Leeds to Mannheim

Hallo!

The weeks are going so fast this semester, I seem to barely have a free minute in between working, travelling and socialising. Although I have been using some days to just exclusively do work, most days are filled with other things already and I have so much more planned before Easter including a visit from Jordan next week.

Thursday and Saturday were my work-filled days this week alongside Friday where I had the first day of my Economics intensive seminar. The seminar on Friday just involved me watching other people’s presentations and then I presented mine on Saturday. Everyone’s presentation was really good but there were two Canadian students in the class who had gone very full on with theirs, one even doing a quiz and bringing Milky ways as a prize. Unfortunately, my presentation was in between those two and so probably looked very boring in comparison! On Friday evening, we went to a burger place for Hephzibah’s birthday. The burger was amazing but after I’d eaten half of it I realised they’d given me the wrong one but the price was the same so I couldn’t be bothered to work out the German to complain!

After I finished the seminar on Saturday, I started preparing for a mini dinner party I was hosting on Sunday. I baked a chocolate cake and got the dishes and ingredients ready for my cooking the next day. Sunday was then spent finishing preparations before people arrived. I made vegan sweet potato chilli so that the vegetarians and vegans had plenty, sausage sandwiches and tomato couscous to go alongside the chocolate cake. Other guests also brought drinks, salad, falafels, criss-cross potatoes, chorizo and a Quorn garlic bread lasagne (basically lasagne layered with garlic bread instead of pasta). It was lovely and everyone stayed, ate and chatted well into the evening. I counted that as my reward for finishing one of my classes!

The weather, much like in the UK, has also taken a massive turn this week and the wind is crazy! There are roadsigns and plants that have fallen down and are rolling around the streets. In my apartment some of the windows along the stairway are broken so anything that has been left in the hall is blowing about all over and you can just hear doors and windows banging constantly! Whilst making a rainbow bowl for my tea one night though, I did manage to capture a double rainbow outside!

On Monday, I spent the morning writing lecture notes and practising German before my classes that day- E-Business and German grammar. After classes, I met up with Antonia and we went to a social Erasmus meeting together. The meetings are really short and don’t really tell you much, but I might be giving a presentation on the UK to German school children. Once the meeting was over, we went to Zumba. This was my first time going this semester and it was just as fun as last time. The instructor had changed some of the songs so there were new dances to learn, it’s just a shame that I am unable to coordinate my arms and legs so once I’ve mastered one thing with my feet and she brings arm movements in it all goes wrong!

Yesterday was my really busy day again where I’m in 6.5 hours nonstop and then have 2 hours of tutoring once I get home. The lectures weren’t too bad though, I’m still following my German history class okay and in one of the lectures we basically just played around on simulation software on our laptops. After all my tutoring was over, I met up with Antonia, Rachel, Natalie and Eeva and we went to this semester’s International Dinner. That’s the event where everyone takes food from their home country and you can go around and try different dishes. I had made scones and Rachel, Natalie and Antonia brought jam and cream to go with them. Eeva brought some Finnish chocolate. Unfortunately, because of my tutoring, we arrived about 40 minutes after it started and there was a lot less food than last semester, so all the best dishes had already gone! I was very full after but it’s because the main foods were bread and potato based, most of the desserts had also gone by the time I’d tried the savoury stuff. It was nice to spend some time together though and I got to talk to other international students I’d met in classes.

Today, after doing as much work as possible and tutoring again, I’m going to another Ice hockey match. I’m hoping this time we will be nearer the rink so I can see what’s going on, but I think it will be fun either way!