Weekend wanderings.

Last week I had a "Knoten in der Zunge", or so I've been told by my Landlady! This means to be tongue tied, and I agree whole heartedly. Last week was a blip on the otherwise brilliant Auslandsjahr times, and I promise January blues are over and out!

SO the WEEKEND. It has become so that I now live for my weekends. My evenings in Diepholz are quiet little things, and knowing that my next three coming weekends are PACKED full to the brim, I haven't done my normal attempts of organising things with people in the weeks...purely so I can have a bit of me time, do a bit of reading and try get a bit better at reading/listening to German, which often leads to procrastination! It has definitely hit me that I'm leaving in 5 weeks, and I'm well in the knowledge that I'll be amongst English speakers a lot of this time....and everyone knows I love a good panic :P Aside from my evenings of reading/Skype/trashy tv, I've spent a lot of time having coffee and chats with my landlady, which is lovely =)

But on Friday, I managed to escape little Diepholz, and went to the big bright lights of Hannover to visit my lovely language assistant friend Rachel! After having a bit of a funny week, it was so good to see a friendly face. We decided to follow "der rote Faden", or the red thread, around Hannover. This is a red line that's painted on the pavement in a strip, so that one can follow and see all the main Hannover sights en route! I was lucky enough to also have the Hannover expert Rachel avec moi, and as we toured the Stadt I began to realise I actually loved it! I've been warned that Hannover is a bit "grau" and boring, but I honestly think it's lovely. Charming, I'd say! The Rathaus is something else, set on a lake, which even on a horrible grey afternoon was beautiful. People definitely play Hannover down.

Our wanderings took us to this lovely little German tea rooms, where I had "Lieblingstee", purely for the cute name, I'm not gonna lie! After lots of chatting and re-warming, we headed back out into Hannover for more wanderings, and then dinner and wine before my long trek back to the 'holz! It was a very good way to spend my "frei Tag" (love the pun there. Also know it's not funny...)

Saturday arrived, and I cleaned. A lot. Which was fun and definitely blog-worthy news....ha! After completing lots of fun to do list crossing off tasks, I made a very "Year Abroad" move and accepted an invitation to a "techno disko". The thought of this, my friends, scared the living daylights out of me. Techno music is not my forte, plus anyone reading who may remember Opal Lounge circa first year, when they had UV lights? Yes? Ringing bells? To those unfortunate enough to have missed this, said lights sent my hair BRIGHT WHITE and my skin BRIGHT RED and my teeth BRIGHT WHITE. I looked ridiculous. I do remember my friends spending the entire evening wetting themselves! Anyway, I digress. So yes, I went to said "Disko" with Karolina and her friend Alicja. The disco was in the middle of nowhere in a place called Stammwede, in this house that had been converted into a UV lovers haven! Upon arrival, we realised we stuck out like sore thumbs. I do that thing constantly in Germany where I dress up, always, even when I know no one else will.....I looked so silly and out of place! Regardless of it really not being our thing, we chatted, drank and danced a bit before deciding at 1.30 that it wasn't for us.....at least I tried it!

Sunday arrived, and the wonderful Niedersachsen crew (or at least part of) descended on Diepholz! Laura and Rachel were both desperate to see Diepholz, quite bizarely, so I gave them the grand tour! Having looked at the, well, approximately three Sehenswürdigkeiten of Diepholz, we went to my flat, where I cooked Spanish food, and we ate and drank Sangria! Rachel had brought some lovely cakes from Hannover too, so we ate ate ate and all were ridiculously full! I am still full today, true story!

So, this is nearly it now kids. I have only FIVE weeks left. FIVE. That's nothing. I am so scared. As anyone that knows me quite well is sure to know, I am panicking. Especially as we have got to start choosing fourth year options....everything is getting a bit real, hard work is drawing ever closer, and well. I'm trying to keep calm =) I have so many exciting things happening! I'm going to Warsaw on Thursday until Tuesday, so that'll be the next blog post =) Then to Sam's in Chemnitz the weekend after, and Hamburg with the ladies the week after! All's good!

Over and out!

P.S. I'm still obsessed with the Burlesque Soundtrack. Just thought I should let you know.

Being rats, daytime absinthe and other year abroad tales.

Despite some melancholic feelings towards the end of the week, all's well in Auslandsjahr world! So, my last post ended on Friday, yes? Well. I went to see Burlesque Friday evening with Svenja. It was lovely to see Svenja again and to catch up on Christmas/talk Harry Potter =) The film Burlesque however, was something else. To most normal, culture appreciating, music loving film fans, this film would be potentially the most devastating thing to have ever happened to Hollywood. However, I thought it was AMAZING. Cher's unmoveable, expressionless face, Christina's predictable moves, glitter, cheesy music and a hot hot man? BEST FILM EVER. OK, at the time of watching, I groaned OUT LOUD at how bad the storyline was, but I definitely downloaded the soundtrack (my Itunes counter says it's beenplayed 6 times....). So, I apologies if your estimations of me have gone down, but Burlesque is most certainly a guilty pleasure of mine!

OK, my confessions gone and out the way, let's swiftly move onto

my Saturday! So, I got up nice and early to set off to Hameln, or auf Englisch, Hamelin!

This, my friends, is where the Pied Piper (or Rattenfänger for you Deutsch lovers!) story comes from, and I've been wanting to visit since th

e beginning of the year. Niedersachsen/Lower Saxony is always put down for being a bit redundant o

f wonderful places to visit, but if there's one thin

g to get out of my year abroad it is to not judge a book by it's cover! I've discovered so many wonderful little places in Lower Saxony, and Hameln is high on the list of my favorites.

