Just in case people thought I had forgotten about doing this...this isn't the case. It's just I'm in France at the moment with limited Internet access. My next blog entry should be coming in a week or two which will be all about my last weeks in Saarbruecken.
Monday, June 21, 2010
***STOP PRESS***, err TWO
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Chapter 31 - Road Trip to Lille
Monday 3rd - Sunday 9th May
This week features the most eagerly anticipated of all our trips away! The road trip to Lille, more about which will follow very shortly. Firstly though, the rest of the week...as ever, a normal week at school. Now that's out of the way, we can move on to the story!
The Road Trip began for us early on Friday morning. My first job was to head over to the car hire place and pick up the car. I'd arranged to pick up the car at 7.30 when the office opened. This meant catching the bus from home at 7, necessitating waking up at 6. Not particularly unpleasant really, given that I get up then two mornings a week anyway. So, the bus and tram journeys to the office were as normal as they get!
We'd booked a car in their "Economy" range, because it had enough room for 4 people and was cheap too. The website said it would be a Volkswagen Polo or similar; so I expected an Opel Corsa, or a Ford Fiesta etc. To my surprise, neither of these was the car I got. The car I got was a Peugeot 308 cc. Still, it was a car..how impractical and annoying could it be?
The first drive in the car was very short, about 3 feet in fact, at which point I stalled it. Still, I expected that, unfamiliar clutch biting point etc, so I'd got my stall out of the way, so off I went. For about 6 feet, when I stalled it again. Never mind, it takes a bit of time to get used to a new car. The next journey took me the 15 feet to the exit of the Car Hire car park. Here I had to be quite nippy to get out on to the road without being involved in an accident. I fluffed it up again. I stalled on my first attempt, and had to wait about 5 minutes for a big enough gap in the traffic. Eventually I made it on to the road to the Hauptbahnhof, where I was meeting the others. Now I should point out here that I have never driven a left-hand drive car before, so judging the width of the car was a bit of a challenge at times. Hence why I might have bumped it over a couple of curbs, and maybe the tramline too. Still, I arrived at the station at 7.45, where I saw the others waiting dutifully outside with their suitcases.
Now, the first concern was the size of the boot. I wasn't sure it would take all the suitcases we had. In fact, I needn't have worried, the boot was almost as big as the rest of the car! So, we managed to get everything in the boot. And then came sorting out seating arrangements. I thought it best if I took the front left seat. In fact, I insisted upon it. When we'd managed to get into the car, which was neither elegant nor dignified (certainly not for me). Despite sitting in the front, I had a getting-in issue; that the steering column and my right leg collided every time I got in! Still, we all managed to get ourselves seated, and then came setting up the GPS. We set Lille as the destination, and we settled down for a relaxing morning meander through the EU heartland.
After about 10 minutes driving, I found a flaw with the SatNav. It was in German, which may not sound like an issue, but when you're driving round an unfamiliar city, you don't have time to translate the instructions or ask stupid questions, so we changed it to English. Problem solved...almost! The SatNav insisted on telling me to "Enter the Roundabout", which is not an instruction with which I am overly familiar. Aside from this minor irritation it was a tool without which we may never have found Lille city centre!
After about 2 hours of driving, we had passed through Luxembourg and had entered Belgium. Now, anyone who has ever driven on a motorway will confirm that motorway driving is the most boring of all types of driving. Irrespective of where you are, miles and miles of concrete with limited exit points and nothing exciting to look at cannot ever be interesting. In Belgium, they have taken measures on this subject. They have planted trees on both sides of each carriageway, thus providing a green wall on both sides of your side of the motorway. So when the SatNav pipes up "Continue on the motorway for 189km" you can understand why I began to lose the will to live! If that wasn't bad enough, the maximum speed was 120km/h, which is 10km/h less than in France and Luxembourg, and infinitely less than in Germany.
After what seemed like two lifetimes of tree-lined motorway, we arrived in Lille, the capital of the Nord Pas de Calais region of France. It was in Lille I was reminded of the style, finesse, and skill of French drivers. As I was going round a roundabout, in the correct fashion, a car appeared off my nearside wing and showed me that his horn worked, naturally I was pleased for him, and expressed my gratitude for his musical display in some clear, yet concise, French adjectives. Shortly afterwards we found a street in front of a car park, where people appeared to be parking for free. So, being British, and therefore not keen on rocking the boat (unlike Hazel Blears' brooch), I followed suit and parked behind a remodelled Renault 5. By remodelled I mean dented.
