Moin!
So I’m Craig, and a recent graduate of the department, but since most people reading this blog probably know me or of me, that’s all I’ll say about me. 🙂
So I’ve been in Deutschland (Specifically the city of Braunschweig, in the state of Niedersachsen in northern Germany) for about 2 and a half weeks now, and I finally have the time and energy to describe them for anyone interested! I think I might make a personal blog as well, so that I can see all my posts in one list, but this is great because it might actually motivate me to write my blog, which I failed at last year, but I can’t let the department down!
So my first few weeks can be broken down into two main events: me getting eingelebt (settled in) – watch out for Denglish, I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot!- and after my settling in period, going to my Einführungstagung to work as an Ehemaliger, or former assistant, to help the PAD with the course.
So to recap my first adventures here, I left Canada on the 2nd of September with my parents, who happened to be flying out to Scotland on the same day as I was to Germany. The big difference being that my parents flight was at 9am on the 2nd and mine was at 10:30pm, which meant after leaving the Island the day before and staying in a hotel, we all got up at 6am and went to the airport, where I immediately said by to my parents for 10 months and started the 15 hour wait in the airport…but because I have kind and benevolent Eltern, they gave me some money for my basic needs like food and stuff. Anyway because of free internet the wait ended up being not so bad (for 15 hours) and I was airborne before I knew it. The flight was less horrible than I was expecting (I have a fear of flying, but I never let it stop me) and I arrived in good ol’ Deutschland before I knew it. Then I had a rush to catch my train from the Frankfurtflughafen station direct to Braunschweig, but my Bahncard 50 had expired, so I needed to buy a knew one real quite so that I wouldn’t be fined for having a cheaper ticket. Which was stressful because I had 15 minutes to do it in before my train, and because my phone was dead and I didn’t know my new address in BS yet, which meant I had to rush in, ask for a power outlet, charge my phone, what’sapp my new roommate, and then buy the ticket. But I managed it with time to spare! 😀 Afterwards the train ride to BS was a blur due to exhaustion, but I met a nice German man and we talked for th 2.5 hours before I jumped out, finally at my destination! There one of my new roommates Amelie picked me up and led me to my new home. Honestly my apartment is awesome. My room is large, the rent is super günstig (warm too!) and my roommates are super nice. Amelie is 25 and a student, Patrick is 28 and a Berater for a Firma, and Eva is 36 and works for a company as an Ingenieurin. Also I get to be the youngest! Anyway the first few days consisted of my unpacking and basically lounging about and sleeping all the time due to jetlag. It was terrible. But I did manage to do to important things the first week: Open my bank account and register myself as a Braunschweiger, something you must always due in German cities (and villages and everywhere) because Germany likes to know where you live at ALL times. But you get some sweet coupons from the City out of it!
One great thing about Braunschweig is that I already have so German friends who live here, so I within the first week I saw a guy who went to my high school as an international student play in his band at a festival in the city (Magnifest) and I hadn’t seen him in like 8 years so it was pretty cool. The following day my friend Anna who also went to my high school once upon a time invited me to one of her friend’s birthday parties (she got permission first!) and I met lots of new people there, including a girl who graduated from the Gymnasium I will be teaching at, which was a cool connection to make. Aside from that I have also dabbled in helping Anna’s boyfriend Marc with an Englisch exam he is preparing for. The cool thing is when I first met Marc 5 years ago on my first trip here, we could not really communicate because he couldn’t speak English and I could barely speak German, but now I can have full conversations with him, which really shows how far I’ve come in German and makes me happy! His English is also improving, but he only started relearning recently. I’ve also been watching Tatort every Sunday with my roommates, which is natürlich an important German Kultursache. First episode that I saw was in Switzerland (Charlotte!) but they had dubbed it over with German voice actors (Verdammte Synchronisierung!) Although I probably wouldn’t understand it in Schweizer Deutsch! Well that pretty much wraps up my settling in phase, but there was still one more important event before I could really start my life in Germany:
My Einführungstagung in Köln! Now the PAD had asked me months ago if I would support them as an Ehemaliger in this Tagung and I said “Na Klar!” of course, and I’m glad I did, because it was so fun, and of course I got to meet lots of cool assistants both near me in Niedersachsen and quite far away. What was especially cool was that 5 people from Victoria were there, and 4 of them were Uvic Germanic Studies students: Lauren, Stephanie, Alex, and I of course! So it was fun being the biggest group of any one Uni (or at least Canadian Uni). The Tagung started on Monday the 15th of Sept. and was over on Thursday. As an Ehemaliger with 2 others working together (Tom, who I knew from my Tagung last year, and Lydia, who did it the year before me and knows Grant Mason of Uvic, who did the PAD the year before me! Small world! 🙂 ) our job was to help the new assistants with things. We had a question night where they could ask questions by submitting them to a box, which started slow but ended well, and on the last night we did a pub quiz. It was a lot of fun, and of course much time was spent in the Cellar Bar. On Thursday we then left Maria in der Aue (the name of the hotel in the middle of nowhere) and headed back to Köln, where we all split off to head to our new respective schools and cities. I still didn’t know what was going on with me, so I had to call my school from Köln, but I will tell more about that in my next post, which is to follow soon. This is getting quite long, and also probably awefully written because I’m trying to remember and cram so much in. So sorry about that, I’ll be more succinct in my next post. Hopefully. It’s never been my strength, I kinda love to talk. 😀
At any rate I arrived back in Braunschweig with my fellow Braunschweig assistants (Rachel and Chris who are very nice peeps from jolly old England…there are also still two Americans and a French assistant I intend to contact!) on Thursday evening and headed back to my apartment after eating some lasagna at Chris’s. Friday was my first day at School but I didn’t do much, but again, I’ll have a real post on my school and that will then brings us up to date with today having been Monday and my second day on the job. I have tomorrow off, so I should be able to write that as well. Sorry about the length again, procrastination is my number one skill, so it happens when I let to much stuff happen without a post. Ok well bis zum naechsten Mal! Tschuess und LG aus Deutschland.