The Beginning of the End

The best year of my life is coming to an end. In style. Fifa, parties, BBQ, the Haunted House, the Konstanz World Cup, broken beds, Robbie's wet pants, jumping into the lake from the boat, the disappearance of Alex's slut hat, hospital for xrays and a wheelchair, encounters with the police, almost falling out of a tree. The list goes on, and on, and on.

It's now been 5 months since I've seen the family and I miss them. In that respect I am looking forward to going home. But for this dream to come to an end will be really sad. It's quite easy for someone to say, that is the funniest thing I've ever seen. However, I did see the funniest thing I've ever seen last night. It was so funny, I choked on my beer and was sick. I almost cried. I have never laughed that much before, even when Boris Johnson did the rugby tackle in the charity football match. Matt Briand is the most wanted man in Konstanz. What a fucking legend. He has claimed his second bed breakage in as many months. A perfect swan dive as the wood split into 2. Robbie's chair is also broken, so he is forced to now stand up all the time.



I was gutted on Thursday night, after playing for a while. I swear I am the Konstanz version of Darren Anderton, having broken my ankle 3 times (karate, football, ice skating), and as I felt the same pain again whilst making a save in goal, I thought that I would be out of the Konstanz World Cup this Saturday, which would kinda suck, cos I organised the thing. I hobbled to hospital on Thursday, although I accidentally went into the hospital neurological department, where the lady explained in the way that I was a very simple person (to be fair, I was trying to get an ankle xray and i did go into the brain rehabiliation clinic so she was probs right) that I had to go someone else. I finally made it there, had xrays, and they tried to put me in a wheelchair. I then burst out laughing hysterically, a wheelchair, I had a bad ankle, I wasn't paralysed. Instead they brought me out some rather flashy pink crutches, which they wouldn't let me keep, BASTARDS!



Having finished my exams, and surprisingly passing them all, which is actually a pleasant surprise, as I did SFA this semester, we went for a night out in Berrys last night. Excellent banter with Robbie being threatened to be kicked out for getting naked one time too many, Alex's hat being an absolutely whore before going missing in the haunted house, and Anneli pouring so much water over my head I was like a drowned rat. I woke up at 7.30 (after going to bed at 04.30) and just laid in bed and laughed for an hour and a half solid, before going back to sleep.





I went on the boat trip with the international office today, which was fun and awesome weather. At the end, me, Robbie and Alexey jumped off the boat as it came back in, much to the displeasure of the guys working on the boat. Excellent banter. Quiet night of Fifa with top lad Chris Halls and his sicknote housemate this evening. French Bastille day celebrations and watching Exorcist in the Haunted House tomo. Robbie's also cleaning his flat tomorrow, which will be great entertainment, so I might go watch for the afternoon. What a week! World Cup on Saturday, in their group England have Germany, Serbia/ Slovenia, Mexico and the USA. Can't wait. We will win. Obviously!

:-)

Crazy Week & The Southside Festival 2010

Swimming in Schwaketenbad, experiencing the World Cup and the disappointment of England, playing baseball with a vuvuzela and a ping-pong ball, being crushed in the crowd for a Prodigy gig and being absolutely covered in mud, watching 11 other live bands, dancing on a podium in a nightclub, talking 5 different languages, eating nothing but bread and not showering for 72 hours, having a house party and having to call out the Hausmeister to turn off the fire alarms at 1am, almost dying in a mosh pit and almost freezing to death in a tent, watching a man eating a cupcake full of pubic hairs and then run around his halls of residence chasing people with a blow up sex doll. And last but not least, having Ollie and Macca out here to visit. WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK!!!



Thank fuck I'm not having my birthday in Konstanz, cos if I had to do 21 dares including eating a cupcake full of pubes, chase people with a sex doll, drink vodka from someone's belly button, drink alcohol through 2 guys butt cracks, swap clothes with a girl, run around in nothing but an England flag and many other things, I do not think I would survive. Hands up to Chris though on Monday, outstanding performance and the best ever prelash I've been at, before a great night at Berries.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Mate, as lovely as he is, has significant problems with his w's and v's. A lof of European languages, namely German and Hungarian don't have a 'w' sound, and use a 'v' instead. I have taken great but rather cruel pleasure in often telling Mate that is is "wery lucky that ve are friends". He surpassed himself though by saying we'd go hang out in building w at the uni the other day and then taking us to building v. It's one thing to have trouble pronouncing something, but this event on Tuesday helped me establish that the poor kid has trouble reading.



Like most of the guys in Stortford (where I come from back home), I hadn't seen Ollie and Macca since last year, so it was great when they came to visit on Wednesday. Ollie experienced some of his Istanbul illness again so I left him in my room and me and Macca went swimming with the Ktowners, before returning back for a curry and then going to Cocktail bar. If I have to say one thing I have learnt this week, it's that the White Russian is a fucking awesome cocktail. Had a nice little conversation with Marco in Italian and then a good chat with Gabii, everyone loves Gabii! Then we went to Berries, apologies to Kellie for trying to bundle her in the taxi, haha. After a bit of dancing on the podium and a few hours of banter, we talked the taxi driver into giving us a cheap ride home and slept until the beautiful smell of British bacon motivated me to get out of bed. Man I miss bacon!

After a general tour of the city in the pouring rain and letting the guys establish Currywurst for the first time, we had a house party at mine. It was an absolutely great night, watching Mexico beat France and then getting Beer Pong going. However, some negotiations with the Hausmeister at 1am because of 3 fire doors being opened and the alarms going off is inconvenient. Mike was fairly stupid to ignore the big alarm sign. Mate was even more special to think that opening 2 other doors to distract attention from floor 5 would be a good idea. It would have been a 50 euro fine per door (which I would not have paid), but instead I think we just get a letter cos we were polite with the arrogant Hausmeister. Nothing is ever simple in my life. Except for my brain maybe...





