Anyway (there will probably be a lot of "anyway"s in here, my brain's all over the place so god only knows what order everything will come out in and how many tangents i will go off on - a lot like this one..) So, in an attempt to follow on from the last entry i'll talk about what happened at the station in Cologne, well that's not really a lot from what i remember... it was a pretty unremarkable bus ride back, at least i think it was. I don't remember now but i probably did fall asleep again and that would be why it was unremarkable.
I arrived in Ilsenburg after a nice train journey through a pretty huge chunk of Germany (at least that's what it felt like!) The first stretch was from Cologne to Hanover which was nice, I was on the train with Poppy, Sophie (another girl from the course in case you couldn't already guess that..) and one of the former assistants whose name i actually can't remember right now, i hope she doesn't read this because 1) that would be awkward for the obvious reason that i forgot her name and 2) because that would mean she found my blog somehow which would be creepy soooo if you are reading this whatever your name is; i'm sorry i forgot your name but now you're stalking me which is not normal behavior so i think we can call it quits? and if she's not reading this then it's fine because you don't know that i don't know your name. So either way we're good. I told you my head's all over the place!
back to the train journey...! i don't have any pictures from the train trip, mainly because i was too tired to actually think about getting my camera out but also because it's really difficult to take pictures when you're going really fast through the countryside! - it must suck to be the roadrunner, you could never take pictures on the go... meep meep.
but anyway, soon enough we got to Hanover and it was time for me to struggle off the train and the others were all staying on the train for at least a little longer but thankfully the trains in Germany wait for a lot longer at the stations than English trains do, this was useful due to the fact, in case you've forgotten, i have a suitcase the size of a small planet. Poppy was also nice enough to help me lug it all off before half of my belongings were left to continue the journey to wherever the train was going to end up.
From here on out I was on my own, at least for a little bit, so after deciding it would be stupid to lug said planet down the stairs on my own i went towards the lift, simple enough i hear you say. oh no. you haven't taken into account the fact that some germans just like to use the lift as a way of perusing the platforms but they don't get out. I'll explain, I was waiting politely for the lift and after an unusually long time, it finally comes up to the platform, completely full, but that's okay i thought to myself, this is the top level so they are obviously all going to get out here, right? wrong! they just stood in the lift, chilling and waiting for someone to try and get in, and seeing as i had my planet, and i am of the opinion that personal space is something i value, especially around people who use lifts like a london eye pod, i didn't get in and after a little while it went back down again. now this happened again, after about 5 minutes of waiting (they have to clean the pods on the london eye so i presume this is what they were doing in this time) and another group of sightseers came up and went down and by this point, i was considering just walking down, as some of the other people who had been in the queue had done but i braved it for slightly longer and it paid off, i was down in 30seconds. Score.
But i then knew i would have to brave it again for the next platform, well apparently not, i had clearly moved down in the sightseeing scale of things as this lift was completely deserted - clearly they knew something about the other platform that i didn't...
So anyway i get to the platform, and i think i was at least 20minutes early, i don't really remember but i just waited there as planets don't really allow you to have a tour of any other possibly sight worthy platforms or the like. And as i was waiting there, one of the teachers from the course turned up and stood waiting for the same train as me. Now this is a slight mystery to me, as he wasn't on the train before, i would have noticed him there on the platform, odd. He is also a slight mystery himself, as he was our Sachsen Anhalt teacher as it were, and he was an English teacher, however... he said he was only going to speak to us in German as we were there to practice our language bla bla yeah very good, but when we asked him something in English if we didn't know how to say it in German or it was just quicker in English, he definitely didn't understand what we were saying... at all... he'd try and cover it by giving an answer (in German) but it definitely didn't have anything to do with what we had asked.. interesting. - well probably not for you, and probably not for me when/if i read this back but hey.
i ramble too much!
i'll give gold stars to people who read to the end ;)
So anyway, the train comes and with only a tiny bit of an issue (and two trips) i managed to get all of my stuff on the train and find a place. Now i don't know about you guys but i get quite stressed when i'm on a train or a bus and i know where i have to get off but i don't know what order the stops are in. I like to prepare myself for when to get off (especially with as much stuff as i had), and while i knew the time it was due to arrive in Ilsenburg, that only helps so much!
