The Holly and the Rachel

Hint: the title makes more sense if sung to the tune of 'The Holly and the Ivy'...

So, it's December now. Time to officially break out the Christmas music and drink Glühwein like there's no tomorrow. (Let's pretend I haven't been doing that for weeks already.) Germans do Christmas in a big way, and I won't deny that this was the time of year that I was most looking forward to spending in this country. So far, I've had quite a few Christmassy experiences, which began rather early, considering the school's orchestra started rehearsing their Christmas pieces in September! It even inspired me to download a CD of German traditional Christmas carols. (I'm listening to it right now actually.) I have also been taking every opportunity to purchase all the Christmassy foody goodness in the supermarkets!

Tastefully arranged Christmas foodstuffs. (That house thing is filled with Lebkuchen.) Mmmmmm....

A particularly exciting German tradition that I have discovered since coming here is BAKING. I'm not talking about your standard Christmas cake. Everyone here is crazy about Plätzchen, which are special German Christmas biscuits that everyone seems to bake about a million of around the beginning of December. The Reichelts have about 20 tubs of them, and the mum took a special day off work so they could spend the whole day baking! Now that's commitment. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Backparty (baking party) hosted by a couple of the teachers from my school, and we spent the whole time rolling out dough and going crazy with the cookie cutters. Yum! Although sadly my attempt to explain the concept of mince pies drew nothing but blank looks (possibly due to my lack of appropriate vocabulary...).

But the most exciting thing (by far) has been the much-anticipated visit from my appropriately-festively-named friend, Holly, which I had been looking forward to for weeks.

A few minor setbacks occurred on the day of her arrival, namely Holly's delayed flight and the perilous combination of giant puddle and passing lorry that resulted in me getting thoroughly drenched (not to mention pointed and laughed at!) on the way to the station to go and pick her up from Hanover. However, these paled into insignificance compared to my gleeful excitement as I waited for her at the airport. I'm pretty sure our joyful reunion at the arrivals gate would have been enough to convince Scrooge of the merits of love and Christmas cheer, or at the very least earn us a place in the final scene of 'Love Actually'.

The next day (6th December, a.k.a. Nikolaustag in German land) we headed off to Lemgo's one-weekend-only Christmas market, Kläschen, but not before discovering makeshift paper Stiefel (boots) on the doorstep, filled with chocolate and goodies courtesy of the lovely Reichelts (I mean, ahem, Nikolaus).

Makeshift paper Stiefel filled with goodness. (Also, yes that is knitting wool...)

When we arrived at the actual market, it was evident that we were super early (keen beans that we are!) and it was mostly still being set up for the day. Undeterred, we headed to the Eiswelt (ice rink) and took advantage of the lack of people, which meant we could skate gracefully and/or flail wildly across the ice without the danger of injuring passing children or embarrassing ourselves (too much). It even snowed while we were skating (!!!) and led to much excited squealing on our part, and much indifference from the Germans. (These people just don't seem to get excited about snow! It saddens me...)

Appropriate levels of snow-related excitement.

Afterwards, we warmed up in a café with a chai latte and a nice game of German monopoly (Holly thrashed me. It was awful.), before taking another wander around the market in its fully festive glory. Of course, the highlight of the experience was all the foody/drinky goodness we were able to sample, namely the ever-present Glühwein, and a hitherto-unknown-to-me delicacy, Poffertjes (like tiny pancake puffs sprinkled with sugar - the best!).

It was certainly nice to see good old Lemgo in its Sunday best, decked out with quaint little huts selling all the foody goodness you could desire (plus plenty of drink-related goodness as well!), and assorted handicrafts, not to mention a bizarre array of canned goods, hideous Spongebob Squarepants hats, and JML-esque kitchen apparatus. It wasn't anything particularly spectacular though. At least, not for Germany! It seems like every town here has a Christmas market. OK, so there are markets in the UK too, but we totally stole this idea from the Germans!

One of my favourite markets so far has to be the Bielefeld one (well, to be fair it's the only really decent-sized one I've properly seen, but still). I went there last Monday with some other assistants, and visited again with Holly on Saturday night.

Part of the food court area - here we had some sort of Glühwein/Punsch/-bowle thing with lots of sugar in it. Lecker!

