And we had special little forks designed specially for cake. It was all nice and we chatted for about 45 minutes, but I'd be lying if I said that some silences weren't a little too long. Most of the time it was the ".. so .. has anyone got a joke ..?" kind of silence. Otherwise fine.

MAINZ

GERMANY

So this weekend just gone I took a cheeky spontaneous trip to visit Lolly and Ena in Mainz, which was pretty awesome. It was one of the most spur-of-the-moment trips I've done so far here in Germany, which is saying something. It was a pretty awesome weekend. There was beer, sightseeing, steak and some domestic violence, the cornerstones of any successful trip away.

I'll blitz you with some pics, if blogger stops being a whiny bitch and throwing up its "Error 400 - Bad request" box.

So this is Mainz, looking across the bridge that divides Rheinland-Pfalz from Hessen, over the Rhein. This technically means that I also visited my 3rd Bundesland this weekend. As you can see in this picture, the weather was sort of depressing.

This is Ena looking special next to the Rhein when we hunted for where she might be living from February onwards. That was an adventure.


This is part of one of the little markets that we walked through.


Possibly my favourite one. This ones for you Dora; check out these partner towns. You're twinned with Mainz. With fucking Mainz. You should be well chuffed.


There are more but these ones will have to go on facebook, because photos take quite a while to upload on here.

The annoying thing about Mainz is that its yet another German city that cultivates the 'angry cyclist' mentality. I've found this virtually everywhere I've been. Unlike England, there aren't always dedicated paths or areas for cyclists, so pedestrians get in the way more. You'll be more likely to survive if you walk in the road than on most pavements.

If you're just walking along, probably tired because you've been walking all day and thus not really on the ball, this isn't taken into consideration by German cyclists. If they're heading towards you at speed, they'll ping the bell a couple of times, often when they're only about 3 feet behind you. Regardless of the distance, this isn't an "Excuse me please, you're in the way but I'll manoeuvre if possible", signal, it's more of a "heads up, I'm about to hit you and theres jack-all you can do about it" sort of ping.

And then, if you don't do a very quick side step or jump, they slam the brakes on and give you a mouthful as they carry on, as if to say "was that completely nonchalant ping not enough to make you give me clearance space for a bus?"

They so crazy. For realz.

But, sadly, I'm back in Neuerburg now. Apparently we've just submitted our application to host the 2020 Olympics, pretty awesome.

I've only done a little bit of teaching this week, which was today. On Tuesday my class that I teach solo said something along the lines of "We have a class test this week, can we not do english stuff and just revise our German quietly by ourselves?". Yes you can children. Hell yes you can. But today I did a listening exercise, and wrote answers on the board, spoke Denglisch to some 12 year olds and generally caused confusion. Apparently, the phrase "Do you want me to schreib that auf the tafel?" is not acceptable classroom lingo.

Reading it back again to myself makes me think it would be an excellent first line of a song chorus. Or even the band name.

And tomorrow I have to give my lesson on Yorkshire and the North. This wasn't actually my idea, but hopefully I'm well informed enough to plan 45 minutes worth of talk of yorkshire pudding and real ale.

I'm also quite lucky in the sense that I'm getting away a bit more soon. This weekend I'm going to Bitburg with a few of my students; the general, repeated theme of the trip seemed to be "drink gin" and "go to shisha bar". We'll see how that one turns out. And then I have two trips to Cologne planned, so all is looking pretty special.

NEUERBURG - en francais

GERMANY

Today I went into a shop in Neuerburg, asked for what I wanted, followed by "S'il vous plait".

I also think the girl that served me is a student at my school.

I've subjected myself to a fair amount of fuckwittery of late.


This is what I look like as of 11 November, just in case you've forgotten.

NEUERBURG - chinese takeaway

GERMANY

I am writing to celebrate a momentous occasion.

Before shipping out here, I had visions of being able to go to the pub and ask the German barlady (who would always be wearing a dirndl) for "the usual". To which she would respond by pouring a massive beer or two, possibly not charging for the second because I'm such a good customer.

Seeing as all 2 of the pubs here are frequented by old men who I really don't think would appreciate my company, the above fantasy never really took off.

In reality, the German barlady wearing a dirndl manifests herself in the form of a small Chinese lady, and the large beers take the form of Vietnamese duck spring rolls and chicken fried rice. This lady remembered my order after I ate there once. I can now officially walk into a food outlet and the people there will know what I'm after.

