WARUM ich hier bin.

So this week I started UNI. Wooooop! (Said no one ever).

I wasn't too nervous about starting lectures at Philipps-Univeristät because I just imagined it would be the same as in England, but in German. AND I WAS RIGHT. The lectures are pretty similar you know, you have:

• Your bog-standard humanities lecturer, by that I mean 1) they wear clothes that look like they have just grabbed them out the washing basket because they have been working/sleeping so much recently they forgot to put a wash on, 2) they don't wait for anyone or anything before they start a lecture and if you happen to be the last one in the room then they give you daggers as you awkwardly pull out the loudest chair in the room and sit down in your unnecessarily loud rain mac, trying not to breathe heavily either 3) they don't look interested in anything or anyone to do with their lecture, and their body language reflects this as they stand there in the middle of the room talking in a monotone voice, staring blankly out of the window, daydreaming of how if they had worked that little bit harder whilst writing their thesis they may not have to be in a lecture hall with a bunch of 20 somethings at 8am in the morning.
• The shitty chairs and tables in some seminar rooms which remind you of distant times in secondary school.
• The awkward silence that comes before the first lecture because NO ONE KNOWS ANYONE and in this case, no one know which language to speak so sometimes the silence is disturbed by someone going "sorry?" or "WAS? Ich kann kein Deutsch" (What? I don't speak german) and then the constant tapping of fingertips on smart phones as people try to look cool by talking to their friends via some social network, meaning they don't have to look up and acknowledge anyone else in the room or make repeated eye contact with the same person so many times it then just becomes a bit awkward. (I am so a culprit of this, Snapchat is my favourite mode of communication in these situations.)
• They never start on time. Because as I have already pointed out in my blog, the Germans are never on time with anything - but I kind of like that, it suits my lifestyle better.
• The work seems okay...until you turn over the handout and realise there is a term paper or coursework worth some ridiculous amount of percentage and you slightly panic that you're suddenly not into Gothic Fiction literature, German grammar or German in general anymore.

But despite my natural cynicism towards pretty much everything, this week has been enjoyable. I feel like my classes are manageable especially considering I have a dissertation to write this year. 

It just so happens as well, that I have unknowingly taken too many credits this semester. Meaning I will have 25/30 credits needed for the whole academic year by the end of semester 1. RESULT. 

So yeah Uni started, which means that of course we are still going out partying and this week has been pretty mental*. A friend visited me here in rainy Marburg and so it was nice showing her the town and taking her for her first ever AUFLAUF (always capitalised remember). But we ended up going to my favourite little pub called Südhaus. It's like a little cottage down a side alley (of which there are an abundance in Marburg, what with it being so "oldy-worldy" and all.)

Something else I should mention because I promised her I would mention it in my blog this week is that my vegetarian friend ate meat this week and by meat I mean Döner. If that isn't the definition of mental then I don't know what is to be honest. Very proud of her.

I think I will leave it there for this week, not much else has happened. Oh I joined the gym, YAY. The amount of AUFLAUF and Döner I have eaten in the past 2 months means that now I need to start vigorous exercise at least 3 times a week just to maintain my current shape.

Must go though, have an 8am tomorrow (oh yes, that is something else, uni starts earlier here. WHY THOUGH GERMANY, WHY? There are enough hours in the day?!?!) so I will bid you all a good night!

XXX

*by mental I mean, I went out twice and I signed up for a self defence class.

Ich bin (k)ein Alkoholiker...

But this week has been fresher's week here so don't judge just yet.

In all seriousness though, this week was the first week since being in Marburg where I have gone out to nightclubs pretty much very night. GERMAN NIGHTCLUBS.

In short, there isn't really much difference between nightclubs in Germany and in the UK...aesthetically speaking. 

Erste Punkt, you can smoke indoors. Yep, smoking inside is allowed in Germany in these special Rauchen rooms. However as people get more and more drunk, they forget to shut the door to this special death room. Consequently, all your clothes absolutely stink of smoke. Hence why I am having to do two washes this evening!