As ever, our first aim was the Tourist Information Office, which we found. Then, following our Standard Operating Procedure, we headed for a cafe, where we enjoyed some of the French cafe culture, and consulted the map. We did a circular walk of Lille, taking in some of the sights, including the Cathedral, the Citadel, the Place de la Republique (obligatory in every French town), the City Hall. The walk ended in the shopping centre between the two Lille train stations (Lille Gare Europe [handles the TGVs & Eurostar] and Lille Gare Flandres [handles the normal trains]), where we popped into Carrefour in order to get food for the morning, and the following day. About five o'clock we decided to head for the hotel.
This should have been relatively easy...I'd consulted the map on the website of the hotel and wrote down the junction where the hotel was. I input this into the SatNav. I followed the instructions to the letter. We found ourselves in a town, which wasn't too much of a problem, from my experience of staying in HotelF1's before I knew that they can are often on industrial/commercial estates. So we drove round a bit, this didn't help. After about 30 minutes of driving around aimlessly, I pulled over and accosted a man putting his rubbish out. He gave me some pretty good directions (in that they took me to the right town). When we got to the other town, we reached a T-Junction, and being whimpish and slightly annoyed at the whole saga, I did a U-Turn and drove to the Novotel we'd previously passed to ask them for directions. (They're both part of the Accor group, so I figured, correctly, that they'd know). After finally receiving adequate directions we got to the hotel, some 90 minutes after leaving Lille. We checked in and went off in search of food. After food, we popped over to the Auchan, just to see what it was like. We spent the rest of the evening playing cards before heading to bed relatively late.
Saturday was the trip to the beach. This was Harriet's main reason for wanting to go to Lille! We set off for Calais about 9.45, and arrived about 11. So it wasn't too far. On arrival in Lille, we drove following Harriet's sixth sense for finding the sea. We arrived, shortly after, at Calais/Bleriot Plage, which is just South of Calais, and has a long sandy beach. The beach itself, though, was swathed in an unidentified white foam. Still, it was a beach, by the seaside. Even I deicided to go paddling in the English Channel. The Channel is not the Med, nor is it the Carribean. It was bloody freezing, but after a while you stop being able to notice it, largely because your toes have dropped off and are feeding the fishes! As we walked along the beach we saw some of the German pillboxes and beach defences that have collapsed down the dunes in Calais. After taking in the view, and enjoying the feeling of sand under your feet, we headed back to the car and set Boulogne as the destination (when we'd worked out how to spell it!).
After about half an hour of motorway driving we arrived in Boulogne, from where we walked down to the town for a spot of lunch. After lunch we walked down to the harbour, and turned right towards the beach. We spent a bit of time sat on the beach passing the time of day, or in Harriet's case, burying Esther's hand!?! On the way back to the car, we came across a seal show in an aquarium-esque place. We watched it for a bit, before heading back up to the Old Town in Boulogne. The Old Town in Boulogne is very picturesque. If you took away the cars, it could have easily been a scene from the immediate post war period. It looked almost unchanged! We walked back to the car, and began the drive back to the hotel, which I had saved as a favourite, to save the hassle of trying to find it again! The journey back avoided the motorway most of the way, which meant that it was quite an interesting drive, with plenty to see on the way. Another evening of cards followed a very nice day out.
Sunday was the final day of our road trip, and the day we'd decided to spend in Brussels. Brussels was on the way back to Saarbruecken, and only about an hour away from the hotel. So, at about 10.30 we set off from the hotel, and I got used to looking at trees for a while. We got to Brussels in good time, probably because it was a Sunday! Then came the issue of parking. I imagine this problem is the same for every capital city. Finding a space was the first challenge, but that one was solved after only about 10 minutes, which I thought was quite quick. The next, and biggest problem, was actually putting the car in the space. Now, as anyone who has been in a car with me will know, reverse parallel parking is not my biggest strength. Now remember that I'm on the other side of the car, and trying to do it. Three attempts later, I'd managed it!
Following the parking debacle, we undertook a walk around Brussels. Taking in sights such as the Grande Place, Le mannequin pis, Cathedral, National Palace, Royal Palace and a series of churches. The weather for this was perfect, it didn't rain during the day, and was actually a very pleasant and warm day. We spent a bit of time in the afternoon sat in the park reading our books and enjoying the sunshine. After we'd finished our walk, we headed back to the car, to try and find the EU Parliamentary buildings. This wasn't too difficult, nor was it too difficult to find somewhere to park nearby. They are quite impressive buildings, and somehow not out of place in the midst of a park, and older residential buildings. So, that was Brussels, we did do it in quite a whistle-stop way, and saw an awful lot there. It was more of a taster-tour...it would be nice to go back at some point, maybe for a couple of days and take it in a little more slowly. It was a very nice city, but it lacked a certain "wow" factor. I can't explain what it lacked, but it just didn't make me fall in love with it, like Berlin did.
