AMSTERDAM

HOLLAND

Getting to Amsterdam after 2 days in Paris was unspeakably awesome. Even driving was ok. The first thing I noticed upon returning to Amsterdam, and after being in France, was the lack of beeping and honking. In Paris, there's a very strong mindset that holding the horn down for - no joke - at least 20 seconds will somehow disperse the cars in front of you.

It was also wicked to be in a country where people can understand you. There are some countries, such as Germany, where I'd feel ignorant or a bit of a twat for not knowing at least a few basic phrases. When we were looking for our hotel, we saw one bloke outside a restaurant who we asked for directions.

"Excuse me, do you speak English?"

"Yes .. of course?"

How awesome is that? He looked at us if we were a bit special as he said it as well, which made it even better. As if to say 'you're in the Netherlands now, silly Englishman'. Speak whatever the hell you like.

This multiple language thing can however lead to complications. When we were in Paris, we went to an Italian restaurant. The people spoke Italian. The menu was in french. We spoke among ourselves in English, and I had my German head on. It was the single biggest mindfuck of my year abroad.

We also ate at a wicked Italian restaurant in 'Dam, where I didn't try the cucumber because of what it might contain.

This year abroad has done nothing for my maturity. Leave me be.

It was also New Years Eve. Now, I had no concept of what New Years Eve would be like in the most lax country in most of the world. Let me tell you: it is an absolute warzone.

It's fun, but in that kind of "I may die at any minute" way. It's comparable to the opening scene of saving private ryan without the maimed and dead people, and in Amsterdam instead of a beach.

This is my first example. This bit of road was clear because a firework had just tipped over and blasted the crowd 12 or so times.

The rule seems to be that if you own a firework, you have to let it off anywhere you like. So walking down the streets in and around Rembrandt square, there are people lobbing firecrackers into crowds, lighting up those spinning pinwheel things in the middle of the road, and loads of people seeing how dangerously they can live before it's next year, like this lady, who made us all dance by rolling firecrackers at everyone.


My favourite would have to be 3 guys on a bridge, holding onto one of those fireworks which is usually reserved for the 'big finale' of a firework display. It was about 3 feet long. I started jogging a bit when they got a lighter out, and began to run when one said "see how long you can hold onto it before you let it go". If that guy had had a better grip, I am fairly certain people would be dead and that road would be closed. It was an absolute artillery piece.

Other than this, we did a little sightseeing, though not enough to qualify for photos, and visited some coffee shops.

I sketched this man after a few hours in a coffee shop near Rembrandt Square, I'm quite pleased. It's entitled with my favourite quote from the day. That particular question didn't get a reply that I'm aware of, but it was followed, after 10 minutes of complete silence, simply by ".. but, y'know ... people can change .."

Wise, wise words.

This was my favourite sign from that particular cafe:

This sign was just in the street. I'm still not totally sure exactly what it was getting at, but hey? Who can argue with the storing of problems?

And won't somebody please think of the children?

PARIS

FRANCE

As someone who has spent relatively little time in France, Paris was quite an exciting prospect for me. Something about capital cities and stereotypical images just puts me in an excitable mindset. However, I offer people the very good advice of planning well in advance, with ideas less vague than my own, before attempting Paris. Consider this your first free lesson.

1. Driving

This was an experience that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Whoever designed the Paris road system: You are a fucking idiot. Spare me the "the city is constantly expanding and the roads and streets become ever more complex" excuse. It was designed by someone having a seizure while holding a pen.

This is not complimented by French drivers. White lines on a road are something of a decoration rather than a guide for driving in Paris. So at junctions with 3 theoretical lanes, the number of cars in each one goes something like 5, 3, 4, 1 , 12 and so on for about a km backwards. Moscow was better than this.

This is a real graphic of the Paris road system. If what I believe is true, then anything marked in black or white is inaccessible by vehicle.

Once you've survived a junction, if you can make it more than 100 metres without having to make a detour because of a one-way street or 1000 mopeds piled 3 high across an intersection, you've done well for yourself. Our Sat Nav lady must have been crying on the inside. We found our hotel easily enough, but then couldn't find anywhere to park within 3km of it. Which leads me neatly to my next point.


