Happy …. WoRlD sAvInGs DaY!!!!

Before I start explaining in gloriously in-depth detail about my week, I need to let you know that today I decided to go to the bank before the bank holiday started. This was an Amazing Decision, because today ALL the banks were having a party! When I went in, I was presented with a fruit smoothie and fresh fruit kebabs, then had to wait to be served while a group of children were photographed holding OBERBANK balloons. After grappling my way through the paparazzi (a less normal experience for me than you’d expect, given my celeb-status) I was presented with a stall giving me a pick of playing cards, key rings and notebooks. THEN, and only then, did I manage to get the counter, where I found out I have either been paid early or Mr.Zaheya E.Attar, Manager Emirates NBD {national bank of Dubai} Khalediya, who emailed me last month was NOT a fraudster! (because I have money in my bank account). I asked the person who gave me the smoothie why there were free smoothies. He replied, cryptically, that it was ‘World Saving Day’, and then refused to elaborate. In truth I don’t think he knew any more about it than I did – he looked about 15 years old. It’s obviously quite a big thing though as, leaving the bank, I saw the main square in Amstetten had a giant Sparkasse bouncy castle in it. This made me smile, because at the school ball, it was the manager of Sparkasse who I accosted and gave golfing tips to.

Enough about the banks, pleaseeee, I hear you grovel! Okay, here is what I’ve been up to J

Last weekend was a ‘long weekend’ as Austria celebrated its National Day. I wore my Dirndl as a sign of solidarity with Austrian independence, and we went to Vienna. FUN FACT: People in Vienna, as a rule, do not wear Dirndl. In fact, evidence suggests only one person was wearing a dirndl in Vienna that day (me.) Despite this, nobody really gave me any funny looks, though one little rascal did insult my shoes (this didn’t upset me too much as I know they are ugly shoes). We went to Heldenplatz where there were soldiers and a funfair. The centre of Vienna is pretty impressive, which a lot of huge white buildings. I was with another TA who had lived in Vienna for a while and so knew a bit about the history and stuff and she gave me the inside info. I could share this with you now, but I’ve forgotten most of what she said :S Everyone in Heldenplatz was having a great time. I captured the magic in this photograph, which I think you’ll agree is pretty goddam artistic:

JUST BEFORE this photo was taken, a young man handed us a leaflet for the MAK museum open day, so we went. It is the museum for applied arts, and it was really great! We saw some kind of traditional eastern Asian drumming, got free tea, got a free poster, ate Vietnamese food etcetc

The most exciting thing about the day was that when we were wondering around the train station in the morning, I heard a musical, joyful voice calling my name. Then, appearing before my eyes in a hazy mirage of wonder, was my darling friend Eva who I haven’t seen for over a year!  She lives and studies in Vienna, and in the evening we went to her ‘WG’ and ate pasta. It was top notch.

On Saturday a TA friend got me a ticket to her ball. This was in Wieselburg, which translated means Weasel Mountain (lol), and was basically a young farmers’ ball. It was vast, with thousands of guests and some really talented dancers. I wished Jamie Smith had been there with me. Dancing with Jamie Smith was a life-changing experience for me, and I’d recommend it for any girl looking for a good time! He’s only good for dancing though, as his hair may be red but his heart is black.

We gave the disco a good go, but all the young farmers had got PISSED and were flailing around in a very unsightly manner. Managed to survive long enough to hear ‘Is This The Way to Amarillo?’ (I was the only one chanting WOLVERHAMPTON) then we escaped to see the end of a set by a 70s tribute band. When we left the ball it was snowing!!!!

