Quite Alright

January is finally nearly over. I'm not wishing my life away but I am pleased that there's only a few days to go. I feel like the worst is over. I've only got one more week of my current timetable (it is possible that there are a couple of classes I won't be sorry to leave... am I allowed to say that?!). So it will all be change again, which could be good, could be bad.

The teachers were all feeling stressed this week as it was time to give everyone grades for the halfway point of the school year. Reports come out this Wednesday so it's all fairly hectic. I went to my first Klassenkonferez (class conference) which was like nothing I am aware of in English schools. Basically, there is a meeting for every class. It is attended by all the teachers who teach the class, two parent representatives and two pupil representatives. The form tutor(s) lead the meeting, reviewing the grades of each class member, in particular ones who are not doing well and may need to go down a course/year. It was bizarre. I cannot imagine it happening in English schools... the pupils at the meeting know one of their fellow pupils may have to re-do the year before he knows! Crazy.

Less than an hour after my final lesson of the week I began my journey to Göttingen. Although it was a place I had wanted to visit for a while, that wasn't my only motivation. I was meeting Dan there (a friend from uni, originally from Germany but year abroading elsewhere). Why Göttingen? The halfway point!

Bismarckturm

Our wander around Göttingen took us through the town centre, the university, past various churches and the like. Armed with a Schinken-Käse-Brötchen [ham-cheese-roll] each we headed up into the woods to the Bismarckturm. Bismarck towers are a type of monument found all over Germany... there are plenty of them and they are all variations on the same design. Unsurprisingly the tower was closed for Winter but it was a nice muddy and snowy walk. But the terrain was fine because I was wearing walking boots. Dan however was not.

Göttingen

After our very long walk-and-chat we had a very long coffee-and-chat. It was lovely to hear about his travels in Canada and the USA, as well as discuss how I was finding Germany.

At the end of the day we waited on opposite platforms for ICEs going in opposite directions. There's nothing quite like a goodbye at the train station. Of course, the ICEs were both delayed so we had about 15 minutes of standing waiting on opposite sides of the track. All in all an excellent day... maybe I'll see him in June!

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Final reminder: The National UK Blog Awards voting closes at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. This is my final plea to vote. The link is on the right sidebar and it will take you about 5 seconds to vote (depending on how fast your typing is). I promise not to mention it again!

What I'm wearing.

There are plenty fashion bloggers out there writing about clothes, accessories, styling etc. I have decided to be a fashion blogger for the hour, and write about what I wore today....

Today I am wearing: A pair of fleece-lined tights (Primark), knee high socks (Primark), jeans (River Island), strappy top (Primark), long-sleeved top (Promod), top (New Look), jumper (Primark), sweatshirt (H&M), jumper (Republic), leather jacket (Dorothy Perkins), coat (Oasis), scarf (FatFace), scarf (a present), hat (Primark), gloves (H&M) and walking boots (Mountain Warehouse). As you can tell I'm really going for the layering. This might be because it is -11°C,

It is beautiful but unbelievably cold. Predictably I went for a walk with the camera but I had to head home after half an hour because my hands were too numb to use it!

The sky is so misty that the hills fade off into the distance. The colours are beautifully soft. It doesn't look real. Hard to believe that these were taken five minutes walk from my flat.

SNOW!

And the prize for the person most enthusiastic about the snow in Bad Salzdetfurth goes to... me. Probably not even an exaggeration, as everyone else here seems to find snow a bit of a pain. Possibly because everything is on a hill: the supermarket/'town centre' is downhill, the station is downhill (a different one), the school is uphill... But still, I am happy. Quantity wise, there is enough snow for snowballs but not enough for a decent snowman. It would be one of those annoying ones with bits of grass and grit stuck in the snow.

There is snow on the tracks. South West Trains would be in crisis mode and cancelling trains. The Howard of Effingham School would have made the pupils go to school and then closed early. The University of Warwick would be cancelling lectures because the lecturers can't get to work. Meanwhile in Germany, NordWestBahn services are running on time and as planned. IGS Bad Salzdetfurth had a normal school day.

Snowy days are amazing here. You get all the fun of snow without the disruption. Life just carries on as normal. It was lovely being able to go to Hildesheim and not worry about whether I would be able to get back home. Admittedly, I was unable to resist the urge to go and panic-buy milk. Because everyone knows that if you run out of milk you can't have a cuppa, and if you can't have a cuppa there is no way you will survive the cold spell. One of the highlights of a snow day has to be walking to the village to buy milk and discovering that all the milk has already run out, including the super organic super expensive stuff. It just isn't the same.