Southside was the next day. I got my hobo sack ready and we all headed into town to be met by people coming back from the festival who had gone a day earlier. Their sleeping bag was soaked through, their phones, iPods and cameras were broken and it was a bit of an ominous sign. But we waded our way through the mud and set up our communal camp. The artists I saw included Florence & the Machine, Paramore, Enter Shikari, The Prodigy, Mando Diao and La Roux amongst other bands. The best gig though was Prodigy were me, Ollie and Macca ran into the muddiest mosh pit of all time and I dived into someone about 3 times my height. I disappeared into the crowd before he could kill me though. Saturday night was amazing, Sully was on top form in his batman mask, and we headed to the DJ tent after some beer, whisky and various other drinks. The whole weekend was an absolute blast and the quote of the weekend goes to Macca, who, whilst straining to see the screen and see who Holland were playing he described their opponents as "Some sort of Chinesey team". By that, he meant Japan.





That was the last big weekend of Erasmus, because of money and the fact that I have exams to prepare for. I'll take some great great memories from it though and will be home in England on July 24th, just under 5 months since I left. Thanks to everyone who made this week amazing!

Year Abroad Review (So far) Part 2 of 3

Still, the positives in France vastly outweighed the countries seemingly huge inefficiencies. In the first few weeks, me and Matt raced a tram, played against a group of French guys at football and even though we lost 7-6 it was probably one of the best games I've ever played in, and regularly went to Mezzanine, where everyone partied, except the Americans who seemed to use the club scene to discuss the American Civil War/ The War of Northern Aggression (as Lacy labelled it) in detail.

By the time I went home for a week in November, I almost didn't want to leave, yet as me and my future wife Sam got on the plane in Basel, I couldn't wait to see the guys in Bath and get things you just don't get in France, namely efficiency in everyday life and BACON. OMG, if there are two things I had missed up until this point it was watching Premiership football and eating proper bacon (of course family and friends I missed guys too :-) ). On returning in November, we had some crazy nights at Laura's, where we learnt never to give Lorcan a camera, after we took 160 photos in the space of 2 hours.

The highlight of the month though, was the lads trip to Prague with Matt and Patrick. Setting off for Kehl at 9 at night, we made the 15 hour journey to Prague through the early hours via 3 trains and 1 bus from Nuremberg to Prague at the end. We found blood all over the platform at Frankfurt, and spent 2 hours waiting there expecting to be confronted by a frosties killer (cereal killer -gettit? haha). We then got told to get up of the ground by some German policeman who thought we were hobos. On making it to Prague and staying with a lovely family, Patrick snored so loud on their bed he probably produced more decibels than your average Boeing 747. We went to Beer Factory on the main street, where you pour your own pints and it measures how much you've drunk in litres. Much to the probably dismay of our Czech hosts, we ran down the hill from the castle on the last day having sword fights before heading back the next day. I think Matt fell in love with his camera on the journey back, taking no fewer than 38 photos of the long road ahead from the front of the top of our double decker bus. Still a bit confused by that Pizz.

December came and went in Strasbourg, with the Christmas markets being everywhere, freezing cold temperatures of minus 13 degrees at the lowest (which incidentally killed 8 homeless people in a week over the border in Germany) and the exams were upon us. After horror at Michelle Benoit's leather trousers and pure anger at Monsieur Clement cancelling an exam on the day we were supposed to have it, we began the epic journey of getting home. Flights were cancelled cos of the weather. The Eurostar shut down. Thus began an epic race of getting home on time for Christmas. I made it home in the early hours of December 22nd sitting between two of my favourite people from the year abroad on the plane home, the legendary Pete Sawyer and Toto Padden.

By the time mid January came and I had completed my exams and spent some time hanging out for the last time as a Strasmus (Strasbourg Erasmus student), I headed home to England once more, having been given a nice send-off from the station by Sam, Laura and Lacy. I began 6 weeks of work at home getting ready for Konstanz. Thing is though, could Konstanz possibly be as good as Strasbourg? As it turns out, it was. If Strasbourg was Christophe Dugarry, Konstanz was Zinedine Zidane (minus the headbutt), if Strasbourg was a man on a good salary at an insurance firm, Konstanz was Richard Branson, and if Strasbourg was completely inefficient in terms of the uni and bureaucracy, Konstanz would just shit all over it. And it did :-)

(To be concluded)

Year Abroad Review (So far) Just Cos I Felt Like Writing

As I sat on a chair in 8 West in Bath, and heard yet another guy stand up and tell everyone that the year abroad had been the best year of his degree, I just sorta though 'Yeah, yeah, whatever, living in France can't be as good as that...it's France!!' Next year, I will be that guy, standing up, telling everyone to go to Strasbourg, and telling everyone to go to Konstanz. Before I continue writing this, I'm gonna try and summarise this. Over the last year, I have:

Been to the following cities:
Vernet-les-Bains, Girona, Colmar, Strasbourg, Kehl, Prague, Bath, London, Rome, Naples, Bari, Patras, Athens, Thessaoloniki, Kalambaka, Paleofarsalos, Istanbul, Catania, Palermo, Milan, Zurich, Basel, Stuttgart, Konstanz, Ulm, Crailsheim, Nurnberg, Freiburg, Baden-Baden, Vaduz, Barcelona, Neuhausen, Meersburg, Cambridge, Oxford, Munich, Kreuzlingen, Singen, Friedrichshafen and many more.

Seen the following games and bands live:
Bayern Munich vs Hannover, Strasbourg vs Lyon, Muse, Rage Against the Machine, Kiss, Rammstein, The Hives, Bad Religion, Kasabian, Jay-Z, Ellie Goulding, Dizzee Rascal, Katatonia, Kamelot, Airbourne, Pendulum, The Editors, Motorhead, Slash, Alkaline Trio, You Me at Six, Alice in Chains and 30 Seconds to Mars. (Soon to be added) La Roux, Mando Diao, The Strokes, The Prodigy, Florence and the Machine, Biffy Clyro and many more!

Made friends from the following countries:
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Singapore, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Slovakia, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Slovenia, Greece, Czech Republic, Mongolia and many many others.

