You Can Call Me El

Hello again! Let me tell you all about my trip to Vienna! First of all, Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. In the centre at least, every single building looks like a palace, and it's very easy to imagine yourself wandering around a couple of centuries ago, complete with period costume. That's the dream, anyway. My dear friend Zeynep was kind enough to go to university in Vienna this year for her year abroad, meaning I could stay with her instead of having to find a hostel. She took me round the important tourist sites, a job with which she will no doubt soon get bored because everyone who comes to visit her this year will want to do exactly the same things. Fortunately, as I was one of the first visitors, she has not yet lost all interest in being a tourist.  On Friday we visited the Hofburg, which was really interesting and had some delightful historical musical instruments, including the tiniest French horn I've ever seen. There were also...

Hello again! Everything has suddenly changed, weatherwise - it's got all cold and windy and rainy, which truly signals that Autumn is finally here. I love the idea of Autumn, with the beautiful colours and crunchy leaves and misty mornings, but in reality it's mainly cold and wet. However, nothing can dampen my mood at the moment, because it's the holidays and everything is great! Last Thursday I went to Leipzig to see Jack briefly, where we drank Gluehwein (me) and banana beer (him - not a wise choice) in a cafe overlooking the square before going back to his flat and cooking all the food I'd brought from Chemnitz that needed eating. This was followed by Jack walking me to the station so I could get my train to the airport! Leipzig airport is fairly small - I was the only person going through security, so it took roughly three seconds - and I saw several other ELAs who were getting the same flight as me, which was oddly comforting. There was a slight debacle at Stans...

I'm in an exceptionally good mood as I write this because things are going well and there's loads to look forward to, so I wanted to write a short post just to document it a bit! Yesterday I went to my first Orientalischer Tanz class at the Volkshochschule . It was really fun, and I don't think it would be overly optimistic or premature to confidently say that I was born to belly-dance. However I think I will need the couple of weeks between now and the next class in order to work out how these dancers manage to move their hips up and down. I don't know how that is anatomically possible, but yet I have seen people do it...? So that's the next challenge. Today is the first German conversation class, which will hopefully be good practice and not too demoralising. Beth is coming too, which is nice but also means there will be a witness to my shame. Fortunately she's very tactful, and won't mention it if I do manage to destroy the German language and my...

Last week was the 25th anniversary of the peaceful protests in Germany that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification. To celebrate this, Lichtfest was held, in Leipzig, apparently in Chemnitz also, although none of us knew it was happening, and in other cities in Germany. On Wednesday I went to see a film with Beth and her housemate Susan (who is German and never speaks English - good German practice points!). It was in the absolutely lovely Clubkino Siegmar in Chemnitz, a kind of art-house-y cinema that shows unusual, old, or foreign films. I've been told that the downstairs screen is brilliant and has armchairs, tables, and a bar in the back, while the screen upstairs showing our film was less comfortable but still interesting, with rows of wooden chairs rather than several attached to each other like in a normal cinema, in a tiny, intimate room with mood lighting. The film was a short documentary filmed by some schoolchildren a few years ago about the protests that...

Today, the 8th October, marks an entire month since I came to live in Germany. This post is a short recap of the story so far, and also a quick look at character development. This first month has been a rollercoaster and a half. To quickly recap – the course in Cologne, and meeting the other ELAs; the journey to Chemnitz and the debacle with Zietenstraße 70, the flat that was never meant to be; moving from house to house and living out of a suitcase; seeing Dresden and fifth-wheeling with Heike’s family and Marcel; living in Caro’s flat for nearly two weeks and going to McDonald’s every evening to use the wifi, then coming home and reading Tamora Pierce on my laptop before going to sleep to the sounds of the man in the room next door growling and groaning all night; starting school-life and meeting the pupils and teachers; attending the staff meeting and having to do a speech to introduce myself that no one had warned me about; going to Leipzig for the first time and being incredibl...

On Friday, my day off work, I decided to go on an expedition to Burg Rabenstein, the smallest castle in Sachsen. There were tempting posters all around the city last week advertising 'Wikinger auf Burg Rabenstein, 3-5 Oktober' - Vikings! From this I concluded that there would be some sort of fair, like the ones we love to go to in Wrest Park in Bedfordshire with everyone dressed up in medieval costume doing jousting and the like. What's not to love? So on Friday I set off on the long cycle ride to the Burg. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the thought of a 14-mile round trip did not deter me until right at the end, when I realised that Google maps did not account for hills/small mountains. However, after a certain amount of pushing my bike up seemingly vertical slopes while breathing heavily and sweating likewise, I arrived at the castle, and it did not disappoint. Looks just like the pictures on Google! But I promise this is one of my own. I went to investigate t...

This week I've had my first experiences with real teaching, rather than the previous weeks of mostly sitting at the back of the classroom and introducing myself to every class, regardless of whether I had met them before. Children all look the same, okay? They're all reserved, suspicious, and kind of hostile until you get them to talk to you, and I can't tell any of them apart, let alone learn their names. As I still didn't have a timetable, I was informed of my Monday off work on Sunday evening, via WhatsApp. Difficult though it has been, I am finally beginning to get over the utter weirdness of WhatsApping with teachers - teachers should email! Or talk to face to face! Not text or use instant messaging for goodness sake! After a day of freedom, on Monday evening I was informed, via the same medium, that I had a class the next day. So, I turned up to that class feeling fresh and ready for another hour and a half of sitting in the classroom and possibly reading out a ...