Train strikes and Glühwein
Germans have a reputation for being incredibly efficient. Everyone knows that, right? My German lecturer told us last year that 'German punctuality' means being there five minutes before the agreed time. Their transport system is fantastic. They are just so organised. OR ARE THEY?????!!
I'll give you a clue: the answer is no, no they are not all like that. Perhaps I was misled by the amazing efficiency of a certain German lecturer in Manchester (hi Wiebke!!! Oh wait she'll never read this), but I really expected them all to live up to the stereotypes. Some are true of course, for example, they love their bureaucracy. I must have signed about fifty forms since coming here. However, sadly the efficiency thing is less true, and this is especially noticeable with transport. The trains are often delayed, as are the long-distance buses, and while this perhaps should be expected and is certainly no worse than the UK, it was still somewhat disappointing. The trams, on the other hand, are never delayed, and they even seem to quite frequently leave early, which is in some cases equally as annoying as leaving late.
Deutsche Bahn has been striking a lot recently, which of course has led to numerous delays and cancelled trains. While I am totally in support of their right to strike, this does not mean that I love it when it happens. Jack and I had been invited to Zwickau on Saturday by another ELA, David, who works in a school in a village called Werdau just outside Zwickau, where they were holding a Glühwein and bonfire evening. Due to only checking bus times at 2am on Saturday, we misread the timetable probably due to sleepiness, so arrived at Chemnitz-Schönau in plenty of time to catch our fictitious bus to Zwickau that in fact only runs on weekdays. Undeterred (at that point), we got on another bus to what we thought was a village on the way to Zwickau. Sadly there seems to be more than one Rußdorf in Sachsen, and the one in which we ended up was pretty much the middle of nowhere. So we waited at the end of the bus line and ate some crisps while attempting to work out what to do next. At this point there were wild rumours circulating about the train strike having ended early, and some trains running again, but it was all very uncertain. Having explained the situation to the bus driver, who handily had to wait at the end of the line for forty minutes or so before beginning the route back, he let us back on again for free (lovely, lovely man) and we returned to Chemnitz-Schönau, got the tram back into the centre, and then to the station. Happily, there was a train to Zwickau that luckily for us had been delayed by more than an hour, so we were able to not only catch the train but even to buy a ticket. We then got told off by the ticket inspector because we had forgotten to validate the tickets - the train was apparently an S-Bahn and not one of the trains we are used to. Kindness was on our side again, though, he didn't fine us for having invalid tickets, and we got off quite lightly with only a small amount of muttering about how useless we were.
We eventually arrived in Zwickau in time to get the bus to Werdau with the six or so other people that were also going, which was a miracle of organisation by David. In the end we were really glad we'd made the effort to go; the evening was lovely. There was the promised Glühwein, in various flavours - the orange and ginger was the best in my opinion, although the apple and cinnamon seemed to be most people's favourite - along with lots of stalls selling Currywurst, rolls with cold salmon, raw mince and onion (a Sachsen speciality, I believe. It's not as horrible as it sounds), or your choice of pickled fish.
Later in the evening we also discovered a stall selling steak sandwiches; I haven't had steak for what feels like ages because I never cook it for myself, so that was pretty exciting. More exciting still was the little fire pit over which, for the low price of fifty cents, you could cook a phallic piece of dough on a stick.
They tasted a lot better than they looked - sweet, and a bit like pancakes. I've only done that once before (they were called dampers then, although Jack has a different name for them), and I remember eating them with jam, but these ones were equally as good without.
The bonfire itself was huge. It started off concerningly small, with what was essentially a large pile of straggly bushes and twigs that looked as though it would be all burnt down within a couple of minutes. However, we had reckoned without the squad of uniformed fire officers and any small children who wanted to join in, who collectively must have spent hours feeding the fire with branches, crates, miscellaneous pieces of wood, shovels of dead leaves, entire trees, and one broom with a plastic handle (possibly a mistake). The contrast between the heavily protected grown men throwing things at the fire and occasionally stabbing it randomly with a pitchfork, and the children without any protection whatsoever leaping around it, running right up to it to get a good shot but still somehow missing, and generally being incredibly irresponsible, was equally funny and scary. None of the adults in the vicinity seemed at all bothered by their offspring's antics though, and the children appeared to be no less competent than the fire officers, so I was eventually able to relax and try to trust them.
