~Diary, Tips, Advice, Vocab, News~
After 6 attempts I finally managed to book my tickets home for Christmas. Deutsche Bahn has an amazing deal at the moment where you can travel by train from any German main station to London St Pancras from €49. I left mine a little too late and have ended up paying €69 but still its cheaper than flying.Another reason why I chose not to fly is that I really want to take lost of Christmas presents home with me, so this way I don’t need to worry about the weight or taking too many bags. I’m pretty excited about taking the train through Belgium, France and the Eurotunnel, I’ve never done it before and now I feel like a proper traveller.
My friend went home yesterday evening so i was bored (and a little depressed) and decided to try a new layout. Any good? Also I’ve decided that I’m going to include a word of the day post (hopefully EVERYDAY) as a way to motivate me to actually learn some vocabulary. I’ll try and keep it interesting.
Off to uni now, wish me luck ☆
After living in Germany for two months I finally took some photos of my bedroom. I detested my room and halls when I first moved in, but after a few months of decorating the place, I am now quite proud of my little hovel.
Welcome to my room ^^
The room is rather spacious. It was a bit too big because I do not have much furniture to make proper us of the space. The room only came with the bed, table and desk. The table is hiding under my pink table cloth. I bought a lot of pink accessories for the room to bring a bit of colour to the drab white and brown decor. (The ugly picnic basketesque blanket came with the room. It may not be nice to look at, but it is warm.)
My room looks much lighter in photos than it actually is. There is no ceiling lamp, only the desk lamp and a small light above the head of the bed. There are a multitude of shelves in my room, but they are quite bare, as I didn’t bring many books with me. The room did not come with a mirror so I purchased this full length mirror for €9 in the local Einkaufzentrum, Bargain. You’ll notice the washing line that travels from my bed to the window. I have a lot of clothes that cannot be tumble dried, and I didn’t fancy leaving my delicates down stairs in the laundry room for anyone and everyone to see, so my friend suggested this to me. Its both practical and interesting to look at.
So there is my room. I hope you enjoyed it :) Now time for a few questions.
Why did I choose to live in student accommodation?
I chose to live in a Studentenwohnheim primarily because it was the easiest option. I was guaranteed university accommodation. I understand that it is not the best for my language skills, as most students who live here are international (although some of my friends were lucky to end up with German neighbours), nor for my social skills, since people are very private and do not socialise with other people on their floor; something that is very different to the UK. (Although I must admit I’m starting to enjoy the solitude). For these two, living in a WG would be better. A WG or Wohngemeinschaft is a type of large flat where people, as the name suggests, live together. To live in a WG, you need to be interviewed and picked by the people who are already living in the flat. Rooms are very competitive, so my advice to anyone who doesn’t want to be the typical international student to start searching way in advance and to be prepared for many rejections.
How are the living standards?
The accommodation is basic. Unbelievably basic. I and many of my friends cried when we first moved in, because it does resemble a prison cell. There is a shared kitchen, two shared toilets and two shared showers. In the kitchen we have an oven (many of my friends do not have one!), a stove, sink, one fridge and one fridge freezer. There are two tables to sit at. We each have our own small cupboard with a key; until recently my cupboard was bare. We have a Wirtschaftlerin take care of the cleaning of the shared spaces so cleanliness if not really an issue. We can also go to her on a Friday morning to get a fresh change of bed sheets.
---I’m very proud of my room now. I feel very much at home in it. Although it was hard to handle living here at first, I have learnt to adapt myself to a more basic and simple way of life. Do I wish the halls came with an internet connection, of course, do I wish I wasn’t situated in a wood full of giant spiders, damn right, but alas that is life.--
Remember, Remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see now reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot.
Today is the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes night, up and down England tonight and last/next weekend there will be beautiful firework displays, fairgrounds and bonfires. People will come together each holding a sparkler in a frozen gloves hand, the other hand holds and umbrella because it is raining, as it always does in England.
I don’t usually make too much of a fuss of Guy Fawkes night but I have to admit that I am really missing it here. I travel a lot at night here, and the sky is eerily quiet for the end of October, beginning of November. I keep expecting to hear a whooshing, screeching sound somewhere in the distance, and then I search of ages trying to pin point the firework’s location. I miss that sudden burst of excitement when you finally see the firework lighting up the night sky.
I miss fireworks and bonfires and the Guy Fawkes rhyme. But with the absence of an English tradition, comes a uniquely German tradition. I may not have my firework night but in just a few weeks time I will be able to visit many, equally beautiful Christmas Markets.
~☆~ Every cloud has a silver lining ~☆~
One of the biggest perks of living in Marburg is that eating out is very very günstig (cheap/good value for money). In most places a substantial main meal can cost less than €5. The reason is probably because most places to eat are restaurant bars, so they make most of their money from drinks rather than the food. Drinks are NOT cheap, unless you only drink beer. Since Germany is the land of beer, I guess it is fair that it is cheaper to drink than in the UK, but it is robbery when I have to pay over €3 for a coke when my friend has a much larger quantity of beer for more than half the price! Despite the food being cheap, you still receive a very large meal. Me and my American friend learnt this on our first of many Sunday evening eat-out sessions, where we assumed that a €4.90 pizza would be tiny and thus bought a €2 portion of chips to share as a starter. We finished the chips but ended up leaving most of our pizzas.
Tonight me and my male friend, who is visiting me at the moment, went out for dinner. We ended up with FOUR plates between us. The waitresses originally only gave us half of what we had ordered because they did not believe that me and him (the skinny little thing he is) could possibly have also ordered a huge plate of nachos and equally gigantic plate of chips. It was true, and all though we struggled, we were adamant to finish all four plates just to see the looks of shock on the staff’s faces. I do have to admit that it was mostly him who was victorious in this battle, as I only managed to eat about a 1/6. How he ate it all, I have no idea. I wasn’t surprised that he did, as I’ve seen him put away a whole KFC family bucket before, but to look at him you’d never know. I hate men, especially Asian men. How dare you keep all of these eternally skinny genes to yourselves. Please share them with us women.
(From bottom left going round anti-clockwise: Chips with mayo and ketchup, salad, Chicken curry with rice and more salad, nachos with cheese and salsa.)
Last week one of my friends surprised me by buying plane and train tickets to come and visit me in Marburg. He was due to fly in yesterday at around 8pm, then he was going to catch a train from Cologne to Frankfurt (yep he took the cheaper but longer option as I did 2 months back) and I would meet him at Frankfurt so we could travel back to Marburg together. I should have been meeting him in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof at 00.17 on Wednesday morning, but instead I ended up meeting him at Marburg Hauptbahnhof at 7.50 this morning. Why? Because his plane was delayed by 4 hours! This resulted in him missing not only his train, but all of the trains running from Cologne to Frankfurt on Tuesday night. I wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy. I’ve lost 7 precious hours with him. Our day today was wasted because he needed to sleep. I’m so angry, but grateful that he is here. We managed to go and have a nice dinner, we had Auflauf (a German version of pasta/potato bake) and now he has crashed out on my bed. He looked very cute when he sleeps.
Today marked the start of the third week of lessons. I’m starting to get into the routine a bit more, although this morning was a bit of nightmare. I did not want to wake up! I guess I’m still recovering from Saturday night.