ALSO, drinks are sooo cheap in the clubs. In the UK I would probably pay about £3.00-£5.00 for a double vodka, lemon and lime (my preferred tipple) and here, it's on average 2.50 euros for a beer, 1 euro for a shot and about 3 euros for vodka mixes. If you don't know the conversion rates off the top of your head, shame on you, but what I am trying to get at is that it's so goddamn cheap. 

So it's pretty standard in Germany to go to a few pubs before you go to the main club for the night, you know, get the nice civilised part of the night out the way and then head out to the clubs for the not so civilised part. And I like it this way. This way you can have more chats with friends over a glass of fine wine, play a bit of fooseball with some germans (they love it over here) and generally have a great predrinks without the embarrassing "drinking games", you know the ones....they of course have them here too.

One thing I will say about German nightclubs, or the ones I have been to anyway, is that they have severe air conditioning issues. Meaning, there is none. I swear I have never been so hot in my life as when I first stepped in to a club called UNIX. This place was similar in temperature to stepping off a plane in Turkey, in summer. Bloody hot. This temperature mixed with dancing, you don't need to be a genius to figure out how I looked at the end of the night, but let's just say I was going home alone. Don't feel too sorry for me though, I soon found a doner place and comfort ate myself out of my perspiration station.  

This week I have indulged not only in cheap, bottom-shelf Wodka, but also a lot of fast food, and Mum before you judge me, it was Fresher's week. And out here it is the magical Döner that is the most favoured post-club snack. In the UK we have cheesy chips, but here Döner is not like a doner in the UK, it's SOOO much better! Plus you get so much salad in it and it's not the warm, vitamin-lacking, poor excuse for vegetables that get shoved on top of the doner back in England, but crisp, ripe, salad that adds to the overall enjoyment of the Döner and ultimately makes you feel a lot better about eating a 500 calorie snack at 4am in the morning.

Apart from that, this week has been relatively quiet. But I start lectures on Tuesday, finally! I almost forgot why I was here in Germany...to drink...? NO.

Najaaa. Time to go and get my washing out of the dryer and then go to bed (organised I know). I bid you all a good week!!

XXX

Sometimes life sucks, but there is always beer.

So this week has been a bit of a crappy week...

Got some bad news from back home, the weather has been crappy and I had to pay my rent. BUT believe it or not, every cloud has a silver lining and on Friday, I went to Oktober Fest.

Oktober Fest. It doesn't sound crazy, but it is. A time of year when the Germans love to celebrate what they hold most dear, BEER. (Yeah it rhymes, I'm a poet now btw.) Girls in questionable Dirndls, guys in "toit" Ledenhosen and skinheads throwing up on themselves and that was just on the train there...I took a total of 10 trains to get to and from the Beer City to Marburg, that's right 10 - it was as laborious and horrific as it sounds, but it was bloody cheap (only 18 euros there and back!) but more about the train journey from hell later.

The Oktober Fest itself comprises of 14 beer tents (by tents I mean bloody great big halls built especially for the festival, decorated with chandeliers and all!) in the middle of a field with a fairground and open air beer gardens. The latter of which were pretty dead on a day like yesterday, when the heavens opened and created a river in front of the entrances, meaning only the nutters drunk enough to pay 10 euros for an extra-watered-down beer would frequent them.

So we left Marburg at 6.50pm Friday night and arrived in Munich at 6.20am on Saturday morning. Long journey, but worth it...so worth it only after 9am, that is. At 7am we entered the Oktober Fest fields and had to queue for about 2 hours before actually getting let into the Bierhalle. In the queue we were sandwiched between a group of aussie lads - no description needed really - and these italians who had the need to constantly shout at their friends standing less that a metre away from them. After 30 hours on only 15 mins sleep this wasn't really ideal and by 9am I swear they were just repeating the word "ravioli".

