Winter ist gekommen...

The snowy path to victory...

So, as many of you may have noticed, winter is well and truly here, and has been for a while. You guys back in GB got the snow a few days before us and I heard about all the excitement back home, so couldn't wait for the proper snow to fall here.

Then it fell, and... nothing really. I don't really know what I was expecting, but snow is not really a big deal here at all, more a blooming nuisance that has to be dealt with for a 3 month period every year. I guess since there's no real doubt about whether snow will fall or not, there's less excitement when it actually comes. The most worked up people get is when they hear the S-Bahn has a 7 minute delay - shock horror. I've seen maybe one group of kids playing in the snow, a couple of pathetic snowmen and the odd little snowball fight has broken out at Uni, but otherwise its pretty much business as usual.

That said, it is bloody lovely here at this time of year. The christmas markets (which will earn their own post due to their true awesomeness) are all open, and every day at Uni there's a group of hardy students set up outside the Mensa selling waffles and sending the quintessential german smell of christmas (Glühwein of course) wafting along in the breeze. The problem with living in a part of the world which is just city after city after city is that there's nothing really to do when it snows, you either escape to the ski slopes (which, lets face it, is a bit gay) or go to the park and arse around. Give me a deathly steep hill and a little piece of plastic any day of the week.

Aside from the snow, I've been continuing in my quest to be more German, and getting German people to be more English. When a friend from me asked me if I knew any 'geile Weibe', he explained that meant 'hot bitches', to which I retorted that one does not say 'hot bitches' where I come from, but 'fit birds' would be much better. To see him spend the whole statistics party saying things like 'ich habe gerade mit einige fit birds gechattet' was priceless. I also took part in a Skat (impossibly complicated card game) tournament and managed to avoid ending with a minus score (I achieved 3, to be precise). The fact the winner got near to 1000 was scheißegal.

Schön, aber verdammt kalt

Also visited the Gasometer in Oberhausen which is basically a massive Gasometer converted into a sort of art gallery with awesome space photos, a lift up 200m to the roof and a huge (practically life-sized) model of the moon, but in sub-zero temperatures (its not heated of course) looking at pictures of stars was challenging. I suppose that's what you call suffering for art.

 On my side of things, I'm seriously considering changing my name. Or rather changing how I say it. It's become somewhat of a ritual for me to introduce myself as Rowan and be met with confused looks and 'WAS? Wrorun? Wrowan? Ronan?', to which I then explain:
'you would pronounce it CHROVANN'
'Ahhhh Chrovann, danke schön!'

So from now on I would appreciate it if you would all call me 'Chrovann Brunnsvickk'. Or Braunschweig as the surname if I want to be really German. It's all part of the process.

Mulled Wine, Board Games and München.

Hello there eveyone (well I presume someone is reading this). It's been a while, ain't it?

The past two weeks have offered me that bit more of an insight into this strange and contradictory land. Last time we spoke I was mildly shitting myself about a statistics trip we were heading on, about which the only information I had was "well we're just going to this holiday park in the middle of nowhere to play board games and drink beer, but it'll be FUN, honestly." Getting an email the night before from the guy driving me and two others there, to tell me that they'd bought a crate of beer for the 2 hour journey "but I won't be drinking any!" was also a test of nerve, but I came through it thanks to regular 15 minute 'Pinkelpause'. As a result of this I don't remember much of Friday apart from being happy that Dortmund won the football and sad that I was taken to bed around 1.30am.

The rest of the weekend we really did just sit around, eat lots of ham and cheese, play board games and drink. But it was fun. Everything was very (sorry) efficiently organised, with exactly the right amount of food and alcohol bought, and our bungalow of 8 sat around a table for a meal every evening, which I found particularly sweet. I was also introduced to the world of binge Glühwein (mulled wine, or literally 'glow wine', which is a nice description) drinking, which requires 2 shots of amaretto in every cup, and 7 hour german sober karaoke marathons - Sexy by Westernhagen, Wie Es Geht by Die Ärzte and Kleiner Satellit (Piep Piep) were particular favourites. I even beat the Germans at this one.

