You Call This A Brew?!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit manic, so I haven’t really had the chance to update this, but I’ve now got two weeks holiday, so I thought I’d give you all an update. I’ve been in school for six weeks now, and Germany for nearly 7, which just seems insane. Time really does fly!

I’ve taken the opportunity in the last couple of weeks to explore Bensheim a little closer, as it really is a beautiful little town.  There’s a very dainty-looking tea shop in the town centre that sells Scottish shortbread, so last week I decided to see just how good the German attempts at a decent cuppa really are. Bless them, they do try, but sadly good-old English tea this was not! I suppose alarm bells should have started ringing when the very nice waiter served it to me in a glass instead of a china mug. Oh no, no, no!  I think he must have waved the tea bag at the hot water, and then whisked it away, as my 'tea' was definitely not tea-coloured. But the major issue was that there was no milk!! Now, tea that contains barely any calories (essentially flavoured water disguising itself as tea) is sometimes appealing, but I was looking forward to a decent brew, and instead I was left with a glass containing vaguely brown-ish water and bereft without my milk!! Maybe in future I’ll stick to just buying Scottish shortbreads from there!

The proper way to serve a cup of tea - jus' sayin'

I’m still going with Lehrersport. We decided to mix it up a little bit a week or so ago, and headed to a sports park in Bensheim for a couple of games of badminton and squash. I’ve never played squash before in my life, so I thought it would be safer for all concerned if I sat that one out, but I did very much enjoy badminton. I also realised that I am slightly less terrible at badminton than I am at other sports, which was a bonus. My partner and I won 3 out of 4 games (Olympics 2016, here we come!), but somehow I suspect that was due to the fact that my partner was really bloody good, rather than my own abilities, but oh well! It’s also a tradition of theirs that they go out for a meal after sport during the last week of term, so it was really nice for me to chat to them in a slightly less sweaty environment than normal.

Over here in Hessen, we have two weeks holiday now, which was very welcome. Two whole weeks of lay-ins – boom! As they did when I was at school in England, things tend to wind down a lot towards the holidays, so last week was a very relaxed one in school. Some of the Year 11 classes I work with have moved onto learning about Shakespeare, and we studied one of his sonnets together on Thursday. I really did not enjoy Shakespeare at school – I’m sure he was a lovely chap, but his literature and I did not get on at all, so when it was mentioned that the students would be covering one of his sonnets, it did fill me with dread ever so slightly. It was, however, actually quite interesting to study it again, and to see how the students interpret it.  Because they’re studying literature that’s not in their own language, they obviously have to take it right back to basics, and analyse it from there, so they came up with some really good ideas, and gave me a fresh outlook on ol’ Shakey. Maybe he’s not so bad, after all.

On the subject of poetry, on Friday night I went to something called a ‘Dichterschlacht’ (poetry slam) in a city called Darmstadt with a friend from school and his German class. It was essentially a poetry competition by aspiring writers, who had to perform their various poems or short stories, and then we got to vote for our favourite. Apart from the fact that it was all in German, so understanding it was slightly tricky at times, it was very fun. But what I’m noticing more and more since being here is the way in which little English phrases or idioms are slowly infiltrating the German language. Phrases like “super-awkward,” or “true story” and even “homepage” and “meeting” are things regularly used in everyday German, and it always makes me chuckle when I hear them!

On Thursday afternoon, I got the afternoon off, and went on a staff excursion to a nearby town called Worms. As we had in Amsterdam, we had a woman take us on a walking tour of the town, and explained all about its history. It was a very pleasant afternoon, followed by a meal in a brewery. I still have yet to properly sample German beer, so that is definitely on my list of things to do in the near future!

So now it’s time to enjoy the holidays. I’m meeting up with some friends from uni and hopefully some of the teachers,  discovering some new German cities like Nuremberg and Weimar, and maybe even going hiking. How exciting!

So all is still good in the hood.

Although Dominos keep sending me texts reminding me about ‘Two for Tuesdays.’ I’ve never craved pizza so much in my life. It’s torture.

Gah!