I do know that it was, again, a lovely trip, but i couldn't really tell you much about what i saw apart from the bit near the end when i knew i had enough time for my stop not to be too close but that it was coming up, and there are a lot of huge hills(mountains) round here! i think it would be even nicer to go through it now actually seeing as all the trees are changing/have changed colour by now.
I think we're going to have to speed this whole week up a little bit or this is going to turn into a very long, very disjointed novel!
I arrived in Ilsenburg and had a slight issue with getting everything off because this train had massively steep steps and was quite narrow so it was a slight issue but it's okay guys, i got off, i'm not writing this from a train. Waiting at the platform was Heidi, who's my sponsor teacher, and after a slightly awkward hello on both parts we put my stuff in her car and then went for an awkward coffee, with awkward conversation as i think she was pretty nervous and even though we started the conversation in English she really didn't understand a lot of what i was saying so then i was forced to do what i came here to do, which is speak German... woo! but that went okay and it was still a halted conversation but mainly because i'd just been picked up by a stranger. And that boys and girls is weird.
Enough blabbing, we went to the school and had a quick tour while nobody was there, which is soo different from when it's full! and then went to see a possible house to live in which is with a family and they have 5 kids i think, but there's only one who still lives at home so they let out the room in the attic and by this point i was pretty shattered so after that and without making a final decision about it we went to the holiday apartment where i was going to be staying which was in Wernigerode (as was the house) and that's the next, bigger, village/town to Ilsenburg pretty much. And then Heidi went home, it was then that i realised that i had no food... which is great when you're shattered and in a completely new place, in a new country. so i was a massive girl and called my parents and had a minor break down, because, you might not understand this, but shops in foreign countries want to eat you, so going shopping isn't a fun idea. but i got a little kick up the bum from my parents, and got out of the house and found my way into the center of town and tried to look for a supermarket. Now if you don't know this place, it's really very difficult to find a normal supermarket, if you want to buy shoes however, the possibilities are endless.. but long story short, i found a little fancy ass supermarket and spent a crazy amount of money on milk, cereal (amazing cereal), tomato puree and gluten free pasta. now those last 2 things were accidental... i thought it was standard pasta... and i thought it was tomato sauce... who puts puree in a jar anyway!? and in case anyone is wondering, gluten is the best thing that ever happened to pasta. Ever.
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| good cereal!!! + the new German brick! |
i keep trying to cut this short but it keeps growing anyway!!!
first weekend, i didn't do a lot, saw another house, it was further away from everything and had a crazy cat lady and a bathroom the size of a midgets cupboard where if you fell off the loo you would smack your head on the opposite wall which was also the end of the shower... now that was small. - before anyone says anything i've never fallen off the loo, but i'm going to put it out there, i would quite like to know that should i feel the need to fall off, or should anything happen, i'm not going to die.
On sunday i moved into the first house i looked at with the family and they also have an american english teacher who lives in their annex and that was pretty cool to meet her.
here below is a picture of one of the views i had from the holiday apartment...naiiiceee -not the man.
the rest of the week was pretty good, i didn't actually do that much in the school, i had 2 music classes on the monday and i have learnt something from that - never give 11 year olds instruments... EVER. but they were cute... so maybe occasionally...
the tuesday i had a few english classes and while the 12 year olds had loads of questions the 16 year olds are demons... that's going to be fun.
wednesday i had the day off for Germany unification day so that was good and then thursday i had a few classes and on friday i had the day off so everything went pretty quickly actually!
i know the first few days are in crazy detail and then the actually week days are in pretty much no detail at all but i'm getting a little tired of typing now and i'm pretty sure anyone who's reading this is pretty tired of doing that too! I may come back to these few days and fill in some more detail about everything, including the bus links which are pretty awful! Now that i think about it i do have a few more things to fill in the gaps but right now i'm going to take a break!
Just to leave you with something, this is the view from my room, ya know, standard castle.
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