Wednesday 21 November 2012

All Aboard the Berlin Banter Blog!

Hello my darling readers,


I'm actually writing this within a few days of me arriving back from Berlin and haven't left it for a few weeks as I usually do. I hope you are proud of me and appreciate this great display of effort!

I suppose that I should start at the very beginning, as I hear that it's a very good place to start... My journey started at 7am on Friday when I got a taxi to the station. Unluckily, my driver was one of those ridiculously chatty taxi drivers. Now, I have nothing against them and I would even go as far as to say that it's quite pleasant to have a friendly taxi driver, but there should be a law that they are not allowed to talk to you before 9am. I know this sounds very antisocial, but the last thing I want to do at that time of the morning is to make inane small talk with people that I will never see again, particularly in a language that isn't my mother-tongue! It was all the usual questions like "Where are you from?" at the beginning, but once he found out I was from London, he started telling me a story about how he went to London once for three days when he was fifteen, and asked whether I knew someone called Peter who lives in St. Albans. Funnily enough, I didn't. For all of you Non-British folk, just because we live on a small island, does not mean that we all know each other!!! Needless to say, I was relieved to get out and onto my bus to Frankfurt airport, where I could plug in my iPod and nap!

Once arriving at the airport (ridiculously early, because it was the only bus that would get me there on time) I checked in and decided to get something to eat. Now, in an English airport, it is usually wise to eat after you have checked in and gone through security as there is less stress and there are usually a better selection of restaurants. Not in Frankfurt am Main, though... (Or Berlin Tegel for that matter). There was only one restaurant after security and I ended up paying a ridiculous amount for a Flammkuchen that I didn't even eat half of because it was a bit grim. By the time I arrived in Cottbus, I was starving, so was thankful when Emily suggested that we went and got something to eat!

Emily gave me the guided tour of Cottbus as we walked from the station to the main part of town. She said that is was fairly typically East German, but it was pretty dark and misty, so I didn't really get a chance to have a look. She showed me where she worked and we went to a lovely restaurant, which is quite like Giraffe in England. Em recommended the cocktails, so we set to work deciphering the mammoth cocktail list. Finally I settled on a strawberry margarita and Emily decided on a kiwi type thing. When the waitress came to take our order, we said which cocktails we'd like and she replied in German. I didn't catch what she had said, so said "Ich weiß nicht!" (I don't know!) Emily didn't understand what she had said either, but instead of saying that she didn't know, she decided to ignore her and hope that she went away. After a few awkward seconds of her looking at us expectantly, Emily just turned round to her and said "Ja." This seemed to satisfy the waitress and off she went. We just collapsed into giggles as we really didn't have a clue what we'd just agreed to. We were soon to find out, though... As our cocktails arrived, there were four on the tray and I thought "Oh the girls on the table next to us have ordered the same! What a coincidence!" How wrong I was. By saying "Ja", we had actually agreed to double cocktails! The waitress looked ridiculously shocked when Emily and I erupted into giggles again! Thankfully though, it was a situation that could have potentially turned out badly, but actually turned out quite well!

[Our double cocktails faux pas]

[Margarita time!]


The next morning, we got up early for our day trip to Berlin. Berlin is about an hour away from Cottbus on the train, so we lugged ourselves out of bed and caught the train at 9am. On the train into the city, the East and West divide was still really noticeable, which I was quite surprised about. Our first stop on our tour was what remains of the Berlin wall, which we headed to after meeting up with Emily's friend Martha at the Hbf. The station that we got off at to see the wall was in East Berlin, and I was quite shocked to see how different it was from what I'd seen of the West. I think the term that one of us used to describe it was "bleak". I know that it's just one part of the city, but I would have thought that it would have been more developed, particularly as it is a tourist destination and due to the fact that there is an O2 arena there. The arena looks so out of place and, setting it apart from everything else, I really did feel like I had been transported back to East Berlin in the 1980's. The wall is covered in all sorts of graffiti, some sending out political messages and some purely decorative. It was so interesting to see and one my personal highlights of the day.