Lecker

Arrived back on Monday, and just about caught up on enough sleep before heading off to München on Friday (19th November). Even by my standards it was pretty stupid to set my alarm for 6.50 when needing to catch a 6.40 train, but dispite that (slight) issue, I made it, and was able to spend a very interesting car journey from Köln to München. This trip was my first time using the website www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de, which is very popular in Germany and allows you to arrange lifts to places with random strangers. This was certainly an eye-opening introduction to it - I was in a car with a guy and two girls, and we spent most of the journey playing truth or dare. Now, I knew the Germans are filthy, but even so some of the answers were quite shocking. This is a family blog so I won't go into too much detail, but one of the girls thought it was normal that she'd been with three different guys in the same day, and I got taken the piss out of for having never made a sex video. Of course that same girl had some kind of chronological library of videos of past conquests as some sort of sick possible nostalgia trip - apparently she'd never not done a sex tape with an ex-boyfriend.

Having survived that disturbing journey, it was down to business. The culinary side of the weekend was spent sampling wheat beer from steins, 1/2 a duck, and Weißwurst, which has to be peeled out of it's skin and eaten with a large dollops of sweet mustard and one large pretzel per sausage. Sounds disgusting, tastes amazing.

Basically any of the hollywood stereotypes of Germans originate from Munich and Bavaria, and presumably most of those were formed by american tourists at Oktoberfest. So if you want to go where Fräuleins with blonde pigtails serve litres of wheat beer to moustachioed men wearing Lederhosen, whilst oom-pah music plays in the background, then go to Munich. When Oktoberfest is on. Otherwise I fear you may be disappointed. People do those things in Bavaria, but only on special occasions (its like asking an englishman if they always put bells on their shoes and do weird skipping dances with sticks).

The rest of us quite happily distance ourselves from all that. Give me Currywurst, industry and tiny beer glasses any day.

The strange world of partying in Berlin and studying in Dortmund

So that's enough of all that  "on Monday I drank some beer, then on Tuesday I ate a sausage" rubbish, it's time to become a proper blogger and deliver some casual but crushing social comment.

So, we had a week off (because as you can see, I'd been working so hard and really needed it), part of which was spent having a hellish journey back to England for Jess' parents' renewal of vows (which basically consisted of the vicar taking the piss out of them and implying it was a holy miracle they're still together), and Wednesday to Sunday was spent in Berlin with 8 Erasmus people and my friends Nathan and Sean who were studying in Heidelberg for mine and Nathan's 21st birthday.

It was eventful to say the least. Definite highlights were the three English boys finding German flag vuvuzelas and annoying the whole city with them, finding the best lasagne ever in Kreuzberg, having happy birthday spontaneously sung to me by hundreds of German football fans in the U-Bahn, partying at week-end - an electro club 20 storeys high directly overlooking Alexanderplatz, gaping in awe at the palace gardens in Potsdam, and attempting the 21 beer challenge on my actual birthday.

Never one to shirk a challenge, I started at 5pm with the intention to keep a steady pace of one beer every half an hour, ending at 4am or so. I was aided in this by wearing a white t-shirt, on which people had the dubious honour of writing on, as long as they bought me a beer. I managed 14 on a night where eventually all my friends went home but I went on with some Russians and a couple of Germans to another bar where I played - and won! - at chess, before four of us were driven for breakfast at 7 in the morning.

While this was going on, my friends were waking up and a 'The Hangover' style situation was taking place, where they considered having to bring me down off the roof so we could get our 10am train, while I rocked up to the hostel at 8.15 wondering what all the fuss was about. Once on the train, it turned out that there were 5 remaining beer bottles, which I finished off (I hadn't gone to sleep so it still counted) before falling into a kind of coma which I didn't quite recover from for the rest of that week.

Berlin/related shenanigans:

Vuvuzela + Beer Hat = Great Combination

Loving the Brandenburg Gate

Probably having a bit too much fun at the Holocaust Memorial

Potsdam

Feeding the swans as a big happy family

Pictures with newly-acquired 'friends'

I won!

Birthday boy looking confused at
his 7am post club breakfast

The party never dies...