After enjoying the sites of the Belgian Kingdom's capital city, it was time to head back to Saarbruecken. Back to trees...the most depressing thing was when the GPS told me I had 201km of Belgian motorway to go. There's only so much time you can spend looking at trees. And I think I had more than my fair share! We filled up with Diesel at Schengen in Luxembourg, because it's substantially cheaper there than in Germany, and headed for home. I dropped the car off at 21.30 and headed for the train station to catch the bus home.
Some of you probably think that was the end of my fun & games, but no SaarBahn & Bus hadn't played their role yet. I was waiting for the bus at 22.17 which should have got me in about 22.30, which never arrived. There was a 123 (mine is the 121) that had been through, but that doesn't go in my direction, so I didn't get on. About 22.35 I saw a 105, which would take me to the bottom of my road, and while we were going along, we passed the 121, which, it turned out, was the bus masquerading as the 123. So, it had run, but had lied about its route! So, after a bit of a walk up my hill, I got in about 23.15 and was in bed shortly afterwards. Exhausted, but very happy! Ready for another week of fun and frollicks at school, albeit a short week this time!
As ever, you can see my pictures of the road trip here!
This week features the most eagerly anticipated of all our trips away! The road trip to Lille, more about which will follow very shortly. Firstly though, the rest of the week...as ever, a normal week at school. Now that's out of the way, we can move on to the story!
The Road Trip began for us early on Friday morning. My first job was to head over to the car hire place and pick up the car. I'd arranged to pick up the car at 7.30 when the office opened. This meant catching the bus from home at 7, necessitating waking up at 6. Not particularly unpleasant really, given that I get up then two mornings a week anyway. So, the bus and tram journeys to the office were as normal as they get!
We'd booked a car in their "Economy" range, because it had enough room for 4 people and was cheap too. The website said it would be a Volkswagen Polo or similar; so I expected an Opel Corsa, or a Ford Fiesta etc. To my surprise, neither of these was the car I got. The car I got was a Peugeot 308 cc. Still, it was a car..how impractical and annoying could it be?
The first drive in the car was very short, about 3 feet in fact, at which point I stalled it. Still, I expected that, unfamiliar clutch biting point etc, so I'd got my stall out of the way, so off I went. For about 6 feet, when I stalled it again. Never mind, it takes a bit of time to get used to a new car. The next journey took me the 15 feet to the exit of the Car Hire car park. Here I had to be quite nippy to get out on to the road without being involved in an accident. I fluffed it up again. I stalled on my first attempt, and had to wait about 5 minutes for a big enough gap in the traffic. Eventually I made it on to the road to the Hauptbahnhof, where I was meeting the others. Now I should point out here that I have never driven a left-hand drive car before, so judging the width of the car was a bit of a challenge at times. Hence why I might have bumped it over a couple of curbs, and maybe the tramline too. Still, I arrived at the station at 7.45, where I saw the others waiting dutifully outside with their suitcases.
Now, the first concern was the size of the boot. I wasn't sure it would take all the suitcases we had. In fact, I needn't have worried, the boot was almost as big as the rest of the car! So, we managed to get everything in the boot. And then came sorting out seating arrangements. I thought it best if I took the front left seat. In fact, I insisted upon it. When we'd managed to get into the car, which was neither elegant nor dignified (certainly not for me). Despite sitting in the front, I had a getting-in issue; that the steering column and my right leg collided every time I got in! Still, we all managed to get ourselves seated, and then came setting up the GPS. We set Lille as the destination, and we settled down for a relaxing morning meander through the EU heartland.
After about 10 minutes driving, I found a flaw with the SatNav. It was in German, which may not sound like an issue, but when you're driving round an unfamiliar city, you don't have time to translate the instructions or ask stupid questions, so we changed it to English. Problem solved...almost! The SatNav insisted on telling me to "Enter the Roundabout", which is not an instruction with which I am overly familiar. Aside from this minor irritation it was a tool without which we may never have found Lille city centre!
