Party Time

At the end of the second term I went to quite a few parties. One took place in a club called Oceana and was Easter-bunny themed. Alice, whose birthday it was, invited us to come along and so we did! She is also my English language tandem partner who very successfully helped me with my CPE preparation (because I passed :).

bunny... ah buddy Matti, birthday bunny Alice and Spanish bunny Olga

same night, an hour later...

This party was on 31st March, but only two days later on the 2nd April I was invited to Pascal's house party in Aachen which was no less fun (for some people at least) as can be seen in the below picture.

Some parties, unfortunately, don't always have a happy ending, especially if people bump their heads against walls:

Kathy in the A&E department of Queen Elisabeth Hospital

This incident didn't have any long term consequences (as far as noted) and soon after we were in a drinking mood again:

beers!!

 

I have asked myself if it is just an Erasmus thing that inevitably damages your liver, or could there be another reason for excessive drinking and partying? Maybe it's due to the fact that it is England, too. Indeed there is a great pub culture (=drinking culture?) and an English man/woman can hardly be beaten in that discipline (trust me, I tried not only once!), as well as in pool, darts, table football, and playing on quiz machines.
I wondered if maybe the limited amount of time in their Erasmus year urges people's minds to keep telling them: "Make the most of it!, Seize the day!, Take as much as you can, ... and don't mind the consequences?" Are there consequences at all? Would they be rather positive or negative? I only know that if there's too much of something, it becomes less special, and therefore less valued or rather uninteresting. I had a point where I didn't want to go to parties anymore, because I was bored of them. Different parties blurred into each other and one was just as good (or bad) as the other.
I really think it is the people who make the difference. If you respect people, you don't treat them superficially - and this is probably what I have missed at many parties. Of course, I also had many real-deal experiences in the last couple of weeks and month with some serious talk and enjoyable chitchat which will stick in my mind for long (hopefully).
I really hope that you don't get the wrong idea of me being abroad - I also work hard and have a "real" life here (the notion of real is still open to discussion, of course), but, how can I best put this, it is different to studying in Aachen in terms of intensity. Your life is happening in a fast forward mode: Friends are made quicker and lost faster, routines are rare and become an important means of orientation rather than merely being dull. Decisions are made more conscious and you tend to opt for 'yes' more often than for 'no', because there might not be a second chance at all! That is certainly worth retaining for future decisions, I reckon. Ok, enough for today - back to my essay which is on the brink of its completion!

The Shire

The Shire

J.R.R. Tolkien's Shire does exist! We are standing right in its middle, only we can't see any hobbits. This place is about half an hour south of Birmingham and actually called the Shire Country Park.

evidence

Apart from being Tolkien's inspiration for the Shire it's pretty muddy. Only a few kids are playing cricket and a car is driving through the Ford of Bruinen that Frodo crossed when he was rescued from the Ringwraiths :)

about 90 horses crossing the Bruinen

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:

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 ;)