I'm sure you can all appreciate the gravity of this achievement.

NEUERBURG - more teaching

GERMANY

I spoke a depressing amount of English today. Like, it was one of those days where I felt especially retarded because all the people who live here seem to speak my mother tongue better than I do. What's kind of demoralising is that its not even for lack of trying; there are rarely occasions where I have to describe something vastly complicated, which may warrant specific vocab or complex sentence structures. Its the everyday stuff, the really simple things, which are thwarting me.

It gets pretty annoying, not particularly because I worry what people will think, but its stuff I should just know by now. Today I forgot the German for "with me" in the middle of a conversation with my mentor, " .. Ja, heute kommt die Elfte Klasse mit .. mit .. ich .. mit mich .. mir .. avec mich .. jesus, fuck! Ich .. bei .. mit .. arghfgh"

My frustration must have showed because she patted my shoulder and kind of tentatively asked " .. in English?"

This would be less of an issue if I could at least convey what I wanted in English, but I'm also finding more and more that when kids ask me questions, perfectly fluently in English, for a word explanation or help with an English text, I have a genuine mental block, which means I kind of flounder, spewing all the vaguely associated bullshit that comes into my head, to which they usually look deep into my eyes and nod very slowly.

Its also difficult to gauge just how much you've actually got across, or to what degree they understood because nobody wants to point it out if they didn't get it. Luckily I can tell when this is the case, meaning I can then launch into another short monologue about the meaning of the word "peas" on page 37, line 12.

I have the satisfaction at the end of the day knowing that I can confuse the bejesus out of anyone, simply by talking.

NEUERBURG - November things.

GERMANY

Sorry for lack of more daily updates on here. I have a lot more things to read and prepare and other school related things now. Yeah, and anything keyboard related is becoming a bit of a task, seeing as both the 'd' and 'e' keys are gone and 'h' is on its way out. Apparently when I'm gaming I run to the right too much and throw too many flashbang grenades.


So, whats been happening? 12 people in Neuerburg were killed in a shootout after the police broke a major drugs smuggling and human trafficking ring here. They were also believed to be part of some international suicide cult. Pretty crazy.

But whatever, as far as schools concerned, its actually getting a lot better. I'm doing proper assistanty things with english teachers, meaning I read English books and prepare material aimed at 11 year olds learning English, which is so much fucking easier than learning the rules of English grammar, translating them into German, and then trying to explain it. I'm gonna try and pass off this class onto an actual teacher.

Not because I don't like them, but I really don't think they're gonna learn a great deal with me. They need a teacher, who I can assist, as is suggested in my official title, foreign langauge assistant.

In a more superficial sense, freeing myself of those classes would mean I don't have to wake up at quarter past 7 four days a week. I don't even know how it got to that stage. I've realised in the last couple of days that I think its also affecting how accurately I can place my 'achievement level' for the day. I'll explain:

Speaking a foreign language for a whole day can get tiring sometimes, because your doing translating and processing words, sometimes really quickly, while still trying to look interested in what the other person is saying. It can get more difficult, as half the time I haven't a damn clue what they're talking about; I couldn't even give a general theme to some of my conversations. Which means that you then have to blag an answer that looks like you understood.

Theres kind of a point of no return, after which the "sorry, can you repeat that please? I am a retard and didn't understand anything" response is just inappropriate. If you manage to say it nice and early, no problem. After a 5 minute monologue? Nope. Right, so where was I?

Oh yeah - doing all this speaking and understanding can be knackering, but in the words of the wise and wonderful Sophie Walker: "If you go to bed at the end of a day feeling knackered, you know you've really worked hard and achieved something". I thought this was a nice sentiment, and stuck to it, trying to speak lots of German and going to bed knackered.

But, like I say, in the last 2 days my common sense has kicked in and said "Max, you go to bed feeling knackered because you're waking up every day earlier than you have for the best part of 10 years. It's not because you're speaking lots of amazing German. Dickhead."

My common sense is cruel, but probably correct.

You'll also all be happy to know that I seemed to have beat my chocomel addiction cold turkey and am now addicted to apple juice. At some, point, I will recycle the 32 cartons that I now have lying around.

Oh, and Autumn has arrived.



He's kicking ass and taking names.