Anyway, the weather is supposed to stay around -5°C and snowy for the next few days. Yayy!

The Wonderful German Language I

It may come as a surprise to youthat my reason for being in Germany is not to teach, nor is it to travel. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever mentioned my actual aim: learning German. Throughout my time in Germany there’s been this underlying, niggling question of ‘is my German actually improving?’. For the record it is, but I wanted to give you all an insight into the wonderful German language and what it is like trying to learn it. I do love it really, but there are times when it is incredibly frustrating. German grammar is particularly complex. So to non-German speakers: welcome to my world. To German learners: you are not alone in your hatred of the subjunctive. To fluent German speakers: this is why I am jealous of you.

I am going to try my best not to turn this into a grammar lesson, I just thought it would be interesting for everyone. And good for me to vent my feelings. I promise it won't be a frequent occurrence. Also, please do not treat this post as a grammar lesson as I am very much a German student so it is not necessarily correct!

Where to begin? Nouns. A noun is a naming word. Unlike in English, German nouns are split into three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter. What you’d expect is that nouns like man and boy would be masculine, girl and woman would be feminine, and table and chair would be neuter. That would almost make sense. But you’d be wrong. Inanimate and animate objects can belong to any gender. For example table is masculine and girl is neuter. The gender of a noun is not logical in the slightest, you just have to learn them. Urgh.

The word ‘the’. I am a great supporter of ‘the’. It doesn’t matter whether the noun is singular or plural or which case the noun is in, in fact you don’t even have to know what a case is. It’s always ‘the’. This is not me going off on a tandem, unfortunately this is connected to our gendered German nouns... German has a myriad of different ways to say ‘the’. To illustrate this, I present to you...

Each gender has a different word for 'the'. So we're already up to three (der, die and das) but that's sort of manageable. But German doesn’t stop there. For this next bit we need to introduce cases (dun dun dunnnnnn). If you do not know what a case is, I envy you. They are the bane of my life. Slight exaggeration. Basically, nouns in a sentence are in different cases depending on their role within the sentence.

For example: Mike hit Reuben with Brendon's textbook.

- Mike is in the nominative because he is the subject, the person 'doing the verb'

- Reuben is in the accusative because he is the direct object, the person 'having the verb done to him'

- Brendon is in the genitive because the textbook belongs to him.

- The textbook is in the dative because it is the indirect object.

In German, der, die and das are only used in the nominative case. So once someone is eating the apple, it is no longer 'der Apfel' and once it is my dictionary, not just a random dictionary it is no longer 'das Wörterbuch'. It is time to unleash the table. I'm warning you, if you have ever had a German lesson this table is likely to bring back painful memories.

Just for fun/to fuel my German-nouns-having-genders induced misery I have included the English translation. Urgh. How depressing. So thanks to nouns with genders and a love of changing endings at every opportunity German has twelve ways to say 'the'. TWELVE.

I realise this has got very grammar-y. Sorry about that. The main message to take from this is that German grammar is ridiculous.

Rant over.

Belated New Year's resolutions.

It's the end of term 2 week 2 and I'm feeling so much better about the world. School was good, choir was fabulous (possibly something to do with the Lion King medley, everyone loves a good Lion King medley) and I had a wonderfully guilt free chat in English at the English speaking group in Hildesheim. I am really pleased that at school the pupils are not as reluctant as they were to ask me questions. They genuinely seem to like having me around. Well most of them anyway... (I overheard a pupil using a word that starts with 'b' and rhymes with 'witch'. He promised it was nothing to do with me). Even so, it was still a remarkably good week. Life is going well.

I love you Bad Salzdetfurth

New Year's resolutions. So I'm a little bit late. I had actually already decided on my resolutions, but thought popping them on the blog would make me more likely to keep them.

1. Really work on my German. No more watching iPlayer. I will even attempt to go over some grammar. Who knows, maybe the staffroom will suddenly seem less scary and I will start to talk to people.

2. Travel more. Yes this is a necessary resolution! There are so many places that I still want to visit, both in Germany and abroad. There are plenty of adventures in the pipeline (Slovakia, Poland and possibly Latvia) so watch out! And I hope to visit my school exchange partner in Bavaria sometime soon.

Basically, I am determined to use my time here more effectively. and that means more language practice during the week and more travel at the weekends. Bring it 2014!

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Yep, another reminder to vote for me in the National UK Blog Awards if you haven't already. The link is on the sidebar... and no, reading A Lucy in Germany doesn't actually have to be the highlight of the week for you to vote. Thank you!

Time to say no.

