Schnee, Gluehwein and Sinterklaas kapoentje

So, since last entry I have moved into new WG. It is awesome. After I'd lived here for maybe 3 hours, I was already pre-drinking to go out in Muenster with my new flatmate and his mates. I am being well looked after and I think I fit in quite well. Though I have noticed that living in Germany has made me shy; I spent years learning not to be shy, can't be bothered starting again in a whole nother language. Effort.

This weekend also would've been occupied with fun-filled family time in Koeln with Josie and Charlotte; leider, their flight was cancelled because of the snow, and they couldn't get to Deutschland. This was very sad-making. So Koeln weekend was replaced by standard Bochum night out, followed by Weihnachtmarkt (christmas market) time in Koeln with many language assistant friends. We were going to go out for some drinks, but instead ended up buying a lot of gluehwein and staying at Maria's. Om nom nom.

Here's a picture of the wine-making process...

and an action shot of some of the dancing that occurred the next morning, after consuming the leftover Gluehwein.

The next day, me, Glen and Max found ourselves heading to Dortmund on a secret mission to deliver left-behind golden syrup to a deeply concerned Bertpfeife. We rewarded ourselves with a trip to a chinese restaurant. Om nom.

It was also Sinterklaas, one of my favourite holidays of all. It's a Dutch thing; on the 5th of December (or maybe the night before), children leave out their shoes by the fireplace, and Sinterklaas (a bishop from Spain) comes on a boat, with his politically incorrect friend Zwarte Piet. They fill your shoes with sweets if you've been good, or put you in a sack and cart you off to Spain with them if you've been bad.

There's an accompanying Sinterklaas song, which I'd be more than happy to sing to you, and probably will do at some point in your life, whether you like it or not.

And I had an interesting dream about zombies; that's a story for another time.

Last night I went to Essen with the intention of delivering a t-shirt to Joe Chaplin that he'd left at mine (starting to feel a bit like a courier..), stopping for a gluehwein and a chat, then heading back to Bochum at 8ish. 

At 1am, I was drunk in an irish pub, playing Green Day and RHCP songs on guitar with some enthusiastic old men singing along. I proceeded to share a taxi back to hauptbahnhof with Joe and Kate, who was pretending to the taxi driver that she was Spanish, for some unknown reason.

And I still made it to school the next day. 8.40am, no hangover, and I even recently found a shortcut to school from my new flat, cutting my walking time from 11 minutes to a mere 7. This week has been a win.

Dora.
xxx

Lass es schnee, lass es schnee...

Yes, it's snowy in Bochum. And currently -8 C. According to Glen's landlady, it could be -20 C at the weekend. I don't want to believe her, that seems stupidly cold. Surely nowhere could ever be that cold? I was pretty much wearing all my clothes today, and it was still a bit nippy. Have pre-warned my sister, who's visiting Koeln (rather than Bochum) at the weekend to see me...guess she didn't fancy the tin mining museum, one of Bochum's many attractions.

(NB. I just looked on wetter.de. It's not going to be -20. Silly Barbara..)

Tomorrow I get to move into my new WG, with my new German friends. I hope they really are as cool as they seemed when I met them; we've not had much time to hang out. Still, they don't have much to live up to; I talk to my current 'flatmates' so little, they don't even know I'm moving. Seems a bit of an awkward thing to announce when we usually say literally nothing to each other. Apart from the guy who insists on speaking to me in French. How many times will we have to go through the usual 'quoi? er...quoi? je ne comprends pas...' before he gives up and realises my French is not sufficient to have a conversation?

I also just got back from Bergamo, where I visited the lovely Alex de Mare on her birthday. It was my first ever trip to Italy! I can't remember the last time I went to a country where I could not communicate at all. It was weird. I hated it, actually. Felt like a right dick, having someone ask me something at the bus stop, and just having to say "I don't speak Italian". It also meant I couldn't argue my own way in the club when they refused to give me tap water. I caused a bit of a scene, then angrily reached behind the bar and stole a handful of ice (I was really drunk...it seemed acceptable at the time). Got a right evil glare from the bar woman.

That and the hungover plane ride home aside, epic weekend.

Hopefully expect an upbeat post tomorrow, with pictures of my empty new room.

Dora.
xxx

Sie verlassen jetzt West Deutschland

At the weekend I visited East Germany; it was exciting. I got a lift with a stranger in a van, as is the done thing in Germany, and we drove through 5 different Bundesländer to get to Sachsen, where Pippa lives.

