Chapter Two - My Second Week

So, here comes Week Two, this one ought probably to be shorter than the last one, but we shall see how it develops!

Saturday 12th September

Today was quite an exciting and novel day for me. I was able to leave the country by walking only 20 metres. How so, I hear you ask. (well obviously I can't, but I'm presuming that you want to know...if I'm wrong, then skip onto Sunday and don't bother with this entry!) Directly outside my door is a tram stop...so what, well this tram service is a bit special. It runs to France, it actually leaves Germany, and crosses the frontier. For a reasonable fee, it's possible to travel to a town in the Lorraine (57) region of France called Sarreguemines. The journey itself is not overly different to being on a normal train when you get out of Saarbruecken's city centre, and you're not stopping every 200 metres. It runs parallel to the Saar most of the way, which is nice. The tram arrives into the main Gare at Sarreguemines, from where it is possible to catch trains to Strasbourg amongst other places.

Sarreguemines itself is a nice French town, but with clear German influences in places (this area of France has throughout its history been hotly contested by the two nations). It has a nice collection of typically French shops (i.e. cafes, tabacs, bakeries, hairdressers, oh and banks!). This wasn't really a long visit, I thought I'd save it as a place to come back and visit, perhaps over a whole day. I also wanted to explore some of the other places on the tram-line back to Saarbruecken.

So, after a brief stroll around this town, I caught the tram back to Kleinblittersdorf, a small German on the bank of the Saar. When you get off at the station, it is possible to cross over the Saar and pass into a French village, with a slightly unusual (i.e. not typically French) name: Grossblitterstroff. A true example of the way the local dialect works. Anyway, it was a nice day, so I thought I'd explore this quirky French village, partake in a little coffee from one of the inevitably many cafes in the village....erm....I was slightly wrong. Grossblitterstroff is perfect if you want your barnet looked at; I counted 4 hairdressers, cafes; there was one, and it was closed! How a French cafe could be closed on a Saturday afternoon, I'll never know...but it was a little inconvenient to say the least. Having quashed my main purpose for looking around the village, I returned to the tram station, where I found I would have to wait a mere 54 minutes for a tram...not having a huge amount of patience/nor a good book on me...I had a Top Gear moment. I thought I'd walk back to Saarbruecken, after all, how hard can it be!?!

Well, it turns out, it was slightly further than I'd thought. I followed the path along the bank of the Saar, which also doubled as a cyclepath (judging by the number of disgusted looks I received, I guess it was probably a cyclepath, which the cyclists had been forced to share it with us homosapiens who don't possess a mechanical contraption for movement). Anyway, I walked for a bit, and after a couple of hours, I resigned myself to having a beer at the next available watering hole....I mean I was back in Germany by now, reputedly Europe's biggest beer drinkers, so how far would it be...not too far obviously! Erm....I may have been wrong again...it was another 4 km I walked before I found a biergarten! Now, I'd walked about 8.5 km from Grossblitterstroff to a suburb of Saarbruecken called Duedingen. I was quite proud of this walk, so I thought I'd sit down and take the wait off, before finishing the last 6 km or so into town....this was another misjudgement...as soon as I sat down, my feet began to let my brain know they had adopted a French mindset, and had gone on strike! After refuelling (i.e. finishing my beer), I decided that I would walk a little further (500m to be precise) to the tram station, from where I caught the next available tram, and then just about managed to hobble the last few metres from the tram stop to my room....although I regretted that it was on the 1st floor quite a lot!

When I got back to my room, I did the diplomatic thing, and gave into my complaining feet, and pretty much got into bed, and stayed there all evening!

Sunday 13th September

Today is a Sunday (obvious I know, but it sets up the rest of the sentence, so bear with it!), and in Saarbruecken 99% of everything shuts on Sunday. Indeed the only places I've found that open here are cafes. So not wanting to be a boring recluse, I thought I would meet up with our newest arrival, and show her around Saarbruecken a bit. It was a nice day, so we started with coffee in the St. Johanner Markt, which I'm sure is compulsory on Sunday's! Then we followed a similar tour to that which Sabine had taken me. Then we thought we'd just keep walking, and we tried to find one of her schools. We found the road it was in, so then we walked and talked about anything and everything that came to mind. We walked back through the suburbs, which went from being normal "middle class" houses, through to an area, which it could be suggested had problems with unemployment, and high numbers of immigrants....how can we tell....because in advance of the pending Budestagswaehl in Germany, there were only NPD posters up in this area that hadn't been vandalised at all! But it was nice (if that's the right word), to see a different face to the city. After that, we went home and braced ourselves for our forthcoming weeks at school!

Monday 14th September

Today, I worked with some of the other English teachers; each has their own style and rapport with the pupils, and it's nice watching and sometimes participating in the classes too. Today was spent working primarily with the lower years at the school, which is nice, because they often ask the questions which are the most difficult to answer on the spot. "Why am I here?", "Why did you bother learning a language, everyone else speaks English anyway?" and some more quirky ones..."What colour's your favourite shirt!?!", "What's your phone number?". But I'm really impressed at their grasp and standard of English, sometimes they just need coaxing but with a little bit of work, they'll all be talking away in English before long.....just you wait!