2. Hotels

We were quite lucky in the respect that we were able to find a hotel online with relative ease, which isn't bad considering we booked it December 29th. It was fairly cheap too. We got a few glimpses of it, with sad eyes, from the car window as we slowly passed it by 400 times. And after 45 minutes, we found a car parking space.

At this point, we were so pissed off and tired that we decided to go for the first hotel we found; we had no idea even what direction our original hotel was. After seeing the first hotel we came across and the leopardskin-clad man-woman smoking outside, we voted to push on for the second. It looked like this. I think the star-rating system was a forgotten dream it had as a child.

That isn't bog roll in the toilet. Nor had anyone been to the toilet. Nobody knows what it is. The things on the floor are also dead bugs.

This picture isn't actually blurry. This is to try and show the questionable stains on the mirror. I call this my "screw Paris" face.

We didn't watch any telly for fear that whatever is growing on the wall and bedside thing had laid its spores in the remote.

It was also in a bit of a shit part of Paris. I won't go as far as to say it was a Banlieue but it wasn't too far off. I'm also gutted in retrospect that I don't have a picture of the curtain for you, which was a sheet pinned to the wall.

3. People

I have no qualms in poking offence at the people here. I have met lots of French people. They can be lovely. Most of the ones we met in Paris were either needlessly grumpy or just plain weird. It's been a few years since I learnt French, and though I used to be quite good at it, my parlez-vous-ing has been a bit crap of late.

The guy at the hotel had no concept of "je ne parle pas Francais" as a meaning for "no speak the lingo, use more sign language please" so we struggled our way through that one somehow. And everyone else was either suppressing anger or, like I say, were just weird. One man stopped to stand next to us and smoke, telling us some story in French while we nodded and smiled and sidled away slowly.

4. The Metro

Now, the tube in any country is always a challenge for me, particularly on home soil as many of you have experienced. If the Underground was in instrument, I'd be crap at it despite years of practise.

This one was the worst yet. The French, it seems, have yet to discover the wonders of what we know, so second-naturedly, as a day travelcard. As in, a ticket which allows for a days worth of travelling without having to change. We didn't have the French version of an Oystercard, so this meant buying a new tube ticket for every journey we made, which wasn't exactly expensive, but after a days worth starts to strain the old wallet.

These cards are so limited per journey that you can't even get through the barriers at the other end. We had to wait in a little enclosure until someone came in from the other side, at which point we ran and quickly pushed past the barriers before they shut again.

If you look in the middle of the destinations in this photo (click to enlarge), you'll see where we took a brief detour to Russia.

I was also a big fan of this man, who has mastered the art of retracting his head into his body during sleep.


The last underground related thing I can think of was the guards we saw in one station. These weren't armed police, these were regular soldiers doing the rounds. I thought this was quite a good move on France's part, what with increased terror alerts of late, until I saw that none of their weapons contained any bullets. Nor were they carrying any. Nothing says security like a magazine-less rifle.

5. Sightseeing

The Eiffel Tower remained as elusive as it did last time I was here, so I decided to check out the Arc de Triomphe. It was certainly an arch. There was also some Triomphe to boot.

Those blips on the top are people. It is what I can only describe as a fuck-off arch. It is mahoosive. We didn't decide to go up the arch (is that even the right phrase? to go up the arch?) because it was getting late, and we were having stirrings of 'we don't wanna be in this country for new year' so we bailed out. Paris is ok, but my god, make sure you get it right.

This is Charles de Gaulle with a seagull on his head.


At half 3, we brushed our teeth in an underground car park and hit the road for Amsterdam. France does have some highlights I guess, but no amount of half-arsed Parisian charm can hold a candle to the Netherlands.

NEUERBURG - hangover take 2

GERMANY

Today, I woke up in Luxembourg in my boxers wearing eye shadow and sporting a moustache drawn in eyeliner. From what I gather, my hosts were going for the Captain Jack Sparrow look. I'm really not sure how this happened.

I can feel a bit of a headache coming on.

NEUERBURG - Post-christmas lows

GERMANY

Thank the fucking Lord.

Neuerburg has just undergone a 3 day long Internet drought. It came back about 20 minutes ago. Ordinarily, such an occurence would be a kind of 'aw darn it' sort of event, but yesterday it was compounded by the fact that the electricity for our building was cut off, for reasons they still haven't explained to us.

