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| The Shire |
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| evidence |
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| about 90 horses crossing the Bruinen |
Monday, 21 February 2011
The Shire
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
An English pub experience
After a good fun rugby training Matti and I decide to meet for a pint or two in Harbourne far, far away from the student village Selly Oak, where I live now. I grab my bike which has found its new home in the storage closet under the staircase.
We are nearly arriving simultaneously at the Green Man, a pub just off Harbourne High Street. I haven't eaten yet, hence I decide to immerse myself into the depth of some quality fast food. In this particular case it's just a Kebab shop entitled King's. With high expectations, and Matti probably still thinking about an opportunity/suitable venue to watch Villa - ManU, we are entering. The Indian looking guy doesn't seem to be interested in serving us at all. Anyway, we've only been waiting for 5 minutes or so and I can place my burger order and make my £2.50 contribution to the income of the suffering English working class.
While wrongly believing to wait for my burger we are talking about bits and bobs and sometimes catching a phrase that the two weird girls at the neighbouring table mutter. The Indian guy seems to be very uninterested indeed. When I finally get too impatient, I'm confronting him with my outstanding-burger issue. In naive surprise and bad English he is pretending that he didn't even f*** know that I've ordered a f*** burger!
His mother (presumably), who has taken the order, tells him off eventually and throws a tiny 'Oh, sorry.' amongst the filthy pseudo decoration of the room's interior. Now, I hastily down the burger with two many onions on it; apart from that it's fine - that means it does not differ significantly from other English burgers that you get in fast food shops around here.
Quite keen on leaving that rotten cave I'm trying to show good will and am trying to dispose my litter in the provided rubbish bin - only to discover that, once I open the lid, it is overflowing, I pile the plastic container on top of it and nobody seems to be bothered.
We escape into a pub and order Ale with the rather unfortunate name 'Pedigree'. Yeah, tis 'arite' tho! I also do realise that there is quite a happy bunch of joyful talking seniors around who, I'm just guessing from the left-overs, have just finished a delightful buffet. Later we get offered sausages and chips which we happily accept. The chips are cold and soaked with vinegar, that's 'arite', too, I guess. However, and you wouldn't believe me, the sausages were vegetarian-choice sausages! We only asked for two, I gulped down one in disgust, and strangely enough another old man is coming by later and asking us if we didn't want to eat the remaining one - upon our polite denial he is proudly announcing 'Oh, I know a fat greedy bastard who will have it!', and off he goes with the last sausage of that very night.
In this manner, everybody got fed - the elderly and the young - and anybody had to throw away anything, hehe. Matti's bought the first round, so I'm getting the second one - yes, I do support that English habit of doing rounds.
I'm not sure who of us has noticed that 30 year old woman earlier, it might have been Matti, it might have been me. I haven't paid her much attention anyway, even though she was dressed in a rather offensive way, but that again wouldn't be a good enough reason to get bewildered - it's just the way that English girls dress (or rather trying to cover) when they go out. No, she was in the company of four men. Anyway, all of a sudden she is inviting us over to their table. We accept and make the acquaintance with every single one of them. They introduce themselves as 'social workers' and colleagues of each other.
After a bit of chit chat (the English do most of the talking anyway) and them being in a very good mood already, the bar keeper is announcing that she wants everybody out of the pub by midnight.
The 30-year old, who has introduced herself as Tina, is looking for her phone ("Are you getting out your brick, are you?") and is asking one of her colleagues to pass her a pen. Then she is casually handing over a slip of paper, first trying to give it to Matti, then giving it to me. "You are such a sl**!", says one of her colleagues with her protesting straight away, "No! I'm not a sl**, I'm a good girl, you know that, don't you?" In response to that the man wouldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes - hmm, that was weird in the end...
Now, when Matti and I are finally on our way back home we were snorting with laughter and reciting Tina and her boy group! What a legendary night to remember in the life of two Erasmus students! Here is the evidence for the validity of my story:
The next day I send Matti a text saying "Call me baby! Tina Wild" upon which Matti gets back to with "maybe later... i'm still busy! gruß dirk dickler", and once again I couldn't help myself, but smile ;)
We are nearly arriving simultaneously at the Green Man, a pub just off Harbourne High Street. I haven't eaten yet, hence I decide to immerse myself into the depth of some quality fast food. In this particular case it's just a Kebab shop entitled King's. With high expectations, and Matti probably still thinking about an opportunity/suitable venue to watch Villa - ManU, we are entering. The Indian looking guy doesn't seem to be interested in serving us at all. Anyway, we've only been waiting for 5 minutes or so and I can place my burger order and make my £2.50 contribution to the income of the suffering English working class.
While wrongly believing to wait for my burger we are talking about bits and bobs and sometimes catching a phrase that the two weird girls at the neighbouring table mutter. The Indian guy seems to be very uninterested indeed. When I finally get too impatient, I'm confronting him with my outstanding-burger issue. In naive surprise and bad English he is pretending that he didn't even f*** know that I've ordered a f*** burger!
His mother (presumably), who has taken the order, tells him off eventually and throws a tiny 'Oh, sorry.' amongst the filthy pseudo decoration of the room's interior. Now, I hastily down the burger with two many onions on it; apart from that it's fine - that means it does not differ significantly from other English burgers that you get in fast food shops around here.
