20th April 2013

Hello again!

This week I am going to be recounting some of the nice and not so nice stuff that happened after our Germany road trip in March. I bumbled through April, writing my dissertation, planning lessons, partying a fair amount, duelling with the German language and of course, teaching.

Then, erm, as already mentioned, at around 1pm on Saturday, the 20th of April, Tylor and I were chilling in my room, having had a lazy morning watching Game of Thrones. Suddenly there was a bang on the door and my flatmate shouted "Komm raus, es brennt!" (come out, its burning!). Bewildered, Tylor and I looked at each other, then sprung into action: Tylor had been on the point of leaving anyway, so even had his shoes on, I however was still in gammelmode, so ran out of the house in my PJS, coat, just stopping to grab my handbag and of course, my hard drive with my diss on.

(As an aside, I realise retrospectively that all our fire safety chats back in primary school stressed not stopping to grab anything, but at that moment we couldn`t smell any smoke and well, my panic did not completely override my protection instincts for my diss, so I didn`t follow the advice 6 year old Beth received from the nice fireman, sorry!)

We gathered outside in a group of dazed students in various states of dress and varying states of shock, and watched our beloved Lintzstreet house burn. It had started in the attic of number 13 (next door, on the left looking at the pictures) and spread to the attic of our house.

The attic on fire.

Firefighters. Photo courtesy of volksfreund.de

A quick note on an admirable thing in Germany: there are beruflicher Feuerwehr (professional firemen) in every city, but the nation has a astonishingly well developed volunteer feuerwehr system, which is staffed by people from all walks of life ready to spring to action at any time to help those living in both villages and cities. We had the professionals of course but also the volunteers. After the fire was put out, a group of them sat down on the bench for a well earned rest, and took their helmets off. I was really moved upon seeing they were all gangly, acne-afflicted teenage boys (not a normal emotion for that sight, I can tell you) who had just spent 2+ hours of their weekend putting their own safety at risk. Bravo Germany, and thank you, German volunteer firefighters.

After the fire. The roof collapsed in on itself, a moment where the seriousness of the situation finally hit me, straight in the optimism, and the tears appeared.

The "attic" after the fire. Photo courtesy of volksfreund.de

As a building we were (and still are) very close, and comforted each other, especially those whose flats were directly underneath the fire. However, it was touching to see how the neighbours came out to help the 60 stranded, crying students: the Gaststätte handed out coffee, rolls and words of comfort for example, and a kindly neighbour gave out a fantastically odd assortment of warm clothing for those of us not dressed for 5 hours in the cold to wear. I am grateful to everyone that helped, and to Svenja and other people who came with their cars to pick up friends and take them home.

The aftermath of the fire was a bit hectic. The best thing was it was established that no one had been injured at all, something I`m so grateful for. The bad thing was that everyone was suddenly homeless for 6 days. The worse thing was that of the 12 flats, 6 were damaged beyond repair and were homeless for good. Those of us in the outer flats, my flat included, tried to help those in the middle.

As for our flat, all but one of us decided to move out despite our flat being intact, as the stress of the situation combined with the future of living in a building site made us just want to get away asap. I only had 6 weeks left in Germany at the time, so it didn`t make sense to find somewhere new. I moved in with Tylor (boyfriend, fellow assistant and fellow blog writer, see here) and his welcoming flatmates. 

A little side note: I`m not a soppy person naturally, in fact my loathing of romantic films is despaired of by many long-suffering friends, but I cannot do enough justice to Tylor´s support on the day of the fire and ever since. Not only did he immediately insist upon my moving in and taking care of me, he`s put up with me ever since, and stopped at nothing to get me out of my little shocked closed-off mind that I retreated into after the fire. Thank you Tylor, you are awesome! <3

Your house burning down when you´re living in a foreign country is not ideal, and afterwards I seriously considered the prospect of going home early and curling up with my cat for 2 months. However, stiff upper lip and all that, or more appropriately I love my friends in Trier too much to leave early, and I´m so so glad that in the end I decided to stay ´til the end.

The exact cause of the fire hasn`t been established yet, and there is a criminal investigation underway. Who knows if or when any solid reason will come out. But the Lintzstreet was easily my favourite place EVER to live and I made some awesome friends there. The feeling of unity amongst the people that live there was summed up with the following poster, designed by Dan (M.D.Rezaiekhaligh), a pretty awesome graphic designer from the building:

Courtesy of M.D.Rezaiekhaligh

Check out his stuff at http://www.behance.net/redactedesign and http://flavors.me/mdrezaiekhaligh

Right, drama over. I dithered over wether to write this post or not for ages but in the end I thought well, it was a big part of my year abroad and a learning experience if ever there was one. Next post: some of the nice hikes I`ve been on in the last few weeks!

Tschüss!!