The journey begins:
I set off for Strasbourg on the 5th September 2009 with Sally. I took 16 kilos in a suitcase and some hand luggage, yet didn't have a place to live. A flight and a train journey from Stuttgart later, I began to feel the efficiency drain out of my blood, as I enjoyed a fortnight of searching for accommodation and enduring language lessons with Monsieur Meyer which made me comtemplate suicide for the first time. The accommodation hunt went on, and one day, I walked into an Internet cafe and checked my emails. I had received an email 10 mins before about a student room in halls available, and was the first of 70 people to reply. Result! So I gots me a room. Time to relax? Hell no. Sally was staying with a family and within a week, the dad of the family had come onto her while the wife was out and the kids were brushing their teeth. It was all drama as operation, let Sally escape from the house commenced!

Settling in in the first few weeks was fairly easy. People like Petr in my accommodation were friendly, and I soon got to know the 2 most important people of my year abroad. Step up Samantha Muller, everyone's favourite half German, half Philippino, born in Malaysia, lived in Egypt, studies in sheepland, so she's basically an international hobo. Secondly, but not necessarily in that order :-) Patrick O'Brien, a man who chats girls up with pizza, a man whom I taught the word banterous, my drinking buddy and future husband. Some of the highlights of the first few months were the day trip to Colmar, when everyone had got less than 3 hours of sleep and most people were still hungover, and Europapark, which was an amazing day of riding on some of Europe's biggest rollercoasters. We'd established a friendship circle too. All english speakers, but still totally awesome nevertheless. Lorcan Murray - Irish procrastinating legend, Matt Pizzorusso - most sarcastic American in the world, the Canadians Katherine, Jean and Taryn who were always ooot and abooot, everyone's favourite nicest person, Katie Harris, Petr from Czechland and Jean-Pierre, with a name like that, obviously from Germany! Along with many other cool people like Laura and Lacy and many others.

Whilst I may have met many lovely people, I stick by my vow that I will never live in France ever again. If you try and set a bank account up and it takes 4 weeks, you get annoyed. If a professor cancels your exam on the day of an exam, you get annoyed. If Thierry Henry robs Ireland of a place in the World Cup due to cheating, you get annoyed!! (To be continued)

American Pub Quiz Answers

Did the pub quiz in Shamrock yesterday. Wondered why the Americans on the table next to us left early. Took their quiz paper. Here are some of my favourite answers:

What is the capital of Brazil?
Rio de Janeiro. (Brasilia)

What is the capital of Croatia?
Ljubljana. (Zagreb)

Where is Port-of-Spain?
Portugal. (Trinidad and Tobago)

How long does it take for sunlight to reach the earth?
2 days, hahaha (8 minutes).

Why 2 countries played the 1990 world cup final?
Brazil and France (they played 8 years later in 1998, it was Germany and Argentina).

And this is just magic, absolute magic:
Who was the longest-serving French President in history?
Napoleon Bonaparte hahahahaha. (I believe that to be Jacques Chirac between 1995 and 2007).


Ohhhh America.

A Week At Europahaus!

I am told that this week was a pretty fun week. Unfortunately I don't remember much of it. I remember playing wizard staff at Europahaus (The aim of the game is to drink as many beer cans at possible and tape them together until you get a wizard staff that is taller than you. Of course, for vertically challenged peoples like myself, this was not as much of a challenge as for others). I also remember going out to dinner with Mike and his parents and eating so much lasagne that Erik/ Jesus could have definitely fed more than 5000 with that. I remember thinking how Alex and his brother are pretty much like doctor evil and mini me, how I could have probably done better than some of the pole dancers in the Corso bar, and that the WG of some random American called Tom Jones was broken into for a house party.



The things I didn't remember however, and recalled soon after, were challenging Anneli's fellow Fins to see if they could slap me harder than she could :-/, the breakage of one of Anneli's glasses when throwing that inflatable ball around in her room and me using my wizard staff quite graphically later in the evening...



Going to Schwaketenbad is ALWAYS fun when you go with Mate, who did some more of his most graceful jumps. I dived off the 3 meter board and landed on my eye, which sorta hurt, and did another of my spectacular backflops, which fucking hurt like hell. Anneli is too much of a woman to jump properly and holds her nose. The slide was fun, although without Mike and the Irish, there was a significant absence of being kicked in the head.

Due to persistent reminders which give my flat a homely feel, I took out the rubbish and the recycling today. Because of Germany's overkeenness on recycling, I have a small army of 43 empty beer bottles to take back to Kaufland, for each of which I can get 9 cents back as a deposit. Remains to be seen how carrying my own body weight in beer bottles to Zahringerplatz will go though.



I went to Uni today with a dilemma. Here in Germany, you can miss a maximum of 2 of each lecture, but missing any more than that means you don't get the credits for the course and therefore fulfil the end requirements. To cut a longer story short, I was going to have to come back from Rock-im-Park on Sunday rather than Monday and therefore miss seeing Muse and Motorhead, which I was very pissed about. Then, with a stroke of luck, both my lectures next Monday morning were cancelled! What are the odds??

3 days til Rage Against the Machine
4 days til Wolfmother and Airbourne
5 days til JayZ Patrick O'Brien!!!
6 days til Muse
11 days til the world cup
16 days til Ollie and Macca come to visit
And about 50 before my dreaded return back to Britain...

Das Leben koennte kaum besser sein!

Barcelona Based Banter

After watching the breakage of Miha's bed live, then being slapped senseless by Anneli and then stepping my way round the sticky beer areas on the floor, talking to a hippy, and a thoroughly unsuccessful trip to the kebab shop, I got up 4 hours later to go to Barcelona. Ok, so having my wallet stolen on the first night in the Catalan capital wasn't ideal, but at least I chased the bastard down and got it back!





Barcelona is possibly one of the most awesome cities in the world. I went to the beach and went swimming in the freezing sea, I saw the Nou Camp (girls, that's the Barcelona football stadium) and had my pictures taken next to the pitch and the 6 trophies they won last season, I did a pub crawl which ended with me, Sam and Matt darting down the back alleys off La Rambla at 5.30am to escape a crazy American called Tyger McGee, I spent my last night in a hostel with a rather fat American girl vomming up her guts in the bed next to me about a metre from my face, I watched the CL final, and obviously saw all the main sights, before buying possibly the best T-shirt ever. Unfortunately, wearing this latest purchase on 6 different forms of transport on the way home possibly wasn't the best idea, as I got a number of awkward looks.













