Leeds to Mannheim

Na?

This week has been a mix of meeting friends, studying quite a lot and being ill! Fortunately, the illness is only a cold, and everyone seems to have one!

Thursday was a busy day. After grocery shopping and writing some of my essay in the morning, I went to meet Kathrin for lunch at Café Vienna to practice my German. I think she understood most of what I had to say, and I got nearly everything she was telling me too. We talked about Christmas, Zurich, ice hockey, dogs and cooking. We both ordered gyros and chips which I assumed would be the same as from a Döner shop, but they just put some greasy chicken on the plate next to a mountain of fries. It was good value for money but not particularly nice!

In the evening we met up again to go to Luisenpark for a Valentine’s light show. I had signed up to go with VISUM; the international student society, which meant I didn’t have to pay entry. When we got there, I was pleased I hadn’t as the ‘light show’ was mainly just coloured lights in trees with some musical lights every so often and you couldn’t enjoy the rest of the park as it was too dark. There was a Christmas market style area with the traditional German stalls which was nice though. We stopped there and had crepes. The rest of the day had been fairly warm, but that night was freezing and by the time I got home I couldn’t feel my feet!

The next day, I had a 3-hour lecture with Paisley where we had to pay for lecture notes again! The worst part is they didn’t even have any left so I’ve paid but can’t use the notes. The lecture is about marketing communications though and it’s really interesting. We also get to watch loads of adverts and I love adverts! Afterwards we went to Eevas for a catch-up, donuts and mini Finnish cinnamon rolls.

On Saturday after a long day of essay writing and a short trip to a Turkish supermarket for dates (which they didn’t have), I went to meet my friends at the Irish Bar, Fermac’s, for snacks and karaoke. As a form of essay procrastination, I had made a massive pot of chilli at lunch, so I was looking forward to just sharing some chips for tea. However, when we got to the pub every single table was reserved so we had to o elsewhere. This began an hour-long trek around Mannheim trying to find a table for 12. It was a Saturday night so everywhere seemed to be full! Finally, we found OhJulia, an Italian restaurant which unfortunately did not do chips but did do a 25% discount if you ordered on your phone. I ordered the smallest, cheapest pizza they had, and it was still pretty big, so I took half home for my lunch on Sunday! The meal was really nice, and I got to talk to some of the people I don’t see very often. Cecily also had friends over from her home university and they were lovely!

Sunday became coffee and cake day again this week since I missed out the week before! Around 12 I met Rachel, Natalie and Eeva at Le Coffee, a cute breakfast/ cake place in the city centre. The cakes and breakfasts all looked really good but some of their menu items, like pancakes, smoothie bowls and milkshakes, are really expensive. Instead I opted for a slice of chocolate cake which was nice but quite small compared to Eeva’s huge slab of Käsekuchen! It was a beautiful day on Sunday; way hotter than it should be in February, so after eating we went for a walk around the Quadrate. This also meant that I could put off going home and writing more essay!

Culture courses began again on Monday so, after a bit more essay writing, I had a German grammar class. I thought this would be alright because it’s grammar so I wouldn’t have to do much talking. The teacher had other ideas however and made us play this game where we said a few facts about ourselves including 2 lies and everyone had to guess the lies. This would have been fine, but I misunderstood something he said about my name, he thought that I was French and had lied about coming from England so now everyone thinks I’m French! Hopefully won’t have to talk in the class again and then no one will need to know…

Tuesday was a long day with three back-to-back lessons including my first fully German class- Streifzug durch die Deutsch Geschichte 1806-Heute (A stroll through German history, 1806-today). I was nervous about going in case I didn’t understand anything, but the teacher is amazing, speaks really clearly and is very animated so if I don’t know the word, I still know what he means by his actions. Now I just have to get through a presentation and the class will be fine. At night I was supposed to be going to the welcome party, but tickets sold out and I’m still a bit ill, so I just stayed in.

Today I’m meeting Kathrin again as this semester I really want to improve my German, I also have two classes and even more essay to write. Hopefully by next week it’ll be done!