January delights

Hello again, and welcome to this post, which I am writing from my sick bed. Yep that's right, I am STILL ILL and seemingly only getting progressively more snotty as the days go by, rather than regaining health, as I'd hoped would be the case. Fortunately, a small amount of quite justified emotional manipulation allowed me to not be in school until 12.00 today (Message: "dear headteacher, I'd very happy to come to your lesson at 8am but if you don't need me I'd love to stay at home because I'm still a bit unwell"; Instantaneous reply: "Stay at home!!! Get well soon!!"). So that was a huge help.

A surprising amount happened in the week since last I posted, which may lead to the conclusion that all these resolutions to do more have had some sort of effect. On Friday evening we went to the opera, on Beth's excellent suggestion and, in fact, organisation. It turns out that Beth may be the catalyst for my new productivity, and by catalyst I mean person-who-does-everything-so-I-don't-have-to. The opera was Aschenputtel by Rossini, i.e. Cinderella, and it was on in Chemnitz's opera house which I had still not been into. It is a lovely building, as you can see in the picture below, and the stage is equally lovely; it manages to feel like quite an intimate theatre, despite being huge with vertiginously steep seating.

I got this directly from Google images, if you were wondering

I loved the opera itself - the orchestra was brilliant, the singers were good, the staging was weird and alternative and fun, and instead of having surtitles as operas usually do, the lyrics were projected onto the backdrop of the scenes or onto the gauze curtain at the front, if that was lowered. They were also animated so as they were sung they appeared with various effects, like droplets of water or ribbons, totally unlike most of my previous experience of animated words: my incompetent fiddling around with PowerPoint. Not only this, but the words were projected right above the person singing them. This meant that it was very easy to keep track of who was singing what, because even when there were four or five soloists, their own lyrics remained above their heads when they moved around the stage. Technology, eh!! It was interesting as well having the opera sung in Italian but with the 'subtitles' in German, and hugely gratifying how easy it was to understand them.

On Saturday, Jack and I went to Zwickau in the afternoon to see David. We went to a lovely Czech restaurant for a coffee, although it was no ordinary coffee, unless ordinary coffee has a scoop of ice cream in it and is topped with whipped cream. If so, I want more ordinary coffee. After that we visited Zwickau's museum about the history of the town and saw some scary medieval weapons, a tiny scale model of Zwickau itself, and the incredibly old house in which the museum is located. It turns out that being 5 foot 7 was the ideal height back then as it is now - you don't bump your head on door frames, as anyone slightly taller than I would have, but you are still big enough to be 'tall' and probably intimidating, if you wear the right sort of hat. After the museum we went straight back to the aforementioned restaurant, where Jack and David drank beer. MEN. BEER. HRRR. etc.

After the beer, and a slight interlude involving lost scarves and running to trains, we made it to Werdau, a town that committed readers of these chronicles will recognise as being the one in which we attended our first Glühwein-and-bonfire festival. Saturday's event was meant to be the only marginally less festive night of the Christmas tree burning, or Christmas Cremation as I like to call it. However, due to the incomprehensibly terrible weather it was postponed until next weekend, so instead we just drank Glühwein and sheltered inside a tent where someone had allowed a vaguely manic old German man to 'DJ', which in this case meant assaulting our ears with some really hauntingly bad, yet also incredibly loud, German pop music. Nonetheless it was a lovely night involving wedding plans (Ben), finding out who would play Jack in the film of his life (see picture), and terrible jokes (everyone) amongst other things.

In other news, I applied for a job in a pottery/cafe place in Chemnitz where you paint a plate or a mug and they glaze and fire it for you, and then it is yours forever, to keep in your cupboard and forbid anyone else from using because YOU MADE IT and therefore only you can use it. Unfortunately, I did not get the job (interview thingy was today). However, this was not due to my personal flaws, but rather the fact that I am not going to still be in Chemnitz next October-December, their busiest time of year, and it's not worth training someone for two months when they can only work there for five or six months. But anyway, never mind, and onwards and upwards! 

I've always wondered whether I am in possession of the kind of cunning intellect required to keep a string of partners on the go without anyone of them finding out about the existence of the others. In order to test this, I have acquired a string of partners, and I'm pleased to report that so far it is going well! None of them seems to have cottoned on to my elaborate scheme yet. I was meant to meet the first of them, a 48-year-old woman named Katrin, for coffee today, where we could 'get to know each other' and 'talk in our respective target languages for a set amount of time so we each get some conversation practice with a native speaker'. Unluckily for Katrin, my sore throat and inability to speak meant that I was forced to call off our tryst in favour of an appointment with Lemsip and my bed. Fortunately I have another assignation on Thursday with Marlene, a student at the university, which I am awaiting with great anticipation. Finally, a third candidate emailed me today in response to my advertisement on the Chemnitz University website, asking if I'd like to meet to 'practise' our respective 'languages' and gain some 'valuable speaking experience' or something. So I swiftly replied with a possibly too enthusiastic email that seems to have caused Beatrice to withdraw into a shell of playing hard to get. However I have no doubt that soon she too will succumb to my charms and then I will be a sly yet unstoppable companion to three separate partners. Maybe I was always meant to be in Slytherin... Anyway, I will keep you updated.

Finally, I am pleased to report that my resolution re ambidexterity is well on its way to becoming a reality. Jack and I got some good training in over the weekend, as you can see from the pictures. I'll leave you to work out whose is whose - you have four different hands to decide between. (Clue: Jack is left-handed and I am not).

Please everyone send me good health wishes, and in return I will leave you with this adorable picture of Matilda and Dobby:

BABIES

P.S. I can't promise that this will be the last time Glühwein is mentioned in this blog, but I will attempt to make it so, as I've dedicated space to extolling its virtues in literally every blog post for the last two months or so. Don't worry though, it's fine. I can stop whenever I want.