Unfortunately, as amazing as this trip was, it has pretty much bust my bank account meaning that the dream trip to Tromso to experience 24 hour daylight is now not likely. But plenty to look forward to anyway - in roughly 180 hours - not that I'm counting, I will seeing Killing in the name of, by Rage against the machine, live in Nuremberg. I won't mind too much if I die in the moshing process, as seeing them was my number one aim in life. Also very much looking forward to Southside, the pre-Southside party and the visit of Ollie and Macca to Konstanz, including the possibility of a day trip to Liechtenstein. I filled out one of those Where I've Been maps on Facebook yesterday, there're still so many European countries I need to visit, though all I can say is, hopefully they'll be a little less sketchy that Barca.

It's good to be back in K-town now. I realise that with all the travelling I've been doing, I don't think I've spent 2 weekends in a row in this place, and I have to go home in 2 months, so I'm determined to make the most of this amazing place and the amazing people. Looking forward to a bit of Kantine fun with Bene and Nadine heute Abend. Gotta love the mentors.

From Baden-Baden-Baden-Baden to Barcelona

"So my brain is like a lot of little people. And there's this guy behind a desk. And someone will run in with some information for him. And he'll either sign it and they'll run off or he'll ignore it. That's for my basic motor functions. And in his office there's a big window, but tbh, he spends most of his time just gazing out of the window into space." (Scott)

Class entertainment like some of Scott's quotes, as well as craaaazy parties and spontaneous visits to places have characterised the last few weeks. I have booked tickets to the Southside Festival in Neuhausen in mid June and the Rock-Im-Park festival in Nuremberg in early June, so that as well as probably watching approximately 64 world cup matches over the next 6 weeks, I will probably also be seeing about that many bands live. Some of them are siiiiick, including Muse, Kasabian, Motorhead, Kiss, Jay-Z, Them Crooked Vultures, Airbourne, Rammstein, Sum 41, Rage Against The Machine, Pendulum, Slash, Ellie Goulding, Alice in Chains, La Roux, The Strokes, Florence and the Machine, Paramore, Beatsteaks, Biffy Clyro, Mando Diao and many others! Jealous? You should be! What will make the Southside Festival twice is good is that two of my friends from home, Ollie and Macca will be out here for it, so everything in Konstanz, there will be a big Schwaketenbad session on Wednesday 16th June and a houseparty at mine on the 17th!

So, what could make life better than the World Cup and all those bands live? Probably some more excursions and trips abroad? Well in 24 hours I will be on a beach in Barcelona with Sam!!!! I will be there for the Champions League Final, shame Barca didn't make it, I will see the Nou Camp, La Rambla, all the cultural sights, and obviously a lot of the nightlife! Speaking of nightlife, quality party at the Konzilgebaude last week, though I don't remember a lot of it. Apparently I sung all the words to Backstreet Boys, put a beer bottle in a bike water bottle holder, got thrown into an advertising board by Mate, and nicked some ppls drinks. Nejc, that may have been you, sorry about that bro.







There have also been some awesome Schwaketenbad sessions with the Irish guys, Americans and Marco, including Mike taking me out on the slide. Last time that happened, I broke my nose and lost some teeth and had to miss out watching an england match on TV, so this time was slightly less painful, hahaha.



Plans for the next little while might include some work, but otherwise the last plan for the end of the semester is to go to Tromso, in Northern Norway, where at this time of year there will be 24-7 sunlight. Would be an awesome camping trip and a goodbye to everyone at the end of July, and a real once in a lifetime experience. You can go to cities at any time, but I doubt I'd travel to the furthest northern points in Scandinavia and camp at any other time in my life!! I will also be visiting Liechtenstein in mid June to add to the list of places this year, most likely to the capital, Vaduz.

Erasmus is amazing, and so far Konstanz is absolutely shitting all over Strasbourg (except for you Patrick O'Brien, and you Sam Mueller!!)

:-D

Football, Strasbourg, Enrique's, Heidelberg, RACOON EYES :-)

The last 2 weeks have been the best of the year abroad. Special mention to Kellie Schieber and Lauren Harn for enterting THE GAME, to Lorcan Murray for being a legend, to Sam Mueller cos she ........ EVERYWHERE, and to the LEI for organising Heidelberg :-)

All I can say though, is if the shim in Strasbourg hadn't been racist and told English people to f*** off, I wouldn't have asked he/ she/ it whether he/ she/ it was a man or a woman. Strasbourg was amaaaazing, big thanks to Lorcan Murray, cos I probs destroyed his chance of passing an exam by staying at his. Still, procrastination in the form of Rollercoaster Tycoon and Sporcle means doomed to failure anyway. Despite the first thing Matt said to me after 4 months was that I looked remarkable homosexual, was great to see everyone, especially my future wife, Sam, and Laura and Katherine and many others. Irish people were also good banter, shame I didn't get to know them in first semester. Mustn't forget to mention that Sam CHUNNNNNDERRRREDDDD EVERYWHERE. (I know you will appreciate me mentioning this in my blog). I just feel sorry for Katrina's bin, haha.








Back in Konstanz, I've been playing a lot of football, with the politics department and the physics department. I think I'm starting to get my form back a bit, but I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult when German defenders say to each other "Watch the little one!". A lot of the players are good though, especially the Chileans, Enrique is a bit of a demon.

