NEUERBURG - school internet

GERMANY

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

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

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

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

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

It's a Liopleurodon, Charlie.

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

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

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

Maybe the stats are right after all.

NEUERBURG - Deutschzeit

GERMANY

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

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

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

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

Lalalalaa.

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

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

Naja. Egal.

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

NEUERBURG - untitled

GERMANY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEUERBURG - blog-hunting

GERMANY

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

Pushing the boat out here guys :D

NEUERBURG - visitors

GERMANY

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

Yeah, thats happening for real.

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

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

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

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

Watch out, Neuerburg. Watford's 'ere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEUERBURG - good lessons

GERMANY

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regardless: this is getting better.

NEUERBURG - in the war

GERMANY

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

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

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

NEUERBURG - crazy people

GERMANY

This could turn into a long post.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEUERBURG - february so far

GERMANY

Word up!

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

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

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

Me: Und wie heiss du?

silence

Me, louder: Wie heiss du?

Her: *indecipherable mumble

Me: Wha ..? noch einmal?

silence

Me: .. noch einmal bitte?

Her: *mumbles some vaguely recognisable name

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

silence


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

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

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

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

"Hello, Max? Sort yourself out."

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

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


That's all I have for you today.

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

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

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

AACHEN

GERMANY

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

So yes, Aachen, for the third time.

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

NEUERBURG - another new timetable

GERMANY

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

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

This shit has to stop. Thus: New timetable.

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

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

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

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

AMSTERDAM

HOLLAND

This weekend I hit up Amsterdam for the 3rd time in as many months. It gets slightly better each time because in and amongst the thousand million canals with little lit bridges that are all identical, you begin to find some that you recognise.

I'm not gonna upload any of the general touristy city pictures that I took another 200 of, but I will upload some photos of pictures I drew in coffee shops. In all seriousness, I really would push for the legalisation of cannabis. It's not me going down a stoner route, but I highly doubt it would lead to the weed-fuelled state of anarchy the British government seems to believe in. Other than people who are already lost-cause junkies, I think it would just become a way of life, like it has in the Netherlands.

Here we go. Click for full size.

We started off nice and easy. Things ending with "og".

This moved onto improving things to cope with various real-world challenges; namely mice, cats and the Jewish. No Yid can't be improved by Boba Fett armour.

Words can't say how much I love this one.

Why is grumpy eel grumpy??

I think velociraptors in jets is my masterstroke.

It's worth noting that this short piece of prose, although readable in about 10 seconds, was actually composed over about 20 minutes. It's beautiful in a lot of ways.

"Cadence Bear". I didn't even know what that word meant. I've looked it up since, but I can honestly say I've never used that word before in any context.

"ca·dence - Balanced, rhythmic flow, as of poetry or oratory." It's fitting somehow.

That's all of them. I mean, they're only doodles but I do actually hold them as some of my finest stuff. Recreating what you can see in front of you is one aspect of art, but it'll only take one so far.

As Cadence Bear rightfully says, true inspiration is impossible to fake.

NEUERBURG - debating

GERMANY

I think today might mark the first ever real step in actually practising speaking German in a practical situation.

I was in the staffroom earlier; there's this particular teacher who I don't often speak to, but whenever I've heard her speaking, either with myself or colleagues, she spouts off the most godawful bullshit, probably because she has nothing of any real substance to contribute. You know when you make stuff up just to be involved in a conversation? No, me neither.

I don't know. I don't care.

Anyway, the talk somehow flowed toward the second world war and the involvement of various countries, at which point our heroine said that "Britain had a more minor role during the war"

I shit you not. Britain had a minor role in the second world war, apparently.

Now, I'm usually a long way off caring about the banter of stupid people to even bother piping up and interjecting my own opinions, nor am I overly patriotic, but mother of god, did the urge to correct this shit simply overwhelm me.