Dresden is, as far as I could tell from my 3 day visit, really really cool and puts Bochum to shame a bit. There were lots of cool bars and a nice tea house with big cushions and funky graffiti on buildings. Disaronno only cost 6.99€ a bottle, and of course Pippa was excellent company. As were the 'hand animal' transfer tattoos we put on our hands for the weekend.

I was the giraffe.

My trip home was awkward; it was another Mitfahr (carshare) with 3 sächsische people, with the most difficult to understand accents ever. When they said vielleicht (maybe) it sounded way too much like fleisch (meat). They tried talking to me at first...the driver asked me something several times with me asking him to repeat himself cos I couldn't hear (I wanted to add, and can you try talking more like a GCSE listening tape please?), then eventually I answered that I lived in Bochum, which I hope was the answer to whatever he asked me. They left me alone the rest of the journey.

In other news, I'm moving to my new WG in a week! I'm ever so excited, if not slightly concerned at my lack of furniture. But my new Mitbewohner keep assuring me that I don't need to worry about that. I wish they'd tell me why I don't need to worry; it definitely feels like I should be more worried. Might nip to Ikea on Monday.

And Germany has finally got google street view! Would've been more useful months ago when I was trying to work out my way around Bochum, but whatevs. I'm going to make quesadillas now. Om nom.

One last thing; thanks to anyone who signed the petition I posted on my last entry. Protesting WORKED! The British Council have got their funding and have opened applications for next year. Result!

Dora.
xxx

I could've slept another 2 hours

I think I was confused as to exactly when the teacher of my class 11 was coming back. I thought it was this Friday, but seeing as I turned up to her 7.50am lesson and there was no one there, I'm thinking it must be next Friday. The teachers at my school do seem to have a habit of just randomly going off on holiday for weeks at a time, unannounced.

At least I got to come home and finish my cup of tea, which was still warm. Glad my school's only a 10 minute walk away or I'd have been much more annoyed. And I'm quite annoyed already.

Off to Dresden this afternoon to visit Pipsquin and experience the delights of the East! Will determine once and for all if frickin' Sabine in 'Ich fühle mich so 50/50' (if you weren't forced to read this poor excuse for a novel at A level, I envy you) was right to whinge about the east, then move to the west and whinge more. As yet, I have not found the choice of cheese in the west too overwhelming, so we will see.

On another note, sign this if I haven't already harassed you to do so. Or next year, there will be no year abroad blogs to read.
http://www.petitiononline.com/BCLA2010/petition.html

Cheers.
Dora.
xxx

edit: just got back from school. Made the mother of all mispronunciations in front of my year 12 class. Instead of Zwangsjacke (straitjacket), I may have said Schwanzjacke (penisjacket). Fail. To be honest, I think they were kind not to laugh at me more.

Düsseldorf dorf dorf, can you geddit up...Düsseldorf dorf dorf, is you big enough?

I spent the last 3 days in Düsseldorf with all the language assistants from two districts called Arnsberg and Detmold (I'm not convinced those are real place names but it seems Bochum is included), at what they referred to as a course on the invitation. It was compulsory. Thinking back to the Altenberg course, I envisioned another 3 day piss-up. However, this was interrupted by constant activities.

The first day, we went to the Landtag, which is like the Nordrhein-Westfalen mini version of the Reichstag. We had to sit through a talk where they told us about, from what I could pick up, the founding of NRW and political shorthand. Then without any kind of explanation of where we were going, the woman finished her talk and just told us to come with her. We then sat through a number of other talks about...things, in a number of round rooms with tables and microphones in. When this was finally over, we were rewarded with cake.

Trekking back to the hostel, a bunch of us decided to have dinner, buy some pre-drink and go out, except we were so tired from all the round room tours that we ended up getting drunk and staying in the hostel. The next day I woke up with a bitch of a hangover and a 10-hour itinerary of museum tours to attend. Bleurgh.

The Ruhr-Museum might have been interesting if I had an attention span of longer than 10 minutes and if we'd been allowed to wander round and look at the cool stuff, like the stuffed animals and the dinosaur fossils. Instead, we got a tourguide who explained how to separate coal from steel and showed us such fascinating items as a jar of water from the war.

Back on the tour bus, we then went to Oberhausen where we were let loose in a shopping centre for a couple of hours. A trip to H&M and a portion of currywurst later, we were meant to be meeting at the Gasometer. We did eventually find it, despite some confusion caused by the signposting.

