Berlin week 2 (3?) – 11th March 07 and beyond…

Well, things have certainly picked up a bit here now. Officially things kicked off last Wednesday with the introductory lecture for international students at the uni, followed by a quick tour of campus. Since then I’ve had the first half of a block-seminar on German literature, and this week has seen the onset of lectures proper. It’s been a bit of a shock to the system, what with not having been in university for 4 months, but I think I’m getting used to it, and my courses so far seem ok. The international committee here isn’t as active on the social side as it was in Västerås, but I was out last weekend with a few friends from my seminar, and I have to say the nightlife here does look promising. All hail the great German Biergarten! There’s an international welcome party on Saturday too (3 and a half weeks after I arrived…), and I’m fairly booked up with lectures and the like until then, so it looks like I’ll be all go for the next few days…woo! Next week I intend to find somewhere to swim, as it occurs to me I’ve not done this in quite a while. Hopefully this should be up on the internet fairly soon after I’ve written it, as it’s going on my pen-drive with the intention of uploading it at uni, so updates will be more…up to date in future!

Bonn/Köln – 6th-9th March 2007

Hello again! And a belated happy Easter, may I add. Very belated in fact, as I still don’t have the internet, so no-one will read this for a while. I have recently returned from an Easter Excursion to visit my good friend Jane, who is currently residing in Bonn, former capital of West Germany. Due to the expense of the German train system and the inflexibility of their offers, I caught a train from Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 5:30 in the morning on Good Friday to get there. When I arrived at about half 10, Jane hadn’t made it far enough out of bed to come and meet me, so I caught the bus on my own to her halls. We’d not actually seen each other since Sweden 4 months before, so most of Friday was spent catching up and taking a wander around the centre of Bonn. It’s rather a small place, but very nice, what with being on the Rhein and everything. It’s also one of many places which claims an affiliation to Beethoven, and has a statue of him in the square. Friday evening we kept a reasonably low profile, and just went out for a couple of drinks with some of Jane’s new friends.

On Saturday morning we were hoping to visit the Haribo factory, but after a leisurely breakfast we found ourselves lacking the time before our main afternoon event – a boat cruise along the Rhein. This was a rather pleasant trip, I have to say. It was, however, something of a surprise to our little group when we discovered that our return ticket was in fact on two separate boats, and we were being chucked off in the small town of Königswinter for a couple of hours before we could get back to Bonn. After a quick summing up of what was there, as is our (or more specifically, my) wont of a Saturday afternoon, we went dragon-hunting. To be fair, this wasn’t entirely on a whim, or a hare-brained scheme on my part, some of the rest of the group seemed to be aware of the presence of such a lizard in the town beforehand. Anyway, we set off after a slight wrong turning up this nice big hill in search of said beastie. The signs reckoned it was a 45 minute walk, so we had plenty of time in theory. However, after a while which was less than 45 minutes, a number of the group were flagging, and a larger number wondering where the dragon might be, so we stopped by at the castle to gain more information. We found that the “dragon” was kept in the lizard zoo we had passed about 15 minutes beforehand, and after a bit of consideration decided to simply take in the castle then head back. After all, you can see dragons any day of the week, right?

The view from the castle was lovely, though it might have been better were the weather a tad more clement. Either way, after this we trekked back down the hill and took our boat back. The delay in Königswinter delayed our planned night out in Köln (Cologne, to those of you who don’t speak German) somewhat, but we did eventually make it there, taking in a Cuban bar before enjoying the luxuries of the Cent Club until the sun came up (or as good as).