Regular readers will be dying to know how my HOT BEACH CUBAN BOD 2K13 plan is going. Well, in the past week alone I have been to the swimming pool twice AND to my new POWER PLATE CLASS. The first time I went to the pool was for an Aquarobics class. I was pretty apprehensive, however my Expert Swimmer Housmate from Manchester (aka Jess) reassured me it would be full of old people. She wasn’t wrong! The class was run by a tanned, middle aged aerobics instructor with buns of steel who stood at the side of the pool and acted out energetic aerobics routines with unbridled enthusiasm and a terrifying grin. I didn’t feel much pressure to keep up with her though, as nobody seemed to take much notice of what she was doing. No matter what action she demonstrated for us to follow, the mass of elderly, bingo-winged ladies surrounding me merely bobbed up and down and generally displayed a complete disregard for the rhythm of the music AND the recommended dance routines. Every now and then one of the more enthusiastic participants would raise an arm out of the water and wiggle a bit, and at one point the woman in front of me span in a circle for about a minute.

The second time I went to the swimming pool, I took a friend, which meant I was even brave enough to actually do some swimming! I also tried out the slide and the sauna. The sauna was not good as it made me want to giggle and every time I giggled I breathed in a whole room full of steam and coughed and choked. We were in there for under three minutes. The slide was much more enjoyable. The swimming, however, was tiring, confusing and did not last very long. I’m going to try and go again though, and maybe if I keep practising I’ll get better. 

Today, however, things took a turn for the worse. Getting to school for 7.30am means I always need a nap in the afternoon, and today my name lasted too long and I missed my power plates class! This may well be a good thing, however, because one of my teachers today said she thought I looked pale and suggested I have a good rest. This won’t be too hard, as it’s another bank holiday tomorrow and so I have a four day weekend!

To conclude, I give you the excellent news that I found a Mango Outlet store in a nearby town yesterday, and bought two wool coats for 25 euros each. I only need one, but I got a bit carried away. Now I’m searching for a nice hat to complete the winter look! I’ll keep you updated.

Sazboo x

Interaction with an Austrian #5 aka I got asked on a date by a fifty year old man.

[Translated from fluent German]

This event took place whilst I was leaving the ladies' toilets in the train station in Polcharn.

Bus driver [who had driven me to Polcharn]: The first time we met was on the bus. The second time we met was now. The third time we meet will be....when we're meeting to drink coffee?
Me: Hahahaha, sorry, what?
Bus driver: [crestfallen] You don't understand!? The first time we met was on the bus. The second time we met was now. The third time we meet will be....when we're meeting to drink coffee?
Me: Hahaha, sorry, what?
Bus driver: When we meet for coffee!
Me: [Suddenly I understand] Hahaha!
[Swift exit.]

avin a bawwwwll!!!!

I was back in Melk today. I do like Melk, but am really unconvinced by the concept of ‘commuting’ anywhere and it was very difficult to get out of my warm (SINGLE) bed into the freezing cold ice igloo that is my flat this morning. However, today the cleaner came and two brilliant things happened. Firstly, I thought the cleaner cost fifty euros, but she only costs twenty! She slaved away for over two hours, did my washing up, hovered, changed my bedding AND (second brilliant thing) showed me how to use the heating! So now I am sitting in only one jumper, luxuriously enjoying the benefits of a central heating system which, like everything else in this building, has not been updated since the height of the cold war. (<<<<<<<Ironic! :P)

For the past three weeks, Amstetten has been going chicken oriental for what I was reliably informed was one of THE social events of the season – the HLW Ball. My students (who organised the ball) told me it was the BEST ball in Amstetten, Austria and maybe even the world. When I asked them if they ever went to other balls, they were nearly sick into their vocab books, so disgusting the idea seemed to them.

The idea of the ball had been stressing me out, mainly because I was not only going without a date (perfectly normal for me as I am in INDEPENDENT WOMAN), I had to go to this one without anyone. Neither friend nor foe were prepared to accompany me, meaning I was waddling to the venue (late) on Saturday evening completely alone, trying to blend into a vast crowd of Austrians streaming towards the door :'( I had, however, received help in getting READY for the ball. Last weekend I went to Innsbruck and received lots of fashion advice from my friends there, and bought a dress. When I showed the dress to my landlady she got very excited, and gave me seven different shawls to wear with it. Going from personal experience, I thought a shawl would be a bit showy and I’d be unlikely to see anybody else in one there. I nearly didn't wear it. Thank god I did. These people take their balls seriously – the lovely woman I was seated by was wearing a full length, bejewelled dress with a silk shawl and an up-do. It was beyond posh.