NEUERBURG - Monday off

GERMANY

Apparently today is one of those general days off, not just for the school. I found this out when I realised I was really hungry and had no food, so I went out and everywhere was shut. This does however give me the excuse to go to get takeaway from the awesome Chinese restaurant here.

Tomorrow, I am going to ask a clever person at my school how they would go about teaching the class that I'm meant to 'teach'. I'm just going over exercises and stuff on t'internet, looking for stuff that will keep 5 different ability levels entertained whilst simultaneously improving their english, to not a lot of avail. I don't mind doing teachy things, and wouldn't really be too fussed about catering for different abilities, the only thing really is the subject matter.

Have you ever properly looked at english grammar? All the rules and irregularities and things? It is pretty damn boring. This has all made me realise that I'm not one of those people who studies languages while being all "oh man, look how cool all these grammar rules are! Aren't languages beautiful and awesome?". No. They are ok to learn but a bitch to teach.

NEUERBURG - long weekend

GERMANY

Thank the Lord.

This week finished on Thursday, for reasons I'm still not certain of. The gist seemed to be that Thursday was a voluntary day; in the words of those who tried to explain it to me "the kids can come to lessons and stay here, or they can go home". I don't know how educationally rewarding it was for them, but I didn't end up doing anything on Thursday.

In addition to this, Friday was also a day off, just for teachers, and Monday is free as well apparently. Sadly, in my 5 day weekend, this is the first time the Internets kicked in. 48 hours without internet in Neuerburg is a sad affair.

Thus, there is nothing new really to report. You all seem to have seen on facebook that I kicked a kid out of my class. 25 'likes' is quite a special record. Menial stuff like that suddenly becomes very exciting when you live where I do. I guess the only other thing worth mentioning is that today is the first anniversary of where the mild things are.

Happy birthday you little fucker.

NEUERBURG - no more hols.

GERMANY

I get the feeling that now the initial euphoria of "fackin' hell, I live in Germany now" has worn off, there may be sadly a little less to report on without repeating myself. Not to say that funny and interesting stuff will now cease to happen, it just feels like these times will be a little fewer. Theres nothing I can really yammer over, no real development with school. One would certainly wonder where so much of the current content has come from.

As far as strong veins of blogging ore are concerned, Neuerburg isn't really a fertile ground to be mined.

I suppose that one of the main issues is that as time drags on, expectations tend to grow on this end and the entries that I eventually end up posting seem to lose that subtle light of spontaneity that I enjoy; rather, they lose that sense of musing upon a subject that I try and cultivate.

Maybe the poison element is just inactivity.

Beyond this though, I really do find it hard to envision where the next post will come from. Having got back from France and Holland and back into the fray, I know I'll rarely have the opportunity to just do "chill out" activities anymore, or at least in a capacity that I find to be something really wicked and interesting. This isn't me being a boring sod. I like hanging out with Maria and watching films and whatnot, but I reckon I often forget that my other flatmates are real people with real jobs, and their time probably is better spent looking at their planning, rather than a half empty pint glass.

There was a time when the idea of group activity didn't mean standing before a class of unmotivated 12 year olds, willing myself to somehow blag the rules of English grammar or trying to convince them that teaching can actually be really damn difficult as a result; times in Leeds where something could energise us as a group and lead to brilliant, ridiculous conversations that we'd bring up and laugh about a month later.

I understand that working in Germany has made time management more of a crucial consideration and have constricted what I now perceive as "worth it" to a list of maybe 5 repetitive tasks. I'm just not sure whether narrowing it down like this is always correct, seeing as, in comparison to many other people, I have all the time in the world.


Enough serious musing.

I GOT PAID.

Yep, I'm the proud owner of €800 euros, which meant, naturally, that the last carton of chocomel in Rewe, which has been tempting me all week with its threat of suddenly disappearing, is now mine. The banks also found its way back into my good books as well; if you're not aware, I shot myself in the foot by entering the wrong PIN too many times on my German card, leading to recent money shortages. I was expecting something along the lines of "we'll order a new card, it'll be with you in 10 to 15 days".

To which I would scathingly reply, "And how many weeks do you mean by '10 to 15 days'?"

Then I remembered I didn't live in a country where you need a CRB check and a national identity card before you can leave your house, and was in Germany, where shit gets done. Literally, they typed the card details into a computer, pressed a button, and it was done. 20 seconds, usable immediately. Well chuffed.

