'Alllllllter'

So (see what I did there?), week 3 of my year abroad is coming to an end, and it's certainly been a fun one (despite the cold)!

On Wednesday, I was invited to lunch with one of the English teachers, where I was treated to a classic student-esque lunch of pasta with ketchup (yum!). Meanwhile, I listened to stories of his time in London, where he apparently lived on Hampstead Heath with Sting and Duran Duran as neighbours. Impressive! Thursday's highlight was undoubtedly a fun-filled evening of Harry Potter and random-youtube-video watching with Carly, the American girl who lives in Lemgo too. So nice to just relax and not speak German! (Yes, I know that's the whole point, but it can get seriously exhausting!)

Friday, after a brief escapade setting up the Schulfest at the school (a sort of festival, complete with beer truck), I headed off to Bielefeld to get my first taste of German nightlife. After an evening of cocktails and chat, which included explaining the concept of sherbert and flying saucers, as well as discovering what seems to be the catchphrase of German yoof, 'Alter' (or, as they kept saying, 'alllllter', which translates, bizarrely, as 'age' but is just a general expression of appreciation), we headed out to a club at 2am. Now, call me an old fogey, but that's way too late in my opinion! The Germans must just be extra hardcore... The club itself was actually quite nice, and a lot cleaner than some I've experienced (*cough* bunker *cough*), but was strangely half-empty, and everyone seemed to be taking themselves very seriously as they busted their best street-moves to the latest europop. So all-in-all a fun night, even if it was a lot later than my tired-out, doped-up-on-cold-meds self could really handle.

Luckily, the rest of the weekend was a lot more chilled, and involved watching a film and picking fruit with the Reichelts (I now have a giant saucepan full of plums that I'm not convinced I will be able to eat before they go bad!).

One thing this week has certainly been characterised by is the abundance of new words I have learnt. I had a couple of serious lightbulb moments, in which I've found out the meaning of a word and have suddenly realised what everyone's been trying to say to me all this time! This is when a smartphone would definitely come in handy (I'm still in the dark ages with my trusty Nokia C2), so I could subtly look up words online or using an app, rather than having to keep a mental list and waiting to look them up at home. A very significant lightbulb moment was when I was told that 'sag mir Bescheid' actually means 'let me know'. I can't even count how many times I've heard this and just nodded and 'oh ja, ok'-ed along without having the faintest idea what it meant! At least now I know!

Oh well... Here's to another week of new experiences, hopefully none of them embarrassing vocab mishaps.
Tschüss!