Anyway, I plopped myself down by these strangers and tried to do some small talk in German, which mainly involved me repeating strange German words I didn’t understand whilst wearing a confused face:

Austrian lady: So, do you flobbidyjibbywaber?
Me: Do I flobbidyjibbywaber?!!?
Austrian lady: Flobbidyjibbywaber.
Me: Flobbidyjibbywaber!?
Austrian lady: flobbidyjibbywaber...
Me: Yes!

Smiling and agreeing generally seems to either answer the question, or encourage them to stop trying.

The event was attended by about 1500 people – students, parents, teachers, friends and locals. It opened with a performance of the female students either dancing with their boyfriends or their fathers. They danced to ‘You Raise Me Up’ by Westlife, and at the appropriate moment, the fathers lifted their daughters into the air and looked solemn. Regular fans will not be surprised to hear I was choking back tears at this point: totes emotes.

I was sat by a student from Vienna who was unfortunate enough to ask me a question JUST  as the big band started playing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ “Islands in the Stream”, and I started hyperventilating with excitement. Obviously sensing a chance of romance, he offered to dance with me. I’ve always believed myself to be a very good dancer, possessing natural rhythm and grace. However, after stepping on his feet about 17 times we had to stop and it was very awkward.

There were five or six bars – one for ‘beer’ (it’s lager.), one for Champagne, one for cocktails, one for shots etc etc. I went to them all. Near the ‘beer’ bar, in the room for the hip young things, some of my students performed in a band and people cheered and drank mugs of beer (me too!). Some of them came and shouted at me things like “IT MUST BE SO WEIRD FOR YOU TO SEE PEOPLE DRUNK WHO ARENT 21!!!” (wrong) and “YOU CAME WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND!” (also wrong.) One student told me that she LOVES my lessons. She is my new favourite.

At midnight there was another huge performance which included the headmaster dressed as some kind of prince and many dance routines:

For one of the dances they dressed in Lederhosen and smacked eachother's bottoms (hilarious)

Grand Finale.

When it ended, everyone was weeping and cheering and they did a little encore. After two more glasses of wine, the headmaster invited me to come and drink with the VIPs (it was only made apparent to me later on that they were VIPs). By this time I’d had a vicious cocktail of alcohol, and was feeling emotional, enthusiastic and over-excited. I simply GUSHED about the headmaster’s performance and how wonderful it was to get all the students involved, then started prattling away to the local important business man who had sponsored the event. Yes, in hindsight, I am embarrassed about this; however, I have no regrets.

Here is a photo of that I took of myself in the disabled toilet. At the time, I thought it looked really wacky and cool and like I was eating my own camera. I think you’ll agree!

"You left me standing in my LBD with my bang bang shoes - I was so confused!"

After the solo photoshoot in the toilet, I felt a bit peckish, so snacked on some salmon and caviare entrees (tasted fishy...in both senses of the word!!!) then decided to waddle back home. I got back at 3am, and in the morning Little Old Landlady was appalled. “3am!?” she cried. “They usually don’t get back until at least seven!”

It was a pretty exciting night, but I’m even more excited for this weekend, as one of my fellow TA friends thinks she’ll be able to acquire me a ticket to attend her ball and this will mean I won’t be going alone! And, because it’s in a different town, I can wear the exact same outfit. SCORE!!!!!!!!!! :P

Melk, you beauty!

Here in Austria I’m working at two schools .The first, which is the school who have to deal with all my paperwork and mood swings, is in Amstetten and is a school focussed on hospitality. The second is a grammar school which is situated in Austria’s version of Disneyland (Melk). A huge abbey built on the top of a hill in Melk, Stift Melk is so big that it is literally impossible to get a complete photograph of it without a helicopter. After leaving my house at 6.40AM (!!!!) I travel to Melk on a 33 minute train ride. The train line follows the river Donau, which had lots of mist rolling over it in the mornings, and the water was quite calm last week and a beautiful colour. Being a relatively ‘flat’ part of Austria, you get a wonderful view of the sunrise and then you turn a corner and the Abbey suddenly appears out of the mist, huge and symbolically intimidating, like the ice berg in Titanic (except yellow). As commutes go, it’s quite impressive, and certainly makes the early mornings almost bearable (I also like to play ’21 seconds’ by So Solid Crew to get myself going).

