Monday 5th October
Off to Altenberg today! Shock horror, the train was late - I blame this on the fact that it was a TGV, which came from Paris this morning! There were also a surprising number of people trying t board the train at Saarbruecken considering it left at just before 11am. A seat reservation would have set me back a couple of euros, and I decided I probably wouldn't need one. I still stand by this decision, because the train was so busy, I think it would have been too difficult to get through to my reserved seat! So for the first part of the journey to I travelled in the buffet carriage of the TGV. No proper seats, but somewhere to lean and not very busy either. It was only for about 75 minutes anyway!
So, on arrival in Mannheim, which is apparently in Baden-Wurttenburg (that may be a slightly tenuous claim in my opinion!), we waited for our train to Koeln. The train was 2 ICEs joined together. Yet again, we had a mad search for a seat, and I was successful...momentarily. After about 3 minutes, I was evicted again - so off to the vestibule I trotted and sat there! (It's like being at home again!). I was sat there for about an hour or so, until Frankfurt Airport, where quite a few people got off. Back in the carriage, there were seats free - so down I sat. To be turfed out again moments later - never mind, I like the vestibule anyway! There's a clever screen there, that tells you how fast the train goes - we were generally travelling about 290-300 km/h. After a bit in the vestibule, the train manager came down, and told me there were seats towards the back of the train. So, off I trotted, and I sat down, only to have to get off the train at Koeln 30 minutes later.
We got to Koeln really quite early (14.05 for a 15.30 Meeting) so we set off in search of a toilet. The ones at Saarbruecken Hbf. cost 50cents, in Koeln €1 (which brings a whole new meaning to the phrase to spend a penny). So, in the end, we waited in a cafe until the allotted meeting time.
After seeing the huge group of assistants in the station foyer, we knew we were in the right place, so we, like sheep, joined the flock and waited patiently. Going to this Altenberg were assistants from Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg West Pommerania), Schleswig-Holstein, Baden-Wurttenburg, and, of course, Saarland.
We had to wait at the station for a second double decker coach to collect all the people. And when it did finally turn up, we were still waiting around for another 40 minutes or so, for some people whose trains from North Germany were late!
On arrival at Altenberg, in the rain, we did the usual things: Rules and Regulations, Introduced ourselves (although, this wasn't much of a challenge for the Saarlaender!). Our tutor was a teacher cum civil servant in the Saarland Ministry for Education. We then paid our €30 towards the cost of the course!
Tuesday 6th October
Today was the first day of proper teaching at Altenberg, but before we get to that I feel it would be a good time to mention something about Altenberg itself.
Altenberg is a cathedral (albeit in the middle of literally nowhere), which is still in service (possibly not the right word, but it'll do here!). This means that people still pray here, and that they are stilled called to prayer. But, I want to tell you a story about a man at Altenberg, let's call him Quasimodo. Now, Quasimodo has decided that the local people, who are all aware of the Cathedral's presence, need a reminder about attending church. But because Quasimodo's a conscientious bell ringer, he knows people like to get to church punctually (we're still in Germany, don't forget!). Moreover, Quasimodo's a little bit old, so he can't quite master the phones, so he decides to ring the church bells. He first does this at 5 am (until about 5.30), then, almost as if you pressed snooze, he starts again at 6 am (for about half an hour again), and then once more about 7 am (when the service itself begins). My room at Altenberg was about 50 m from the bell tower - and, as I'm sure you can imagine, it's very loud, and annoying - especially at 5 am! But all things considered, you've got to feel a little sorry for Quasimodo, he always looks quite upset whenever you see him - it's been said he's got the hump! (sorry, I couldn't not put one in!)
So, having eaten breakfast, we started the proper course today! But before the proper teaching, we were given €100 travel expenses (as we'd already travelled to Germany, and had to travel again across Germany to get to Altenberg). So, just to break this down:
I paid €68 for my train fare
I paid €30 for the course
I received €100 allowance.
So, I've therefore gained €2 by turning up at the course. What was more impressive was that the money was paid in the form of a €100 note. (they are green, and it was the first time I'd ever seen one, let alone had one in my possession).
The day itself was basically taught in Bundeslaender, which for us was a massive qadvantage! We started after breakfast, with a 1 3/4 hour session on the school system in Germany, and more specifically Saarland. We also covered the rules and regulations of what you can and can't do as a Language Assistant.
We then watched a video of a couple of assistants teaching classes, and went back into our groups to discuss them.
Following lunch, which was reputedly fish (although I'm not quite convinced!), we started discussing our lesson plans and looking at the materials for the simulated lessons tomorrow.
After dinner I decided that instead of going to the bar tonight (although at 1€50 a bottle of beer - it's very cheap here). I watched "Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" (The Edukators) again and very pleasant it was too!