I think this was the first time I wished my apartment wasn't so swish and modern, because when the electric goes, it means everythings fucked. Namely, my solar powered wall operated blinds; apparently when there's no power, the default setting is 'pulled up', which makes sleeping any later than 7am a challenge.

The telly was also inoperable, as were my lights, which made everything into an interesting, toe-stubbing guessing game after 5pm. The laptop battery lasted just over an hour before it too fizzled out. That actually felt a bit like an old friend dying.

Showers were impossible because the water couldn't be heated and I couldn't see a damn thing anyway, and nor could I cook because we have those gay hobs that just heat up, as opposed to a gas one.

To summarise, yesterday was a balls balls day.

Tomorrow I think I'm hitting up gay old Paris for some French new year antics. And to find out for certain what the difference between brie and Camembert is.

BOLLENDORF/ECHTERNACH

LUXEMBOURG

Because I'm such a committed language student and all hardcore like, I decided to stay on the continent for crimbles and new year.

The Germans do Christmas on the 24th, and I was lucky enough to share German christmas in Luxembourg with my friend Kristina and her family. On the 24th, we ate a wicked christmas dinner, played Trivial Pursuit in German (we won) and drank too much.

We rolled out of bed the next day kinda later than we'd all planned, and drove up a very steep hill to a restaurant in a place called Echternach, for more christmassy food. I had possibly the best steak ever. I'm aware I give praise easily, but this steak was something else. There was a party in my mouth and everybody was medium-rare and dipped in garlic butter. Oh man.

I'm now peeved because I've realised that I have no photos of this occasion, apart from two landscapey ones I made Kristina take on her iPhone, which she's yet to send me. So yeah, even though there are no pictures, it did actually happen. And it was great.

NEUERBURG - not in the news.

GERMANY

I just checked my stats. Yesterday, someone got to this blog by google-searching "neuerburg germany news today 23 dec. 2010".

THAT, my friends, is what is known as optimism.

I ask this searcher: what were you expecting to find?

The only real news I can think of, though not limited to Neuerburg, is that it is today is Christmas in Germany. I'm heading on over to Luxembourg later to celebrate accordingly.

NEUERBURG - hangover

GERMANY

Morning goslings.

Today I am hungover. Let me rephrase that. I am close to the point of dying in my own vomit while I type this entry, very very s l o w l y. Hangovers have been somewhat rare events these past few months; they now seem to be making up for 4 months lost time.

Last night was Feierabend, because school finished for crimbles yesterday. We started out at a Mexican restaurant, which may have been one of the best meals of my life. I had a steak fajita. Steak. In a fajita.

After this, we headed back to Herr Henkel's flat, the coolness of which cannot be described with words, where the alcohol consumption included, but was probably not limited to:

• Beer

• Vodka

• Rum

• Jaegermeister
  

• Whisky

• Cognac

• The German equivalent of Sourz/Aftershock

And some godawful apple stuff.

We played on the Xbox a lot as well. I remember playing Gran Turismo 5 wearing a pair of night vision goggles. I doubt if I'd have been able to see any better without them.

There was also one of those electric shock machines, the ones where you put your hand into a handprint and it sends a shock through you. It's meant to be used for 'truth' or 'lie' scenarios. I was zapping myself for fun by the end of the night. It also made my right hand jidder uncontrollably again, suggesting impending heart failure as well as a thumping headache.

But - I'm feeling pretty good at the moment, because recently I've managed to do proper socialising. Admittedly it's been socialising in the capacity of 'let's drink', but I don't mind this because, as we've discussed, I speak much better German after alcohol. I believe next monday we're going out in Luxembourg.

Oh yes, and I'm going to Barcelona next week. The Spanish have christmas too, right?

HEIDELBERG

GERMANY

Last week I was in Heidelberg. Heidelberg has always been on my list of 'places to definitely visit in Germany' because everybody raves about it.

We stayed in a friends cousin's WG, which was pretty great. It felt much more like a homely student home in the UK, by which I mean dingy and messy, but in that acceptable studenty way.



We didn't see a great deal of the city because we woke up fairly late, but the bits we did see were good. There are some weird shops in Heidelberg. I bought an extendable fork.



We also checked out the christmas market, and had steak and onion brötchen for breakfast, followed by nutella crepes. And mulled wine; I now have the Heidelberger Weihnachtsmarkt mug to add to my collection. So you know, I am a winner.