This is genuinely what it looks like!

I liked it a lot, and the town is also very lovely with little, traditional buildings and a market on a Wednesday. One of the coolest things about the school is that it has huge oak doors in the corridors which open automatically, like magic! One of the least cool things about the school is that you have to climb about 935,000 steps to get to it, and by the time I get to the top, I’m really out of puff!!!!

Seeing as I am now working in Disneyland, I decided I needed to complete the look so, despite refusing to spend money on a coat (who needs a coat!? in Austria!?) I bit the bullet and [BIG NEWS!!!] bought myself a Dirndl. I got it in an incredible shop where I wanted to buy everything. Austrian traditional dress seems to involve a lot of velvet, reindeer and buckles: my three favourite things! Mine was reduced from 200 euros to 39.99. It's a lilac colour to match the lilac tree that was planted in my honour in Wolverhampton (by my parents in my garden) and has little reindeers leaping all over the skirt. A dirndl is made up of the dress, a little blouse and an apron. You can also get AMAZING VELVET JACKETS but I couldn't afford one, so it's on my 'wishlist', along with a pair of ruby slippers and comprehension of the German language.

Here is me looking like even more like a princess than usual:

The best thing about the Dirndl is that it has pockets. I tied my bow on the left so all the fellas know  I'm free, single, and ready to mingle! That's also why I chose green.

Lol self timer

They were all full length. I might take it up to knee-length, if I'm feeling paticularly cheeky. 

When the hell are you going to wear a Dirndl!?!? I hear you cry in indignation. Why, around the house, when I'm feeling sad.

My Snow White-inspired lifestyle has NOT ended there! After accumulating some rather ripe bananas I decided to release my inner Mary Berry and, instead of throwing them away, made a cheeky Banana Bread. Naturally, this activity took me an entire day to complete and involved spending much more money than the bananas were worth. Baking ingredients in Austria is not the same as baking ingredients in the UK (I blame there extensive variety of baked goods). I had to resort to accosting random strangers in the supermarket for advice, especially in the flour section, where I was really baffled. One day I'll look up the German words for the ingredients I want BEFORE I go to the supermarket, but not this week.  (EDIT: BTW See my recipe for banana bread cake balls here).

FlOuR!!!!

A picture of my banana bread. It was so good, and I gave some to my landlady's daughter and she  LOVED it, despite repeatedly telling me 'it's not bread, it's cake'. I was like, yeah BUT ITS CALLED BREAD OKAYYYY?????? :S

I used the  Guardian's perfect banana bread recipe  and it the best banana bread I've ever eaten (sorry dad.)

Whilst making my banana bread I utilised some of the wacky 70's equipment in my kitchen, including this weighing scale:

It really is a weighing scale, and it seemed to work, but I've never seen anything like it. Exciting new things!

And IN CONCLUSION here are some pix I took of Melk!

Entrance

Second entrance 

Inside the Abbey with some atmospheric birds circling the dome.  The window to my office is on the first floor on the right.

Several Exciting Things

[NB: I have been accused (more than once) of ‘overusing’ CAPITAL LETTERS for DRAMATIC EFFECT, so I have decided to limit myself and have only used Capital Letter for the beginning of words which are Important. I hope you appreciate and enjoy this change in my writing style.]

Several Very Exciting Things have happened over the past few days. First of all, I had my First Interaction with an Austrian Builder 2k12. I found him lurking in the basement which until that point I did not know existed. He had a strong local accent so I didn’t understand a word he said, and had to resort to smiling politely and slowly backing away.

