Friday 31 August 2012

2 days to go!!

So this will be my last post before I go, I imagine. I am so excited! At 8.30 am I leave my sleepy village in rural Wales (sheep, or rather cow, heaven) to head to Heathrow and so on to Cologne. Luckily there are a few other assistants on the same flight and heading to the same training so we have arranged to meet in Departures and have booked seats next to each other on the plane.

I've said all my goodbyes now, but though they were of course tinged with sadness it was lovely to see how enthusiastic all my friends were on my behalf. The German "Beerfest" leaving do was hilarious, nearly everyone turned up in a Lederhosen or Dirndl! Happy days, see the picture below. By comparison I'd made little effort myself, simply draping myself in my big GerSoc flag.



I love my friends so much, they are hilarious and I'm so lucky to have them, not many friends would go to so much effort (the guy in the middle's Lederhosen are actually hand made! Also note the ones made from duct tape at the back xD)

A special mention to Abs, Abbie and Kate, whom I've known since primary school:



From left to right: me, Kate, Abbie, Abs.

Kate made me an amazing cake as well, which my friends then demolished as the Lidl Beer took hold so I had to rescue the last part for my parents to try.



So anyway, sad as it was to leave them for a year, I know (cheesy as it sounds) I've got nice people to come back to :)

Then it was time to turn myself to the arduous task of packing. I hate packing with a passion I only contribute otherwise to my hatred of speeding, mud-free 4x4s in the lanes and nail files (don't ask).
My main concern I have to admit was whether I could fit my dalmatian onesie in my suitcase, which is my most cherished item of clothing (see below to admire it in all its adorable glory)



I had my doubts as to whether my onesie would be accepted in German society (I don't want my future flatmates to think I'm a bit special should I wear it around the flat like I did in my student house) but egged on by facebook friends, including several assistants and a German friend who reassured me it would be a positive contribution to my eccentric Brit status and that we Brits would bring a onesie revolution to Germany, I found room for it. Best. Decision. Ever.

Anyway, all packed with 3 kilos on my baggage allowance to spare, hurrah! That's still 20 kilos though, which means that with the shoulder injury I mysteriously acquired in June I won't be able to actually carry it for more than a few seconds at a time but hey ho, life is there for its trials.

Tomorrow brings a lie in, a final lunch with the parents and some last minute things. Should probably track down my passport as well!  And recharge my ipod. Right now I'm copying some DVDs onto my hard drive incase I get a bit bored; I highly doubt I will be fully occupied every evening for 10 months.

So, just 36 (ish) hours to go. BRING ON DEUTSCHLAND!!!

:) xxx

Monday 27 August 2012

The last week on Welsh soil (for a while anyway)

So its now 5 days 'til I leave! I am excited as ever but the sober reality of saying farewells will hit tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be an emotional day in general, as I'm sadly going to a funeral during the day and then in the evening I'll be having a German "Beerfest" leaving party (see keg of Lidl's finest beer below) to see my friends and say goodbye. Unfortunate to have them on the same day, but I couldn't move the party at short notice.



PS. bag in background is my 80 teabags, as mentioned in an earlier post!

Thursday 23 August 2012

Dancing round the kitchen

Sooo. I got the room!! I actually found out 2 days ago but I've been doing family stuff for a few days, I highly doubt anyone's actually been on edge to find out anyway (apart from me).

Anyway, yesss! I have somewhere to live in Germany! I was so surprised they chose me but over the moon, and really lucky as there is apparently a large student accommodation shortage in Trier.  They are so friendly as well, the email was titled "pack deine sachen :) " (pack your bags) and they say I can move in whenever, even if the other girls haven't moved out yet.

So here is my plan for the first week or so:

Sunday, 2nd of Sept: fly out to Cologne
Monday 3rd - Thurs 6th of Sept: Training course in Altenberg.
Thurs 6th of Sept: get train to Perl, in Saarland, to stay with a teacher.
Friday 7th of Sept: Go to the school with teacher to meet everyone and sort out shifts.
Saturday 8th of Sept: move into flat in Trier (well mattress on floor anyway). Flat has massive going away party for two of the flatmates.
Sunday 9th of Sept: Move into room properly.
Monday 10th of Sept: Start job at school.

That will be a crazy week but I'm sure it'll be fun. I'm very excited there will be a party the night I arrive at the flat as it will mean I'll meet a lot of people very quickly, who will hopefully adopt me as their token british friend.