I leaned back from my computer and begun a wikipedia-esque breakdown of British involvement in the second world war, from the Battle of Britain, to North Africa and the Normandy campaigns, taking care to point out that we had been at war for over a year before the Americans became involved, and 2 years before they even begun combat operations.

I'm all for the Germans being able to talk about the war, but her then outrightly rejecting what I said was still a bit rich. Conveniently some relative of hers is some variety of expert and has written an article about the extent of involvement in WW2, which pretty much makes her correct about everything, obviously.

Well, weren't we in luck. My flatmate Bernd, who loves England and Churchill and all that jazz, and who is also insanely clever at everything shot back with some absolute gold about British Intelligence breaking nazi codes that would otherwise have led to our defeat. 1 nil for convenience! This shut her the hell up for a short while, but she inevitably managed to swing the conversation away to some other subject she could make up as she went along.

I consider it a guiltily proud moment when I defend my country's second world war legacy against the Germans.

That's about it really. According to my stats, someone found this blog by searching for "blog chocomel max germany" in a search engine. That person - you made my day.

NEUERBURG - more snow

GERMANY

In Neuerburg, it's just started to snow again. I shouldn't really be shocked, seeing as they promised us more snow than in December for Jan and Feb. I guess I'm just bitter because Summer here is better. Luckily, it's not sticking because of all the rain of late.

It's difficult to see, but it was actually snowing pretty heavily when I took this photo.

I've also just been told that a kid (well, he's 20) in my english support class is leaving for another school in Koblenz. Not only is this kid the most motivated, he's also the Robin to my Batman in that he helps control the rest of the class when they start yelling and chucking stuff. Plus he was middle eastern, which means that the complete racial balance of class E1 is now completely thrown off!

Fuck, damn and bugger. I will miss that kid.

But, I'm exempt from attending Konferenz today because I'm not a real teacher, which does cheer me up a bit. It's where the teachers meet up and bitch about all the students, except it's official and legit so it's ok. But for up to 4 hours? NO sir.

I found this in a shop in Bitburg yesterday. I like to think 'Beratung' simply means 'Berating'.

"Do you wish for a berating? Please press this button!"

That would be fantastic. Whether or not it was a foreigner like me or a German person who actually knew what it meant, it would still be awesome if you pressed the button and a German shop assistant came storming over screaming for you to shut up and sort your life out.

An alternative would be simply to remove the text at the top, and just leave what's below.

"Please press this button?" Anyone who resists the urge to press an unlabelled button in a supermarket deserves the aforementioned berating. Look at it! The button is even big and red! This cliche writes itself!

GUMMERSBACH

GERMANY

Hi there, how are you? It's 7.52am and I'm drinking a beer. What of it?

This weekend just gone I was in Gummersbach with the Leeds folk, because let's face it, it's been ages since we saw each other. Contrary to Marina's initial reports of Gummers being "quite a small town" it still sports a modest 50,000 people, as well as H&M, the latter now being the first threshold by which the size of a place can be judged. For Germany, anyway.

To be honest, it had a bit of a Huddersfield sort of feel to it, certainly a lot better looking, but this was ok because it was in Germany and I haven't raped every vaguely entertaining bit of it to death. It also snowed a lot, which I'd hoped wouldn't happen because I'm bored of it being cold and wet and my shoes are shite.

Whatev, it looks like this.


The first night we ate Chinese food; a godawful huge amount of really good Chinese food. I can't be arsed explaining the reasons because let's face it, it'll become a novel, but the phrase "Jing Jong geflügel" is probably gonna stick around well into next year. My fortune cookie tells me that I am unbeatable this week.

When out of the house (which I'll say now is probably the best student house ever found on a year abroad; I've been in family houses owned by real people which were smaller than this one. It even had it's own Fritzl style cellar and a mahoosive garden.) we didn't get up to a great deal. We looked round the town sampling bakeries and cafe's and other such things.

Gummers does however have a plethora of weird-ass statues, which often put you in mind of a Salvador Dali painting, or the kind of dream you have if you don't get a goodnight kiss.