After school, which I finished early today, I went back to Sarreguemines today...not for the same hike as the previous day, I went to see what was in the town centre, but I got distracted by boxes of books for sale. I'm really a sucker for books, particularly French ones...so I came away €3 lighter, but with 5 books to peruse. Two about learning English & German (albeit in French, but potentially useful too), Le Petit Prince (just because I've heard it mentioned a lot, and thought I probably ought to make an effort to read it), 20,000 leagues under the sea (simply so I can see what this whole pride in Jules Verne is all about!), and Le Proces by Kafka (so I could pretend to cultured really, but I'll still read it, and probably find it just as difficult to get my head round!). So, with my backpack loaded up again, I went home and set about deciding which one I should read first - settled on Le Petit Prince (it had pictures to go with it!) and I'm finding it quite good actually!

Tuesday 15th September

Today, I worked with the Oberstufe (Sixth Form equivalent) English classes today, and was again blown away by not only their level of English ability, but their really intelligent and well-thought out arguments! We were discussing immigration, and some of them were able to give real-life experiences, they were able to discount the political propaganda being thrust upon them, they gave me some really intelligent suggestions about how the problems could start to be resolved.

It's days like this, that remind me why I want to teach!

Wednesday 16th September

Today was my first proper day at the Gesamtschule in Ludwigspark. I spent the first lesson with my Betreuungslehrerin observing her in a cover lesson with a 7. Klasse (Year 8 equivalent), which was quite an interesting experience. The lesson was spent with the students doing colouring by numbers exercises to practise new vocab learnt. Then I observed a German lesson, as there was no English lesson being undertaken at this time. It was nice to see German being taught as a 1st Language - they were doing the basics of summarising a text about a local wolf sanctuary. I spent my 3rd and last lesson of the day, with the Schuldirektor covering another English lesson with the class from my first lesson. It was also interesting to note that there was little difference in how the children behaved for the Headteacher than the other English teacher. During this lesson, we carried out a quick name eliciting exercise, whereby I took half the class, and asked their name and where they were from....of the 17 or so children I asked....3, yes three, were native Germans. All of the others had an immigrant background of some description, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why the children are less likely to pay attention in English lessons - simply because it's too hard for them to learn another language on top of the German they've already had to learn. So my first impression of the Gesamtschule is that it will be more of a challenge, but I like a challenge, and it'll be a rewarding year hopefully, watching them learn and progress on with their languages.

Thursday 17th September

Back at the Gesamtschule today, where I had to take a cover lesson on my own (you know, the one thing the British Council say you shouldn't be asked to do) but it went OK really. As expected the class pushed the boundaries, but I like to think we came to a certain understanding! Apart from that little shock, the day itself passed without incident really!

Friday 18th September

Today was the day of the Kollegiumsausflug from the Ludwigsgymnasium, where we went for a 10km walk around a (very old) disused quarry about 40 km outside of Saarbruecken. There would have been some fantastic views, had the weather been less cloudy, but it was nice to be able to get to know some of the other teachers better, and for them to get to know me as well. I'm not sure of the educational benefits for the pupils of the teachers effectively going on a jolly for a day, but hey, as a member of staff, it was a fantastic day, which hopefully will start to catch on in the UK, although i doubt it will! After the walk, during which I mainly spent the time talking to one of the English teachers who was an assistant in Bristol, and so had some knowledge of the area, we had a nice buffet lunch. It was a generally fantastic day, and one which I thoroughly enjoyed. I should point out that my militant socialist feet were again protesting in the evening, but it was just tough!

Saturday 19th September

Today I moved! :-) This is fantastic for me...I'm moving out of my very expensive temporary solution into a much cheaper room, in quite a posh area of the city. The house is on a one way street, with no tram in sight, which means I sleep like a baby (although without my thumb in my mouth, nor the baby alarm). It's got TV too, which although not compulsory is a fantastic luxury, which I've not had until now! So, generally chuffed with it! Thanks should also go to Sabine, without whose help, I would have had to trek my stuff across town using public transport, which would have taken, err, all day, and most of the evening too! My only small complaint is that the militant wing from my feet, have now passed to my arms, where I pulled a muscle....but I'll get over it!

Sunday, 20th September

Finally, the end of the week! Today, I met up with some of the other assistants again, we had lunch together, and then we went for a stroll up by the Saar, and then ambled back again. Made a very nice afternoon of it!

Just as an afterthought

I thought I would live up to the stereotype here and give you a brief update on the weather here...It has rained about twice seen I've been here, mainly at night, although I did get a little bit rained on one day...other than that, it generally very cold in the morning meaning I dress warm, and then when I finish at school about lunchtime...the sun is beating down, and it's then a fantastic day!