The next morning we went for breakfast with David in one of the few cafes that was open on a Sunday. There was delicious food (especially hot chocolate) and we bought a pastry or two for the road as well, of course. Zwickau is a surprisingly cute town; the centre is adorable (it already had Christmas lights up!) and far more picturesque than Chemnitz. It was oddly reminiscent of Bedford in terms of the size of the buildings, which seemed small to me, having now been living mainly in Manchester or Chemnitz for the last two and a bit years, but more homely as well. I'm glad I got placed in Chemnitz, as it is more of a central location and bigger than Zwickau, but I think I would have liked to live in Zwickau as well! That could be said for any of the bigger towns I've visited in Sachsen though; they've all got very distinct personalities, and it's interesting trying to work them out.
To finish, I would like to say thank you for David for organising the evening! It was lovely to see so many of the other ELAs, the event itself was delightful, and we've already made plans to meet up again soon.
I'll give you a clue: the answer is no, no they are not all like that. Perhaps I was misled by the amazing efficiency of a certain German lecturer in Manchester (hi Wiebke!!! Oh wait she'll never read this), but I really expected them all to live up to the stereotypes. Some are true of course, for example, they love their bureaucracy. I must have signed about fifty forms since coming here. However, sadly the efficiency thing is less true, and this is especially noticeable with transport. The trains are often delayed, as are the long-distance buses, and while this perhaps should be expected and is certainly no worse than the UK, it was still somewhat disappointing. The trams, on the other hand, are never delayed, and they even seem to quite frequently leave early, which is in some cases equally as annoying as leaving late.
Deutsche Bahn has been striking a lot recently, which of course has led to numerous delays and cancelled trains. While I am totally in support of their right to strike, this does not mean that I love it when it happens. Jack and I had been invited to Zwickau on Saturday by another ELA, David, who works in a school in a village called Werdau just outside Zwickau, where they were holding a Glühwein and bonfire evening. Due to only checking bus times at 2am on Saturday, we misread the timetable probably due to sleepiness, so arrived at Chemnitz-Schönau in plenty of time to catch our fictitious bus to Zwickau that in fact only runs on weekdays. Undeterred (at that point), we got on another bus to what we thought was a village on the way to Zwickau. Sadly there seems to be more than one Rußdorf in Sachsen, and the one in which we ended up was pretty much the middle of nowhere. So we waited at the end of the bus line and ate some crisps while attempting to work out what to do next. At this point there were wild rumours circulating about the train strike having ended early, and some trains running again, but it was all very uncertain. Having explained the situation to the bus driver, who handily had to wait at the end of the line for forty minutes or so before beginning the route back, he let us back on again for free (lovely, lovely man) and we returned to Chemnitz-Schönau, got the tram back into the centre, and then to the station. Happily, there was a train to Zwickau that luckily for us had been delayed by more than an hour, so we were able to not only catch the train but even to buy a ticket. We then got told off by the ticket inspector because we had forgotten to validate the tickets - the train was apparently an S-Bahn and not one of the trains we are used to. Kindness was on our side again, though, he didn't fine us for having invalid tickets, and we got off quite lightly with only a small amount of muttering about how useless we were.
We eventually arrived in Zwickau in time to get the bus to Werdau with the six or so other people that were also going, which was a miracle of organisation by David. In the end we were really glad we'd made the effort to go; the evening was lovely. There was the promised Glühwein, in various flavours - the orange and ginger was the best in my opinion, although the apple and cinnamon seemed to be most people's favourite - along with lots of stalls selling Currywurst, rolls with cold salmon, raw mince and onion (a Sachsen speciality, I believe. It's not as horrible as it sounds), or your choice of pickled fish.
The bonfire itself was huge. It started off concerningly small, with what was essentially a large pile of straggly bushes and twigs that looked as though it would be all burnt down within a couple of minutes. However, we had reckoned without the squad of uniformed fire officers and any small children who wanted to join in, who collectively must have spent hours feeding the fire with branches, crates, miscellaneous pieces of wood, shovels of dead leaves, entire trees, and one broom with a plastic handle (possibly a mistake). The contrast between the heavily protected grown men throwing things at the fire and occasionally stabbing it randomly with a pitchfork, and the children without any protection whatsoever leaping around it, running right up to it to get a good shot but still somehow missing, and generally being incredibly irresponsible, was equally funny and scary. None of the adults in the vicinity seemed at all bothered by their offspring's antics though, and the children appeared to be no less competent than the fire officers, so I was eventually able to relax and try to trust them.
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