After about 2 hours of driving, we had passed through Luxembourg and had entered Belgium. Now, anyone who has ever driven on a motorway will confirm that motorway driving is the most boring of all types of driving. Irrespective of where you are, miles and miles of concrete with limited exit points and nothing exciting to look at cannot ever be interesting. In Belgium, they have taken measures on this subject. They have planted trees on both sides of each carriageway, thus providing a green wall on both sides of your side of the motorway. So when the SatNav pipes up "Continue on the motorway for 189km" you can understand why I began to lose the will to live! If that wasn't bad enough, the maximum speed was 120km/h, which is 10km/h less than in France and Luxembourg, and infinitely less than in Germany.
After what seemed like two lifetimes of tree-lined motorway, we arrived in Lille, the capital of the Nord Pas de Calais region of France. It was in Lille I was reminded of the style, finesse, and skill of French drivers. As I was going round a roundabout, in the correct fashion, a car appeared off my nearside wing and showed me that his horn worked, naturally I was pleased for him, and expressed my gratitude for his musical display in some clear, yet concise, French adjectives. Shortly afterwards we found a street in front of a car park, where people appeared to be parking for free. So, being British, and therefore not keen on rocking the boat (unlike Hazel Blears' brooch), I followed suit and parked behind a remodelled Renault 5. By remodelled I mean dented.
As ever, our first aim was the Tourist Information Office, which we found. Then, following our Standard Operating Procedure, we headed for a cafe, where we enjoyed some of the French cafe culture, and consulted the map. We did a circular walk of Lille, taking in some of the sights, including the Cathedral, the Citadel, the Place de la Republique (obligatory in every French town), the City Hall. The walk ended in the shopping centre between the two Lille train stations (Lille Gare Europe [handles the TGVs & Eurostar] and Lille Gare Flandres [handles the normal trains]), where we popped into Carrefour in order to get food for the morning, and the following day. About five o'clock we decided to head for the hotel.
This should have been relatively easy...I'd consulted the map on the website of the hotel and wrote down the junction where the hotel was. I input this into the SatNav. I followed the instructions to the letter. We found ourselves in a town, which wasn't too much of a problem, from my experience of staying in HotelF1's before I knew that they can are often on industrial/commercial estates. So we drove round a bit, this didn't help. After about 30 minutes of driving around aimlessly, I pulled over and accosted a man putting his rubbish out. He gave me some pretty good directions (in that they took me to the right town). When we got to the other town, we reached a T-Junction, and being whimpish and slightly annoyed at the whole saga, I did a U-Turn and drove to the Novotel we'd previously passed to ask them for directions. (They're both part of the Accor group, so I figured, correctly, that they'd know). After finally receiving adequate directions we got to the hotel, some 90 minutes after leaving Lille. We checked in and went off in search of food. After food, we popped over to the Auchan, just to see what it was like. We spent the rest of the evening playing cards before heading to bed relatively late.
Saturday was the trip to the beach. This was Harriet's main reason for wanting to go to Lille! We set off for Calais about 9.45, and arrived about 11. So it wasn't too far. On arrival in Lille, we drove following Harriet's sixth sense for finding the sea. We arrived, shortly after, at Calais/Bleriot Plage, which is just South of Calais, and has a long sandy beach. The beach itself, though, was swathed in an unidentified white foam. Still, it was a beach, by the seaside. Even I deicided to go paddling in the English Channel. The Channel is not the Med, nor is it the Carribean. It was bloody freezing, but after a while you stop being able to notice it, largely because your toes have dropped off and are feeding the fishes! As we walked along the beach we saw some of the German pillboxes and beach defences that have collapsed down the dunes in Calais. After taking in the view, and enjoying the feeling of sand under your feet, we headed back to the car and set Boulogne as the destination (when we'd worked out how to spell it!).
After about half an hour of motorway driving we arrived in Boulogne, from where we walked down to the town for a spot of lunch. After lunch we walked down to the harbour, and turned right towards the beach. We spent a bit of time sat on the beach passing the time of day, or in Harriet's case, burying Esther's hand!?! On the way back to the car, we came across a seal show in an aquarium-esque place. We watched it for a bit, before heading back up to the Old Town in Boulogne. The Old Town in Boulogne is very picturesque. If you took away the cars, it could have easily been a scene from the immediate post war period. It looked almost unchanged! We walked back to the car, and began the drive back to the hotel, which I had saved as a favourite, to save the hassle of trying to find it again! The journey back avoided the motorway most of the way, which meant that it was quite an interesting drive, with plenty to see on the way. Another evening of cards followed a very nice day out.