THEN I went on a pre-arranged outing that my mentor teacher signed me up for. This wasaorganised by the English department of the Grammar School next door and involved a trip to a traditional pub that was celebrating ‘Knudltag’, or, for monolinguals: “Dumpling Day”. “Knudl” sounds a lot like “canoodle” so I have been saying it as much as possible! We drove up into the mountains and when we arrived the waiter shook all of our hands and the owner of the pub came out to greet us extremely cheerfully! “Gruβ Gott!” he hollered, and we all hollered back! We sat in the baking sun, looking over views of the mountains. I was served three courses of dumpling based dishes, starting with Liver Dumpling Soup, which I dutifully finished, despite a flavour and texture I would not recommend you try unless forced to by politeness. Then we had a main course of savory dumplings and ‘sauerkraut’, which is basically a very disappointing version of coleslaw. The weirdest thing about Dumpling Day is that all the Dumplings are the same and only the filling changes. So we had plum and Nutella dumplings that were made of the same dumpling as the meat and lard dumplings (!!!!) but I ate them all anyway. I was treated to the meal by one of the English teachers and I certainly enjoyed the nice traditional experience, even though I don’t know if I’d eat so many dumplings again ever again. Nobody had a satisfying explanation of why Dumpling Day existed; in fact they found it strange I even questioned it.

The most exciting thing about Dumpling Day was that [SIGNIFICANT DRAMATIC PAUSE] I made a New American Friend!  My New American Friend works as a teaching assistant at the Grammar school and has been here a year. After Dumpling Day she showed me some of the sights of Amstetten, which were a statue of a wolf and…well, that was it, actually, but we also had some coffee at a little coffee shop and treated ourselves to some ice cream.

When I was wondering home, I fantasised about how pleasant it would be to pee as soon as I got in, as all the dumplings were pressing on my bladder and I needed the ‘WC’. However, I was soon beckoned from my path by a dark, mysterious figure, rather like the wolf in little Red Riding Hood. As I approached I soon realised it was my Dear Old Landlady, who was waiting to go into the Grammar school, where she used to work, to attend some kind of event. She couldn’t really explain what exactly the event was, but she encouraged me to come in with her, so I did, keeping a beady eye for the toilets. It soon became apparent it was an evening held for the ‘friends of the school’ and it’s beneficiaries, and not everybody was entirely delighted to see me tagging along. Everyone was dressed very smartly and I was still in my Dumpling Day outfit. We went upstairs and they promptly began giving long speeches in fast and complicated German. This, and the fact that there was no toilet break, meant I was eagerly awaiting it all to be over. However, when it did end, they presented us with alcohol and nibbles, and Dear Old Landlady introduced me to all the important people. I spoke to the music teacher who’s in an orchestra, and I asked if I could join too, and then he told me about trips they made to the opera and to musicals in Vienna. Dear Old Landlady left then, but made me stay because I think she (rightly) thought I needed to make some friends. I spoke to one of the girls who had provided musical entertainment during the talks, who had just graduated high school and is now studying medicine in Vienna. She was completely fluent in English, and it turned out that because her mum was an English teacher and they both loved period dramas. This gave us a LOT to talk about – they’d even seen Cranford! They gave me loads of tips of German books and poetry to read to help me improve, and then gave me a lift home.

I took this photo with my camera!

On Saturday, New American Friend and I went to Vienna for ‘Night at the Museum’, where you buy a ticket to for 13 euros which lets you go into about 122 museums that stay open until 1am. We met at the train station, but by the team we’d gotten tickets and got ourselves sorted there was only one minute until the train left which meant we had to RUN through the underpass and down the platform. A woman with a scooter leapt to our assistants and held the door open for us, and we jumped on as the train was starting to leave the platform. It was So Cool. The excitement, thankfully, did not stop there. The train was like a modern Harry Potter train. After being screamed at by a very irate young lady in the corridor, we went into the only compartment with spare seats where Mr Charistmatic was stting. Mr Charismatic told us that it was a compartment for ‘retired people’ only, (by which I think he meant disabled people), but if the ticket lady asked we could say we were with him as he had a poorly foot (NB: the ticket lady did not ask). Mr Charismatic then left us alone for a while, but once we started talking about the general election he got interested, and spent the next 40 minutes animatedly telling us about himself and how much he loved America. He was Russian, but originally Spanish, but born in Austria (?) and runs a jewellery shop with his father and a property business. I know all about him. He even showed us pictures of his family, and told us about his visits to New York. Then he gave us valuable life advice, especially on choosing a spouse, and some tips about Vienna. Eventually we reached Westbahnhof and Mr Charismatic bid us farewell.