And on the 'Max as freelance artist' front, It seems that they want to use some of my sketches on the school christmas card. I don't know who it gets sent to, I think its kids/parents/friends of the school. Whoever sees it, ist mir scheissegal. I'm going vaguely public, and it feels good.

NEUERBURG - back

GERMANY

Whew.

So below you have an account of everywhere worth mentioning that I've been in the last 10 days or so. I was actually in Belgium for a bit as my train went through Brussels on the way to 'Dam, but shit all happened so I left it out.

It took 7 hours to get from Aachen to Neuerburg, on 3 trains, 2 buses, and a minivan because the bus only runs during term time. It cost €50 to do 62 miles. This place is hard to reach. But, I'm quite proud and surprised because it all went so well, all things considered. And all my clothes have been washed, because by the last day in Aachen I smelt like a homeless guy in a brewery. A brewery attached to a coffee shop.

I also tried, for the first time, the little kebab shop here in Neuerburg, the only one of our three food outlets that I haven't tried yet. It was pretty awesome. Then I went to Rewe and bought milk, on a short trip thats seriously tempting me to make a video of myself walking round Neuerburg at 6.30pm. You won't believe how quiet it is here, or appreciate how small the town is until you actually see it.

Its also bloody cold here. Not in a windy way like Holland was, or rainy like Aachen. Just damn cold.

AACHEN

GERMANY

Yeah, I know there's already been a post titled "AACHEN" but it was kind of half arsed because I was so relaxed at the time. This one should hopefully be a bit more eye opening.

Thanks to Ali Clifton and Sophie 'die schmutzige' Walker first and foremost for keeping me entertained, and for Ali for letting me crash on your floor. Anywhere where you can eat Nutella toasties, Lion bar cereal and watch comedy at any time of day is a good place to stay in my books.

I think I may have appreciated Aachen the most out of all my recent travels, seeing as it had friends, it was back in Germany and thus a familiar language, and it felt like an actual city where things happen and I could buy things if I needed them. I bought a new pair of shoes, seeing as I literally walked through the last pair in the space of 2 months, as well as various baked goods.

One of the highlights of Aachen has to be "cocktails to go". Perhaps we appreciated these more since we'd already had a few at the last place, and had just eaten possibly one of the best dinners of our lives, but they were awesome nonetheless. And the idea is pretty novel as well. Sure, you don't feel too classy drinking a cocktail from those plastic cups with lids that smoothies are usually served in, but ohh, they were good. So good we went shopping with them.


I managed to put off going home until friday, which meant I was able to see a little Aachen nightlife, assist with DIY in Ali's flat (with relative success) and do a bit of exploring.

General streets and shopping bits

This one is from when I got lost. Having been left to explore a bit while the others enrolled at the gym, I walked in the vague direction of things that looked interesting and became very, very lost. I guess taking photos was all that I could do in such a scenario.

It rained a lot here as well.

And once again, I'll finish with my favourite. Probably best to view this one full size. Check out Jesus's left hand; apparently he likes Bitburger too. Someone, somewhere, is going to hell.

AMSTERDAM

HOLLAND

Since the pictures from Amsterdam have already made it onto facebook, I'll stick to mainly text for this one. Then you can look over the pictures again and see if imagination matches reality.

It was a pretty awesome few days. I guess first and foremost I should say that Holland is the country from which Chocomel comes, and they are damn proud of this. In fact, its difficult to get anything different. In vending machines, you find the usual coke, water (non-carbonated, Germany take note), iced tea, and then on the bottom 2 shelves there are cans (cans!) of chocomel.

There is even a tiny chocomel car; I'm appropriately excited.

If you want a hot chocolate in a cafe or coffee shop, what do they serve? You got it - hot chocomel. In McDonalds even, if you ask for any drink vaguely containing chocolate, well they have the fucker on tap there, in a big machine between the mcflurry maker and the little metal tray that holds burgers.

Thus, I got plenty of that down me.

As the capital city of a country renowned for smoking pot, Amsterdam was not built with this in mind. The rows of streets, divided by canals with so many oh-so-similar looking bridges, adorned with their little lights, all with strange Dutch names that are very alike .. this is not, as I pointed out at the time, the environment for some stoned person trying to go home. For the record, we weren't always sure where we were but I don't actually put this down to too much weed. Its confusing enough without.

_______________

One of the depressing highlights of the trip was visiting Anne Frank's house. Its quite an odd museum, because the place has been, generally, left as it was during the time that she and her family were hiding, but the walls are occasionally adorned with some poignant section from her famous diary, which for me killed the experience a little.