[Berlin Wall]

[Half East, Half West]

The next stop was Checkpoint Charlie in Friedrichstraße. Friedrichstraße is quite clearly the shopping district of Berlin and it felt quite similar to London. I didn't know what I was expecting Checkpoint Charlie to be like, but I certainly didn't picture it the way it is! The best way to describe it, is that that it's  just chilling in the middle of a road full of shops. It's actually situated right next to one of the biggest capitalist brands that you can think of; McDonalds. (Some irony there, I feel.) Seeing as it was my first time in Berlin, I completely sold out to the tourism industry and paid €2 to have my photo taken with a soldier in front of the Checkpoint. As Emily took the photo, the soldier said to me in a strong Russian accent: "You have boyfriend?" I was a bit shocked as I told him "No". As I said it, Emily told us that she'd taken the photo but the soldier told her to take another one. He then held out his arm for me to take and as I did so, he said "You have boyfriend now." It took all of my concentration not to laugh in the middle of the photo being taken!

[My new "boyfriend" and I at Checkpoint Charlie]

After lunch in the German version of Wagamama, we headed down to the Brandenburg gate. When we got there, we suddenly realised that none of us knew what the Brandenburg gate was. Such bad German students! Thankfully, we found an information board that told us everything that we needed to know. In case you were wondering, it's a former city gate. You learn something new every day! We then walked down to the Reichstag, which is a really impressive building. Unfortunately you have to book tickets in advance, so we couldn't go in, but I suppose that it just gives me an excuse to go back to Berlin, doesn't it? At that point, Martha left us and Emily took me to see the holocaust memorial. I have quite mixed feelings towards the memorial. It is basically a series of large concrete blocks in the middle of a square. I didn't like it too much as there was nothing telling you what it was and if nobody told you, then you wouldn't think anything of it. I suppose that's where the problem lies for me, it was too easy to overlook. Having said that, as you walked deeper into the labyrinth of stone, it did have a sense of atmosphere to it that is appropriate for what it symbolises. I have heard a lot of different opinions about it and if you haven't been before, I would definitely encourage you to go and see what you make of it.

[Brandenburg Gate]


[Emily and I infront of the Reichstag]

[Holocaust memorial]

[Walking through the memorial]

Later on, Emily and I headed towards Potsdamer Platz, where there was a little Christmas market going on. None of the others were open yet and in some ways, it's a shame that I didn't visit a few weeks later when they would be open! We then decided to get something to eat before heading back to Cottbus. We ended up in Alexanderplatz, where the iconic TV tower is located. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the top, as it was so misty! I caught a glimpse of it on my way back into the city on my way home the next day, though!

[Em and I being silly while waiting for the train]

So there you have it, my weekend in Berlin in a nutshell! I had an amazing time and would definitely like to go back again.

Thanks, as ever, for reading,



Bel xxx



P.S. In other news, after being inspired by Emily riding her bike this weekend, I finally got my saddle lowered today so that I can actually ride mine now! I christened it by riding down to the Mosel river and back up through town. As you may know, I'm not the most coordinated person in the world, and I received a few amused looks as I wobbled my way through town. Oh well, practice makes perfect!

Thursday 15 November 2012

Harry Potter, a Tea Party and a Little Bit Of Luxembourg!

Hello lovely readers,

I have exceeded my usual standards of laziness and haven't written in three whole weeks! I therefore won't promise to write every week anymore, just as and when something interesting occurs! I warn you, this post is going to be a long one, so brace yourselves!

I suppose I had better start where I left off last time! At the end of October, Eleanor (an old school friend) came from Bonn to visit me in Trier. After meeting her at the station, I gave her a small tour of the town and some of the main sights. That evening was the much anticipated Harry Potter party at Hillary and Gunjan's place, so we both donned fancy dress and made our way to Ehrang carrying the "very haggard Hagrid cake" that the other assistants and I had made the day before in honour of Hillary's birthday. El looked fairly inconspicuous, but unfortunately the same couldn't be said for me. I was dressed as Hedwig, so attracted many a curious stare as people clocked the feathers sticking out of my coat on the bus. Once arriving at the party, we were all divided into the four houses (Eleanor and I were Ravenclaw) and the game commenced. It was a brilliant effort on Hillary and Gunjan's part, I must say. We had different categories such as Divination (His and Her's type questions), Charms (Charades) and Quidditch (Beer Pong). Naturally, Ravenclaw won (though, those pesky Gryffindors may claim otherwise), and by the end of the night, some people were absolutely Harry Pottered!