The only thing that marred the day was the temperature. In the words of a poet, it was motherfucking freezing. Granted, I make terrible shoe choices, but I really expected five (five!) pairs of socks to make at least a bit of difference on the soaking feet front.

The other thing was this. I won't go as far as to say it marred the day, but it was certainly one of those eye-opening, questionable things in life.

"What to wear today? It's cold out, a coat is surely a good idea. Hmm, and what else? Oh, of course! How silly of me. My silver leggings. My sparkly silver leggings. A modest and well-planned outfit for any city. Oooh, and my fluffy pink leg warmers wouldn't go amiss! Let's break those out, shall we? They'll look lovely over my Ugs."

PEFFINGEN

GERMANY

The weather of late has given rise to the phrase "snowing like a bastard". This will be old news to my German friends and readers, who are trekking through foot high drifts and battling cancelled flights. But, if you're reading this in the UK or elsewhere, let it be confirmed that in Germany, it is snowing like a bastard.

When combined with a Ukrainian Sat-Nav, which seemed to have been programmed with Vostok 1 era data, driving in our area is a task and a half.

So, driving the other night, me and Anna found ourselves in a place called Peffingen, which in my opinion hardly even qualifies for a name, with the car struggling up a steep steep hill. At the top, still following our trusty Sat-Nav, the road stops. Actually, I'm not certain it stopped, but it would have been a gay and inaccessible route in perfect weather.

The only option was reverse. And so we did.

Into a ditch.

Sideways.

At 45 degrees.

These pictures were taken the following day, seeing as it was dark when it actually happened. I don't actually think this picture does the angle and depth of the ditch justice. It was a fair ditch.

In retrospect, we were pretty calm and happy all things considered. If it had been more bumpy and crashy, I might have been a bit more nervous. I wasn't even that bothered about climbing upwards over the gearbox and helping to open the driver door towards the sky.

Two old men, whose appearance, demeanour and choice of living location just screamed "we have tractors and other heavy duty vehicles that could easily pull a car out of a ditch" just stood by and watched. They didn't miss it. They actually watched. I know they were watching; they were the last things I saw before all I saw was a snowdrift.

Did they come over to the car to help us, when we were struggling with the door? Did they even ask if that 45 degree parking might have been a mistake? Did they shite.

So we waited for just over an hour in this cold, tiny village for a taxi.

Luckily, Anna knows other Ukrainian people with a Landrover Defender. If you've never been a passenger in a Landrover defender, there is no leg space whatsoever in the back. And unless you're a small person, the seat is so high that your eye level is above the top of the door window.

But, it pulls cars out of ditches.


This is us being rescued by Ukrainians, and the car after we'd scraped, shovelled and kicked a good 6 inches of snowfall off the outside. It was a fun day.

NEUERBURG - t'internet again

GERMANY

I just got the internet back. It came back in the same night, 2 hours after disappearing.

This never happens.

Normally, it goes, and it's gone for good for that night. It's like losing a limb. An awesome limb.



It's just started snowing again.

NEUERBURG - noch ein bisschen tanzen/schnee

GERMANY

I'll get the title of this post out of the way first: I seemed to have accidentally signed up to some dancing class. Either that, or my name was put down without my consent. The deputy head caught me in the corridor today and asked me first of all if I liked dancing.

I told him in no uncertain terms that es gefällt mir nicht. But, it seems that Maria, the Russkie language assistant is a big fan of dancing, so I'm going along on Wednesday at 8.00 to god only knows what. I have never cursed the poor speed of my "plausible negative response to unwanted invitation" ability more than I did this morning.

________________

In other news, I found out that my English class who I teach alone with piss-poor results do not have any tests in English. Not only is this a weight off my mind in the long run, it also means we're taking full advantage of christmas time for the next fortnight; roll on films and snacks in lessons.

Other sessions are going a little better; I'm still dictionary bitch but I've been recently upgraded to "read this 3 page text, Max. We have the CD but we want a native speaker to read it" as well as other more classroomly duties. The best thing about the reading aloud part is the applause I get at the end. I read in English. It's like getting a standing ovation for eating a pie.

I'm here til next May folks, catch me while you can.