Sunday was the final day of our road trip, and the day we'd decided to spend in Brussels. Brussels was on the way back to Saarbruecken, and only about an hour away from the hotel. So, at about 10.30 we set off from the hotel, and I got used to looking at trees for a while. We got to Brussels in good time, probably because it was a Sunday! Then came the issue of parking. I imagine this problem is the same for every capital city. Finding a space was the first challenge, but that one was solved after only about 10 minutes, which I thought was quite quick. The next, and biggest problem, was actually putting the car in the space. Now, as anyone who has been in a car with me will know, reverse parallel parking is not my biggest strength. Now remember that I'm on the other side of the car, and trying to do it. Three attempts later, I'd managed it!
Following the parking debacle, we undertook a walk around Brussels. Taking in sights such as the Grande Place, Le mannequin pis, Cathedral, National Palace, Royal Palace and a series of churches. The weather for this was perfect, it didn't rain during the day, and was actually a very pleasant and warm day. We spent a bit of time in the afternoon sat in the park reading our books and enjoying the sunshine. After we'd finished our walk, we headed back to the car, to try and find the EU Parliamentary buildings. This wasn't too difficult, nor was it too difficult to find somewhere to park nearby. They are quite impressive buildings, and somehow not out of place in the midst of a park, and older residential buildings. So, that was Brussels, we did do it in quite a whistle-stop way, and saw an awful lot there. It was more of a taster-tour...it would be nice to go back at some point, maybe for a couple of days and take it in a little more slowly. It was a very nice city, but it lacked a certain "wow" factor. I can't explain what it lacked, but it just didn't make me fall in love with it, like Berlin did.
After enjoying the sites of the Belgian Kingdom's capital city, it was time to head back to Saarbruecken. Back to trees...the most depressing thing was when the GPS told me I had 201km of Belgian motorway to go. There's only so much time you can spend looking at trees. And I think I had more than my fair share! We filled up with Diesel at Schengen in Luxembourg, because it's substantially cheaper there than in Germany, and headed for home. I dropped the car off at 21.30 and headed for the train station to catch the bus home.
Some of you probably think that was the end of my fun & games, but no SaarBahn & Bus hadn't played their role yet. I was waiting for the bus at 22.17 which should have got me in about 22.30, which never arrived. There was a 123 (mine is the 121) that had been through, but that doesn't go in my direction, so I didn't get on. About 22.35 I saw a 105, which would take me to the bottom of my road, and while we were going along, we passed the 121, which, it turned out, was the bus masquerading as the 123. So, it had run, but had lied about its route! So, after a bit of a walk up my hill, I got in about 23.15 and was in bed shortly afterwards. Exhausted, but very happy! Ready for another week of fun and frollicks at school, albeit a short week this time!
As ever, you can see my pictures of the road trip here!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Chapter 30 - Sunshine, Saarbruecken, and a trip to Bonn
Monday 19th April - Sunday 2nd May
So, with the Black Forest barely behind me, it was time to return to school! Monday saw me doing my normal lessons; no covered required this time, which made a pleasant change! However, that record was no longer standing by the end of Tuesday! Tuesday saw me doing 2 full cover lessons, with little more than 5 minutes preparation for both of them together. Wednesday was a pretty standard day at the Gymnasium, although I had the chance to work with a new class (to make up for the 12. Klasse kids who've left. My new class is a 7. Klasse (Year 8 equivalent/12-13 year olds) and they're a charming class, who are very curious, and seem to be keen to learn and practise their English. I'm looking forward to working with them more in the last month of my placement here. Thursday was my busiest day of the week; I had 5 lessons straight through at the Gymnasium. Luckily, all the classes with whom I work are pretty good kids really!
As you can see, work wasn't overly exciting this week. But, and I'm reverting to type here, the weather has been pretty fantastic this week. I read in the local paper that Saarland is the Bundesland (Federal State) in the whole of Germany, which has seen the biggest change in climate due to global warming. Now, I understand that Global Warming is a threat to the planet, but, in a purely selfish and tongue-in-cheek way, I'm more than happy for people to bring their 4x4s and drive them round Saarbruecken for the rest of the month if they want! The average high temperature last week was 19.7 degrees celsius, and the sun has been shining almost perpetually. It's now at the stage, where I can leave for work at 6.45 and not require anything more sustantial than a short-sleeve shirt. That said, the weather today has been a little bit hit and miss; we've had some very nice sunny spells, but also a couple of very loud and wet thunderstorms too.