The gasometer (which was a big cylindrical building with solar system-themed art inside) was probably my favourite part of the day, partly because of the lack of tourguide and partly because there was a giant 25m model of the moon inside it. Everyone loves the moon. We also got to go to the top of it and look out over Oberhausen, which was fun because I like tall buildings.

After Gasometer time, we went on some sort of night walk around an iron...making...factory. It was dark and scary; probably would have been quite interesting if it wasn't cold and rainy and if the rickety steps didn't make me feel like I was going to die. That together with the fact that I really wanted a nap. Still, we got a nice view of Duisburg (pronounced Doos-borg, after much debate) and Ikea from the top. I think the point of the day was to learn about the industries of the Ruhr-Gebiet. Of course, the joke's on them because I wasn't paying attention. Hmm.

Back at the hostel, we'd promised each other we'd make it out to a club or at least a cocktail bar, but ended up staying in and getting drunk again, shattered from our long day of learning.

The next day, we had to attend a 2 hour talk (theme unknown) at the hostel; we were 15 minutes late and didn't get seats and so had to sit on the floor for two hours, while we were told things like not to bunk off school and how to make friends. This time we were not rewarded with cake.

The day's final activity was meant to be a 2 hour tour round Düsseldorf-dorf-dorf in the rain. No one fancied it; a group of us decided enough was enough, and went downstairs to hide until the tour left without us and we could sneak out. We ended up standing around in the car park until we got the all-clear and could escape in Matt Hardy's car (cheers, mate!). Home free.

Back to school tomorrow. Me, Tami and Glen are also going to go for a jog. I'm hoping that's enough exercise to burn off the quantity of beer I've consumed since arriving in Germany.

Dora.
xxx

Dora does teaching and dressing like a vampire (but not at the same time)

Since Herbstferien, I have started to feel more like I have an actual job. And I actually quite like it. Today I taught a class of 12 year olds about the London Underground; the first time I've ever stood in front of a class (not just since becoming a teaching assistant, but ever, in my life) and not been terrified. Maybe because for the first time, I felt like I knew what I was doing and also because these kids are inexplicably well behaved and enthusiastic. Wouldn't happen in the UK.

Halloween weekend was pretty special; I discovered that I like looking like a vampire and am somewhat tempted to do it every day, and also that in Germany it is perfectly acceptable to invite yourself and your friends to a party full of people you don't know. Our couchsurfing party was a success. I got far too wasted because people kept bringing me more drinks.

Me and Heidi on the train; before I got 'absolutely panini-ed'

Tomorrow I'm teaching the simple past tense; first I have to learn what that is.

Dora.
xxx

Dora discovers that the internet is literally amazing

I feel like today has been blog-worthy. I haven't really done much except had a good day at school and decided that I would start looking for a WG (Wohngemeinschaft - that's German for a living community, i.e. a shared house). The student halls where at the moment is alright, but I don't learn much German or do much else here; uni life in Germany couldn't be more different from uni life in England. There are not frequent piss-ups or socials, it's like they all have work to do or something. And I'm getting WG-envy of friends who live with Germans and hang out with Germans.

Anyway, I emailed a few adverts for places I liked the look of and one girl emailed me back within the hour and told me I could call and sort out a time to come and see the place. She said it was fine if I wanted to speak English on the phone because she's German and used to hate English phonecalls at the beginning. I hate phoning people I don't know anyway, so that was reassuring. Was a bit thrown when a guy answered the phone. Lara didn't sound like a guy's name. He was nice to me though, told me Lara was out and she'd call me back and we had a bit of a chat. I was proud of how well I managed auf Deutsch. I am almost like a competent person!

I shouldn't get excited cos there will probably be lots of competition and they probably won't end up letting me live there but I am ever so excited! At the very least, I am going to meet three Germans a similar age to me.

Speaking of exciting internet networking, I need to thank Maria Cansella for recommending couchsurfer to me; I answered one post on the Bochum group forum and I got three emails from people who immediately want to hang out with me, including getting invited out drinking at the weekend and to a Halloween party. The internet...what an invention...

Dora.
xxx

How I spent Herbstferien

Drunk, mostly. It might have been the best two weeks ever, and will be hard to summarise. Almost as hard as the thought of going back to school tomorrow, at 7.50am, when all I've done for two weeks is have fun. Not that it's a hard job or anything, but it still feels like a drag compared to constant partying in various cities.

