As I type this, I am pulling out of Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, and waving goodbye to the East, where I’ve spent a lot of time the past weeks!
Year Abroad hasn’t been all I expected it to be. Do not get me wrong, it is the most fun in the world, but I never imagined I’d be out and about quite as much as I have been. I imagined settling in my town and making lots of German pals my age….this hasn’t really happened like hoped, but I guess my whizzing around mainland Europe to visit what seems to be everyone ever has definitely proved fun =)
The time betwee
n going to Warsaw and Chemnitz was all very fast;- I arrived home from Warsaw Tuesday night, and then travelled to Chemnitz, in the East of Germany, to visit my friend Sam, on Thursday afternoon. Travelling wasn’t all that fun, but I had a new book, and new music and films from my friend’s laptop, to keep me occupied J
After a tiring 6 and a half hours, I arrived in snowy Chemnitz. Chemnitz is
a city in Saxony, and it was named “Karl Marx Stadt” until a mere 21 years ago. The communist vibe is very much present through buildings in the town, and moreover reinforced with the town’s ‘crown jewel’, the Karl Marx head! This was potentially the most imposing statue I’ve ever witnessed.
After catch ups with Sam and dropping off my things, we headed into town to an Irish pub to meet some of his friends, who were all ERASMUS students at Chemnitz University. After a couple of glasses of wine and getting to know some new faces, a relatively early ni
ght was had in order to get up bright and early Friday! I got to join Sam in his class on the Friday morning, I love going into other peoples schools (like when I went to Janni’s too…) because I like seeing how different people work, and different ways of doing things. I am also an incredible geek, so it would seem!
After school and a brief tour of Chemnitz on Friday, we jumped on a train with out pack lunches (!) and headed off to Dresden. Dresden is magnificent. Marred only slightly by the great pain caused by my shoes, we wandered through the town, Sam
giving me little historical insights to different places. Obviously Dresden was obliterated during the war ,but the reconstruction of the old buildings is impressive! Sam’s wonderful tourguiding lead us to the ‘surprise’ of my visit, which turned out to be the most English little tea room ever! We drank Yorkshire Tea (there ain’t nothing better, I tell you) out of quaint ceramic mugs, and I perused all the English Novels, postcards, and pictures of the Royal Family on the walls! It was
excellent. They also sold Tunnocks Tea cakes and Cadbury’s Chocolate buttons. I bought a teacake and the buttons, which are being saved for with a big cup of tea in Diepholz whenever I’m missing home a bit!
We wandered around the rest of the day, discovering and taking pictures like all good tourists can J In the evening, there was a Slovakian evening being held by the ERASMUS students at Chemnitz University. I had so much fun! There were so many new faces, again, and I really enjoyed using my German in a really social occasion, an event not always possible in little old Diepholz. That sounds weird! I’m not a hermit in Diepholz, far from it, but I don’t have the studenty party lifestyle, which is lifestyle that aids ones language immensely. There’s nothing like a glass of wine to improve ones language!
After our crazy cultural Slovakian evening, Sam and I whizzed into Leipzig on Saturday, to continue my tour of Saxony. We met with Gillian, a friend from our German course who is about to move to Leipzig, and it was delightful to catch up with old Edinb
urgh faees J I love Year Abroad, but the security of University (security is definitely the wrong word, but it’ll do!) is very alluring at times! We visited the Stasi Museum, because the headquarters were based in Leipzig. The museum was based in the old offices, and it was all incredibly eery, the whole place reeking of Ostalgie! After a Stadtbummel and being a bit nerdy, we swooshed off to our hostel, as we had decided staying in Leipzig the night would be more fun than staying in Chemnitz! We met some of Sam’s friends from Leipzig, had dinner, drinks, and then went to “British Music Night” at a club in Leipzig. It was amazing, easily one of the best nights
out I’ve ever had! It was all indie music, but popular indie music, and the stuff that you just don’t ever hear in nightclubs. I usually find it a bit tricky to get sucked into this going to nightclubs abroad thing, because I’ve found they can sometimes take themselves too seriously, but Leipzig was perfect! I’ve obviously been brought up in an Edinburgh music environment, where my haunts of the Hive or Potterow are far from pretentious!
So, lots of dancing and singing later, we had a few hours sleep before venturing back out into Leipzig today! Sam’s friends went home, and we had lunch in the cutest little German pub, where you could pay with DM still! I love the East. A very yummy salmon and walnut salad later, we further toured Leipzig, before 16.40 came, and I had to clamber onto my train back to the ‘holz. I’m due in at 21.47, where Cornell has very kindly offered to collect me from the station so I don’t have to walk home…laziness, perhaps, but I decided not to refuse, I’m shattered! Due to a new timetable, I don’t have school until 11.30 tomorrow, which is fantastic! I do love work though, and especially as I only have three weeks left I’m going to request to do more lessons, just to give myself more of a feeling of worth, and to keep me busy. I love being busy. I’ve started giving myself tasks to do, and I have decided to delve back into Spanish starting tomorrow, and begin to mentally prepare myself for 27th February. That’s just three weeks today. I am so scared! I met a girl in Chemnitz that came from Malaga, and she informed me Almeria, the place I will be studying at, wasn’t that great….I’ve dec
ided to not let her get to me, or her comment, as part of my ‘stop worrying about everything ever’ resolution! I’m near paralysed with fear when I think about moving to Spain, but the news that a good friend of mine Holly is visiting her parents who live near to Almeria in March, has cheered me up greatly J Wait, what am I moaning about? Almeria will be absolutely amazing, I know. It’s just that at the moment, the idea of finding a flat, starting a university two weeks late in a language I don’t feel comfortable with, and beginning the process of establishing a group of friends, is all but daunting........
Right, I’ll leave before I write forever. If you made it to here, well done! Just 4 and a half hours until I’m back in Diepholz, I’m going to settle down and watch the rest of Dorian Gray =)
Ciao!
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