Because the weather has been so good, I've spent a fair amount of the week outside! Wednesday evening I met up with a colleague from my Gesamtschule who wanted me to meet her daughter and her friend who were visiting from Paris. There was no alterior motive here! She suggested it would be a good opportunity to practise listening to and speaking some French, and she was quite right! Thursday afternoon was spent by the Saar with a few friends, which wasa very nice way to spend the time. It was easily warm enough to remain by the Saar long past the half 8 we were there until, but I needed to have something to eat!
Friday saw me make a trip to Homburg in the evening for Will's birthday party. He has had the misfortune to turn 21, and leave me in the 20-club alone! It was actually my first trip to Homburg properly, excepting changing trains. On the train coming back to Saarbruecken there was a Ticket Inspector who was raking it in with 40€ fines being given out willy-nilly. I had already bought a ticket, so saved myself some money there; but because the majority of DB's Regional Trains are unchecked many people like to play russian roulette with the Inspectors. As one philosophically said to the Inspector; "you win some, you lose some" - or a rather more complex German equivalent!
Saturday, as the previous week, required an early start, which was fine. Lucy and I were going to Bonn for the day, and were taking the 7.02 train. Last Saturday it was perfectly possible to catch a bus into town at 6.14 and walk to the train station in plenty of time. Yesterday was different though. Saturday was the 1st May. In Germany the 1st May is a Public Holiday; that means places only open their Sunday hours - largely none at all, and buses only run a Sunday timetable; this is not helpful when the earliest bus round by me is at 9.32! Luckily, with a quick check using their text service I was able to see that there was a bus from the bottom of my road to the train station at 6.32. With a bit of a jog, I made it in time and managed to safely get to the train station. The train from Saarbruecken went to Koblenz, and does some have some fantastic views over the Saar and Mosel on the way; and it's double decker, which still hasn't worn off yet! From Koblenz we changed to a train directly to Bonn, which took about 45 minutes. We got there about 11ish.
En route to the tourist information office (always the first port of call; for a street map) we got distracted by an artisan's market in the Minster square. Some of the stuff there was good, some was quaint and other bits were bordering on "Why?" standard! After looking around the market for a bit, we headed over to the tourist information office, got our street map and then trotted off to explore Bonn.
The first thing we went to see was Ludwig van Beethoven's birthplace, which was pretty much a house, with a plaque on the window. It has a museum on the ground floor, but seeing as it was a Public Holiday it was closed! Shortly after Beethoven's house we came across the Communists/Socialists/Trade Unions all having a parade, which from what we could grasp was not authorised by the place, yet was still taking place. The parade, was actually not parading at that moment, instead it had turned into a stationary protest about the police arresting one of their contingent. So, as nothing exciting seemed to be happening we moved on, and returned to the tour of Bonn! The next focus of which was to be the River, after a drink! After we'd replenished our liquid levels we walked down to the River, which is a river I saw last Sunday in Basel....can you remember what it's called? (if no, it's the Rhine). We walked along the Rhine to see the old West German Parliament building and the Post Tower. While we were there we discovered that there was a trail along the river side of the planets, with little signs about them all the way. The planets were distanced to scale, and the overall trail probably went on for about 5km. We walked all the way to Neptune from the Sun, before we came across a building site and the industrial port in Bonn. And as Pluto is not technically a planet any more (it's, in fact, an asteroid), we abandoned the search there and headed back into the city to find somewhere for lunch. We got back into the city about 15.30 when we decided to have some lunch. After lunch I had to go and rendez-vous with the main reason for coming to Bonn, Ruediger.
It would be useful, I realise, here to explain who Ruediger is, and why I had to meet him. So, that's what I'll do, but I shall answer the key questions in reverse order. (Partly because it makes more sense like that, and partly because I can!) But before I can even explain why I had to meet him, you need yet more information! You need to know that Dad collects clocks, lots of clocks, but that he prizes his modest collection of "Perpetual Motion" Atmos Clock. Now rather than me try and explain to you exactly what they look like, or how they work - I counsel you to click here to find out more! I had to meet Ruediger to collect one of Dad's Atmos clocks off of him, because Ruediger repairs them and restores them. Ruediger was previously a senior diplomat in the UK working for the German Government and it used to be much easier to take stuff to him in Wimbledon. He was then re-posted and now works in Bonn, so as I live in Saarbruecken, the decision was taken (not entirely by me, if I remember correctly!) that I would go and collect said Atmos Clock and bring it back to Saarbruecken for Mum & Dad to collect when they come over in a few weeks time! Needless to say, the clock managed the train journey home unharmed, which is good for two main reasons: 1) it's very valuable, and 2) I like breathing!