So after a 3 1/2 hour train journey, helped a lot

by the tales of Annwyn and Nathan's Christmas', we arrived in good old Hameln. We sauntered on into the town and wandered through what was a very pretty, yet quite samey, old town. Funny shaped buildings were scattered everywhere, all trying to sell me rats of any description. Obv not real ones. The Pied Piper sorted that out.

The winner of the "best rat themed touristy gift" goes to the Likör shop we found....that sold "Rattengift" (rat poison) and "Rattenblut" (rat blood!). So we were perusing and taking photos of these funny bottles, and we were asked if we wanted to try. Being the students we are, we hastily said yes, and tried said blood and

poison! Now here it must be noted for the slightly lesser minded readers that this was not actual blood and poison, but schnapps and absinthe. Thus, two shots of these and I was well on my way. We returned to this shop later in the afternoon, to sample some more delights and do a bit of shopping (Samuel Cosgrove, I bought an amazing present for you when I visit you from there!). I also bought myself a cheeky wee bottle of Mango and Jalapeno schnapps, that has now joined my "Zeitreise" Schnapps that

I got from the Medieval market on my shelf of things that will never get drunk. I'll have to schlepp them back home for fourth year house parties, me thinks :)

Anyway, said absinthe shot definitely turned me insane. We found a Pied Piper statue, which I then INSISTED we all be rats and Pipers by. In hindsight, I apologise prefusely to Nathan and Annwyn! Ha! We then discovered a really lovely German pub with proper German food, where we hid away for hours, chat, ate and drank, before embarking on what felt like an epic trek of a journey home!

Sunday came, and I worked on my workshop for Warsaw most of the day. My trip to see Magda and Richie next weekend is mostly for pleasure, however I am also giving workshops on "England Today" in Warsaw. I have stitched lots of old lesson plans and new ideas together into a workshop, and I'm really looking forward to giving it a go! Scared, but excited scared! Powerpoints aside, I went for a beautiful lunch at Annette's, and then we went for a small walk in the glorious sunshine! It was a perfect day for me, a nice mixture of productivity and pleasure!

And since Sunday my week has been a blur of school, lessons, Kaffee with Karolina//Kaffee with Cornell and weekend planning! Tomorrow I'm going to see Rachel in Hanover, and on Sunday people are coming to experience Diepholz for themselves! We, my friends, will see...

Post-Christmas Germany!

So, I am back in Diepholz once again! After the excitement of Christmas, Germany was quite hard to come back to. It was the first holiday in a long time that I haven't worked part time in, so I had three weeks of rushing around and seeing everyone as much as possible, as well as spending a lot of time with the lovely family. I celebrated my 21st, again, with home friends, had a lovely Christmas Day with the family, and spent New Year down in London with close friends, and my sister. It was perfect!

Last Saturday I flew back to Bremen. It was hard to leave home, because I'd just had such a nice time, but once I arrived back in Diepholz, with Cornell open armed at the train station waiting for me, I was happy to be back! The one thing I can say is that the language is always hard, on the first few days, to adjust ones ear back to. I feel a lot more "German" again now, which is excellent!

On Sunday, I met with Annwyn, Laura and Rachel in Hamburg, so we could have a wander and a catch up about all our Christmas'! I've been to Hamburg quite a few times, but never really felt I knew my way around, so it was nice to wander and make everything just that bit more familiar.

Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany, and certainly buzzing with people and trade. Whenever I've been, although slightly marred by the many cranes they seem to have, it always feels special to be there!

We walked to Hafen City, the port area of Hamburg. I'd been there before, when Janni came to visit, however my concentration had been more on the terrible weather then- sadly Janni chose a very poor weather weekend to visit! Anyway, Laura had got a new camera for Christmas, so we decided taking silly arty photos by the port would be fun for a while :) We walked along the Elbe until we reached a little cafe, in which we decided to pause for coffee....hilariously, the cafe was called "It's so fresh!". I do sometimes wonder if some Germans realise what their English means, when they use English. =)

Anyway, it was another one of those glorious days in which we seemingly did little else but wander and natter, and it was perfect! We're all returning to Hamburg in February to stay for a weekend before Rachel and I both leave for Spain, and for that I am very much excited, it'll be nice to experience Hamburg "properly"!

After Sunday, the blues hit me somewhat. I think it was a mixture of being tired, and it being a Monday! I've never really had the "Monday blues" before, what with being a student, who often works weekends anyway....but they certainly hit me! When they hit, I always endeavour to make lots of plans, and that's what I did =) Year Abroad is the most excellent thing ever, and I recommend it to everyone, however when you're in a wee little town with expensive trains to places, sometimes it is annoying. I'd looked in to joining clubs in Bremen, but it's too far, too expensive, and too unsafe for me to travel so late on the trains home at night. I don't always feel safe on the later Diepholz trains, and it is better to be safe than sorry =)

So my first week ran by in a blur, looking back! I've caught up with lots of teachers, had coffee with Karolina and done lots of lesson preperation :) My New Years resolution is to be more active with my language learning (geek), and by that I just mean reading a bit more, and maybe a bit of writing =) I'm going to Hameln with Nathan and Annwyn tomorrow, so for that I'm excited! I also have a trip to the cinema with Svenja planned, we're going to see Burlesque....I have been wanting to see it for ages! I'm a little bit upset, however, that The King's Speech doesn't come out over here until February :(

Anyway, bis bald Leute! xxxx