Herzlich Willkommen!
I can officially announce that the Lucy is in Germany! I may have confused you into thinking that this is Sunday. It is not Sunday, I just got all keen bean and decided to blog about my week so far. Exciting times. On with the show...
On Monday morning my 19.9kg suitcase and I got a horrendously early flight to Köln. Yes the weight limit was 20kg. This meant that we arrived in Köln a few hours before we were due to meet for the language assistants training course. Therefore we deposited out suitcases in the hole under the Hauptbahnhof (actually a secure luggage storage area at the station but it was still a bit scary putting the suitcase in a lift and watching it disappear). Free of our insanely heavy suitcases, we visited the cathedral, ate pretzels and used McCleans toilets (the obvious highlight). At half past 2 the coach arrived to take us to Maria in der Aue, a sort-of-hotel-but-not-quite-a-hotel kinda thing in the middle of nowhere (Wemelskirchen?). Despite being over 3km from other human life, Maria in der Aue was perfect for the course. Ahh yes, the training course. Over the next two days we had numerous presentations and discussions about what makes a good language assistant. If you're interested, the answer is personality, everything else will come in time. The second day was dominated by the soon-to-be language assistants attempting to teach. Our teaching groups (of around 10) were split into 2s and 3s, with each group having to plan and teach a 45 minute class. Sadly the PAD (people who ran the course) did not bring in coach loads of German school children for us to teach, instead we had to play the role of the pupils. Safe to say pretending to be an 8 year old German child in an English lesson was pretty funny. My go at teaching was fine but I'm hoping that I will feel less stupid teaching English to people who aren't already fluent.
The other purpose of the training course was to meet other language assistants going to my area. Unsurprisingly noone is particularly close to me but I do now have someone to stay with in Hannover. The whole course was more enjoyable and useful than I expected it to be... yay! Now I even know what should happen with the whole Anmeldung shebang. On the last night we played a sort of pub quiz, one that involved drawing horses as well as general knowledge. Our team lost (completely undeservingly, we’d really like a remark) but did manage to win the award (Toblerone) for the best joke.
"A German, an Englishman and an Irishman walk into a bar. The German pushes to the front and orders a drink because he doesn't know how to queue."
Thursday was yet another early morning, this time for getting back to Köln and then travelling on to our destinations. This sounds really simple but the road to Maria in der Aue is so narrow that coaches can’t fit down it. Instead we had to get a mini bus to shuttle everyone to the main road, at which point we got on the coaches! It was a little surreal at the train station, as gradually people left to get on their trains going to all over Northern Germany, so I was pleased that my train was one of the earlier ones. I left Köln at 10:21 and arrived in Badse at 15:52. And this is why...
THIRTY EIGHT STOPS. (yes I get bored without internet).
The journey itself was stressful as the first train (Köln to Hamm) ran late, arriving 15 minutes later than it should have done. Considering that my transfer time to catch the next train was 15 minutes I had resigned myself to the idea that I would be missing the train. An announcement on the train changed all that, saying that the train from platform 9 (the one I needed) was delayed by 2 minutes. I made it. It involved running downstairs, through the station and up onto a different platform accompanied by my suitcase. Urgh. But I am so pleased I checked which platforms the trains left from. Fortunately the other two changes went just as planned and I arrived in Badse on time.
Martin was there waiting for me and took me to my first flat. It is really nice, lots of space and comes with everything I need down to washing up liquid and tea towels. The landlady seems lovely but doesn’t speak much English so it’s all been in German! Martin then gave me a quick tour of the school so I know where to go on Monday morning and I met the headteacher and some of the other teachers, all of whom seem friendly and pleased to see me! Next stop was the supermarket. After Martin had gone home I went for an explorey-walk through Badse and along the street that won ‘street of the year 2000’. Badse is certainly a very pretty place.
