Leeds to Mannheim

Hallo!

Settling in and making friends were the two parts of coming to Mannheim that I was most worried about. When I first arrived, it felt like I was trying to force everything and that the people I met would never really feel like proper friends. However, three weeks in and I have found people to travel with, talk to and go to cafes with on a Sunday when nothing is open! Realising that everyone is in the same situation, and genuinely do want to make friends as much as you, makes everything feel so much easier!

This past week I got to see plenty of new things and make new memories with these amazing people from across the world. On Thursday night, a group came around to my apartment for a “German and Food” night. This involved us all bringing some food (pizza, couscous, Spanish omelette, pasta salad and a lot of snacks) and sitting together to watch something in German. We started off with Stromberg, which is the German version of the office, but it only had German subtitles and we thought it was best to start with English! So instead we tried Friends, dubbed in German, but with the English subtitles underneath. This was a lot better and it was great to spend time learning German together.

The following morning, I had my first International Accounting lecture which started at 8:30am and, to my shock and disappointment, didn’t finish till 11:45 which is a very long time to sit and listen to someone explain IFRS standards. Fortunately, that day I had something to look forward to as we were going to the Ice Hockey that night to see Mannheim Adlers (Eagles) play against Löwen (lion) Frankfurt. This was my first ever ice hockey match and I was amazed. The atmosphere was incredible with everyone chanting, clapping and jumping up and down. Despite trying to understand the German chants, the only one I really picked up was “Frankfurt, who the f**k is Frankfurt” to the tune of ‘Living Next Door’ to Alice by Smokie. Based on that it’s probably a good thing I didn’t understand the others! The lack of fights was disappointing since everyone had told me that was the best bit of the game, but it did end on a high as the Adlers won 7-4.

The rest of the week has flown by with more and more events including a visit to a German Chinese restaurant where I had egg fried rice which was a million times better than any Chinese food I’ve had in the UK. There was also Schlossfest in Mannheim based around the University castle which was a celebration featuring German music, art and more fireworks in the shape of hearts and emoticons. I had a trip to the beautiful city of Bad Durkheim which was hosting the largest wine festival in Europe- Wurstmarkt (sausage market). Despite the name not being related to wine, there was quite a lot of it there. I settled for an ice cream and a wander round all the incredible food and gift stalls. They also hosted the largest mobile rollercoaster, featuring VR which looked amazing but was unfortunately way too expensive! I’ve been swimming in one of the many outdoor pools since it’s still above 30 degrees here and I attempted to go a Zumba class, but the teacher showed up with no keys, so it was cancelled!

The funniest part of my week though was related to Tag des offenen Denkmals (Day of the Open Monuments) last Sunday. On this day, across Germany, monuments are opened up for free to the general public and a few of us had decided to go and see inside the Wasserturm (Water tower) and the atomic bunker under Mannheim. We went to the Wasserturm first which is beautiful from the outside but there isn’t actually much to see inside. So, instead we headed to where we had previously seen a queue to go underground. There were no signs near this queue but every 15 minutes around 20 people were being led below the ground for a tour, so we joined. After an hour it was finally our turn to go under. We had read some signs in German about smells, claustrophobia and the place being cleaned but it’s underground so that’s what we expected. However, when we got down there I immediately realised the mistake we had made. We were stood above a stream of water, toilet roll, wee and poo. As we had been first in our tour group we then had to stand there for the next 15 minutes while the guide explained the sewer system in German. At the end, the rest of the tour group (who were natives and probably knew what tour they were going to) were clearly fascinated and had a lot of questions for the tour guide so we had to remain above the sewer for another 5 minutes. I’m sure throughout the year there will be plenty more of these misunderstandings to come!