Nuts, I thought I had more pictures of that. The bottom one is actually pretty tame I guess. Suggestions about the top one are welcome. It's sort of like the god Atlas, only after one of his legs inexplicably shrunk and the shock made him drop the world. And that second one is a hand holding a book, only attached to legs. WHO KNOWS.

When we weren't posing with statues, we were shopping. We found this in Netto.

Translation: "Black man chocolate". Nothing cuts it like mildly racist chocolate.

And then this, in the films section of Saturn electronics shop.


Sherlock Holmes! In the mystery of "which novel was this based on?" Why is there a dinosaur? What is the giant squid for? Why has the dragon been shamelessly ripped from the film "Reign of Fire"? (which is shit but that's beside the point) Why was it set in 1941? Oh god, the list just goes on.

This was alongside such other gems as "Megapiranha", which was about a load of piranhas the size of whales, and "Big tits zombie", tagline 'boobs to die for'. In TITTYLICIOUS 3D! I .. yeah.

The rest of the time we spent at the house. Saturday night we played a drinking game designed by the national society of heart failure. You know it's gonna be lethal when its a printable sheet from the internet.

It was a pretty standard "make your way round the board" sort of setup, except that only 5 or 6 squares out of about 100 were blank. The rest had stuff like "roll the dice again, however many you roll is the number of seconds you drink for." The ability to consecutively roll high numbers finally turned into people's curse. And then the last square before 'finish' was 'return to start', so there wasn't much hope for anyone really.

And one of Marina's housemates must have been pretty wasted, because he mistook me for a German, apparently. That game was a monster.

This is Dora looking like the well-spoken Hertfordshire gal angry cockney she is.

And then on Sunday I came home, via Cologne. Anyone else in Germany ever noticed in train stations the token 'soldier in military fatigues with full pack' wandering around? Well, he was there. I was also befriended by 3 hobos when I was waiting by the door, which was interesting.

When I was walking to the platform, some of the armed police came out of the security door to the police section. One of them was fiddling with the sling of his submachinegun, trying to fix it to his vest.

HE DROPPED IT.

It bares repeating. The safety catch was off. I saw. HE DROPPED IT.

And it clattered about and a few people stopped and looked worried, and I walked on in the hope that elsewhere my security would be in the hands (literally) of people who carry the power to blow you the hell away who were vaguely competent.

Other than this, it was an awesome weekend; I shall be seeing them again in a fortnights time in Aachen. Now back to my beer.

NEUERBURG - new year things

GERMANY

What with all my travelling of late, I'd almost forgotten that Neuerburg exists. It isn't difficult, let me tell you. What's been happening?

School

Now my travelling cravings have been momentarily quenched, I'm as back into the swing as I'll ever be at teaching English. I have less hours for the time being, seeing as two English teachers have left and we're waiting on replacements, because I politely declined the offer of "fancy taking these two classes by yourself indefinitely, Max?"

As well as this, the guys in the final year are currently writing their Abitur (A-levels) in time to finish in March, which means another 2 hours a week gone because their teaching has effectively ended.

In the classes I do still have, I'm still playing the role of dictionary bitch, which is fine by me because the whole standing up in front of a whole class and bullshitting for 45 minutes is always a challenge for me.

If you'd asked me last September something to the tune of "Do you think that post-christmas in Germany, you'll have some half-decent teaching tactics under your belt and a better grasp of the German language?", then I'd have been all "Fuck yeah, maybe!". In answer to that question now, January 2011, It would be more along the lines of "Fuck yeah, maybe! But actually probably not!"

Note to self: learn how to speak German

Language ability (or lack thereof)

My German is still appalling, despite numerous attempts, kicking and screaming, at doing the whole 'completely immerse yourself in the culture' thing. Discouragingly, and worryingly, I'm also becoming aware that constant exposure to the German language, apart from not improving my ability to speak it, is botching my English.