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| Badse Solebad // Badse // Marktstraße // Bad Salzfetfurth Solebad Bahnhof |
The other purpose of the training course was to meet other language assistants going to my area. Unsurprisingly noone is particularly close to me but I do now have someone to stay with in Hannover. The whole course was more enjoyable and useful than I expected it to be... yay! Now I even know what should happen with the whole Anmeldung shebang. On the last night we played a sort of pub quiz, one that involved drawing horses as well as general knowledge. Our team lost (completely undeservingly, we’d really like a remark) but did manage to win the award (Toblerone) for the best joke.
"A German, an Englishman and an Irishman walk into a bar. The German pushes to the front and orders a drink because he doesn't know how to queue."
(member of team Hessesaxonburgers)
Thursday was yet another early morning, this time for getting back to Köln and then travelling on to our destinations. This sounds really simple but the road to Maria in der Aue is so narrow that coaches can’t fit down it. Instead we had to get a mini bus to shuttle everyone to the main road, at which point we got on the coaches! It was a little surreal at the train station, as gradually people left to get on their trains going to all over Northern Germany, so I was pleased that my train was one of the earlier ones. I left Köln at 10:21 and arrived in Badse at 15:52. And this is why...
THIRTY EIGHT STOPS. (yes I get bored without internet).
The journey itself was stressful as the first train (Köln to Hamm) ran late, arriving 15 minutes later than it should have done. Considering that my transfer time to catch the next train was 15 minutes I had resigned myself to the idea that I would be missing the train. An announcement on the train changed all that, saying that the train from platform 9 (the one I needed) was delayed by 2 minutes. I made it. It involved running downstairs, through the station and up onto a different platform accompanied by my suitcase. Urgh. But I am so pleased I checked which platforms the trains left from. Fortunately the other two changes went just as planned and I arrived in Badse on time.
Martin was there waiting for me and took me to my first flat. It is really nice, lots of space and comes with everything I need down to washing up liquid and tea towels. The landlady seems lovely but doesn’t speak much English so it’s all been in German! Martin then gave me a quick tour of the school so I know where to go on Monday morning and I met the headteacher and some of the other teachers, all of whom seem friendly and pleased to see me! Next stop was the supermarket. After Martin had gone home I went for an explorey-walk through Badse and along the street that won ‘street of the year 2000’. Badse is certainly a very pretty place.
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| Badse as seen on my wander. |
Now that the story of the past few days is over I would like to discuss my attempts at speaking German today. I probably shouldn’t be proud but I am: I was the strange person who talks to people on trains.
1. German train tickets are confusing and after one of the other language assistants being fined 40€ for not validating her ticket I was slightly worried about not having a valid ticket. So I went along to the DB Bahn help desk and asked if I had to validate my ticket - answer - no because it already said a date. Useful stuff, even if I did have a verb fail.
2. On the platform I was confused (notice the theme?!) about the signs saying D, E and F (it turned out that A, B and C were further along the platform) so asked the person waiting next to me on the platform. Apparently A is where people for first class wait and B to F are second class. They also show which carriages allow bikes and which don’t. I then sat next to this lady on the train and had a chat about living in Germany. Happy days.
3. Another lady started talking to me on the train, complaining about the children who were being really noisy and not respecting the other passengers. I failed to say anything remotely engaging, resorting to ja, stimmt and er bleibt noch in die Toilette! but tried my best.
4. I managed to talk to my landlady.
To conclude, I am now in my flat in Badse, having had a lovely and informative few days with new friends at Maria in der Aue, and as long as the internet holds up everything’s okay.
3. Another lady started talking to me on the train, complaining about the children who were being really noisy and not respecting the other passengers. I failed to say anything remotely engaging, resorting to ja, stimmt and er bleibt noch in die Toilette! but tried my best.
4. I managed to talk to my landlady.
To conclude, I am now in my flat in Badse, having had a lovely and informative few days with new friends at Maria in der Aue, and as long as the internet holds up everything’s okay.
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