This is the story of a day trip that did not go to plan. The attempt was prompted by a chat with a friend from choir in which she mentioned the wall. In fact, this was the first time anyone had alluded to the wall, which until 1989 divided West Germany and East Germany. Up until this point it hadn't occurred to me that Bad Salzdetfurth isn't actually that far from the former Inner German border (about 50km). I did some google-ing and decided to visit the Helmstedt-Marienborn border crossing, also known as Checkpoint Alpha. The crossing point allowed the shortest land travel route to Berlin, thus Checkpoint Alpha was the main checkpoint used by vehicles travelling from West Germany to West Berlin. Following the fall of the fall, Checkpoint Alpha has been made into a memorial to divided Germany: the Gedenkstätte Deutsche Teilung Marienborn.

So I set off. The first problem was that the trains out of Bad Salzdetfurth weren't running, instead replaced by a replacement bus service. Time to say no?

Predictably, the bus arrived late so I arrived at Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof at 9:45 to catch a train at 9:45. Great. I sprinted through the station, making the train with a whole three seconds to spare. But that didn't matter, I was on the train and actually got to Braunschweig. To say there was a strong police presence at the station would be an understatement. Alarmingly, there were increasingly more policemen as I got closer to my platform. Time to say no?

I avoided the carriages full of 'unusual' people and found a safe-looking carriage right at the back with one other passenger: an elderly lady. We decided that with so many policemen around we would be fine, especially as all the 'normal' passengers congregated in my carriage. Plus eight policemen. Apparently there was a neo-Nazi march taking place in Magdeburg (a few stops on from Marienborn) and the protesters were travelling there on my train! So yes, I travelled on a train full of neo-Nazis! Having survived that, I was a little concerned when I got off the train at Marienborn, as the only thing there was a derelict house. I couldn't even work out how to get to the other platform! Time to say no?

I got out my (hand drawn) map and started walking. Google maps suggested this walk would take about 45 minutes, but that's not a problem. What google maps did not say is that there is no pavement after the first minute, and that is a problem. Time to say no?

There was a sign to the division memorial so I followed it, hoping that pavement would appear after every turn. It never did. I walked along the edge of the road, jumping onto the verge whenever I saw a car. This method guided me along various roads and a level crossing. However, the division memorial sign then directed me down what appeared to be the slip road to the Autobahn. Yes, the notoriously fast German motorway. Time to say no?

I value my life so decided not to head down the slip road, and try the road/track which seemed to run parallel. My hope was that the track was some sort of access road to the site, as I knew it was just off the A2. Half an hour later all I had encountered was a lovely herd of roe deer. Still, I kept walking. However, I then came across a fork in the increasingly narrow and muddy track. Time to say no?

This was the point at which I said no. I didn't know where I was, noone else knew where I was and even if by some miracle I made it to Checkpoint Alpha I would still have had to get home. So I turned around. After a nerve-wracking walk back to the station and a 70 minute wait for the first of three trains I made it home safely. One day I will visit Checkpoint Alpha, but when I do it will definitely be by car!

Hippos and tapirs

I have been back in Germany for exactly one week. It feels like I've been back forever. The bruises on my legs from carrying my suitcase up and down stairs are the only proof I ever went home (slight exaggeration but you know what I mean. But I am serious about the bruises, they are currently numerous and beautifully green). I snapped back into life in Germany very quickly, going to choir in the evening and up at 6am for school the next day. Christmas in England seems like a dream.

I can now understand why the training course was necessary when I first moved to Germany. It made me feel less alone. The past week has been much harder than the first week of September. I've been unceremoniously plonked back in Germany to continue where I left off. Time for round two. If someone had presented me with a ticket to London at any point this week I'd have taken it without thinking. I would describe my state as wallowing. I didn't want to travel (!!!), just to spend the weekend reading, watching films and eating Christmas cake. I had never appreciated how difficult it would be to find films that don't involve family or friends.

This is the side of the year abroad that gets forgotten about. No-one ever summarises the year abroad as "an amazing experience but you will miss home a lot". They remember it as "an amazing experience" and recommend it to everyone. All the best bits are squished together and the low points are forgotten. For me this week has been more "you will miss home a lot". I wasn't prepared for how much. Christmas had always been floating round my mind as something to aim for. This time I have nothing to aim for. No flight home has been booked. I don't even have a set week to return. So much freedom can be scary.

I apologise for the less-than-cheerful blog post but homesickness is undeniably a part of the year abroad experience. It would be lying to myself and to you by pretending it doesn't happen. But it will get better soon.

