Friday 5 November 2010

Je reviens...

I arrived back in Lille on Monday to a bit of a harsh awakening. The boiler had stopped working and it rather rather chilly in our flat. We called the landlord but he told us that it was going to take a few days to fix, and I had lesson plans and lots of things to sort out. It was very irritating. To make matters worse the bank still won't give me my bank card, apparently they haven't had confirmation from the post office that I signed for their letter confirming my address. STUPID SYSTEM. I don't want everyone to think that all I do is complain, but it has been hard to be constantly knocked down by the French and then feel like you've got back on your feet only to get knocked down again. Okay, no more moaning. Here's a bit of a play-by-play of what I did in Dortmund with Rowan.

So I got to Rowan's flat on Monday afternoon. The drive there was lovely as I passed through Belgium, Holland and then Germany. It was all very pretty. I got a bit lost at Eindhoven because the roads were new and my satnav still had the old roads. But I found my way eventually. Rowan cooked me a dinner of fish fingers then we went to bed.

On Tuesday I got up and Rowan took me to his union (which is very similar to English) where we had lunch. You got like a whole plate of food for hardly any money. But it was all a bit odd. The first day I was a bit overwhelmed by the whole system and I went for chicken dipper things which came with a delightful mushroom sauce (NOT!). Then I sat in a café and did some lesson plans whilst Rowan had his French class. We then went back to his house and chilled out.

On Wednesday we did the same, but I met him at his union and found some normal food to eat. Then we went into the town to have a little look round. It's a really pretty town and there were lots of nice shops. But I was trying my hardest to be good and not spend lots of money. I can imagine it being really pretty when the Christmas markets are on. Afterwards we went to meet Rowan's friend Leo who is German. He was very friendly and we went to a table football tournament hosted by the Stats department at Rowan's uni. God do the Germans take table football seriously. Apparently there is an actual league.So me and Rowan teamed up and totally got our arses kicked. It was very embarrassing. We drank plenty of beer to drown our sorrows, but then on our final game, we won! And we won epically I might add. We then went home and watched some of the Office.

I can't really remember what what did on Thursday, so I'll have to fill this out later!

On Friday, we went to the zoo. I was literally so happy because there were cute animals everywhere! We saw penguins, otters, sloths and lions. It was very cute! Rowan has also nicknamed me Faultier (lazy animal in German) because I am always tired. The penguins were amazing, they all swan in formation with one stood on the side pointing (sort of) and they all swam in that direction. It was amazing. After the zoo we went to the cosy little café at the zoo and had hot chocolate and sat on the comfiest leather sofas ever.

Saturday came and we decided to get out my the town and go visit somewhere else, we decided Essen would be nice. So we got on the train, where we sat chatting and the man opposite said "are you speaking English?", "Yeah..?", "oh I'm Irish and I've been in this country 3 weeks and no one speaks English"...... we wondered if he was thinking of the right country? Everyone in Germany speaks English. He was clearly pissed and said the F word after every other word. So we made the decision to get off the train at Bochum so we wouldn't have to carry on speaking to the drunk, crazy Irish stock taker anymore. We decided to go and get some lunch, Rowan forced me to eat schnitzel and then the football came on. Apparently the Germans like to confuse themselves by watching 6 football matches on one screen at the same time and just cut between each game. Thus missing most of the action. It was an interesting experience.

There was an important Dortmund football match on Sunday, first place Mainz v second place Dortmund in the Bundelsliga.We went ot a fan pub to watch it with some of Rowan's friends. It was really good and they gave us free beer before the game started. The atmosphere was amazing. It ended up 2-0 to Dortmund putting them back at the top!


We went to a house party on Sunday night for Halloween with Rowan's erasmus friends, it was really good fun but the host Gigi ended up in bed by 11 because she'd mixed her drinks really badly! Oops. Then we went to the bar in her building where there was another halloween party. All the girls got hit on by this creepy German boy who couldn't take no for an answer. He kept stroking our hair and running his hands down our backs. It was very very creepy. Later on I had a massive go at him because he was grabbing this girls chest as she pushed him away because she was with another boy. I got so annoyed because what makes him think he has the right to do that to her when she makes it clear that she doesn't want him to touch her? I said this to him and his answer was "she's been with 4 other guys tonight", but as if that is an excuse for you to touch her. She said no, it means no. I was literally so mad.

On Monday we decided to drive to Hamm to see this giant glass elephant they have. It was pretty dissapointing to be honest but we bought a mega bucket of popcorn and discovered that Hamm is twinned with Bradford. Rowan was brimming with Yorkshire pride. We got back to Rowan's and watched loads more of the office and the Christmas special.

I got back to Lille on Tuesday afternoon. Literally can't wait for my next Dortmund trip.


No comments:

Post a Comment