Now all I have to do is pack stuff for a year into one suitcase (impossible), sort out access to euros more sophisticated than a wad of cash stuffed into my sponge bag (complicated) and actually plan some lessons!! (Not impossible but I've no idea where to start!) 10 days to go.

Sunday 19 August 2012

Still waiting

This was supposed to be the day I find out if I got a room in that WG near theSüd-Bahnhof, but unfortunately not. On Friday evening they sent me an email asking if I could wait until Tuesday, as they had one more person to meet on Monday evening before they made their decision. Argh.

On the plus side, this is a good sign, as if they didn't like me they would have ruled me out already and told me so when I asked for a response, so as my dad says they're probably just waiting to meet this last person on Monday and as long as they don't like her/him more than me I should hopefully have somewhere to live. So I can't help myself but hope they have some sort of obvious and terrible habit which immediately puts the girls off them...which is very uncharitable of me but oh well.

So the wait goes on.

However, I have just booked my one way ticket to Germany! At 1.50 pm on the 2nd of September (2 weeks time) I will be flying from London, Heathrow to Köln with Germanwings.

I'm flying to Cologne because the next day I start my Language Assistant Training in  Altenberg so there's not much point going to Trier or Saarland beforehand. 

I've not come across germanwings before, it seems a bit like easyjet though, only even more things you can pay for (just £7 to choose which seat I want to sit in for an hour and a half? Don't mind if I do!) I half expected to be asked if, for the small and reasonable fee of £20 I wanted to get first dibs on the nearest loo.

Anyway,  I am excited. In just 2 weeks and 50 minutes I will be starting my Year Abroad! I have an urge to dance around the room. If I get this room in Trier I doubt I will be able to resist said urge.



Thursday 16 August 2012

J'ai un aveu

The French speakers out there will have gathered from the title that I have a confession to make.  Because, as much as I want to adapt to my adopted country (2 weeks and 3 days!), as much as I love German food and have a soft spot for Sprüdel (<3) I cannot stand Schwarztee mit Milsch (the closest thing you get to a cup of PG tips in Germany) so, shamefully, I am allotting a not-so-small part of my one suitcase to a hefty supply of tea bags.

If they run out, I suppose I will have to rely on relief packages from my parents to get me through the tough tea-rationed times.

I wish I am joking but sadly not.

In other news I am still nervously waiting to hear if I've got a room in the flat in Trier. They said they'd get in touch with me by the 19th of August but I suspect that if I don't get chosen they may not bother to tell me :S Issues. Also a quick search on WG-Gesucht shows me a flat in the same building which has gone from advertising 2 women and 1 man + 2 spare rooms (when I visited) to 3 women and 1 man + 1 spare room...if its the same flat (its on the same floor) does that either means  I'm the new woman  (ooer) or they've filled one room with someone else and have decided I'm not their kind of person.

Anyway, I digress and also more importantly there is nothing I can do. I will ring up on the 18th or 19th if I haven't heard but until then I will sit tight and drucken die Daumen.

I have a plan B anyway but that will wait until Saturday/Sunday's post, should I need to "implement" it.

Hopefully however Saturday/Sunday's post will be one filled with joy and contentement. Watch this space...

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Interlude

Not much to report apart from growing panic I won't have somewhere to live in 2 weeks and 5 days time, but I've come across this list for other (undoubtedly more interesting) YA blogs for your perusal, on the Third Year Abroad website.

http://www.thirdyearabroad.com/home/item/1284.html

But I realise I haven't really spoken about how I feel about moving abroad. Long story short: I cannot wait. I love Germany, adore speaking German and have yet to meet a German I didn't like (except for the one guy who used to follow me home from GerSoc events last year but we won't go into that here). Anyway, I had a difficult 2nd year what with one thing and another and a difficult summer so now I just can't wait to go and start a new period of my life away from former stresses and be properly independent.

I'll be sad to go a long time without seeing family and friends but I'm hardly indispensable and in terms of my friends I imagine we'll all go off to different corners of the world once we graduate anyway. Plus there's always skype and good old fashioned letters, so all in all I still feel quite positive. It'll be a massive adventure. I realise that things may not go perfectly (they never do) but hey at least when things go wrong you can learn from them.

I suspect my YA will confirm what I already am pretty sure about: that I want to live and work in a German-speaking country once I graduate, but it'll be interesting to see if this turns out to be true or not.