So after being a very cheap courier, I spent Sunday moping! I did do some useful things like clean the bathroom, and prepare a couple of worksheets for lessons next week! But my main achievement of the day was avoiding the thunderstorms that arrived in Saarbruecken today!
Now, for the avid and attentive reader, you will notice that this blog entry was actually written on time! So enjoy, it doesn't happen very often!
Next week comes the expedition of the year - Lille!
So, with the Black Forest barely behind me, it was time to return to school! Monday saw me doing my normal lessons; no covered required this time, which made a pleasant change! However, that record was no longer standing by the end of Tuesday! Tuesday saw me doing 2 full cover lessons, with little more than 5 minutes preparation for both of them together. Wednesday was a pretty standard day at the Gymnasium, although I had the chance to work with a new class (to make up for the 12. Klasse kids who've left. My new class is a 7. Klasse (Year 8 equivalent/12-13 year olds) and they're a charming class, who are very curious, and seem to be keen to learn and practise their English. I'm looking forward to working with them more in the last month of my placement here. Thursday was my busiest day of the week; I had 5 lessons straight through at the Gymnasium. Luckily, all the classes with whom I work are pretty good kids really!
As you can see, work wasn't overly exciting this week. But, and I'm reverting to type here, the weather has been pretty fantastic this week. I read in the local paper that Saarland is the Bundesland (Federal State) in the whole of Germany, which has seen the biggest change in climate due to global warming. Now, I understand that Global Warming is a threat to the planet, but, in a purely selfish and tongue-in-cheek way, I'm more than happy for people to bring their 4x4s and drive them round Saarbruecken for the rest of the month if they want! The average high temperature last week was 19.7 degrees celsius, and the sun has been shining almost perpetually. It's now at the stage, where I can leave for work at 6.45 and not require anything more sustantial than a short-sleeve shirt. That said, the weather today has been a little bit hit and miss; we've had some very nice sunny spells, but also a couple of very loud and wet thunderstorms too.
Because the weather has been so good, I've spent a fair amount of the week outside! Wednesday evening I met up with a colleague from my Gesamtschule who wanted me to meet her daughter and her friend who were visiting from Paris. There was no alterior motive here! She suggested it would be a good opportunity to practise listening to and speaking some French, and she was quite right! Thursday afternoon was spent by the Saar with a few friends, which wasa very nice way to spend the time. It was easily warm enough to remain by the Saar long past the half 8 we were there until, but I needed to have something to eat!
Friday saw me make a trip to Homburg in the evening for Will's birthday party. He has had the misfortune to turn 21, and leave me in the 20-club alone! It was actually my first trip to Homburg properly, excepting changing trains. On the train coming back to Saarbruecken there was a Ticket Inspector who was raking it in with 40€ fines being given out willy-nilly. I had already bought a ticket, so saved myself some money there; but because the majority of DB's Regional Trains are unchecked many people like to play russian roulette with the Inspectors. As one philosophically said to the Inspector; "you win some, you lose some" - or a rather more complex German equivalent!
Saturday, as the previous week, required an early start, which was fine. Lucy and I were going to Bonn for the day, and were taking the 7.02 train. Last Saturday it was perfectly possible to catch a bus into town at 6.14 and walk to the train station in plenty of time. Yesterday was different though. Saturday was the 1st May. In Germany the 1st May is a Public Holiday; that means places only open their Sunday hours - largely none at all, and buses only run a Sunday timetable; this is not helpful when the earliest bus round by me is at 9.32! Luckily, with a quick check using their text service I was able to see that there was a bus from the bottom of my road to the train station at 6.32. With a bit of a jog, I made it in time and managed to safely get to the train station. The train from Saarbruecken went to Koblenz, and does some have some fantastic views over the Saar and Mosel on the way; and it's double decker, which still hasn't worn off yet! From Koblenz we changed to a train directly to Bonn, which took about 45 minutes. We got there about 11ish.
En route to the tourist information office (always the first port of call; for a street map) we got distracted by an artisan's market in the Minster square. Some of the stuff there was good, some was quaint and other bits were bordering on "Why?" standard! After looking around the market for a bit, we headed over to the tourist information office, got our street map and then trotted off to explore Bonn.