Towards the end of this week has been a good week for birthdays. Enrique's Palace of Love was the destination on Thursday for his 26th birthday celebrations, where Kellie Schieber entered the racoon eyes game. I thought that this might be a good time and place to explain to everyone what I would devise as a rule book for this game. I think that considering I have started having dreams about it, and therefore cannot escape it even in moments of consciousness, I'm probably well placed to define some rules for those of you that don't know.
1) When someone in the game cups there hands and fingers around their eyes to make racoon eyes, and someone else sees it, they have to lie on the floor wherever they are. Alex has had to lie in a church, me on a bus, etc.
2) You enter the game by making the racoon eyes gesture, and once you're in it's a life long contract, you can't get out, as Kellie's is beginning to regret after laying on the floor 6 times over the space of 15 fun-filled hours with me too.
Below are some of the pictures of Enrique's party and the racoon eyes. It was a good party anyways, with the dance floor where his old bedroom was and some Chilean salsa tunes flying out of the speakers. I regrettably went home early to watch the British elections, falling asleep at 3am with pizza on my lap. That was an interesting wake up.







Friday was to celebrate the birthday of Erika, everyone's favourite Slovakian, with the unconventional idea of a toast party. That is the biggest mound of toasted sandwiches I'll probs ever see in my life. Korina was the cook, and I began to wonder what the filling actually was, til I opened it up and realised she has forgotten to put anything inside. We also went swimming yesterday, with some very impressive diving from Chelsea and some hilarious jumps from Mate on the 1 meter springboard. Going down the slide with Mike and the Irish was good banter too, even if I did headbutt some poor guy in the arse.

Saturday was, despite the early get up, amazing. 3 and a half hours after starting our journey, we arrived in Heidelberg, and were shown around the castle by our Danish tour guide. Highlights of the day involved Marco telling a man on the street that Alex was the president of America, Lauren entering the racoon eyes game; a decision she will undoubtedly come to regret, and watching Enrique do salsa dancing on the back of the bus. Photos soon to be uploaded from that.

Oh Konstanz. Ohhhhhhhh Germany. I never wana leave you!!

Thursday 22nd April

Munich down, Strasbourg to see Matt, Lorcan, Katherine, Laura and Sam and then Barcelona with Sam still to come!!! Happy days. However, I think none of these might happen as I am struggling to stand up straight after landing on my hand after a bicycle kick at football yesterday. I think I might need to ask everyone's concussion expert Matthew Chapman about this.

Anyways, Monday was a good day. After 5 and a half hours of lectures, including the last one where there was a very active discussion about German fraudsters hiding their moneys in Swiss bank accounts, we spent the evening in a new pub called S'guggloch, where drinks are about a third of the price they were in Strasbourg (I guess this isn't hard), before some pretty intense table football battles going again, with me and Toto going 5-0 down to the girls before coming back to win 6-5 and therefore avoiding a semester of bragging.



Tuesday was a particularly interesting day, as I had a lecture about Nazi War Criminals in which I was the only foreign student, and see that taught from a German point of view could be interesting. Also, I'm slightly amused by just how much the lecturer looks like Santa. I always used to wonder what Santa did for the other 364 days of the year, now I know that he's a professor of History at the University of Konstanz with a specialism in Germany's National Socialist past, who'd have thought it?? In the evening I had my first meeting with the LEI (Local Erasmus Initiative), which is a committee in which I am one of 2 Erasmus students helping, to organise events for foreign students this semester, including a trip to Heidleberg, and the rather interesting choice of speed-dating, which could be interesting, but is more like to be an epic fail....mal sehen! After the meeting I dashed to Enrique's to meet some of his Chilean and Italian friends who are also absolute lads, and I watched Inter vs Barcelona there. Very surprised by the result, but maybe the volcano ash played it's part is destroying Barcelona after their 400km coach journey.

Yesterday was also good. My weekend, which begins at 10 o'clock on a Wednesday. Hang on, I'll just say that one more time for anyone reading this who isn't an Erasmus student...my weekend...which begins at 10 o'clock....on a Wednesday...has been good so far. After Andreas' ridiculously early class, I went back to bed until 3 o'clock, got up, went to play football. That must have been the first time in months that I played alright, gots me some goals, and the Wayne Rooney boots seem to be working so far. Quote of the week is gonna go down anonymously incase the person that said it reads this, "I read an article that girls from Belarus are nice, because you can buy them cheap on the Internet". Hahahaha. Anyways, after the football, I dashed into town with Toto to watch Bayern vs Lyon, in an absolutely packed pub, which erupted, badly when Ribéry was sent off, and very positively when Arjen Robben's shot deflected off Thomas Muller's head and went in. After that it was up to the uni for the Psycho party - organised by the psychological department, not an event for nutters. No rest for the wicked!! :-) :-) :-)

München Banter

Why is being an Erasmus student this good? Cos when you get a phone call at 4.15 on a Friday saying "Do you wana go to Munich to see Bayern, we're leaving in 2 hours?", you don't have to worry about work or anything, you just say yes!! Despite indecisiveness being one of Scott's most noticeable characteristics and despite him having 45 minutes to pack before leaving, his new policy of saying "Sure, why the hell not?" to any question asked meant he had no choice but to come. Me, Erik and Scott got a lift with Erik's housemate to Munich, and arrived there much quicker than we would have by train, although that may have had something to do with the fact that his top speed may have broken the land speed record - only joking, it was only 200km an hour at most...

We got to a hostel, checked in, and as the room stunk of everything bad in the world, went out towards Munich's Ostbahnhof area, which had been recommended to us for Nightlife. There, I talked to a couple of Swiss and pretended I could understand them, before we met a guy a dressed up as a chicken, who was celebrating his stag-do. All I can say however, is that the clubs were so empty, that if I was him, I would have been very disappointed with my stag-do. Erik was on top form on Friday night, showing the bouncers who wouldn't let us into the club (despite not having a reason to) exactly what he thought of them, by mooning at them, before later being led away by security. We went back in though....





After getting back at 4 in the morning, we got up the next day at 10.30, cos we had to check out of the hostel at 11, as we thought we'd be staying with Erik's mate on Saturday night. We dumped our stuff in the central station and walked around Munich, taking photos of the city centre, where Erik bought a pretty cool had. Me and Scott then headed to an Irish pub to watch the Manchester derby, and considering he is normally so placid and calm, the sight of Paul Scholes last minute winner almost made him so insane. Straight after the game, we headed to the Allianz arena, to watch Bayern against Hannover, the main reason why we had come to Munich. We were originally gonna go and see Freiburg, but between Bayern and Freiburg, there is absolutely no comparison.