Detfurth & Wesseln

Note: Thanks to my brother for the title. I told him I was wallowing and his response was 'like a tapir'. Can you tell he's a zoologist?!

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If you haven't already voted for me in the National UK Blog Awards 2014 please click on the link in the sidebar. Thank you if you are way ahead of me and have already voted!

A Lucy in England.

It's time for the final catch up blog post. Remind me never to get behind again. This is what happened when I went back to England...

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The holidays were always going to be hectic. When you come home after four months away there are so many people to talk to and meet up with and when combined with the 'Christmas effect' (the need to see as many relatives as possible) the result is a packed schedule. I saw grandparents, home friends, uni friend and my brother and it was perfect. It was exhausting but just what I needed. Lovely to be back in a family home after living by myself. The two weeks absolutely flew by in a blur of presents, food and happiness.

Being English, I cannot resist a good opportunity to talk about the weather, especially when it was so spectacularly awful. The flooding started on Christmas Eve. The roads were closed and the town became and island. Fortunately our house was safe but it was very strange watching the news and seeing Mole Valley as one of the worst affected areas. It did make for some good photos on Christmas Day...

Two swans a swimming... on the road.

I hope that you all had a wonderful and un-flooded Christmas and New Year. Happy 2014!

The National UK Blog Awards

A while ago, when I was feeling particularly brave, I entered A Lucy in Germany into the National UK Blog Awards 2014, into the 'Young Persons Blog Award (18-25)'. I didn't know what would come of it but thought I might as well give it a go. Unfortunately I promptly forgot all about it. Until now. Now happens to be three weeks in to phase 1: the public vote. Fortunately the public vote doesn't close until 26th January 2014.

Can you guess where this is going?! Yes, this is me asking you nicely to vote for me. And because I am so nice I am even going to explain how to do it.

1. Click on the 'vote here' link below.

2. Fill in the form with your name and email address. (This is just to make sure that all the votes are from different people and to stop me voting for myself over and over again. You can vote more than once but there's no point as it doesn't count, but I appreciate the sentiment!)

3. Click the 'Submit' button. Easy.

See how nice I am, I even filled in the 'blog entry title', 'entry category' and 'type' fields for you.

VOTE HERE

Thank you so much for voting! And even if you didn't vote thank you for bothering to read my blog! Usual service will resume soon with a round up of what happened when A Lucy in Germany  went back to England.

Flying home for Christmas.

First things first: Happy Christmas and Happy New Year! I've got a bit of a backlog of blog posts which I intend to post over the next couple of days. I guess that's the Christmas effect. Let's get started by rewinding a couple of weeks to a post I wrote while sitting in Hannover airport on 22 December, waiting for my flight back to wonderful England.

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I love Germany but I couldn't be more excited about flying home. The thought of being able to order tea without having to specify which type and then getting confused looks when I asked for milk to put in it is ridiculously exciting. I want to pay for things with money which has the Queen on it. And I want to walk down a street and understand what people are saying just by hearing them talk, rather than having to properly listen.

In honesty, my final week in Germany before going home for Christmas was not the wonderful, Christmassy spectacular I had envisioned. I tried to go exploring but every Weihnachtsmarkt was full of people wandering around with their family and friends. Very few people go alone. I have come to the conclusion that Glühwein tastes better when accompanied by conversation. I did have one mega travel day, visiting Braunschweig, Hannover and Hildesheim. Braunschweig was worth re-visiting, and is definitely growing on me as a place. I think it is just the station and walk from the station to the town centre that gives a rubbish first impression! I obviously had a wander in the Christmas market, then went to a couple of bakeries to buy some things to take home: Zimtsterne, Baumkuchen, Marzipan Makronen, etc.

Braunschweig // Hannover // Hildesheim

The next stop was Hannover Weihnachtsmarkt, which as it turns out also has a forest. Not as good as Goslar but a forest nevertheless... Hannover had multiple markets including a Finnish mountain village themed market and what I can only describe as a medieval pirate market. As I understood, a pirate ship ran aground in Hannover (because Germany is known for its extensive coastline) so there were pirates walking round the medieval market. By walking I mean following the pirate leader who was on stilts, shouting, fighting and generally being swash-buckling. Confused doesn't cover it. Only in Germany?! 

I am finishing my Weihnachtsmärkte posts with a brief guide to the food and drink of the Christmas markets. This is only a guide to the things that I tried, there are plenty of others to choose from!

So I've made it to the Christmas holidays. I have been walking round with a permanent smile all day and arrived at the airport so early that check in didn't open for an hour. And being Hannover airport it only took me five minutes to get through security. But it doesn't matter, in two hours I'll be in England.