I have to say, I am loving the festive décor here. It's enough to give anyone the warm fuzzies. Nonetheless, I do miss Christmassy stuff from home, namely carol services (pretty sure they do them here too but I haven't been to one... Besides, they'd all be in German, which is clearly not as good!), Costa Christmas drinks (who'd have thought I'd miss working there!) and putting out all the old Farmer family Christmas stuff round the house. Holly did bring me mince pies though, which is easing the pain a little! Besides, I'll be home in ONE WEEK!!!

Ich freu mich riesig drauf!

Hedgehogs, High Jinx and a Happy, Happy Birthday!

So, important news first: The Reichelts have HEDGEHOGS!!!

LOOK!!!!!!!!!

They found three baby hedgehogs without a mother who would not have survived in the wild, and and took them home to look after throughout the winter. Unglaublich süß!

Now, down to business. On Saturday, it was birthday time!!! (Not my birthday of course, we've still got another month to wait! It's Carly's (my previously-mentioned American friend) birthday today, so we celebrated early.) So, naturally, it was time to head off to trusty Bielefeld again (after retrieving my bike, that I'd left in town during all that saxophone palaver) for the Geburtstag celebrations.

On arriving at the bar, I met Carly's friend Stuart, who, I soon discovered, was one of the few teaching assistants with the actual desire to become a teacher (a surprisingly rare occurrence), and who also held an unusual prejudice against the Welsh. He revealed, somewhat enigmatically, that he had once had a 'bad experience' with a Welshman. When pressed further, he recounted a hilarious but decidedly random story, involving a Welsh mandolin player who was less-than-wisely invited round and fed copious amounts of absinthe, whereupon he began ranting about circumcision, and trying to bake a pie... I'm glad to say that I was able to dispel Stuart's preconceptions of Welsh people (this not being entirely representative of the Welsh population, though I've not been to Anglesey in a while). However, I wasn't able to comment on mandolin players...

The evening progressed, and resulted in us returning by the final train to continue the proceedings in Lemgo, accompanied by a bottle of Jim Beam (of which I did not partake - yuck!). Needless to say, my companions were soon looking a little worse for wear, though perhaps my fellow passengers enjoyed being serenaded in raucous English and being offered swigs of bourbon from the bottle. Who knows? The night was finally rounded off when someone (naming no names) fell asleep on the toilet and was kicked out of the bar. So, all-in-all, a highly successful soirée...!

After an (accidentally) extremely lazy Sunday, it was back to reality. Today I observed the year 5s (mostly 10 &11-year-olds, but there are actually a few 9-year-olds in there as well) in their very first class test, which is just a mini presentation about their old and new schools, then a short role-play. I learnt a new word today, Mitleid, which means 'pity', but transliterates as 'Withpain', or pain that you feel along with someone else's. I was certainly feeling some serious Mitleid by the end, as one nervous child after another timidly recited every detail about their old teachers and favourite subjects, interspersed with uncomfortable silences as they desperately tried to find the right words. My heart went out to them, die Arme.

Having said that, one of them, when asked if he had any pets, replied 'yes, I am a chicken!' Now, I would never laugh in a child's face when they get something wrong (mostly because I know all too well how hard it is to pluck up the courage to speak another language anyway, let alone when people laugh at your attempts!), but this took me totally by surprise! Let's just say that I had to retreat behind my water glass for some minutes before I could trust myself to keep a straight face. Witzig!

So that's what happened the last couple of days! I also have a shameless plug to offer you. I've started writing for LearnEnglish Teens, which is an online magazine by the British Council (which can be found here) to help teenagers from around the world learn English. I have written two blog posts so far, so have a gander if you fancy it!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW RACHEL'S SUPER FANCY BLOG POSTS ON A SUPER FANCY WEBSITE!

Ahem.

Anyway, I think that's it! Tschau Kumpels!

I went to some places

Hello first post in October!

So, this Thursday was Tag der Deutschen Einheit (celebrating the anniversary of German reunification) and, since the Germans have a profoundly sensible attitude, my school had a bridging-the-gap day off on Friday too (I have Fridays off anyway, but I still count this as a win!). Hello 4-day weekend, the perfect way to celebrate my first significant contribution to the enrichment of young minds (I told some year 10s some words) in appropriate style.

Although I'd known for a week that this abundance of free time was approaching, my powers of organisation failed me (as usual), and Wednesday evening found me still at a loose end as to how I would spend the next few days. I was determined to make the most of it, however, and ended up arranging at the last minute to meet for lunch with a trainee teacher at my school, Sonja, who lives in Detmold.