Bayern were 3-0 up at half-time and 7-0 was the full-time score, the club's biggest win in 20 years...AND WE WERE THERE! Arjen Robben was actually on fire with a hatrick, whilst Ivica Olic played well, and the Bayern keeper literally had nothing to do. The Bishop's Stortford Swifts team I used to play for with it's terrible 3 man defence would have offered better opposition than Hannover did on Saturday. The atmosphere in the Allianz arena was absolutely amazing, with 69,000 fans in there, a very excitable stadium announcer, and 2 old men that kept shouting about the game so much, that spit missiles went flying around at others in the rows near them. I was also happy to find that the match programme, which was a special edition to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bayern, was only 3 euros.



After the game, we went for some pizza in an Italian restaurant, where we engaged in a fierce debate about whether the moody bitch behind the counter was hot or not, I still don't agree with Erik's opinion. Scott finally found out what he had spent his money on, having spent a large part of Saturday trying to calculate when he had split his third fifty, much to my amusement. We headed back to the hostel, and were absolutely nackered, so much so that after playing cards, I fell asleep slumped against the wall fully dressed for the night.

On Sunday, we saw a big palace in Munich, the name of which escapes me, before heading to the Hofbrauhaus for bier und wurst, which was incredibly tasty. I also am now the owner of a big Hofbrauhaus beer glass, which is an excellent souvenir for the trip. I think it's also funny to mention a conversation heard by the 3 of us from a group of rich American daddy's girls in Burger King, with the following quotes being overheard:
- "What is a volcano anyway? Is it just a mountain with a hole? What is the red stuff that comes out of it anyway?"
- "We were trying to decide if we had sex or not, so he wrote down a list of the pros and cons, but get this right, even though there were more cons than pros, he still wanted to have sex with me!"
Right so, I think Erik was a bit embarassed of his Landsleute at this point.





Travel there and back, 20 Euro
Ticket to the game, 45 Euro,
Accommodation, 40 Euro,
Spends, Unknown amount of Euros,
Seeing Erik moon a bouncer, successfully liberating a glass from the Hofbrauhaus and watching Bayern's biggest win in 20 years - PRICELESS!!!

Das erste Wochenende

This weekend has been very good. Rather than spending nights in, cos of having to get up early for the language course the next day, there have been some good evenings out and some good lie ins too! The villain of the week is definitely gonna go down as the DJ at the LEI party on Friday though. In comparison to some of those tunes he was playing, the dress sense at the party was very good taste. Good effort from a lot of people, including Vaclav's orange swimming trunks, Bene and Nadine's outfits and the girls from Sonnenbuehl OST who wore some interesting brightly coloured T shirts. Almost as epic as the party itself was the 40 minute walk home in some fairly nippy weather. I reckon that I'd have definitely ended up in Switzerland if I hadn't been with other people.

Dieses Wochenende war sehr gut. Wir mussten uns am Samstag und Sonntag nicht so fruh aufstehen und deswegen konnten wir ein bisschen mehr ausgehen. Ich hab die Abends, und die Moglichkeit einzuschlafen, ganz viel genossen. Der bose Mensch der Woche war der DJ bei der Party am Freitag. Im Vergleichen zu einigen Liedern, die er gespielt hat, sahen die komischen verkleideten Leute ganz normal aus. Die Verkleidungen von ganz vielen Leuten waren ganz gut, besonders die orange Badehose von Vaclav, die bunten Farben von Nadine und Bene und die Madchen aus OST, die ganz bunte T-Shirts getragen haben. Fast so gut wie die Party war die Ruckkehr nach Hause, die 40 Minuten in kaltem Wetter dauerte. Wenn ich alleine nach Hause gekommen waere, waere ich zweiffellos zufaellig in die Schweiz gegangen!





I woke up the next morning (Saturday) and was surprised to look out of the window to find snow. Such an amount of snow in Great Britain would have probably rendered all forms of transport unusable, but in typical efficient fashion, it didn't seem to stop the Germans too much. I headed into town with Scott and Jordie to take some pictures near the Imperia before beginning the tour. I was in a group with a pretty nutty tour guide, who insisted on pointing literally everything out, including "Bike" and "Car", as if we didn't know what they were. After a significant period of 3 hours, in which I look at many 'pretty German houses' whilst freezing my absolute bollocks off, we headed for coffee and cake, and then to Lago, where I bought a Nike football, before going to Kaufland to buy beer and curry ketchup. A very successful shopping trip!

Ich hab am naechsten Tag (Samstag) aufgewacht und war uberrascht, als ich vom Fenster nach draussen schaute, sah ich Schnee! Eine solche Menge Schnee haette in Grossbritannien bedeutet, dass alle offentliche Verkehrsmittel nicht nutzbar waeren, aber wie man sich vorstellen kann, war es in Deutschland nicht zu problematisch. Ich bin in die Stadt mit Scott und Jordie gegangen, um einige Fotos aufzunehmen in der Nahe von der Imperia, bevor der Stadtrundgang anfing. Der Reiseleiter kann man nur als wahnsinnig beschreiben – er hat einfach alles erwaehnt – „Das gibt’s ein Fahrrad“ oder „Da gibt’s ein Auto“! als ob man nicht kennen wuerde, was sie waeren! Nach 3 Stunden, in denen ich ganz viele schonen deutsche Haeuser ansah, waehrend ich erfrierte, hatten wir alle Kaffe und Kuchen und dann gingen nach Lago, wo ich einen Fussball kaufte. Danach hab ich Bier und Curry Ketchup in Kaufland gekauft.

In the evening, I headed down 2 floors to Chelsea and Kellie's appartment for a bit of beer pong, which was good. One of the Brazilian girls, whose name escapes me, was very good at it for a first time. I think the Aussies however, had a few more problems adapting, which proved entertaining. After that, everyone else turned up and there was a bit of ring of fire, and some controversy, when Mike drank the rest of Kellie's vodka. I was quite proud of my new rule though, people were running around outside and knocking on the doors of the other WGs :-).

