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?
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