Anyway, after all that frivolous fun, it was time to get down to business and start with the horrors of studying Statistics in German.

It goes without saying that it's different. First major adjustment is the 90 minute lectures. To most people that would seem a long time, but I got a good insight into the hardcore work ethic in my first lecture when the lecturer asked, quite reasonably, if we'd like a 5 minute break halfway through the lecture. Instantly chorused the entire room "NEEEEIIIIINNNN!!!!!", as if he was somehow doubting their uncompromising conscientiousness by even suggesting it. Personally, I shat my pants at the thought of a year of this.

But honestly, it's not been that bad. An hour and a half lecture at least gives you a reason to feel you should get out of bed in a morning - although the 8.15 starts are still proving a struggle. Living 5 minutes bike ride away does help with this problem. And, despite the early starts, foreign language and mega long lectures, I still feel like I can keep awake and concentrate. That might be because I'm shitscared of falling asleep - really not cool here.

Generally my fellow students are pretty cool, which is probably because most of them are Dortmunders. There's nothing like the same "get as far away from home as possible" culture, which is refreshing. It leads me to imagine how nice Sheffield would be if it wasn't overrun by (fucking) southerners. One can but dream.

Apart from that, there seems to be a lot more expectation to work things out for ourselves here. Theories which we would spend 2 lectures and a tutorial on in England are stated, spoken about for a minute or two, then left for you to work on at home. Which I haven't really done as yet. Something tells me that might come back to bite me on the arse.

But, as my coordinator  in Sheffield said: "just get a number as your grade - 1%, 5%, 20%, it doesn't matter, we can multiply it by 10 and add a few and you'll be fine". In other words: just enjoy yourself.

Just don't tell that to anyone here. Enjoyment is not the name of the game.

Wish you were here?

20/9 to 30/9 - the end of language course and when lots of Germans bought me shots...

It's taken a while for me to update this - not just through laziness but because German 6GB internet must not be surpassed. I've survived 10 days without internet in my room and feel like I deserve some kind of medal. Or not. Anyway, I digress...

So, this last week and a bit brought my language course to an end and came with the creeping feeling that something wasn't quite right with the world. Essentially, I'd been bought shots by a worrying amount of German lads. Looking back over the three and a bit weeks since the start of everything, I realised I'd been bought shots by 5 separate groups of German lads (maybe there was one girl in one of the groups but that doesn't really help much). I'd had Jägermeister, Rhubarb schnapps, tequila, and my personal favourite - Vodka with fizzy sherbet - bought for me and couldn't really figure out why. Firstly I thought it was as a joke for me to drown my sorrows after the world cup, but noone really mentioned that, so I came to the conclusion that I was being hit on by a lot of German men at the same time. Well I was willing to accept being attractive to German men for the sake of a bit of cheap booze.

On the subject of alcohol (I am a student after all), I'm noticing a tendency towards continental drinking methods on my part. One Monday I even went to the student bar near my halls and didn't buy a single drink. And get this - I still had a good time. Crazy. To be fair, I made up for it the next Monday by getting into dangerous shots competitions and being forced to drink a litre Stein of water before I went home, so seems I'm still English at heart.

Staggering away from that subject, I used this last week and a bit to introduce some more positive aspects of English culture to the internationals. First idea was to make a nice wholesome shepherd's pie like mother used to. To be fair, it was doomed from the outset. Firstly I chose the warmest summery night we'd experienced the whole time, then went to Lidl only to find that concepts like lamb and beef mince and nice English herbs like Rosemary and Thyme don't exist over here. I left the shop with a packet of turkey mince, a shaker of paprika, and dread in my heart. The end result was just as disappointing as it sounds. Much more successful was the showing of 'The Germans' Fawlty Towers episode, just need to pluck up the courage to show that to some actual Germans now, will be a good test of the famous sense of humour...

No home should be without one

Trips-wise, Düsseldorf was visited and found to be very nice, with an excellent line in shisha bars. The Westfallenstadion (AKA church of football) was visited, which was all very nice, but the fanshop was the real star. Here you can buy BVB (Borussia Dortmund for the uninitiated) wine, garden gnomes, Monopoly, and my personal favourite - a toaster which pops up with the club logo. Genius.