Am Abend war ich im dritten Stock bei Chelsea und Kellie, um England in Beer Pong zu vertreten – das war toll. Ein brasilianisches Madchen, dessen Name ich vergesse, war sehr gut, besonders weil sie zum ersten Mal spielte. Die Australiener hatten mehrere Probleme dabei und das war ganz unterhaltsam. Danach sind alle anderen gekommen und wir haben ‚Ring of Fire‘ gespielt. Am umstrittenesten war der Moment, wo Mike den Rest Kellies Wodka konsumierte. Ich war waehrend des Spiels auf meine neue Regel ganz stolz – Leute mussten nach draussen rennen und auf der Tur eines anderen Wohnheims knopfen 

Sunday has proved to be a bit of a nothing day. Should have probably gone to Meersburg with the others, but there was really no guarantee I could get out of bed in time to get the bus to the ferry, so I decided not to. Monday got off to an interesting start as I slept through 5 alarms, and woke up at 8.55 and ran up the hill to the class, where I arrived 21 minutes later. Tbh, I was quite proud with the speed of that turnaround. The afternoon generally involved large amounts of bureaucracy and admin, with 90 mins spent in Sparkasse so we could all set up a bank account, before I then accepted Marcus’ help in the town hall to register. Unfortunately, he marked me down as a Buddhist and as such, I have now been registered under German authorities as an English Buddhist in Konstanz. We will see what comes of that...

Am Sonntag hab ich nicht sehr viel gemacht. Ich haette vll nach Meersburg mitfahren sollen, aber ich konnte nicht gewahrleisten, dass ich nicht einschlafen und den Bus zur Faehre verpassen wuerde. Montag hatte einen interessanten Anfang, weil ich funf mal meinen Alarm nicht gehoert hab, und hab um 8.55 aufgewacht. Ich musste zur Uni laufen, wo ich 21 Minuten spater ankam. Ehrlich gesagt, war ich ganz stolz darauf, dass ich so schnell angekommen bin . Am Nachmittag gab es ganz viele Burokratie fertig zu machen und wir verbrachten anderthalb Stunden bei der Bank Sparkasse, damit wir alle ein Konto eroeffnen konnten. Danach half mir Marcus, mich im Burgerburo zu registrieren. Leider hat er einiges auf meinem Formulaer ausgefuellt und deswegen wurde ich als Buddhist registriert und bin jetzt laut den deutschen Behoerden ein englischer Buddhist in Konstanz. Wir werden mal sehen, zu welchen Konsequenzen das fuehrt...

The First Days of the Course/ Die ersten Tage des Kurses

The last 2 days have been excellent. After getting the results of our tests and divided up into German language groups, we have spent the first two days of lessons throwing an orange to each other and shouting out random syllables to practise pronounciation. However, whilst chucking oranges, may not, excuse the pun, be the most fruitful use of time, the language course and the teacher have both been excellent. Everyone in my group is lovely, with people from England, Latvia, Hungary, Croatia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Croatia (hope I haven't missed anyone out there).

Die letzten zwei Tage sind ausgezeichnet gewesen! Nachdem wir die Ergebnisse des Einstufungstests bekommen haben, wurden wir alle in die verschiedenen Sprachgruppen eingestellt und die letzten zwei Tage sind sehr produktiv gewesen, weil wir eine Orange zueinander geworfen und wahllose Silben geschrien haben!! Waehrend der Wurf von Orangen ist vielleicht (bitte das Wortspiel entschuldigen) nicht eine sehr fruchtbare Ubung, der Sprachkurs und die Lehrerin sind fantastisch gewesen. Alle Studierenden in meiner Gruppe sind sehr nett, mit StudentInnen aus England, Lettland, Ungarn, Kroatien, Polen, der Tschechischen Republik und Kroatien (hoffe darauf, dass ich keine Laender vergessen hab).

In the last two days I have also gone back to living on my own. I had a flatmate for 3 hours, a German guy called Andy, but he has gone away for the week, leaving me alone in a flat for 6. I am not sure if he will be coming back either, as I seem to have continued my streak of language faux pas in Germany. Highlights so far this year including asking a French guy if I could have some of his cider and accidentally asking him if I could have some of his AIDS, and yesterday, whilst trying to ask my flatmate if he was moving out, adding a reflexive part to the verb meant I asked him if he was getting undressed. Guess you shouldn't really expect any better of me.

Waehrend der letzten zwei Tage, hab ich leider wieder angefangen, alleine zu wohnen. Ich hatte fur 3 Stunden einen Mitbewohner, Andy, aber er kommt erst naechste Woche zurueck. Deswegen, wohne ich in einem WG fuer 6 Studenten wieder alleine! Ich bin mir auch nicht sicher, ob er zurueckkommt, nachdem was ich gestern gesagt hab. In Frankereich, hab ich versucht, jemanden danach zu fragen, ob ich ein bisschen seines Apfelweins probieren koennte. Stattdessen hab ich gefragt, ob er Aids hatte (das franzoesische Wort fur Apfelwein ist cidre, und das Wort fuer Aids ist sida). Vorgestern hab ich meinem neuen Mitbewohner gefragt, ob er auszieht, hab aber stattdessen gefragt, ob er sich auszieht. Aber koennte man wirklich was besseres von mir erwarten??

Whilst large amounts of admin and paperwork may not be restricted to France, I think it's important to point out that Germany has been 100 times better when it comes to filling out paperwork. Applying for a bank account and registering may have taken an hour and a half with the help of German students, but it did not take a month, as it did on the other side of the Rhine last year. Other admin stuff like health insurance etc has been completed, I have a student card, a library card, a bus pass and have signed myself up to various events such as Freiburg and Stuttgart etc.

Waehrend man erwaehnen sollte, dass langsam dauernde Burokratie nicht auf Frankereich beschraenkt werden sollte, muss man auch sagen, dass Deutschland viel besser mit dem Ausfullen der Formulaere gewesen ist. Um ein Bankkonto zu eroeffnen und an der Uni zu registrieren dauerten anderthalb Stunden dank der Hilfe deutsche Studenten, aber glucklicherweise brauchten wir nicht einen ganzen Monat, wie es letztes Jahr auf der anderen Seite des Rheins war. Ich hab auch Burokratie wie die Krankenversicherung fertig gemacht. Ich hab eine Studentenkarte, eine Bibliothekskarte, einen Pass fur den Bus und hab mich dazu angemeldet, dass ich an Ausfluegen wie Stuttgart und Freiburg teilnehme!