Wednesday 7th September
So, today we had to teach our prepared lessons to the other assistants in our group. This went OK, but as a group we'd decided to make it more interesting by behaving like pupils of the age we were supposed to be. This meant, pronouncing words wrong, reading badly, talking in German, passing notes around the classroom, asking to go to the loo, chatting amongst ourselves, and even throwing things across the room. Needless to say everyone was absolutley shattered by the end of the day, but it had been generally fun and had passed the time quickly!
After dinner, there was a pub quiz, in which I learnt that Saarland is the smallest Bundesland (this is rubbish, there are 3 city Bundeslaender, which are all smaller than Saarland). Then back to the bar, for a couple of beers and a wake-up time of 6 the next morning!
Thursday 8th October
So, that was that! Altenberg's over! We got up at 6, packed our stuff away, put our linen outside the door, and went down to breakfast for 6.30. Coffee was definitely necessary at breakfast! The coaches left promptly at 7.30 for the journey back to Koeln station, where, as I had a fair amount of time before my train journey, I went to the Cathedral. It's height is impressive, but it was very dark and dingy inside! Metz was much nicer! The train back was scheduled to take about 3 1/2 hours. First we travelled to Koblenz on an Intercity train (not an ICE, but the next one down). We got into Koblenz 6 minutes late, and our connection time should have been 7 minutes. So, we had 1 minute to get off the train and run, yes, run, to the correct platform! It was slightly Top Gear-esque, and probably looked rather amusing! The train we got on was going to take us about 2 1/2 hours to get to Saarbruecken - quite a long time. The journey itself though is wonderful, for the most part the railway runs directly alongside the Mosel, and if you were to picture a German river scene, it would be a replica of the view from the train. It was truly fantastic! So, I'll be going back there soon!
Friday 9th October
I had quite a bit on the administrative front to do today! I had to go the bank to collect the relevant stuff so that I could do Internet banking with them. This was a painless process, which took 5 minutes, which was much less than I expected! I also had to go the Hauptbahnhof because I have decided to indulge in a Bahncard 25 for those journeys I'll be making outside of the Saarland, which entitles me to 25% off fares for 4 months. I also went into the Tourist Information Centre to try and find information about B&Bs or Guest Houses in Saarbruecken. This turned out to be the most challenging thing I had to do, as they weren't able to help me, other than to direct me to the stand with the hotels' leaflets on them!
I was planning to go to Neunkirchen (Saarland's second biggest town) today, but instead met up with one of the other assistants, where we had a couple of drinks in town, and had a nosey around, followed by a nice meal out (Moules Frites), which was very nice indeed! Whilst we were sat down after eating, the other assistant's flatmate saw her and came over to chat, along with a couple of his friends, one of whom is the girl who lives in the flat with me! It's a small world here in Saarbruecken!
Saturday 10th October
Today it rained! This is the first day of proper rain I've experienced in Saarbruecken since I arrived over a month ago! This meant our planned trip to Saarguemines was called off, so instead we went around my friend's and watched Harry Potter, after making Pancakes! Following the film, we tried to work towards solving the problem my friend has with a lost passport. The first stage of this is to go to the Polizei and report it as missing, which we did. Then we ambled up to the Train Station, on the off chance it had been handed in - but the office is closed until Monday now! If it hasn't been handed in, it will mean a trip to Frankfurt for my friend to the British Consulate there to work on getting a new one!
Sunday 11th October
Today I'd planned to visit Homburg by train. And technically I did visit Homburg. I had a very quick look round, but it's very difficult to appreciate places like that properly when you go round on your own, so my visit was rather short. So I returned to Homburg Hbf, from where I planned to return to Saarbruecken, using an indirect route. I caught a train to Neunkirchen (12 minutes away) and then had to wait for a Schienenersatzverkehr (bus replacement service), which in atypical German fashion left late. Now, I would have thought that as the train and the bus were both run by Deutsche Bahn, it would have been possible to hold the train to meet the connection. Err...no....it's not the train driver's fault the bus was running late, and just as the bus pulled into the train station, I could see the train screeching round the corner on its way to Saarbruecken. So, here I was in Illingen, a town I'd not even heard of before, so I ambled down into the town - into the middle of their town festival. As you'd expect, there were plenty of sausages and beer around, with some music too! It was a nice amble round the town; there was also a car boot sale (consisting of about 12 cars) in the town. The most exciting there, though, was a shop that sells chalk! I don't need any at the moment, but I had been looking for somewhere in Saarbruecken for weeks that sells it, without success!
After wandering round the town, I went back to the station, and caught the train to Saarbruecken, then I travelled ut to Merzig and back on another train; just because I could really!
Two things struck me today - one is that the Semester Ticket is really good value for money, as the tickets today would have cost me about 20€, instead I travelled free! Second was that there is a much less stringent, yet more sensible, approach to Health & Safety on the railway here; the railways are seldom separated by big fences to stop people walking on them, and the trains don't have yellow ends either (to make them more visisble). Maybe it's because the Germans are intelligent enough to realise that walking on a railway line is not a clever (klever in German) thing to do, because it'll hurt if you time it wrong.
Back to school tomorrow, for one week, and then it's the Autumn half term!
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