 The last day in Dortmund before we had a week's break and I headed back to rainy old England has to be reported on. This involved a trip to the Actien Brauerei in Dortmund, a tour around the old machines etc, and then the taste testing. Oh yes. Between 16.00 and 17.00 we were sat on long wooden tables being ploughed with glass after glass of Brinkhoff's, Dortmunder Kronen and DAB. How we were meant to actually taste them and appreciate the flavour is a bit beyond me when a new one was passed out every 5 minutes, but I'm not one to complain. Feeling rather tipsy, we headed to our finnish friend Petra's house to make pasta for 20 people, which ended up with huge chunks of garlic after my drunken chopping. No-one seemed to notice anyway. From there we headed onto Dora's for some drinking games and then for some fun in Spunk, because if there's one thing this country has taught me, it's that everyone loves Spunk.

13/9 to 19/9 - the week when I discovered the German YMCA

A new week started with yet more form-filling - I went to the town hall to register with the town (otherwise you're just a tourist forever, and noone wants that). I became officially a resident of Dortmund which was obviously an excuse for a party, so went to the Monday bar and ended up playing German drinking games afterwards with a danish man-mountain called Iver, where I learned my first German drinking song - Ja wohl, ja wohl, wir trinken Alkohol/wir haben keine Wasser so wir trinken Alkohol (Ja wohl ja wohl, we’re drinking alcohol, we don’t have any water so we’re drinking alcohol – to be fair, beer is cheaper than water anyway so it’s pretty sensible) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPthKls4bBY

The rest of the working week was spent worrying about an 'international breakfast' where each country represented in Dortmund needed to cook a breakfast and present their country. As the only Englishman I felt a big responsibility to show them the wonders of an English cooked breakfast. This involved an hour's round trip to find baked beans (yeah, I don't know how they cope either) and almost brought me to the point of killing my own pig for the sake of a black pudding, but I remembered how much Germans love their Schwein and left that tasty morsel off the menu.

When it came to it, I made the breakfast perfectly and presented it proudly, before being made to wonder why. I mean don't get me wrong it's what hungover Saturdays are made for, and special in it's own way, but when placed next to these colourful reds from Spain, nutty delights from Turkey and purple stained sticky rice from Korea it seemed a bit too much like a heart attack in a meal. The whole thing was set up as a buffet, and it was hilarious to watch people attempting to work out how to place sausage and beans next to yoghurt and rye bread. My video of cheese rolling redeemed things though and showed people we're pretty fucking cool after all.

The weekend saw a visit of Cologne  (or should I say Köln) which was a major letdown. The cathedral is awe-inspiring - the swarms of lecherous people singing at you, their eyes just saying "you have money. Give me money. Smiley face." were not so endearing. We were taken to a Lindt chocolate factory, with the opportunity to gawk through glass walls at poor factory workers. For something so sweet it left a bitter taste in the mouth (sorry!). Even going up the tower of the cathedral was a bit sickening. Not really sure what possesses tourists to climb one of the few historical things actually left around here and write 'I heart you babe'. Maybe climbing 533 steps makes them think they've earned the right, god knows.

After that little rant, Sunday was really nice. Went to a little Strassenfest in Bochum, met Germans, ate sausage, drank beer, and watched the football. More like it.

At this stage I realised I'm getting a big liking for Schlager music, which is basically a mix of techno, oompah, and really cheesy pop, and when they play it in bars it GOES OFF. Big time. The absolute classic (I'm using that word quite loosely) can be found here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-_xXfjB3AM&feature=related  


Obviously all the actions that the strange old geezers in the video are doing are all part of the fun - it's the German YMCA - noone would listen to it in their free time but get a room full of beered up and shameless people together and it's the funniest thing ever. If someone wants something even better then I'll email you 'Lecker Lecker Schokolade', where a man talks about his lady being sweet like tasty tasty chocolate. Strange, these Germans 

Der Anfang... first week and a bit in DO (3/9 to 12/9)

So, after meeting my delightfully named coordinator Frau Kuhnt, a very tall man with blonde hair called Matthias (always nice when people fit a stereotype) showed me to my 'Wohnheim', which is essentially a quite basic room with bed, fridge and little ensuite shower. Major plus though - it's directly next to a holy trinity of German shops. Schlecker, Lidl and a Bäckerei are right there, and a quick scan round Lidl to find the 6 pack of beer for 1€69 and a litre of wine for 99 cent helped reassure me that I'm in for a fun year here!

