Alex's weekend in Germany, and other recent funs.

I find it amusing that this entry had already saved a draft before I'd actually written anything. Decided it necessary to update, seeing as I haven't since Berlin (a whole two weeks ago!) and because I'm really busy for the next few weeks with people visiting me this weekend and next weekend, and the time-consuming task of turning 21. I intend to do a little dance, spin in a circle and suddenly grow taller and older like they do on The Sims 2.

Last weekend, the lovely Alex de Maré came on her first ever trip to Germany! After a traumatic journey from Düsseldorf Weeze airport, which no one should ever fly to or from because it is in the middle of nowhere, she finally arrived in Bochum. We were needless to say, very excited to see each other and caused quite a scene in Starbucks, while I taught Alex how to ask for a coffee auf Deutsch. That night we went out for cocktails in Bochum with Marina and Bertpfeif; a lot of fun, despite feeling slightly too drunk to finish my last cocktail and having to ask for some achievement water (Leitungswasser = tap water; Leistungswasser = achievement water).

Saturday afternoon, we overcame hangovers and headed to Köln, where I proudly introduced Alex to the Dom and fed her Schnitzel by the Rhein. After some pre-drinks at Maria's, followed by further pre-drinks at Jen's, we headed to a club called Papierfabrik, at about 2.30am; this being the German way. Go out as late as possible and try not to come home before daylight. It was a lot of fun; someone gave me a free hat. The train ride back to Bochum at 5.50am was not fun. Definitely the longest, coldest walk of shame of my life. Sunday was a write-off due to how much party we had made the night before. Bleurgh.

The next day, when we felt a bit more human, I took Alex for boat sushi and showed her the park and the rabbits in Bochum; after this, I had to say a very sad goodbye and put her back onto the bus to Weeze failport. Erm, then I worked for a week, which is less interesting. A highlight was probably a year 6 asking me if I had ever seen Justin Bieber around London.

On Friday me and Glen had a nice day out to the Ruhr river; this part of Germany is called the Ruhrgebiet (district), but I'd never seen the actual river, so I decided we should go visit it. And usually when I demand we should go somewhere for no reason, I can somehow talk Glen into coming with me (this being how we discovered Essen and Düsseldorf, and the revolutionary idea that we could drink beer and shop at H&M in many different cities!).

I took lots of pictures on Glen's camera, since I no longer have a camera due to tragically losing my bag at Karneval. We then sat on the grass and drank one beer each, while enjoying the site of our new favourite river, before going tipsily back into town for sushi, which Glen followed up with currywurst for dessert. Our night continued with drinking more beer in my kitchen, followed by noch ein bisschen tanzen at Stargate club.

The rest of my weekend consisted of going to Köln again, as I am incapable of staying away for more than a week at a time, to hang out with Maria. We did more outdoor beer-drinking. This is my new favourite activity.

That is everything I have done since my last entry; sorry for the lack of photos of recent events. I miss my camera, but will no doubt buy a new one soon. Though currently trying to avoid spending all my money before my exciting travels at Easter. The fabulous Robyn, Lindsay, Jessy and Nat are visiting this weekend; I am really excited to see them! Having already had Alex to stay, I have established that I like being official Nordrhein-Westfalen tour guide/translator. Plus I get to show some more people the Dom. Oh how I love the Dom...

Dora.
xxx

Berlurlaub!

Berlin + Urlaub = Berlurlaub. I am literally a genius.

At the weekend, thanks to Germanwing blindbooking (which I may have mentioned a lot, considering I think it's the best invention der Welt), me, Sophie, Heidi and Glen went on a surprise holiday to Berlin. Needless to say, it was wicked. We experienced Heidi losing her Berlinity (lol), and also went to probably my favourite German club so far (think Wire in Leeds, but dancier). I ate a vegan döner (a "vöner") and also a very nice cupcake (not at the same time). And I have also just realised I am incredibly fond of brackets (see?).

Anyway, it's early and I can't be dealing with typing at this hour. I've just had my daily walk to school and back, to find my lesson not on, as I sort of expected but cannot assume just in case it is actually happening. So have some photos instead.

This are Dora with a vöner. Omnomnomming. I promised my vegan Mitbewohner that we would go to the vöner place and I would nom vöner and take a picture. Mission accomplished.

Dora and Sophie, nomming a nommy cupcake (and a brownie that was less nommy. Not recommended).