Detmold itself is a beautiful town, a little bigger than Lemgo, which I thoroughly enjoyed pottering merrily round, taking many a touristy picture.

This house is old apparently

Probably a horse

We luncheoned at a lovely pub-slash-restaurant, which served Detmold-brewed beers and enormous portions of (delicious) food. It also boasted an impressive but confusingly unnecessary rotating toilet seat (well, it didn't exactly boast it. It was just sort of there)! I can only assume the rotating was for cleaning purposes...

So, all-in-all, I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day of looking round sunny Detmold, chatting shameful amounts of English (considering I spent the day with a real-life German!), and meeting Sonja's highly vocal cat, who did not respond to me, despite my attempts to solicit its affections.

That evening I went to the Hauskreis (or church small group) for Gemeinde am Grasweg, which was fun, but extremely German. Everyone was lovely, but integrating into a group of new people is hard enough when they're all speaking English, let alone when you can't get the words out in time (or in the right order!) to keep pace with a conversation in another language. But this is definitely something that will get better with time!

After a fun-filled Friday in good old Bielefeld, which involved Spaghettieis (ice cream in the shape of spaghetti - ours not to reason why), Semester tickets (FREE STUFF!!), and even more English speaking, we arranged a spontaneous trip to Münster for today. It was certainly strange to be back (I spent just under a month there last year at a language course), and the weather did not quite live up to the memories, but it was still a lot of fun to spend the day somewhere different, and to have the excuse to use our freshly-pressed semester tickets (free train travel in the whole Bundesland? Ja, bitte!).

Summer 2012 - The Aasee in glorious sunshine

Today...

We still had a lovely time though.  And we all enjoyed perusing the market in the Domplatz (which included free honey tasting!) and seeing the palace and botanic gardens. We did see a confusing number of wedding photoshoots though (about 3 or 4, all with different couples) in the palace grounds, but no guests or other signs of any significant events taking place. We guessed they were taking photos for a bridal magazine, but who knows!? (Crazy Germans)

Overall, an energetic few days. Here's to a lazy Sunday!

Tschüsschen!

'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!

One Week in Lemgo

So, we've reached Mittwoch, which marks day 7 in beautiful Lemgo.

This week I have been sitting in classes at the school, in an attempt to learn how to actually teach classes (or at least parts of classes) myself. I'd fully expected to prefer working with the older ones with a better level of language, but surprised myself by loving the two classes of 10-11 year-olds I sat in with on Monday. They aren't yet at the age where being enthusiastic is uncool, and they kept on coming up to me in the break and asking me questions, all in adorable German accents. Bless.

One thing I have to work on is forcing myself out there and making my own entertainment. School on Monday finished at 1 (for me at least), which left the rest of the day free for boredom and loneliness. I've heard this is quite a common problem for language assistants, since we have so few contact hours with the school. Monday afternoon was the kind where even that weird corner of youtube where everything is cat remixes (admit it, you've been there!) has been exhausted of all entertainment value, and multiple trips to Aldi suddenly seem like a fun idea. Down-time is sometimes necessary, but if I'm to make the most of this year I definitely need to find a productive way of occupying my soon-to-be-even-more-extensive free time.

That said, yesterday could not have been more different! It was enrolment day for us language assistants at Bielefeld uni, and I spent an eventful day revelling (slightly ashamedly) in the company of other English speakers. Seriously, the ability to express any idea you want without much effort is ridiculously easy to take for granted. I've only been deprived of consistent contact with fellow English speakers for a week, yet I was a little shocked by the relief I felt to be back with people who I could talk freely to without having to think hard before every sentence.. I'm sure this will change as my German improves, but right now I am fully sympathising with all those erasmus students back home who just stick with their own erasmus clan.

That slightly negative (is it? I can't tell...) thought aside, today was great! Highlights included being invited to a weekend of fun with actual Germans (a chance to work on my English-speaking-dependency perhaps?), going to the school's orchestra rehearsal and hilariously mishearing 'festival of carols' (yes, we're doing Christmas music already!) as 'festival of carrots', and finally MY SUITCASE ARRIVING! Huzzah! Now I can stop re-wearing socks (don't judge me).

Anyway, as you can probably tell, things are still very up-and-down around here, and I expect that is likely to continue for most of this year. I suppose that's new experiences for ya! I hope I have lots more positive things to report next time. Sorry for the over-enthusiastic use of brackets.

Liebe Grüße.