http://www.redbubble.com/people/hipsterhitler/t-shirts/5825002-1-slogan-three-reichs-and-youre-out
I love it, the germans may not see the funny side though.
Oh also the lack of updates recently are due to it being Herbstferien and me spending a week in England generally eating and drinking far too many nice things for my own good and also, not being in Germany there wasn't much point writing about what I was up to. Last week however I learned a few things including that being drunk here has a different meaning to being drunk in England (particularly to bouncers); that it's really really sodding cold (this is October, I dread to think what it will be like by Christmas); that Irish pubs are a godsend when you want to watch football and eat a roast dinner slash proper fry up; and that Germans don't appreciate drunken English renditions of Beyonce and Jay-z in their karaoke clubs. Also I scammed the self-serve machine at the supermarket by scanning a leek as a (much cheaper) cucumber. I'm such a loutish Brit Abroad.
Finally I signed up to MyExpat today, guten tag 4od and Iplayer! This is all for now as I'm drowning under a mountain of work for Leeds Uni which I should have started sooner and also trying to prepare for my AG (which is the after school drama club I was somehow talked into running, god knows why I agreed).
Ps. I've only got 3 hours at work this week, bang tidy.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Monday, 4 October 2010
a weekend with the teachers.
So, on Friday I went on a teacher team building kind of weekend thing with some of the teachers from my school. It was based at a Schullandheim in the beautiful Rheinland-Pfalz countryside (god, I sound like Simon Reeve). Unfortunately, being out in the sticks means there isn't much to do in the day time except go walking. And boy do the Germans love walking. Being an English moron who a) didn't have a change of shoes and b) forgot to pack a change of socks, this wasn't ever going to go down well with me. Oh yeah, and c) I hate walking. Well that's not true really, I don't mind a nice stroll when you have somewhere to go, but around a murky forest and down the steepest muddiest slippiest hill in Germany at 10am on a Saturday morning with a hangover... no thanks.
Which brings me on to the other activity which we bonded over, and I'm much more into my drinking than I am my walking. On the evenings we had a few (several) beers and played games like Charades and Taboo (both very difficult when you don't understand what the word means you are trying to act out/describe!). On Friday, they were all talking animatedly about drinking Schnapps later on. I thought yeah some peach schnapps would be alright so when they divvied out the shots and we had said Prost I necked mine (as you would with a shot) only to put my glass down and see everybody else sipping theirs. Then the taste hit me. And it wasn't peachy. Apparently "Schnapps" in German doesn't mean your standard Archers. No no, it means spirits. So in fact we were doing shots of 42% Aquavit and not wanting to lose face (having already proudly told them all "Ich komme aus England, Ich trinke alles") I had a few more every time they offered me. So yes, the walk in the forest the next morning wasn't too well received.
All in all, I had a great weekend and it was really nice to spend time with the teachers outside of school and get to know them a bit more. Even if there was a lot of time where I sat there with the conversation passing me by as I just about understood what had been said several minutes previously. Possibly the best thing about the weekend (as well as the cheap beer) was the food. Despite trying to match Altenberg in the odd food mixtures department (A'berg had scrambled eggs, spinach and potato; here we had chunks of hard boiled egg in a soup) it put the food at Altenberg to shame. Only two words are necessary really: Breakfast Buffet. Maybe four more: ate like a king. They even put on a fried breakfast on the last morning alongside the regular cheese/ham/bread fest that is a German breakfast. It was here that I was tucking into a very nice substance which I had never tried before, when one of the teachers asked me how I was liking the Leberkäse. The literal translation which happened in my head wasn't pretty... Liver Cheese?! However, thankfully it has nothing to do with cheesy livers or livery cheese and actually shows the French how a Pâté should taste.
Sadly, I forgot my camera so there are no photos to accompany this post as of yet (I took a couple of my phone so will upload them when I can find my bluetooth dongle), but there are a couple of crackers which show the lovely surroundings. Just re-read this, it's very rambly my apologies but it's late (ten to 11 is late when you get up in time for German schools!) and I'm tired. Bis Bald.
Which brings me on to the other activity which we bonded over, and I'm much more into my drinking than I am my walking. On the evenings we had a few (several) beers and played games like Charades and Taboo (both very difficult when you don't understand what the word means you are trying to act out/describe!). On Friday, they were all talking animatedly about drinking Schnapps later on. I thought yeah some peach schnapps would be alright so when they divvied out the shots and we had said Prost I necked mine (as you would with a shot) only to put my glass down and see everybody else sipping theirs. Then the taste hit me. And it wasn't peachy. Apparently "Schnapps" in German doesn't mean your standard Archers. No no, it means spirits. So in fact we were doing shots of 42% Aquavit and not wanting to lose face (having already proudly told them all "Ich komme aus England, Ich trinke alles") I had a few more every time they offered me. So yes, the walk in the forest the next morning wasn't too well received.
All in all, I had a great weekend and it was really nice to spend time with the teachers outside of school and get to know them a bit more. Even if there was a lot of time where I sat there with the conversation passing me by as I just about understood what had been said several minutes previously. Possibly the best thing about the weekend (as well as the cheap beer) was the food. Despite trying to match Altenberg in the odd food mixtures department (A'berg had scrambled eggs, spinach and potato; here we had chunks of hard boiled egg in a soup) it put the food at Altenberg to shame. Only two words are necessary really: Breakfast Buffet. Maybe four more: ate like a king. They even put on a fried breakfast on the last morning alongside the regular cheese/ham/bread fest that is a German breakfast. It was here that I was tucking into a very nice substance which I had never tried before, when one of the teachers asked me how I was liking the Leberkäse. The literal translation which happened in my head wasn't pretty... Liver Cheese?! However, thankfully it has nothing to do with cheesy livers or livery cheese and actually shows the French how a Pâté should taste.
Sadly, I forgot my camera so there are no photos to accompany this post as of yet (I took a couple of my phone so will upload them when I can find my bluetooth dongle), but there are a couple of crackers which show the lovely surroundings. Just re-read this, it's very rambly my apologies but it's late (ten to 11 is late when you get up in time for German schools!) and I'm tired. Bis Bald.
last week...
the WW1 backlash finally ended as Germany paid the last of the reparations laid out in the Treaty of Versailles. I guess they won't be starting anything like that again any time soon.
notes on maturity.
In my year 7 class today we were talking about sightseeing in London and, on looking at a photo of the Gherkin in the text book, one of the lads charmingly said "look, it's the dildo!" much to the delight of his friends. I'm fairly sure that I didn't know the German word for dildo when I was 12 (and it's 'der Godemiché', if you were wondering).
Perhaps the students in the Oberstufe (6th form) would be more likely to know such vocab, but oddly the boys in my year 13 class still find it highly amusing to make fart noises and throw paper aeroplanes across the classroom.
Anyway I probably shouldn't be one to judge maturity levels of the Germans; I clearly think that a valid reason for buying food items is a funny name...
Perhaps the students in the Oberstufe (6th form) would be more likely to know such vocab, but oddly the boys in my year 13 class still find it highly amusing to make fart noises and throw paper aeroplanes across the classroom.
Anyway I probably shouldn't be one to judge maturity levels of the Germans; I clearly think that a valid reason for buying food items is a funny name...
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