Hers is the one in the middle, museum part is on the right.

It didn't have the same feeling as the holocaust museum or Hiroshima, possibly because the family hadn't actually died in the house, but there was still a sense of awe that they'd hid here successfully for two whole years. The last part got a little heavy, with holocaust photos and footage and then, ultimately, the diary itself, with its little red chequered cover.

I think I would have found it more poignant and hard-hitting if it hadn't descended down the route of "this tragedy will sell" and had a gift-shop the same size as her entire house at the end of the tour. This contained such tasteless treasures as replica (blank) diaries with the red check cover, picture frames with a picture of Anne Frank in it, in case you're making a shrine or forget what she looks like when your filling your replica diary with your own accounts of racial persecution, and the piece-de-resistance - the diary, in the form of a graphic novel. For those among us who can't be arsed to read, and like pictures of Nazis. The shop really pissed me off.

_______________

To beat the bouts of depression that came about as a result of dropping by Anne Frank's, we hired two pedalos (€50 deposit each, the Dutch want their pedalos back) and decided to do a little sightseeing from the river. I took the "HMS Anal bike" with Ali and Pip, while the others followed behind in "HMS Dora".

Our trusty vehicle ..

.. followed by HMS Dora

I think our hour on the pedalos could have been better if it hadn't rained like an absolute bitch about 20 minutes in, meaning we had to pedal and take shelter underneath bridges, to the amusement of everyone who saw us. I think it would be fair to say that we nearly caused some pretty major accidents and pissed off a few tourist-boat drivers, seeing as we frequently got in their way.

They had no right to look angry. There is no dedicated section, like a cycle path for canals, for pedalos to go. Its impossible to predict if you're about to be hit by a boat. There are signs saying "boats cross at this point", except in Dutch, so more like "bootz kruz it thitz ponkt" (probably with more 'j's as well)

But when you're in a pedalo, you have to very tentatively creep out to look left and right through the tunnels, and then when you inevitably see a boat cruising towards you at 20 mph (which is a fair speed for these canals) you have that pang of panic and terror and either backpedal as fast as you can or risk it and try and make it past.

It wasn't really a relaxing aftermath activity

______________

As far as coffee shops are concerned, I think more of these are needed in the UK. And not in a "I want to be completely baked all the time" sort of way. More in the way of "I want to sit on cushions, drinking hot chocolate, doing fuck all for a long, long time". For those of you studying at Leeds, think Barakas in Hyde Park. Except with hot chocolate, and all the time.


This isn't to say that weed can't heighten the experience. This is certainly true in terms of artistic inspiration. Ali is now the proud owner of a picture of 'Geoffrey the robot unicorn'. Nuclear powered. And backed up with the kind of reasoning that only weed can provide - "Give him a speech bubble saying 'I'm a unicorn, bitch'. Cos then everyone will know he's a complete asshole".

I dare anyone to challenge this deduction.

The other highlight would have been the homemade bong. I'm not sure if any of us got a picture of it, but it was a crude yet beautiful work of genius. The things you can do with a bottle of water and a broken pen.

_______________

On the first night we took a short detour through the red light district, which was a bit weird. One of the things that struck me was the addition of rooms with blue lights, which have lots of people that look like pretty convincing women but are actually the opposite. There were some scary looking fuckers in those little blue rooms.

In-keeping with this theme, we also visited one of the sex museums, which was fascinating in an odd sort of way.


There seemed to be very little in the way of information, mostly just lots of unnerving animatronic mannequins doing things that look pretty creepy when done by a mannequin. There were also needless things, like a giant knob and balls. Just for fun, y'know?

And a table made of knobs. Dora is seen in this picture looking a little too happy.

"Look guys! More cock than I know what to do with!"

The best part about this table was the people who were just ahead of us in the museum. Some Dutch girl in front of us walked into this room just as someone called her mobile, and as she answered she just leant absent mindedly on this table while she spoke and held one of the knobs in her hand. She did this for about 5 minutes, occasionally switching which one she was holding onto, or running her hand over the tops of them without really looking. Then she ended the conversation and left, without even realising. I guess it was one of those 'you had to be there' sort of scenarios, but it was pretty damn funny at the time.

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Thats all for Amsterdam, because this post is becoming a novel.