Quite keen on leaving that rotten cave I'm trying to show good will and am trying to dispose my litter in the provided rubbish bin - only to discover that, once I open the lid, it is overflowing, I pile the plastic container on top of it and nobody seems to be bothered.
We escape into a pub and order Ale with the rather unfortunate name 'Pedigree'. Yeah, tis 'arite' tho! I also do realise that there is quite a happy bunch of joyful talking seniors around who, I'm just guessing from the left-overs, have just finished a delightful buffet. Later we get offered sausages and chips which we happily accept. The chips are cold and soaked with vinegar, that's 'arite', too, I guess. However, and you wouldn't believe me, the sausages were vegetarian-choice sausages! We only asked for two, I gulped down one in disgust, and strangely enough another old man is coming by later and asking us if we didn't want to eat the remaining one - upon our polite denial he is proudly announcing 'Oh, I know a fat greedy bastard who will have it!', and off he goes with the last sausage of that very night.
In this manner, everybody got fed - the elderly and the young - and anybody had to throw away anything, hehe. Matti's bought the first round, so I'm getting the second one - yes, I do support that English habit of doing rounds.
I'm not sure who of us has noticed that 30 year old woman earlier, it might have been Matti, it might have been me. I haven't paid her much attention anyway, even though she was dressed in a rather offensive way, but that again wouldn't be a good enough reason to get bewildered - it's just the way that English girls dress (or rather trying to cover) when they go out. No, she was in the company of four men. Anyway, all of a sudden she is inviting us over to their table. We accept and make the acquaintance with every single one of them. They introduce themselves as 'social workers' and colleagues of each other.
After a bit of chit chat (the English do most of the talking anyway) and them being in a very good mood already, the bar keeper is announcing that she wants everybody out of the pub by midnight.
The 30-year old, who has introduced herself as Tina, is looking for her phone ("Are you getting out your brick, are you?") and is asking one of her colleagues to pass her a pen. Then she is casually handing over a slip of paper, first trying to give it to Matti, then giving it to me. "You are such a sl**!", says one of her colleagues with her protesting straight away, "No! I'm not a sl**, I'm a good girl, you know that, don't you?" In response to that the man wouldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes - hmm, that was weird in the end...
Now, when Matti and I are finally on our way back home we were snorting with laughter and reciting Tina and her boy group! What a legendary night to remember in the life of two Erasmus students! Here is the evidence for the validity of my story:
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| Feel free to call :D |
The next day I send Matti a text saying "Call me baby! Tina Wild" upon which Matti gets back to with "maybe later... i'm still busy! gruß dirk dickler", and once again I couldn't help myself, but smile ;)
Friday, 28 January 2011
A busy, busy January...
What a start into the second semester! Upon arrival in the UK I was literally bound to the desk. I had to complete an essay for my module 20th Century American Literature and Culture. I wrote about Jack Kerouac's On the Road. With a rugby intermezzo.
“Hey mate. The2011 campaign starts this Saturday. We have a pool game. Details to follow. Meet at Lordswood at 12:30 KO 14.15. Are you available. Frank”
This was on the 15th January and I gave my debut for the Dixonians as a left wing. It was a close game and we lost a bit unlucky with two men being down in numbers.
On Monday, 17th Jan, I met with my new flat mates and we officially moved in. This is where I live now:
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| Selly Oak |
The road is called Teignmouth Rd and I have marked it with a little red cross at the bottom of the map. It is incredibly close to the university and the rent is only 200 quid a month plus bills which is a bargain for UK student accommodation.
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| living room at night |
The shopping trolley has now found its way into the garden … hey, common at the end of the day we are Erasmus students :D
Well, I should really write a little about my daily life here I guess. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I train with my rugby team. The training is not as hard as in Aachen, but the players are very experienced and skilled.
I attend classes 5 days a week and usually go to the main library in the breaks. Mondays, however, I skive one of my Italian classes, because I've got a job as a language assistant at a private school. I teach two one-to-one classes to one girl whose level is already incredibly good and she's super intelligent and another girl at an intermediate level. The last two times I went to the school I also taught a group of beginners and I really enjoyed that. It's a girls school, so in the beginning they were really shy and weren't talking a lot, but during the course of the lesson they really got into talking German: “Hallo ich heiße Laura (fiktiver Name/name's been changed). Wie heißt du? Wo wohnst du? Wie geht es dir? Danke, gut!”
As an Erasmus student I'm also obliged to maintain good social relations... by going out at nights. That can be quite demanding at times for I'm not as fresh as I used to be when I was young :D . Anyway, last time I went out I started off with Whisky-Coke and a few nice laid-back small talks before finally finding myself in a club. By the way, this is my party buddy Matti (who accidentally is also a teacher training student and born on the 17. December of the one and only year 1986!).
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| fellow party buddy Matti |
Please drop me a message asap if you are planning on visiting me. I would be proud of showing you around my new home (city). Ohhh, and I've got a new room mate! Her name is Spathiphyllum:
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| She is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Araceae :) |
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