Leeds to Mannheim

Guten Tag!

Today marks the four-week anniversary of my arrival in Mannheim! I have survived so far and not got overly confused (apart from the whole sewer thing!).

My time in Germany this week has mainly involved working as I have a lot of busy weekends coming up and don’t want to get completely behind on my lectures! However, on Friday I did go on a street art tour of Mannheim (photos below) which was really interesting. Mannheim’s local council have commissioned various artists to paint the sides of buildings with art that means something to them. There is one which is a social commentary about refugees; another which is a heroine from a book; one that looks like a scene from a funeral entitled “Europe”; and a couple that just represent Mannheim.

After the tour, a group of us once again did a “German Food and Film night”. This time we watched Goodbye Berlin which is a strange but engaging film about two “psycho” boys who steal a car and go on a road trip. I’m not sure if I actually learnt any German because I was mainly reading the subtitles, but I tried.

Most of my week was taken up by a trip to Basel and Zurich in Switzerland. The trip was partly with Sam and partly solo, making it sort of my first solo trip! After Flixbus messed us around with bus times, we ended up only arriving in Basel at 6pm rather than 11:30am which meant that unfortunately Sam didn’t get to see much of the city. That night we went on a quick walk to try and see everything we could while it was still light before checking into the hostel and eating our packed food. After eating we had a lot more energy for exploring but by this point it was pretty dark. We wandered around and saw as much as we could, stumbled across a few very expensive bars and ultimately ended up in a Swiss McDonalds with a muffin and a McFlurry between us!

The actual hostel we stayed in, Basel Backpackers, was lovely. It was incredibly clean, had loads of facilities and, due to it not being full, we ended up with half a room entirely to ourselves. Before sleeping we googled hostel etiquette to ensure we didn’t wake up the other half of the room when we got up at 7:30 for our train the next morning. This etiquette said:

1. Pack your things the night before.
2. If you have to set an alarm keep it within reach so you can quickly turn it off.
3. Do not set an alarm to snooze
4. Avoid noise, apart from the alarm, before 8am.

At 6am the following morning, we quickly discovered that the others in the hostel had not read the same rules. There were a group in the kitchen next door to our room banging about their pans and talking very loudly. I have a suspicion that this was the same group of middle-aged people who had been sat outside our room the night before, half of them topless. At 7am, one of the other girls' alarm started going off. She switched it off after around a minute only for it to go off 15 minutes later… and every 15 minutes after that up until me and Sam left! But at least we didn’t miss our train.

The day in Zurich was lovely. After a bad start where we realised that, like Germany, everything in Switzerland is closed on a Sunday, we found a free walking tour and got to see all the beautiful buildings and sights Zurich has to offer. After a tour around the many cathedrals, the house where Lenin used to live and the cities' many free water fountains, we arrived at Grossmünster. The is the biggest old monastery in Zurich and, for only 2 CHF, we were able to go up to the top of the tower and look at the stunning view.

After taking in all these sights we decided to search for food. Despite doing research and knowing in advance that Switzerland was an expensive place, we didn’t realise just how expensive until this point. The cheapest food we found was an Italian Restaurant where our pizzas cost us 22 CHF each. That’s the equivalent to approximately £17.50. It was incredibly delicious, but we seriously couldn’t believe how much it cost. Sam had a glass of wine with her meal and that also cost 8CHF, even though it was the smallest amount of wine I have ever seen poured into a glass.

Before our train back we went on a boat ride that took us down to the Zurich sea. This was the perfect way to end the day as we got to see everything that we had missed earlier on.

This was where Sam left me to have my first mini solo adventure. I started it off being a little bit boring as I just decided to stay in the hostel, relax and plan my next day. This worked out really well because I wasn’t tired when I woke up the next morning and didn’t even feel that bad after walking 35,000 steps. Basel, especially the old town, is a stunning place and I would recommend anyone to go and get lost on its narrow streets. My research told me that the must-sees were the biggest cathedral, the city gate and the central bridge so I made sure to fit these all in and I was not disappointed! They were even worth the walks up some incredibly steep hills. For lunch I set out to find cheapest food. One choice was Aldi which had pastries that only cost a little bit more than the UK but I wanted something filling. In the end I settled for a BBQ chicken burger and sweet potato chips from Migros takeaway which came to around £11; still not great but better than the day before. I ate that by the Rhein, bought an ice cream from Aldi and set off to find the Rathaus (town hall) and Markthalle (market hall) before my bus back.

Following the theme, the town hall was a beautiful, red building covered in all sorts of art work. It also had plenty of seats, so I could finally rest for a bit. The Markthalle was less impressive, mainly because it was all food and I had just eaten. But it did have a slide to get down to the ground floor so obviously I had to try that! Then it was sadly time to leave Switzerland, a place I probably won’t visit again until I’m old and rich!

Most of the time since returning has been made up of lectures and studying in preparation for Oktoberfest next weekend! Hopefully, that will give me even more to write about.