Easter Sunday and Monday were relatively quiet – what with it being Easter, most things were closed, so our activities were limited to seeing the latest Mr Bean film. He doesn’t lose much in translation, though perhaps the question should be whether there is much to be lost in the first place…Either way, Bonn and Köln are both lovely places, and I had a rather pleasant Easter there :)

A Note on Parrots

I don’t know how I managed to miss this out of my first Berlin blog, but I had a rather interesting experience whilst buying plants to add colour to my room in that first week (it’s decorated in the neutral cream/beige theme traditional for student rooms). The plant shop is rather large, sprawling as it does out onto the pavement in front of it, and I’d been thinking for a few days this would be the place to buy foliage. So upon this day I decided to wander inside and do just that. After a short moment’s confusion upon stepping inside, I located a table of house plants and other cactussy creatures, and began to peruse. I have to say, I was mildly surprised to hear the raucous squawk above my head, and this surprise increased somewhat when I looked up and found that the squawk belonged to a rather blue, rather large, and very real parrot. After a few seconds though, I got used to the idea, and continued my perusings. My surprise turned to full-on shock a few seconds later however, when, whilst considering a small cactus, I heard a great whoosh of air, and ducked just in time to prevent my head being detached from my body by a swooping parrot. The bloody thing dive-bombed me! Everyone else in the shop was most amused. Clearly parrots do not like being ignored. Of all the things I may have expected of Berlin, parrot terrorism was certainly not something I considered there to be a high risk of. Ah well…you live and learn, I suppose!

Germany Week 1 (28th March-5th April 07)

Well, here I am. As I write this (which is probably a while before anyone reads it, as I’ve not got the internet yet), I’m sat in my flat in Berlin, where I’m going to be living for the next 4 or 5 months. I’ve been here a week now, though to be honest not much has been happening, I’ve just been settling in. Finally got my room all sorted and decorated with posters, plants and the like today, so it all feels much more homey. I’m living in quite a good area – it’s pretty much the centre of the student district (or one of the student districts), and everything I need is within about 10 minutes walking distance - including lots of bars! Well, nearly everything. My university for this semester, Humboldt-Universität, is about 30 minutes away by U- and S-Bahn. But as there’s a station right outside the house and I have a semester ticket for local transport, that’s not much of an issue.
The S-Bahn’s a funny thing, actually. I’ve been told the ‘S’ stands for “Subterranean”, but the only stretches I’ve ever done on it have been overground…ah well, just have to put that down to artistic licence, I suppose! Basically though it seems just like another version of the U-Bahn, only on a different network and possibly a bit faster. Either way, the local transport network runs pretty well, and is full of the legendary German efficiency.


Which is more than can be said for my university. I registered last Friday (30th March), and have spent most of the time since trying to work out which courses I can do and register for them. For pretty much every course, you need to register with the relevant lecturer in person, some in writing. This is made even more fun by the fact that this week, when I need to do all my registering, most of the lecturers I need are on holiday, even in the hours they’re meant to be available every week. I eventually managed to complete my part of the signing up for my courses yesterday, when I posted no less than 5 separate forms to lecturers for translation courses. In fact, it’s not even different translation courses – they’re all the same course, just at different times during the week. But there are limited places, so we’re advised to apply to as many as we can and indicate preference on the form. This makes a vague amount of sense, but why 5 different forms? I swear the Germans are hell-bent on single-handedly destroying the rainforest.

Anyway, with a bit of luck that’s all sorted now. Apart from that there’s not been much going on. I’ve not had real chance to meet anyone other than the people I live with yet, though I have had a good wander round a few parts of Berlin, and it seems very promising. It’s absolutely huge, or at least seems it to me, but there are so many different things, I can’t imagine getting bored of the place at all. So far I’ve had a wander down Unter den Linden and through the Brandenburger Tor, and spent a sunny afternoon in the huge park in the city centre. This place is great – you can go in there and feel like you’re not in a city at all, just completely relax. I can see myself spending a fair bit of time there in the coming months. I’ve also been to Potsdamer Platz, now completely rebuilt after 30 years of being the no-man’s land through which the wall ran between East and West Berlin (and very snazzy too), and Alexanderplatz, home of the big TV tower, and also this week, the Easter Market, where I spent a few hours yesterday.
All in all, I’m really looking forward to the next few months here. Admittedly it’s been a bit slow so far, but lectures and ERASMUS events start next week, so it should be all go from then on. This weekend I’m going to Bonn to visit Jane for Easter, so there’ll be more on that when I get back!