I've spewed such gems in the past two weeks as "I am going to make a photo of that", because that's how the Germans say it, and this absolute terror: "does it pain?" Does it pain? PAIN? I fucking ask you!

Even in lessons, when I'm given words to explain, I still look a retard. You never appreciate how moronic the English language can be until you've tried explaining it. The word that always sticks with me is 'just'. Think of every scenario you can use the word 'just' in; I listed about 6 different contexts. Then try and explain that bitch, in all it's contexts, in language suitable for learners. Gah.

Conclusion: studying abroad can be a hit and miss affair in terms of improving your foreign languages and in managing to speak your mother tongue without sounding like a foreigner yourself. Let's hope that the wisdom teeth which are currently gouging their way through my gums bring me some of their namesake.

Neuerburg

This is old news, but it's no less relevant now it's 2011: hopping round German cities before returning home to Neuerburg isn't the most fun thing. And then, after spending two days just driving round the Eifel region in Germany, you realise quickly that Neuerburg is the most inhabited place in 25km around.

Contrary to all hopes that H&M might see the beneficial value of a Neuerburg branch, or at least that we might have a suggestion box installed on Marktstrasse, our little town remains pretty silent and 98.4% of the population still believe it's the centre of the known universe.

After 5 months, my list of Neuerburg activities has been expanded from going to the bank and Rewe. I eat at the Chinese place pretty much on a weekly basis, they're gonna lose €40 a month when I'm gone. I buy iced coffee in a can and chocolate from the tiny shop that wishes it sold more things. I buy art stuff at our tiny art shop. If I'm feeling particularly debonair, I drink coffee alone with a bun at Cafe Brunker in the main square.

And the weird thing is, I kind of enjoy it. That even after Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, even Barcelona, I come back from the mad chaotic humdrum of Europe and I still sort of bum this town. Drinking alone in cafe's, praying for the internet, sidling away from some of the genuinely insane people who live here, walking a daily route now burned into my soul and observing the glaring lack of a competent police force - it's still awesome.

And that, my friends,

That makes it very special.

BRUSSELS

BELGIUM

This post is a little late seeing as Neuerburg had another internet drought.

After doing my grand mini-europe tour the week before last, we made the critical error of booking a flight back for friday, which left us with the less than peachy prospect of a weekend in Neuerburg/Bitburg. This is a fairly major step-down from the capital cities of western Europe.

So on the Sunday we made a pretty quick decision to hit the road for Brussels. Having been driven through Belgium a fair few times now to and from various exotic places, I was ready to actually make a stop there and get out of the car. Thus: Brussels.

It was slightly easier to drive in than Paris, though it's worth mentioning that Belgian roads have potholes the size of sumo wrestlers, so weaving all over the place is encouraged rather than frowned upon. We parked in an area like this:



This part had a very Dutch feel to it, almost like Amsterdam with main roads instead of canals.


After a bit of walking, we came across this, which I have to assume is Belgium's answer to Berlin's famous Brandenburg gate. That statue on the top is pretty much a replica anyway. I think it's part of an art museum.


Brussels is also the home of the official council of the European Union. Security is somewhat lax around this seemingly important cornerstone of European politics, though in all fairness, what would any terrorist gain by declaring Jihad on Belgium?


To give you some idea of how cool the Belgians are with stuff happening near this building, this is a sign we saw in that little plaza thing in the photo immediately above.


Belgium must be the only country that actively encourages this. I did notice that it seemed popular in Barcelona, but I'm sure there's still some social stigma attached to going round a city on roller skates.

This sign was on a cafe.

Bless the Belgians. According to urbandictionary.com: "Smoot - A midwestern American term describing a tight and usually clean shaven vagina. It is widely considered to be the highest quality of vagina, and is rarely found on any females with the exception of young college girls from the suburbs."

We didn't end up going to this cafe.

We did however find some German, which after a whole day of reading Frelgian was a welcome sight.


I was all "Glücklich?!!?! Hellz yeah!!"

And then we went home because we had school in 10 hours or something.