A blurred image showing me contemplating a  marzipan gogo dancer. Regular followers may be interested to not how long my hair is! I'm wearing an unusual selection of little known high street brands (i.e. Primark and H&M) and orthopaedic shoes designed for the elderly. The woman is wearing marzipan.

Vienna is a tiny capital – it only has 5 different colours on the underground map. We started in the centre, where there’s a cathedral, and had Sturm and pancakes in a restaurant, followed by The Best Kebab of My Life. We didn’t really have a plan for the museums, but started at the Natural History Musem, were me met Other Teaching Assistants. The Natural History Museum was MANIC, there were people everywhere. There were little stalls with demonstrations and samples, where people got especially bustly. We then made a very poor decision and queued for an inordinate amount of time for a very small and rubbish marzipan experience, where they gave us free boiled sweets and NO marzipan. We left dejected, disappointed and desiccated (like a coconut!) then My New American Assistant Friend and I went to the art museum, which was INSANELY GOOD! All the walls were ornately decorated, with painted ceilings and alcoves and marble pillars. The very top had murals by Klimt, which we climbed up 3 gazillion steps to see, but it was really worth it. Then we went to the Ancient Egyptian area where there were loads of mummies, and hieroglyphics painted all over the walls. It was really, really cool. In fact it was so cool that we couldn’t drag ourselves away until we abruptly realised we had 20 minutes to get back to the train station in time for our train at 23:50, which was three tube stops away. By this time we were hobbling and wheezing from walking too much and lack of hydration, so we hobbled to the underground station and waited for the next train. When it arrived we had 10 minute left before the train left. When we got to the train station we had about four and a half minutes left. Naturally, the underground train was under the ground so we had to haul out tired, aching bodies up three escalators to get to the normal train station, where we fumbled about getting ourselves tickets from the horrid little machines. We got the tickets at 11.49. Then we had to run up another flight of stairs and to Platform 5 where the train was. We ran to the train door, but realised that this train was actually some kind of cruel ruse that Wasn’t Going Anywhere and was positioned there to confuse and upset people. The train we needed was actually the next one down the platform. This was about a 100m sprint to the doors, which we managed in I’d say about 25 seconds, which considering everything is pretty good, especially as we’d already run about 55 miles. When we got on the train we were panting heavily, I was sweating and I thought I might faint, so I went to sleep.

NEXT TIME:
Q: WOULD YOU RATHER, MELK OR MILK?
A: MELK(!!!)

At the end of my first working week, I reflect on how far I've come and grown as a person

Hey There! 8-D
I have now finished my First Week as a Language Assistant.
I did a pie chart of my time, in order to make my blog accessible to all kinds of learners (this is something I learnt about at ELA camp!)

As you can see, I spent a lot of time sleeping! This is because I am meeting lots of new people, so my Beauty Sleep is very important. Of the time I spent teaching, I would say I spent 10% of it teaching English and 90% of it being stared at fearfully.

All the people I've worked with so far have been really friendly and very reasonable, and they make you feel very welcome. There's definitely a small town atmosphere, one of my students came up to me at the shops yesterday and had a chat, and even teachers who don't teach English have made an effort to come and introduce themselves and chat to me! It's so friendly! Unfortunately, if any of them attempt to talk to me in German, complete confusion ensues and the chitchat comes to an abrupt halt. But I'm sure that will change very soon!