When we got let in the fun really began. It was MENTAL. As soon as they opened the doors, the crowds ran. However running wasn't exactly possible, what with standing in a 10-people-wide queue in front of the doors but the crowd did it anyway which meant a lot of crushed limbs and a lot of inappropriate touching. (Yes, remember the aussie lads.)

The hall itself was huge. It could hold over 5000 people, 8 to a table and had toilets, bars and food stalls galore. It was AMAZING and I don't think I will ever experience something like that again.

Ordering a beer was an experience in itself. The only thing on the menu was a bloody huge, 1 litre beer called Löwenbräu. It was incredible and I would recommend everyone drinks a litre of beer at half 9 in the morning, it sets you up for the day...or something like that.*We sit in this place for about 3 hours, just drinking, chatting to fellow fest-goers and generally soaking in the alcohol filled atmosphere. The women who served us carried like 5-10 of these 1 litre beer jars at a time, they were all secretly ripped. But don't feel too sorry for them, we have to give them 2 euros tip each time they give us a beer because of said heavy lifting so they got something out of it, besides blisters.

We left this "tent" around midday. Rookie mistake. Being the penultimate day of the biggest beer festival in the world we weren't going to get another space in any of the 14 tents were we? But no bother, we wondered around the Fest for a bit, judging the drunk teens in their traditional Oktoberfest attire (which seemed a lot muddier and shorter now than what we saw people wearing on the outgoing journey). Nevertheless, the festival was amazing and even the rain didn't dampen our spirits! (So many puns right now...I just don't know anymore.)

The train journeys home were just...I don't know...in one word: Shit. The first one was the worst and as Ricky and Nicole will know, it goes down as one of the worst train journeys I have ever had to do in my life. First problem was the amount of people on the train. I mean I know it was Oktober Fest and all but seriously? I had to stand in an aisle for 2 hours sandwiched between 2 couples, both of whom were a bit drunk and so proceeded to act like they were alone in a bedroom for the entire journey...but I'm not bitter.
Secondly in Germany, you get money back for recycling old plastic bottles and cans and there was a woman with several bags for life actually trying to collect any empty bottles on said train. This train was too packed for someone to be doing that. I mean by all means do it when the train is offloading people, not whilst it's moving, it's just annoying. Thirdly, because a refreshments trolley couldn't fit down the aisles due to all the people, an elderly man, who had a serious BO problem, proceeded to walk through everyone standing in the aisles. I say walk through everyone because he wasn't moving particularly fast but just didn't act like there was anyone in his way. Not a wise move when we are already pissed off and have had this bottle collecting woman (who was talking to herself) try and fight her way through as well. Fourthly, as if there weren't enough people on this already packed train 2 security guards were walking up and down the aisles to try and find the wiseguy who thought it would be a good idea to light up! (We only knew because there was a rather angry sounding announcement by the train driver.) Finally, all these 4 people met in our carriage meaning I literally had no where to stand and the poor woman from couple #2 was having to deal with my entire bum in her face. (Sorry babes.)

But no bother. It wasn't like we had any more trains after this one. JK JK we had 4 more. But I won't bother going into explicit detail about those because I will just get annoyed again and would ruin this blog post which actually was trying to be very positive.

Trains aside, Ricky, Nicole and myself had a really fun weekend and I would love to go to Oktober Fest again, when it is less wet and cold and I have money to pay for fast trains to get me from Marburg to Munich in 3 hours. But we can't always get what we want.

Another plus to this week was that my intensive language course ended! Finally after 4 weeks I can say that I went to a vineyard and spoke a bit of German and got a certificate for it.

I feel now would be a good time to leave you lovely peoples and go and watch some Community which I shamelessly downloaded in HD from iTunes this week as soon as my ERASMUS loan came in. So I will bid you a guten Nacht and until next week...

XXX

*I'm not an alcoholic Mum, I promise.