Now it's the weekend, and the first event of the LEI, which my mentors Bene and Nadine, plus lots of Erasmus students, are going to. Should be banter, as it is a bad taste party, which are apparently very popular in Germany. I am going wearing my Borat in a mankini t shirt, having brushed off Nadine's suggestions that a real mankini might be better. However, so close is the border that I fear fulfilling her wish might lead the Germans to chuck me into Switzerland, as the police seem pretty strict here - they make all the parties in the city centre end at 1...so that we don't wake the old people up presumably. To find out how the Europeans and possibly, any Kazakhs reacted to Borat's mankini, watch this space....

Jetzt ist das Wochenende schliesslich angekommen und dabei das erste Ereignis der LEI, wo meine Mentors und viele auslaendischen Studenten hingehen. Sollte Spass machen, weil das Thema der Party 'Bad Taste' ist und solche Partys sind offenbar ganz beliebt in Deutschland. Hab mich darauf entschieden, dass mein Borat mankini T-Shirt trage, nachdem ich den Vorschlag von Nadine verweigert hab, dass ich ein echtes mankini tragen sollte. Die Grenze ist jedoch so nah, dass wenn ich so etwas tragen wuerde, wuerden die Deutschen mich in die Schweiz kicken - nach allem scheint die Polizei ganz streng zu sein! Die Partys in Konstanz kommen um 1 Uhr morgen zu Ende!! Vermuetlich damit die aelteren Leute der Stadt besser schlafen koennen! Um zu sehen, wie nicht nur die Europaer aber vielleicht auch Kasachen auf mein Borat T-Shirt reagiert haben, behalten Sie mein Blog im Auge!!

Arrival in Konstanz/ Ankunft in Konstanz

Out of all the semesters at uni, the one in Germany was the one I've been looking forward to the most! After the bureaucratic hell I left behind in France, it was pretty much guaranteed that a mixture of German efficiency, and the fact that there are cacti in the Sahara desert that could open a bank account quicker than the French, that my stay in Germany would be much better in many aspects.

Von allen Semestern an der Uni, hatte ich mich immer auf dieses Semester in Deutschland am meisten gefreut! Nach meinen Schwierigkeiten, die ich mit der franzoesischen Buerokratie erfahren hatte, wusste ich, dass die Deutschen mir einen erfolgreicheren Aufenthalt anbieten wuerden und auch, sollten wir nicht vergessen, dass es Kakteen in der Sahara gibt, die ein Konto bei einer Bank schneller als die Franzoesen eroeffnen koennten! Deswegen, glaub ich, dass mein Aufenthalt hier in Deutschland in vieler Hinsicht besser sein wird.

Unfortunately, I am not used to getting up at any time before 10 o'clock, so the strain to get myself out of bed at 4 o'clock to leave the country for 4 months was immense. One dodgy cab ride, sleep-filled plane ride, and bus journey ride on a ferry later, I had arrived at Bodensee, to be met by Bene and Nadine, my 2 very kind German mentors, who showed me all around the town and the University. It would be fair to say they probably saved my life, cos there was no way in hell I was gonna find my own way out of the library. If J.K.Rowling had used the Konstanz University library for her 4th book, The Goblet of Fire, to hide the Triwizard Cup, Harry would have definitely never got there!

Leider, bin ich nicht daran gewoehnt, dass ich um 4 Uhr aufstehen muss, besonders wenn ich normalerweise nicht vor 10 aufstehe. Nach einer kurzen aber noch einer komischen Fahrt in einem Taxi, einem Flug, waehrendessen ich geschlafen habe und einer Busfahrt auf einer Faehre, bin ich am Bodensee angekommen, wo meine Mentors, Nadine und Bene, die ganze Stadt und die Universitaet gezeigt haben. Es waere die Wahrheit zu sagen, dass sie mir das Leben gerettet habe, sonst waere ich mich von der Bibliothek nie entkommen! Wenn J.K Rowling nur die Bibliothek an der Uni Konstanz benutzt in ihrem vierten Buch 'The Goblet of Fire' benutzt haette, um den Triwizard Cup zu verstecken, haette Harry ihn nie erreicht!!

The second day has also been eventful, with lots of introductory talks. Unfortunately they are all in English, and considering the number of nationalities studying at this uni, who clearly all have German as a foreign language, I thought that this was a bit odd. Still, everyone was really nice and after a test and registration at the uni, I bought my bus pass and Mensa card and signed myself up for the excursions for the trips to Stuttgart and Freiburg. After that, we did a quiz in the town this afternoon, with some Swedes, Slovenians, Germans and Turkish people. Despite the fact that my hard drive broke and I have lost 5 years worth of pictures and that I still don't see Heledd for another 15 days, today has been a very good day!!

Am zweiten Tag ist ganz viel auch geschehen, mit vielen Einfuehrungsgespraechen. Leider war alles auf englisch, was ich ganz ueberraschend fan, wenn man ueberlegt, dass alle an der Uni Konstanz auslaendischen Studieren Deutsch als gemeinsame Sprache haben! Aber alle, die ich getroffen habe, war sehr nett, und nach dem Einstufungstest und der Registrierung an der Uni, habe ich meinen Buspass und meine Mensa-Karte gekauft und ich hab mich zu den Ausfluegen nach Stuttgart und Freiburg angemeldet :-). Am Nachmittag, haben wir ein Quiz mit Studierenden aus Schweden, Slovenien, Deutschland und der Turkei gemacht. Obwohl der Bruch meiner Festplatte zum Verlust von 5 Jahren meiner Fotos gefuehrt hat und trotz der Tatsache, dass ich Heledd erst in 15 Tagen sehe, ist heute ein ganz guter Tag gewesen!!

:-)