We found a tipi!! This was in the German equivalent of Harrods, KaDeWe. I was baaare excited about this tipi! It's almost as good as the one me, Kat, Pippa and Max built in my garden that time. Ours trumped this one though, because it contained beer and ipod speakers.

Generally, Dora does not approve of graffiti on the East Side Gallery. But I will make an exception for this bee. It is a fantastic bee.

I insisted. I like jumping photos.

Another highlight of the trip was seeing Sophie have a go at some Germans on the plane, who it turns out, were not sitting in our seats. Me and Glen had already realised this and did try to tell her, but Sophie ignored us and continued her German rant. Good practice, I guess.

The rest of this week didn't provide much to comment on. Yesterday, me and Glen successfully paid for another semester at Ruhr Universität, therefore scoring another semester of free travel around Nordrhein-Westfalen. And we didn't even get charged the usual 10€ late fee! Cue going out and buying ourselves 10€ worth of celebratory sushi.

Dora.
xxx

How I came to hate Karneval

So, this weekend I went to Köln for Karneval. I am now of the opinion I should have just given it a miss. Right before we left, me and Glen had literally no Bock auf Karneval (couldn't be bovvered). And there was a train strike. The world was encouraging us to stay in Bochum and do nothing all weekend. But I insisted that despite how little we felt like it, that we should go and we'd regret it if we stayed at home. So we got dressed up, begrudgingly pre-drank a bit on the way to Heidi's, and forced ourselves to go out and have 'fun'.

The first night, I lost my bag- contents: wallet (every bank card, discount card and student card I own, English and German, and also 40 euros, £10 and my English simcard, cos I'd left it in there after my brief trip to the UK), phone (cute little pink touchscreen- I had recently upgraded), purple camera (I like all my electronics to match), keys, expensive concealer, and half a pack of marlboro menthols (no real loss obviously, seeing as I don't smoke anymore as of...er...a few hours ago). I really don't know how this happened, or more to the point, how I didn't even notice my bag was gone until the next morning. Cue realisation that I am literally the thickest person alive. This put a bit of a downer on my weekend.

That aside, Karneval reminded me of New Years Eve, in that there is so much pressure to have fun, that it's actually quite stressful, too busy and quite difficult to have fun.

Given the chance again, I would not go to Köln for Friday (AKA drunken bag-losing day of doom), and I wouldn't bother with the Monday either. Geisterzug on Saturday was pretty awesome; slightly Halloween-themed costumes and partying in a tunnel are a good combination. But that aside, I feel like I failed at Karneval. Never mind.

This whole experience has made me appreciate that really, money and cards and random electronics are not that important. I've saved most of the damage within a couple of days, and I didn't lose my passport, which means I can still get money from the bank and can still go to Berlin at the weekend. There are much worse things that could have happened. I could have lost all my clothes. Now that would actually ruin my life. So, positives of the weekend? I got to spend it with these people.

And Max (not pictured, but I swear he exists)

And I got to dress up as a fairy. Or rather, I got to dress up as an exaggerated version of myself, with multi-coloured wings. The rest of my outfit I would happily wear on an average day in England, perhaps with slightly less pink eyeshadow.

Dora.
xxx

Basically I'm a part-time bloggaaar...

So, it seems my blog is now the top result when you type blowjob ikea into google (cue jokes about what my year abroad must mostly consist of), and in the last week the overwhelming majority of readers have been people in Malta (a country I just had to google in order to work out where it was). I hope I become some sort of distant celebrity there, like that annoying English girl that got famous in Japan by dancing on Youtube.

Yesterday I taught another class about London and Watford (which is, as far as any German kids now know, a part of London), which was quite fun. Though probably less fun than last time, when I got an applause at the end, and also witnessed 12-year-old pronouncing the Grand Union Canal as the Grand Onion Canal.

At the weekend, me and Sophie went to Leeds, where we signed for this house, for ourselves, Alex and Rachael. I can't wait to move in.

Happy Sophie, moments after paying our deposits, signing our contract, and before heading to the pub.

It was so good to be in Leeds. It made me remember how much I think of it as home; it's so much better than Watford and so much easier than Germany. We went out, as well, and it was amazing not being the only drunk, scantily dressed people on the street, or the only people dancing in the club.

This morning, I've just got back from my usual stroll to school and back. Today they're schreibing a Lernstandbericht, whatever that is. All I know is, they don't require my help for it. It would be nice if they would sag mir Bescheid, just once, so I actually know if I have a lesson or not. To think, I thought I might actually do a full 12 hours this week!