I had lunch in the school today. Because it's a hospitality school some of the students learn catering and for practice they cook and serve the school lunches! This was a three course meal of soup, 'Autumn roll' filled with spiced mince and served with potatoes and salad and then this amazing messy pancake thing which comes with sticky stewed plums. I've had the pancake thing before, but last time I had it, it was at a buffet, and I thought it was potatoes so covered it with meat and gravy. The gravy mixed up with the icing sugar and it was kind of strange. Turns out it tastes a lot better when eaten as a desert! It costs 3.80 euros, but one of my teachers paid for me today as she said I was 'her guest'. It was incredible.

This morning I found the notes I made at our pre-departure meeting, where our lecturers told us about Austria and Germany. The first point says "You WILL have all your civil liberties in Austria." However, this week I have come to realise that this is far from accurate. Austrian schools cause what any normal, sane human being would describe as a Cruel and Unusual Punishment, as they start the school day at 7.30 AM. Who in the world is up at this time, let alone out of the house, at work, and STARTING work!? Are we postmen? NO! So why force us to get up!? As a true believer in following the Body Clock method of time-keeping, I think waking up before dawn is truly inhumane. But here they make you WORK before dawn! It's  so mean :( Next week I start work at the Grammar School, which is part of the Abbey. I'm excited to see the abbey, but it's a 40 minute train journey from here, so God Only Knows how I'll get there in time.

okay, gotta go and moisturise (cold weather is drying me OUT and I'm getting all scaly and lizard-like ;-) )

NEXT TIME: Schnitzel or Shitzel - THE TRUTH!

xx

DAY ONE AS AN EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONAL

TODAY I MADE SEVERAL HUGE STEPS OF PROGRESS: I started my first day at school, I registered at the local town hall and received my “Meldezettel”, I opened a bank account, I bought a wireless-internet-dongle-thing, I continued to be ignored by my parents. BUT the most exciting event of the day: I went to the supermarket again!

On my first day at the supermarket I was just shocked to find a building I could happily describe as big. I was over-excited, overwhelmed and over-tired. Muddled, frightened and half-blind I lurched through the aisles like the drunk man in that youtube video.

Today was so different. Having learnt from previous mistakes, I made a list before arriving to try and help me focus. First stop was the vegetable aisle. I was so amazed at the vegetable aisle I almost failed to complete any other purchases. I did three circuits of it (I kid you not) and picked up all the different pumpkin/squashes in complete amazement. They have pumpkins here that look like octopuses. They have eight little legs, like octopuses. They have so many different types of pumpkins!! If you thought Butternut Squash was exotic (I did.) then prepare yourself for whole new world of wonder! Every shape, size, colour and pattern. Within seconds I was making a mental list of all the people I knew who I just had to bring to the vegetable aisle! (Be warned: your name may well be on that list!) About 35 minutes later I dragged myself away with a 2 kilo red cabbage in one hand and a bag of onions in the other, wistfully gazing back at the pumpkins. Then I found the cheese aisle. I could now list all the different types of cheeses, milk and creams available, but I think it would be easier to list what wasn’t there: cheddar. Now imagine every other kind of cheese you can: THEY HAD IT! This was pretty mind-blowing, but I kind of really wanted cheddar, so I didn’t buy any cheese. I then continued around the shop in complete bemusement and wonder until I stumbled upon the checkout and left, cabbage in one hand and a 500g pot of cranberry sauce in the other. (Breakfast tomorrow is going to be very weird.)

There is an Aldi (actually called Hoffer here) a little further down the road, I may well go there tomorrow, because I just find Merkur so incredible that I can’t get anything done! It’s like trying to do an exam in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory – there are too many distractions to make any sensible decisions!

Other interesting things that happened to me today:

I met all the other teachers and students, and all the teachers were very friendly and a lot of them had heard of Wolves. All the students looked at me fearfully, like they didn’t really know what ‘England’ was. The more frightened they looked, the more I tried to smile (to appear friendly!) and the more frightened they looked…and then the more I tried to smile… it was a vicious cycle that taught me one important life lesson: my smile is not reassuring :-S

Over and out xx