Muenster Oktoberfest proved almost as amazing as actual Oktoberfest and also proved that Dave Wateridge can always be trusted to provide us with a decent Germ night out, as well as being trusted to get wasted, naked, sick and chucked out by security. Oh, and according to the adverts now found all over Muenster, he also gives 'die beste blasen'.

Other ferien trips included me, Pippa and Bertpfeif discovering Bochum Stadtpark which was a bit lovely, and also me and Pippa being tourists around Koeln. We climbed the Dom. It's a nice Dom, I think it's my favourite building in the world.

Our holiday in Amsterdam (our Holidam or Damoliday) was pretty special. Pedaloing was a highlight, even though it rained. To be fair, after seeing Blink 182 in the rain over summer, I'm starting to think rain can actually improve things, or at the very least make a situation a bit more jokes. We also sampled some clubbing; once accompanied by some 16 year old German children at a club full of strange pervy men, then the next night to a pretty special (probably gay, pirate-themed) bar, where Max experienced some random guy trying to snog him without permission, and Pippa got enclosed in a circle of guys. It was a rapey sort of place...in a fun way...

After Dam, I went to Wijhe where I was looked after and cooked for by my Oma for two nights, and got to hang out with my Mum, Dad and sister. My mum brought me over a suitcase full of awesome stuff I missed from home, like posters and blutac and baked beans. My sister brought me some chocolate covered ants.

I had a bit of a mare coming back from Holland. Disclaimer for the benefit of all Germs: just because a train says on the front that its final destination is Dortmund Hbf, does not mean it will necessarily go all the way to Dortmund Hbf. If it's anything like the train I got on, it will take you as far as a place called Coesfeld, then without warning (OK, I had my headphones in but as far as I'm concerned there was NOT considerable warning) turn around and start going back the other way. If you then ask someone what just happened and why the train is no longer going to Dortmund, be prepared to not have any idea what they are saying to you because a week in Holland has rendered you incapable of speaking German.

If you then get off at the next stop in a panic to get on a train going back in the preferable direction, don't expect any signs or even a station to be present at this stop. The only available help at the stop I got off at was a board telling me when the next train claiming to go to Dortmund would get there, and a pakistani man who didn't speak German and really did not speak good enough English for me to have a clue what he was trying to say (he also claimed he spoke French but looked at me blankly when I tried to explain my problem en francais).

Turns out there was a rail replacement bus (SEV Bus, which could really stand for anything) from Coesfeld. I worked this out from reading a very complicated sign on the train; there was nothing to indicate this before I got on the train and really, who reads signs on trains anyway? Germany is out to confuse me.

********

This is taking me a bloody long time to write. It has been a busy two weeks, after all, and I should really go to bed soon in preparation for the return of ridiculous early starts (and 2 hour working days, four days a week. Life is an uphill struggle).

On Thursday night, myself and Joe Chaplin travelled to Aachen to visit Sophie and Ali; we tried to go out to club called B9 for 'euro night', which was actually where drinks cost a euro, rather than being some sort of eurotrash/eurovision type party. Unfortunately, we had opted to 'pre-drink', a common concept in the UK. In Germany, it seems you cannot turn up to a club drunk and expect to be allowed in, rather than the usual UK attitude of letting you in as long as you can stand reasonably well with minimal assistance and are capable of holding up your ID.

I'll leave you with the knowledge that I don't like Queen and I don't really like X Factor, but I seem to be watching a girl wearing some seriously strange headwear, singing a Queen song on X Factor. Maybe it is time I went back to work.

Dora.
xxx

Fuck it, it's Bochum drum and bass, what you gonna do?

I bet you've all missed me.

Since my last entry I have actually had quite a good week. At the weekend, me, Glen and Heidi tried out Bochum clubbing again, and it was just as successful as last time. Clubbing in Germany seems to be a bit like going back in time. It's really really 90s. We requested Jason Derulo a couple times but of course because it's the 90s they nodded along while thinking, why are they requesting songs that haven't been written yet? Surely they just want to hear Barbie Girl again...

The worst part of clubbing was bumping into pupils I have obviously taught at some point because they were all like, "OMG hello!!" (but auf Deutsch, natuerlich). I did not remember who any of them were but I'm clearly a memorable language assistant. They all probably think I'm a complete nutter now (if they didn't already), because Germans don't really seem to dance and I definitely dance, in a dodgy, drunk, English sort of way.