 [Hedwig]

 [The Famous Hagrid Cake]

[Those sneaky Gryffindors]

[Eleanor and I in front of the Porta Nigra]


Later that week, Germany had a Feiertag (bank holiday), so a group of us decided to go to Luxembourg for the day. To be honest, we didn't really think it through because everything was shut because of the bank holiday, so we spent most of the day wandering through Luxembourg in the rain. It's a nice city with some nice buildings, but I'm not sure that I would go there again as you can pretty much do the city in one day! Despite this, we had a laugh. We sampled the local cuisine.... Ok, I lie, we went to a Mexican restaurant and drank Margaritas... And I used my rubbish school-girl French! Quite successful, I'd say!

 [Us gathered around a random flame on our very rainy day trip to Luxembourg]

 [Luxembourg]

[Later on in the day and it was still raining!]

Last week I was invited to one of the other English teacher's houses for a little get together for her birthday. A few of the other teachers I knew from school were there (including my supervisor teacher), plus a few more who had retired a couple of years before. For those of you who were in my Year 7-9 German class with Mrs Schofield and know about her German cake obsession, you will understand what I mean when I say that she would have had a foodgasm. There were only ten of us there, yet there were about eight massive German cakes. There was a cheesecake, a kiwi cake and an apple cake, just to name a few! (In case you were wondering, I went for the apple cake.) It was a really nice afternoon and a good opportunity to socialise with my colleagues outside of school. Plus, I got to practice my German a lot!

Later that evening, I cooked a typically English meal for my housemate Steffi; Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy (made from the gravy that my Mum sent me!) We had no masher to mash the potatoes with, so we improvised and used a hand blender. I wouldn't recommend this method. The potatoes adopted the consistency of glue and with the gravy it turned a bit soupy! Nevertheless, it tasted OK and we washed it down with some wine. I don't know whether it was because I'd spent most of the afternoon making conversation in German and was in the zone, but I was able to speak fairly eloquently about loads of things. At one point, we were talking about World War II and, without blowing my own trumpet, I was really proud of the way in which I was able to speak, as I wouldn't have been able to speak like that when I first arrived. Even Steffi commented that she thought that I had improved. I must say, it's good to hear, as the last few weeks I have felt like I've been in a bit of a rut when it came to my language skills. Having said that, I have had conversations and even straight after, I  can't remember whether I had the conversation in English or German. That has never happened to me before!

Last weekend, Gunjan (who is Hindu) held a party to celebrate Diwali. On the Saturday, we all went to her house and she drew beautiful patterns on our hands in Henna and we watched a Bollywood film about cricket. Those of you who know my Dad will understand why I am fairly knowledgeable about cricket (though I'm sure that he will deign to disagree, as I spend most matches shouting nonsense like "LBW" at random times, just to wind him up), and so I spent the last hour or so of the film explaining some cricket rules to those who didn't know. It was a great film, but ridiculously long! I swear it lasted over three hours!! The next day, we commenced the second part of the party. All of us dressed up nicely and most of us cooked something yummy for the evening! Later on, we set off some fireworks (because Diwali is the festival of lights). It was great fun!

That brings me nearly up to date! Just one more thing, though! After our weekly Schnitzelabend, a few of us went to see the new James Bond film this week. We saw it in English and it was absolutely amazing! It was also quite funny to read the German subtitles and see how it had been translated. I definitely think that quite a few of the jokes would not have worked in German, but that's just me! Having said that, there were hearty chuckles from most of the Germans in the cinema, so it must have been funny to them!

Tomorrow I'm off to Berlin to visit Emily who is living in Cottbus. I actually cannot wait, as I've never been to Berlin before!

Stay tuned for our adventures aboard the Berlin banter bus! I'll try and get them up as soon as possible after I get back!

Thank you for reading,



Bel xxx


P.S. Sorry that this post is a quite bitty, but I left it for so long that it was hard to get a continuous writing style going!

P.P.S. We found this when we went on a shopping trip to Saarbrücken (there's a Primark there!)
Oh dear, Germany! Is there something you're not telling us?