A month in!

Hello lovely readers!

Gosh, time does fly when you're having fun, doesn't it? The last few weeks have absolutely flown by. Maybe I'm having more fun than I should be! I can't believe that I've been here for a month!

The weekend before last, my friend Katrin came to visit me. My mum and her mum were exchange partners when they were 18 and always kept in contact. When they both found out they were pregnant, they sent each other letters to let the other know and they arrived at the same time! Katrin was born four days before me and we have been friends ever since! Our friendship even survived the moment when I learnt my first German word at the age of three, and apparently just said "Nein Katrin!" (Nein = No) at her for the whole time we stayed there. I was such a charming child... Sorry, I keep digressing, but you may have realised by now that this is a regular occurrence! So anyway, Katrin came to visit me from the other side of Rheinland-Pfalz and we had a lovely weekend! On the Saturday evening, we had Fajita night at one of the other language assistant's flat and then the next morning we discovered an epic pancake house! We later went to Trier-West, where we visited a friend of Katrin's who is studying in Trier, which was really nice. And I spoke German nearly the whole time, so all in all a pretty successful weekend!

[Katrin and I]

[Fajita Night!]

I should also mention that we have had a few additions to the group of language assistants here in Trier, who we've got to know in the last couple of weeks. Everyone is really lovely, and it's been great having a support base of other English speakers when the German all gets a bit too much! Speaking of English speakers, I've also met a couple of them at the choir that I've joined here. One man came from London but hasn't lived there in a while and another is an English teacher, who came up to me asking for advice on a piece of English grammar! I also stumbled across some English people on the way to meet some of the other assistants at the cinema the other day. They were having a massively heated debate about where to go for dinner in the middle of the Hauptmarkt and I couldn't help but chuckle. They looked at me as if to say "crazy foreigner', but I took it as a compliment; at least I'm blending in with the general population of Germany!

But it's not all fun and games! There is work to be done too, even though I only have to do 12 hours a week! I'm actually really enjoying working at the school, even though the children can be massively challenging at times and I have seen a couple of teachers reduced to tears. I think I'm pretty lucky with most of my classes, as they all seem to be nice. I find it harder to assert authority in my Year 10 class than my Year 6 class because they are nearer my own age and are in that teenage "I really couldn't care less" phase, which can be ever so frustrating! Especially when a pupil is good at English but spends most of the lesson messing around. I also have a Year 9 class, which I only have twice a week. I hadn't really had anything to do in these classes so far because the teacher had been preparing them for their next class test, but yesterday she was rather sneaky and didn't turn up to class! I knew she was downstairs in her office, but she just didn't come! Thankfully a friendly neighbouring English teacher photocopied me a couple of worksheets to do with them. The kids in this class are a lot more disruptive than the other classes I teach, so it was a bit of a baptism of fire for me! At first it was a bit chaotic, but without blowing my own trumpet, I'm quite proud of the way I handled the lesson overall (even if at one point it did resort to me attempting to moonwalk at the front of the classroom! Don't ask...) I'm also really excited because I've been asked to be an English tutor to a 16 year old girl. Her father asked for my number from one of the teachers and rang me on Tuesday. It was actually quite awkward, as all of my German knowledge left me and all I could muster was "Ja." "Cool." "Gerne". In the end, he switched to English (not that I asked him to!) I'm going over to dinner tomorrow evening to meet the family and to discuss things, so let's hope that my German doesn't fail me then!

Speaking of German failures, I have had quite a few so far, especially with pronunciation. As my A-Level German teacher once told me, I apparently speak German with the most dreadful Essex accent. Apparently I do in English as well, as I taught a ten year old the word "roof" and she parroted it back in the strongest Essex accent I've heard in a while! Anyway going back to German fails, I have had a few mares while using the public transport system. Apparently my pronunciation of the "Porta Nigra" is completely incomprehensible and justifies me having to repeat it about six times before the driver says "Ahhh Porta Nigra" in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS I JUST SAID IT! Adding to this, I have given up trying to spell things for people in German as they always thing that my "e" is an "ä", and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get it right! At choir, we have to do this exercise where we sing some of the songs without consonants to work on getting the sound as full as possible. This was a total mare for me, as I literally pronounced all of the vowels wrong! Gah! Despite this, I can feel my German improving every day and it is slowly becoming easier for me to speak. Plus, I dreamt in German the other night, which is really cool!

So yeah, apart from going to work, I've mainly been exploring, meeting up with the other ELA's and sleeping (school starts at 7.50am here and it's a bit of a killer!) I hadn't really been homesick since arriving here until I had a bit of a pang on Sunday. It's weird, I miss the strangest things! Obviously I miss things like my family and my cat (yes, my cat. Don't judge me.) But I also miss silly things like Robinson's blackcurrant squash, chocolate digestives and gravy! It's so weird, I don't even have gravy that much at home, but here I've been craving it constantly for the last couple of weeks! So, if anyone fancies sending me some Bisto over, you are most welcome!

I think I've rambled on enough now, so I'll wrap it up there. I'll try not to leave it as long next time!

As ever, thank you for reading,

Bel xxx

P.S. For your amusement: I learnt the best word the other day: "Milchbubi". Milch means "milk" and "bubi" is pronounced like "boobie". My flat mate used it; "Er ist ein Milchbubi" (He is a Milchbubi). I did a double take, as it sounds like something else to an English ear. Apparently it means a guy who still has a baby face. Who knew?!