I also saw Pendulum in the same club, yesterday night. Oh my god it was awesome. Last time I saw them was at Milton Keynes Bowl, capacity: 60,000. This time, it was at Zeche, capacity: 300. I touched the lead singer's hand. It was so exciting! I almost passed out towards the end though, clearly not as hardcore as necessary for German gigs. They also seem to frown upon asking for tap water in Germany. Not great when you can barely stand and are clearly very dehydrated through a combination of wine and tanzen.

This is not zoomed in. Proud :)

Pippa and Marina are coming to visit this weekend; I have been searching NRW for an airbed for them to sleep on. Leider, these don't seem to exist in Germany, but I've heard rumours that some of the Moroccan guys in my flat have a spare mattress so I might have to go ask them nicely to borrow it. Assuming I can sort out somewhere for them to sleep, we are going to enjoy Bochum and the surrounding area, and also go to Muenster for some more Oktoberfest fun apparently. This is exciting, maybe I should wear my Oktoberfest T-shirt again (referring to my white t-shirt with 'massive slag' scrawled across the front in highlighter pen). And we're going to Amsterdam in less than a week, but I want it to be sooner.

Dora.
xxx

"Blow Job is better than no job"...?

The title is a slogan I read on a 13 year old boy's hoodie today at school, in English. Offended would be the wrong word...I didn't find it 'offensive' exactly (actually thought it was quite funny) but I did wonder if this kid's parents knew what it meant and didn't mind him parading around with that written on him. If they don't know...lol. If they do...even more lol.

At school I still do minimal work, chat a bit of English, talk some poorly structured German to teachers and generally walk around between lessons trying to look like I know where I'm going. I don't really have a place to go at break times and I'm starting to wish the school was smaller. There are Lehrerzimmers in every building, but each Lehrer has an assigned place; I don't, because I'm not a Lehrer. And every time I've walked into one of these rooms, I've had most people ask something to the effect of 'yes, can I help you?' because no one knows who I am.

My mentor said she would call me yesterday to see how I'm getting on, but she didn't; cue same crushing feeling of rejection I got from being stood up for lesson planning time by 3 teachers in one day last week. My school don't seem that bothered about what I'm doing, therefore I'm not that bothered either. This job is easier than I imagined.

Actual job aside, I decided today that I am proud of myself. I have lived in Germany for nearly 3 weeks now and I don't want to go home yet. Being the youngest (associated character traits: irresponsible and attention-seeking...sounds about right), I get the impression my family don't really think of me as an adult; e.g. when I told my sister I was going to Hamburg for a few days in the summer with my friends, she asked if an adult was going with us. But maybe after living abroad for a year I will have successfully convinced her (and myself) I am actually a real person now. I'm off to Rewe to buy milk; I think it's pronounced ray-vay, but I prefer calling it rew-a. It's nice weather outside, maybe I can finally wear my leopard-print sunglasses. Yay.

Dora.
xxx

Dora's exciting trip to Ikea

Today I went to Ikea. By myself, and without a car. Ikea isn't really designed for a lone visit; it's a big, intimidating place, which requires moral support. It's also not designed to be visited on foot. Trekking through the car park felt like taking my life into my own hands. I also got really lost. On the way there, I was fine. On the way back I decided it would be clever to go a different way even though I didn't know where I was, and as anyone would predict I got very lost, carrying my Ikea bag and trying to look like I knew where I was going as I traipsed up and down residential streets. I didn't want to ask for directions...that's not my style. The station turned up eventually and it had definitely moved.

Ikea itself wasn't bad at all. I think it's the one place which is just as confusing in England as it is in Germany, because everything's already Swedish anyway. Sadly, Ikea don't take Visa or Maestro card, and the cash point there didn't like my cards. So I ended up with only 30 euros to spend. This meant I had to put back three amazing purchases that I didn't have any money to pay for; a fluffy rug, a retro alarm clock and a small heart-shaped rug that was definitely aimed at children. Sad times. I'd planned where to put them and everything.

So Ikea wasn't as successful a trip as I'd hoped but at least I have my own bedding now and at least I know where to find the place. Once my new free travel pass starts working on Friday, I'll be able to go back any time I want for free so I can go reclaim the items I couldn't have today.

I have successfully joined the Bochum Ruhr Universitaet now. But I still need to buy another ticket to get free travel all over Nordrhein-Westfalen. Despite what the British Council say, this doesn't seem to be inclusive in the price of joining uni. Warum muss alles so kompliziert sein?! Who designed Germany, anyway? I want to inform them that I could have done a better job.