All moved in, me and my parents decided to get the S-Bahn (which runs directly from the Uni, handy), into town. Big mistake. Having been massively relieved to leave Bradford on the eve of a big far-right demo, it turns out we just moved to somewhere boasting a huge Nazi demo tomorrow. Not so clever. Even worse that I was wearing my black jacket and black jeans, I really have to say I've never felt so conspicuous in my life. After a nice beer and odd Ruhrgebiet food, we decided to scarper, and I ended up spending a night watching American Pie 2 in German and drinking Yorkshire Tea. An odd day to say the least.

The weekend was the weekend of awesome German flea markets. At the one at the Uni I got myself a huge carrier bag of yoghurt and puddings for 5€, which I considered to be a pretty good day's work. On Sunday I wandered over to the biggest park in Dortmund (Westfalenpark), to find that the whole huge place had been taken over by a flea market. I left there with a bike for 40€, German scrabble and a Deutschland leiis. Not bad. Going up the TV tower showed me how green Dortmund actually is - since the place was bombed to shit in the war they've gone about making it actually really nice and habitable, top notch trains and bike lanes everywhere.

On Monday I saw my ERASMUS group for the first time, and more importantly discovered the wonders of the Mensa (student canteen). For the paltry sum of 1€85 you can get a big piece of meat (nice and stereotypical) with 3 extra dishes. I plan to just eat that every day and just keep myself going with Marmite and beer after that. I also went to WENKER's Bar.

Tuesday saw the start of my language course, and my realisation of how much beaurocracy there is here. In order to get a little job helping at the stats department I first had to fill in my name, address, DOB etc and sign at least 8 forms, after which I was told I still needed a health certificate, passport photos, a tax card, a CV and my full bank details. Unbelievable. I later found out that in order to get internet in my block I need to send a FAX to a company for them to set it up - its like living in the 80s. I also met my coordinator Frau KUHNT.

Wednesday was the first big party in SPUNK, which is one of the best student nights at the Uni (basically every block has their own bar which is open one night a week, serving a healthy portion of beer for 1€ and usually an unhealthy portion of Bon Jovi), where I met my first proper Germans and was bought rhubarb shots, which made me particularly happy. Are you seeing a pattern with the names here? Dortmund is a bit filthy all in all.

Thursday was the first Currywurst I had in Dortmund. I know, 6 days without Currywurst is a long time.

Best night out yet on Friday. Hugo (a belgian) invited us over for Crepes, where I introduced ring of fire to the international crew. Needless to say, they loved it. We attempted to go to the big club in town but only half of us made it in (because of ring of fire obviously) and went to a mexican bar. Mental is the only word. We ended up dicking about with glowsticks, dancing on the bar and having tequila poured into our mouths. The fact we were the only people there dancing didn't mean anything, it rocked.

The weekend was my first encounter with real Dortmund culture (forget all that Ruhr capital of culture rubbish), that is the beautiful coming together of beer and football. Our naive little Erasmus group met at the Hauptbahnhof at 11am, where we were also met by a ridiculous amount of Borussia Dortmund (or BVB) fans, all completely pissed and swigging beer, vodka, Jäger and just anything in the station and around the whole city. The whole city was turned black and yellow (that's their colours, there weren't any fights...) and the awesome atmosphere in the U-Bahn on the way to the stadium means in the actual place it must be amazing. This place is truly football obsessed and I love it.

A brief introduction...

Well I decided that after all this time in the Vaterland, its time to be all studenty and set up a blog. Obviously it would be stupid to write out 7 weeks in one really boring post, so I'm gonna try and sum up each of the weeks separately (what I can remember anyway). Wish me luck!