Dora.
xxx

I don't want no scrubs

Highlights of helping in Class 8 today include explaining what Scrubs meant in the context of the sitcom, followed by failing to explain how this was different to the meaning in the song "No Scrubs" by TLC. I think I made up for this by helpfully singing the chorus.

Another highlight was having to somehow explain to a very quiet girl why she couldn't present in front of the class that the Love Parade used to be called the Fuck Parade (inappropriate, and having googled this, also factually incorrect). The joys of teaching children that copy and paste stuff off Wikipedia without knowing what it means.

This weekend, I went to Neuerburg to visit Maxface. The village is pretty much how I imagined it to be; small, picturesque and featuring a lot of old people that stare, and some cats. We also went to Trier, where we drank massive nommy beers.

The lack of night life in Neuerburg meant our only real option on Saturday night was to get drunk in a park, though we gave up when the roundabout made us feel sick and we concluded that drinking in the park was less fun than we remembered it being. Lolling about on swings after downing vodka cherryade used to be the high point of my week. I feel old.

But not so old that this didn't brighten up my day. Vaguely amusing place names. Lol.

Dora.

xxx

Ode to Leeds Uni

Recently I've been really missing being at Leeds. Having spent some time trying to feel at home at Ruhr Universität Bochum, I've concluded that I am actually really lucky to be at Leeds, where everything works and is user friendly and makes me feel at home.

Here are a list of things I would improve about R.U.B.

• I would let people take their bags and coats into the library; having failed to find an empty locker, I had to leave my coat and bag on an unsecured shelf, and spent a good ten minutes trying to fit all my valuables in my pockets so I didn't have to leave them unattended.
• I would also have built the campus out of some materials other than grey concrete (Roger Stevens building aside, Leeds Uni is quite attractive really).
• On the library computers alone, I would make the following improvements:
• install some form of up-to-date Windows system; whatever it is they use, it is not user-friendly, and there is no Microsoft Office.
• recognise and let people access USB sticks. Or save documents. Somehow. Generally.
• allow people to search articles including the word "gay" (I concluded R.U.B. are homophobic, after trying to find an article about a court case involving gays; when it told me access was denied, I tried replacing the word "gay" with "heterosexual". No problem...).
• (this one's really revolutionary) link up each computer to a PRINTER! So when the copy shop closes, with it's white box-like Windows 98-style computers attached to ink-free printers, people would still be able to print things!
• I would also make people NOT TALK so bloody loudly in the library. It is a freaking library!
• I would build a Student Union. I miss the Union so much. And there are no societies here. I want societies!
• I would make it compulsory for people to dress well and smile. It makes a difference. I miss fashion-watching around Leeds, it's nice when people make an effort and it's nice when people look happy.

So I'm sure Ruhr Uni has some advantages...no, now I'm just being nice. Leeeeeeds, I miss yooooou!! What I wouldn't give to sit and work in Eddie B for a couple of hours, then go to the Union for a pasty and a latte, before walking home through Hyde Park.

I'm going back there to house hunt in two weeks. It's gonna be stressful and there will be minimal time for partying or walking around hugging university buildings. But I still can't wait!

<3

Kissing to Fucking, via Wank, in 4 hours 40 minutes

This is my favourite thing about this week...slash a tour I am determined to go on by the end of our Year Abroad.

(double click to see picture properly)

And to think people ask me why I study German!

Other wins of this week: I have a new timetable, in which I only go in pointful lessons (i.e. ones where I serve a purpose rather than ones where I am just the foreigner who sits in the corner), and finish by 11.15am every day.

I have a new tandem partner, who is really cool (I'm not just saying that because I know she reads my blog!) and now my German might actually start getting better. I hope.

Me, Sophie, Glen and Heidi are going on a surprise trip to Berlin, thanks to germanwings and their magical blind booking option. I heart trips.

This weekend I'm going to Münster and Köln. Making the most of my semester ticket before it runs out at the end of March. As if they actually want me to PAY for travel after that?!

I have also unintentionally quit smoking, because I have a sore throat, therefore smoking hurts and is no longer enjoyable. And I went jogging, twice. I even bought trainers for the purpose of jogging! I have turned over a healthy new leaf.

Anyway, I need to pack for the weekend. I now store all my belongings on the floor and under the bed rather than in cupboards, so finding everything I need could prove challenging.

Späters,
Dora.
xxx