And since I can finally be arsed to upload the photos, this is what costa del Neuerburg has looked like of late:

Taken from outside the door of my apartment and down the road from school

Downtown Neuerburg.

Me being warm in the cold

Rewe in the snow.


Neuerburg's gay-ass post office on the right. Closed since '03

They're all the decent wintery photos I have. The snows mostly melted now but it's a hell of a lot colder than it was before.

TRIER

GERMANY

Last night was the staff christmas do in Trier. This was pretty cool for a number of reasons, the first of which is that the copious amounts of alcohol set my German on fire and I communicated like a fluent, albeit slurred person for most of the night. The second reason ties in with the first; a couple of us went out in Trier afterwards, meaning I had my first real night out that I haven't had to travel at least 4 hours for.

The christmas do was a buffet. It was really tasty, but for bizarre reasons. It was as if someone had pointed with their eyes closed at a load of different menus. There was salmon, venison stew (fair enough), some variety of potato, tagliatelle, and - wait for it - scrambled egg fried rice. Now, all fried rice has egg in it, this is a culinary pre-requisite. But this rice had chunks of scrambled egg the size of a babybel cheese. Like I say, it was tasty, but in a "what the hell, Germany?" sort of way.

We drank a lot of beer. I forget what the drinks tab for the whole night came to, but it could probably have put a fair few students through English university. I was also introduced to Schnapps, which is something like the afterbirth of vodka and Satan's baby. Don't do it.

After this we queued for about half an hour to get into a club. I was having serious doubts at this stage; the coach had gone, and I wasn't certain where I was staying. Score one for dangerous spontaneous decisions. But we eventually got in, and it turned out to be awesome.

I have no idea who these people are. I vaguely remember the guy telling me in English that he was more stoned than he'd ever been before, and that he lives in Sinspelt, Neuerburg's neighbour village.

This is me and Andreas sharing the love. I feel that there's some sort of special bond between us since I sketched him in the staffroom when he fell asleep.

At 5.30 a.m. we crashed, quite literally, at his girlfriend Sabine's WG, which was possibly the most lush student accommodation I've ever seen. Hangovers were flowing thick and fast (literally, in Andreas's case) when we awoke, so me and Sabine had awesome continental breakfast. Never has salami, brie and nutella looked as good as it did at .. 3 o'clock this afternoon.

Sabine and Andreas had uni work and recuperating, respectively, to do, so I headed back out into Trier to see what was going down.

I love Trier because its all so modern and everythings near each other. I started out at the christmas markets. Cue bratwurst and mulled wine.

I was also pretty chuffed to see that Woolworth's has somehow survived the recession in Trier. The only thing it seems to have lost as a result of it's going into administration is the 'S'.

The day took bizarre turns. As I was walking along, there was a sudden load of shouting and yelling, and people stopping the street. I don't know exactly what the issue was, but a lady was pretty angry with a man who I presume was her husband (possibly ex now). She was angry enough to be screaming bloody murder at him in the street in any case.

Just as I was walking past though, she decided that fists beat words and laid a few good punches on the unsuspecting bloke. Spontaneously, me and 2 or 3 others jumped forward without really thinking and held her back. It was like picking up a cat that doesn't want to be picked up; she flailed like an absolute crazy. Eventually she was restrained for good by a huge black guy*, and the man left, looking a little dejected.

*The fact that the guy who did the restraining was black isn't really important. Just in case a film is ever made of my life which happens to include this day, that's a detail worth remembering. It'll make the scene more poignant.

Had I had my fair share of crazy people for the day? No sir. After leaving H&M, I saw a homeless guy with his dog sitting in the street. Homeless people guilt-trip me more in Germany somehow, purely because I know for a fact that, unlike England, I am never out of pocket, and to ignore them here makes me feel more of a twat. So this lucky guy earnt himself all the coinage I had on me, which wasn't loads, but a decent amount.

As I dropped it into the hat, he thanked me and vigorously waved his arms toward himself by way of a 'come closer friendly stranger' gesture. Now, I'm all for hanging out with the homeless, but there's a certain social stigma attached to properly hanging out with them. This may sound cruel, but my hangover was setting off several "You're not drunk anymore. Conversation with a German bum is beyond you" alarms. The street was also packed.