Dora.
xxx

Oktoberfest!!

I'm struggling with this blog site...it could be that it's all in German but more likely I'm incompetant. It took me a long time to work out how to write a new entry, almost as long as it took me to find this website again and remember my password. Btw I don't know what this background I've chosen is like, but I picked on the basis that it was titled "fantastisch".

Oktoberfest this weekend was epic!! Definitely worth the sweaty 19 hour round trip; never underestimate how big Germany is. OK, so it looks roughly the size of the UK on most maps I've ever seen but that is because maps in the UK are bollocks. Munich is really really far.

I'd say that I'm pretty sure all the Germans at Oktoberfest hated us; I could understand that. Oktoberfest has a lot of rules. We didn't know the rules but when we found them out we just did all we could to get around them. For a start, everyone else had Dirndl and Lederhosen, but 100 euros is a lot to spend on something you're gonna wear once; our alternative was white T-shirts with profanities scrawled over them in highlighter pens.

You're meant to have a table before you can get a beer, which means you have to arrive at 7am to get a good table. Wrong. It means you have to hang around other tables and then impose yourself on well-behaved German people (or if you're less lucky, pervy italian people), demanding to sit at their table. When they protested, our only form of negotiating was cheerfully shouting "PROST!!", standing and clinking glasses with everyone so loud that there was no way we could be aware that they wanted us to leave. Leeds Uni 1: Oktoberfest 0.

Ok, so we nearly got chucked out a lot of times, were moved on security very frequently and I was definitely told off and forcibly removed from a table by an angry waitress. But overall it was a wicked weekend.

Today I managed to get up on time, make myself look presentable and go to lessons. I taught a small group of 13 year olds for half an hour which wasn't that productive but I don't think they minded. We got through the 3 exercises the teacher gave me quite quickly and the kids weren't that chatty. So I explained that they could go back into the class, or we could chat in English for the next 10 minutes and they wouldn't have to do any work. They perked up a bit after that.

I was meant to meet 3 different teachers today to help plan lessons and I am pretty sure I got stood up by all three; either that or I somehow got the times and meeting places of all three completely wrong. No, definitely the former. Everyone knows I'm not that incompetent...

Dora.
xxx

Dora jumps on the band wagon

Everyone else on year abroad seems to have a blog. This means I want a blog because when everyone else has something, I want it too. No one likes to be the only one without a blog. Everyone wants to feel like their life is equally worth reading about.

So, I am a teaching assistant. That has been my job title for a week now; can't say I've really done any teaching as such, more just a bit of chatting English to German kids, smiling and trying to stay awake even though it's 8am, an hour I don't normally see. The early mornings are actually killing me; you'd think it'd be great to finish work at 10.30am, but all I did with the rest of today was nap, go on facebook, and conclude that I should start a blog. Productive.

To be fair though, there's not much else to do while hanging around my 'flat'. Inverted commas cos it's more just a corridor with cell-like rooms and a communal kitchen. I like communal living, but there is nothing communal about living with 10 other people you never really see or talk to (mostly because I forget who they are and which language they understand, if any, out of English, German and French). I make the effort to try to be communal by spending a lot of time sitting on my own in the kitchen just in case anyone wants to hang out with me, watching TV that I don't understand and drinking tea. All that's achieved really is fulfilling the stereotype that English people always drink tea.

My placement is sort of going successfully, apart from a mishap the other day where they changed my whole timetable without telling me and then were surprised that I didn't know about it. Well gutted I no longer have Mondays and most of Fridays off. They've instead kindly given me Wednesdays off. What the freeeeak am I supposed to do with a Wednesday?!

Bochum seems like a cool enough city. Have already sampled some crazy salsa night that one of my flatmates invited me to (the one who talks to me). And me and Glen, my fellow language assistant in Bochum, have now tried out Bochum gaying and Bochum sushi. Both roaring successes, except that I think I was mistaken for a bloke in a gay club...I guess there were no other girls in there, so it was a fair assumption. Still not a massive ego boost though.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Oktoberfest with many other Germs. I am so excited!! Even if I didn't manage to purchase a Dirndl for the occasion, I am instead bringing lots of enthusiasm, and biscuits shaped like zoo animals for the car journey (I did have pringles too but I just ate them all).

Dora.
xxx

This site is in German and I accidently posted the same entry twice. I can't work out how to delete this entry, but I can edit it. So here's a picture of a caterpillar I found in Hamburg.