There's the small matter of dissertation but at least I get to choose what I write it on; I've chosen to study the use and status of the local dialect within the school, should be interesting.

Anyway, I feel very lucky really that I've got this opportunity of a lifetime to bugger off to another country for a year, not everyone has that luxury of pretty much disappearing into an exciting new life when you're feeling in limbo at home, so I will try and make the most of it.

Monday 13 August 2012

Flat-hunting in Germany: Scenes from Die Fetten Jahren Sind Vorbei

So I have sadly proved my self horribly right by forgetting to update this blog until nearly 2 weeks after returning but hopefully I'll get more in the habit after a while.

So as mentioned before I went to Trier to visit some WGs (Wohngemeinschaft, which basically means a shared flat/house and are very common in Germany, and not just amongst students) that were in the right area and right price and *sounded* nice. Follows is an account of my visits:

Flat 1:
This flat had been found for my by my ex-A-level teacher's- godmother's-book club friend's- friend (confusingly) and was an attic apartment on the river. The apartment itself was teeny but cosy and the two girls I met (one of whom was going on her own year abroad) seemed nice. Sadly though she'd already rented the room until October 1st, whereas I kinda need somewhere to live for from September 1st, so in the end I decided it would be too much extra stress and had to say thank you but no.

Flat 2:
Sounded great on paper. Not so much in real life. I walk in and am hit by a strong smell of weed. The guy (name forgotten) who turned out not to be a student as advertised led me through a dirty, cluttered flat with, no joke, anti capitalist messages daubed ALL over the walls. It was like a scene from Was Tun Wenn's Brennt or something like that. He took me to a room which was roughly half the size it was advertised to be, had no furniture (again, in contrast to advertisement) and had a broken window  and electrical wires dangling from the ceiling. I stood awkwardly as he pointed out the plus points to the room, the highlight being a washing line traversing the room, yippee, and answered my polite questions. The answer to the whereabouts of the other 2 roommates was the most entertaining (by this time I was more there for entertainment purposes, having decided after about 20 seconds I didn't want to live there).

Me: So where are the other two, and where do they come from?
Man: Um one comes from Hungary...he doesn't speak any German...or English, and the other comes from....can't remember, but she doesn't speak much either....infact, I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks, not sure they still live here...

After that I beat a hasty exit to the door, but not before he seriously informed me that interest in the room was high and that my chances of being chosen for it were slim. I stifled a giggle, said "ja, verstehe" and ran for it. 

Lesson learnt.

Flat 3:
Didn't bother to turn up. Though the front door was wide open and there was evidence on the communal balcony of someone having recently been there, so not sure what happened there, presumably they filled the room already.

Flat 4:
This was more like it. Lovely flatmates, though all quite a bit older. Flat was fine and they even had a dog, which was really sweet. Slight issue that they smoked constantly inside, but by this time I'd realised I would be incredibly lucky to find a WG with non smokers, so I was prepared to overlook this. Despite the annoyance of being interviewed at the same time as a Colombian guy who talked so much I could barely get a word in edgeways, I felt I'd made a decent impression and left in high hopes, having only one more flat to look at, that I'd found one I could happily live in.

Flat 5: 
The final flat, and what a flat. Firstly it was SO nice inside, huge bathroom, nice kitchen, separate loo, place for bikes and the two rooms on offer were both lush. Remaining flatmates (there were 3 of them) were hilarious, they were all 19 or 20 themselves and had devised a list of entertaining questions to ask, ranging from sensible ones to "do you like to party?" (when I said yes they grinned and explained that Moritz works in one of the best clubs in Trier and so all flatmates get free drinks).

The deal clencher though was the garden. The flat was in 2 big houses joined together with a huge shared garden. So they took me outside and the garden was full of students, drinking and BBQing in the sun; everyone was really friendly and immediately I felt at home. I told them on the spot I wanted to live there and they were really keen, but they said they couldn't say yes straight away as I was they only person I'd interviewed so far, so they'd tell me by the 19th of August. This was aaaages away, but I never take risks and this flat seemed a risk worth taking so I went for it. Its a week til the 19th now so soon I will find out. If they don't choose me, then I'm back to square one and panic will set in but we'll cross that bridge if necessary.

So that was my flat hunting experience in Germany. Hopefully I won't have to repeat it but if flat #5 falls through I have arranged to stay with a teacher at the school until I find somewhere to live. 

Next on the agenda: lesson planning, because I'm terrified of turning up without anything planned to teach in 3 weeks time!