So I kind of half arsedly leant toward him, and he patted my face a little too enthusiastically. Truthfully, he slapped me four times. He said something in German which I didn't understand, and then looked into my eyes and said, very seriously and earnestly, "Dein Haar ist sehr groß". I didn't really have a response to this.

As I was sifting through responses in the same way that Arnie does in the Terminator films, he nonchalantly chipped in with "Kauf mein Hund?" Buy my dog?

Sorry?

"Mein Hund, willst du kaufen?" Do you want to buy my dog?

This took me by surprise. It was a cute dog, but I reckoned this investment could have a lot of potential long-term problems. I felt the familiar pangs of guilt, but no dice, homeless man. I don't remember what I said to him to throw him off the "englishman put money in hat, must want to buy dog" trail, but he took it in good spirits.

This is the last picture from Trier that I want to share with you.

Elektro Bonerz. Make your own minds up.

I put it on a par with this, which I found on a toilet roll dispenser in Cologne.

"All new Triple Willy! For when one just won't do!"

COLOGNE; DORTMUND; BOCHUM

GERMANY

I'm falling a little behind with the up-to-date-ness of recent events, so I'm gonna compile my last 3 outings into one handy post.

First stop on my recent trip was Cologne, for the second time in as many weeks. This was particularly nice as it was catch up time with all the Leeds people, some of whom I hadn't seen in over 6 months. It was also a pretty good excuse to sink back into the 'student' mindset, which saw the novelty of mulled wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This picture is a good indication of the effects of mulled wine for breakfast. We're getting pretty into it. Maria can also be seen on the left. She is an awesome host.

Tragedy struck late in the evening when Emily realised she'd forgotten her golden syrup and was already en route back home. Seven missed calls from Emily means that the shit has hit the fan, or that you've done something wrong. Thus, we were scrambled to Dortmund to return the lost golden syrup, which retrospectively meant another city for me to explore, and which I'm therefore fairly happy about. We also went for Chinese.

Because it was late and Neuerburg is in a galaxy far, far away, I decided to crash in Bochum with Dora and Glennchen, where a fair amount of skilful DIY was done.

The next day we looked round Bochum a bit more. We looked in a fair few shops, where Glen and I tried on hats.

Imagine if my face was wrinklier and I was wearing big clawed gloves, and I could probably be Freddy Krueger.

The highlight of walking around Bochum, or lowlight depending on your taste and open-mindedness would have to be the three piece busking group we saw outside Saturn electronic shop. The term '3 piece busking group' probably puts you in mind of something more than what we ourselves found, but I'll let you make your own minds up.

There were 3 girls, aged about 14-15, sporting a violin, a saxophone and something else which I've forgotten. First and foremost - credit to them for their unwavering confidence. That, or their warped sense of humour.

I don't know who'd taught them to play, or perhaps for how long, but the unchangeable fact is that it was painfully embarrassing. Imagine a bunch of cats having their testicles being put through a mechanical laundry press, while being tasered. Simultaneously, someone in the background blasts out short, unconnected parps from a saxophone at about 50 decibels. I remember now - the 3rd one had a recorder. Purely because it was a recorder, I'm inclined to think she thought along the lines of "My friends play cool instruments - what's the quickest way I can join them short of using a triangle or a tambourine?"

She could have played recorder on the world stage and they'd still have been awkward to watch. I was torn between feeling sorry for them and musing seriously as to whether they knew they were shit but were still in a state of denial and unswallowed pride.

So we left god's gift to earache and went on our merry way to a sushi/Japanese restaurant called "Best friends", which is so shamelessly Japanese it's untrue.

This is me eating tuna fish and rice

And this is Glen and Dora eating Miso soup.

This is me and Glen in Bochum Hauptbahnhof, before I begun my trek back to the 'burg. I call this my 'hey, who farted in Bochum Hauptbahnhof?' face.

Thats pretty much all of it. I'm still in Neuerburg, where it has snowed like Snowy McSnowson. After all my complaining about the boring sleet we were having, Karma reared its ugly head and dropped a payload from the very arse of Winter himself. I have never seen so much snow in my life. Pictures will follow soon, when my hands have thawed.

I did nothing today. School now finishes at 1.05 because of the snow. I've spoken some Denglisch, eaten pasta and drew a picture of a witch.

Tomorrow I'm going to Trier to check out the christmas market. Brace yourselves, Rheinland-Pfalz.