LUXEMBOURG

LUXEMBOURG

I think Luxembourg qualifies for its own post simply because France was inaccessible without going through Luxembourg. What with Neuerburg being only 20 minutes from the border with Luxembourg, there isn't much in the way of changing scenery, although it is enjoyable to drive over a bridge no more than 50 metres or so wide, and suddenly find that the language, road signs, and nationality has all changed.


This is us driving over said bridge. I don't know if the Germany-Luxembourg border ends at the halfway point of the bridge, which would mean this photo was technically taken in Luxembourg if this is the case, or if the border starts at the other side, which would make this bridge and river no-mans-land. I like to think this is kept as a buffer zone, in the event of a 3rd World War.



Thats Germany from the Luxembourgish side of the river. Luckily it ain't like Korea.


Possibly the best excuse to work Luxembourg into any European holiday destination list; the petrol prices decrease rapidly. Most of the students who can drive in Neuerburg will nip over the border for their petrol, because the difference is just ridiculous. Needless to say, we filled up here very cheaply, and uncertain whether to speak French or German.


Pretty much the only really urban area we came across in our Luxembourg - France route. The rest was mostly windy roads and lots of trees, like Neuerburg. Its all quite nice though.


And this is the last point of our half hour trip through Luxembourg, from Germany to France. It got very French indeed after this.

L'ISLE JOURDAIN

FRANCE

So the first leg of my mini-European tour was France. I stayed with a friend in a little village called L'isle Jourdain, which reminded me in a lot of ways of Neuerburg, except that it had more of a village feel to it, which made it better somehow. Neuerburg has the same sort of mentality, but thinks its more of a town than it actually is.

Neuerburg is a pretty, pretty town, but L'isle Jourdain wins this round. Especially since the weather was awesome as well. Check this out.


This is it from the viaduct. Its probably best to view this full size in a new tab or whatever, I think they've been a little compressed. Its also worth noting that none of the viaduct pictures actually do its height justice, it was fucking enormous.

See, its all pretty like.


This is the street I stayed on, pretty typical of the entire village. The house was the one on the left with the white shutters. Apparently in Frogland its considered very unusual for a house not to have shutters on the windows. And if you don't lock them all up when you leave the house, and you then get broken into, it can affect your insurance claim. This was news to me.


It also has a load of old buildings like this, which I absolutely bum. The house I was in was standing when old Louis was still on the throne. Shitload of history and unaltered shops and cafes in this village.


I took this while Alex went to the bank. I guess I was fascinated by the three wheeled approach to this lady's little trolley thing. I still can't figure out how it works.


This is Alex looking a little glazed after we looked round a church.

But this is the best bit! Apparently, because L'isle Jourdain has a great big viaduct, a market has opened for people who want to bungee jump. You just ring up a bloke, tell him you want to jump off a 100 foot high bridge attached to a piece of elastic et voila! He gives you a date and a time. I only found out that it works this way because I was sorely tempted to give it a go myself on the day. Like, for real. But as I say, you have to book, so I took jealous pictures of this guy instead.


I think my favourite bit was when they finished swinging about up and down and were just kind of hanging there by their legs. Some poor french guy had to sit in a rowing boat underneath the viaduct to retrieve the people that jumped. He can be seen in this photo, near the pillar on the right, wearing a white shirt. The man with the crappest of jobs.


Again, view full size. You get a better idea of scale in this one as well.

We also visited a place called Montmorillon, which was awesome. It had all the pretty and quaint and picturesque aspects of L'isle Jourdain and Neuerburg, but certainly qualified as a town as opposed to a glorified village. Those pics will be on facebook, as they take a while to upload on here. I'll leave you with one of my faves from France though.


This was in the window of the tourist office. It seems that, in a sleepy little village in central France, somebody has lost their wallaby, Harry Hopper. Aside from the fact that a family is worried sick because their pet is missing, everything about this is hilarious.

AACHEN

GERMANY

Oh man, bit of a drought this blog has undergone this last couple of weeks? My hopes of finding easily accessible internet elsewhere on the continent went unanswered.

I'm in Aachen at the moment, after the first section of my grand European tour. There are a handful of photos on facebook and posts to document the times are coming up, but I'm so chilled out at the moment that you're gonna have to wait a little longer for it.

NEUERBURG - pub

GERMANY

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

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

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

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

NEUERBURG - hols on friday

GERMANY

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

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

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

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

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