The first thing we went to see was Ludwig van Beethoven's birthplace, which was pretty much a house, with a plaque on the window. It has a museum on the ground floor, but seeing as it was a Public Holiday it was closed! Shortly after Beethoven's house we came across the Communists/Socialists/Trade Unions all having a parade, which from what we could grasp was not authorised by the place, yet was still taking place. The parade, was actually not parading at that moment, instead it had turned into a stationary protest about the police arresting one of their contingent. So, as nothing exciting seemed to be happening we moved on, and returned to the tour of Bonn! The next focus of which was to be the River, after a drink! After we'd replenished our liquid levels we walked down to the River, which is a river I saw last Sunday in Basel....can you remember what it's called? (if no, it's the Rhine). We walked along the Rhine to see the old West German Parliament building and the Post Tower. While we were there we discovered that there was a trail along the river side of the planets, with little signs about them all the way. The planets were distanced to scale, and the overall trail probably went on for about 5km. We walked all the way to Neptune from the Sun, before we came across a building site and the industrial port in Bonn. And as Pluto is not technically a planet any more (it's, in fact, an asteroid), we abandoned the search there and headed back into the city to find somewhere for lunch. We got back into the city about 15.30 when we decided to have some lunch. After lunch I had to go and rendez-vous with the main reason for coming to Bonn, Ruediger.
It would be useful, I realise, here to explain who Ruediger is, and why I had to meet him. So, that's what I'll do, but I shall answer the key questions in reverse order. (Partly because it makes more sense like that, and partly because I can!) But before I can even explain why I had to meet him, you need yet more information! You need to know that Dad collects clocks, lots of clocks, but that he prizes his modest collection of "Perpetual Motion" Atmos Clock. Now rather than me try and explain to you exactly what they look like, or how they work - I counsel you to click here to find out more! I had to meet Ruediger to collect one of Dad's Atmos clocks off of him, because Ruediger repairs them and restores them. Ruediger was previously a senior diplomat in the UK working for the German Government and it used to be much easier to take stuff to him in Wimbledon. He was then re-posted and now works in Bonn, so as I live in Saarbruecken, the decision was taken (not entirely by me, if I remember correctly!) that I would go and collect said Atmos Clock and bring it back to Saarbruecken for Mum & Dad to collect when they come over in a few weeks time! Needless to say, the clock managed the train journey home unharmed, which is good for two main reasons: 1) it's very valuable, and 2) I like breathing!
So after being a very cheap courier, I spent Sunday moping! I did do some useful things like clean the bathroom, and prepare a couple of worksheets for lessons next week! But my main achievement of the day was avoiding the thunderstorms that arrived in Saarbruecken today!
Now, for the avid and attentive reader, you will notice that this blog entry was actually written on time! So enjoy, it doesn't happen very often!
Next week comes the expedition of the year - Lille!
Chapter 29 - Journey to Paradise
Monday 19th - Sunday 25th April
This week started the same as any other week! I had to get up relatively early on Monday for a couple of lessons of fun at the Gesamtschule, where I was a cover teacher for several of my lessons on my days there. Despite not being in my job description, I see no reason to turn it down, it's all experience at the end of the day! The Gymnasium has been pretty standard too, working with the older kids, and doing marking!
Several of the afternoons were spent, during this week, sitting outside enjoying the Saarlaendisch Sunshine - and coming out with a healthy glow!
Friday was Mum's birthday; so being the dutiful, and caring son that I am, I decided to send a card. Now, I thought I'd buy the stamps from the automated machines in town, when I was there on Saturday evening, before meeting my tandem partner. This was a flawless plan, except for one minor thing that I overlooked! That was the chance that the person who was using the machine before me was converting his life savings into Deutsche Post Postage Stamps. I kid you not, he was at this machine for a good 15 minutes. Every time I thought he was finished, he seemed to start the process all over again! Now, as everyone who knows me will undoubtedly say, I'm a patient soul, but this guy was beginning to push his luck! Eventually though, he'd independently prevented Deutsche Post from going bust, and I was able to buy the stamp I needed (a procedure which took about 90 seconds!), and the card arrived only 1 day late; which I will obviously be blaming on Royal Mail!
The highlight of the week, though, was undoubtedly the trip to Freiburg that we made at the weekend! The only bad, and it wasn't that bad really, thing was that the train from Saarbruecken left at 7.02 on Saturday morning; thus necessitating an early start! The first train journey took us to Pirmasens, which lies over the border in the Pfalz. From there we had a two minute connection (which, although it sounds tight, is pretty standard for Deutsche Bahn) on another train to Landau. From Landau, another train brought us to our old friend Karlsruhe, where we had a brief respite from train travel, before boarding another train to Offenburg. The final train brought us Offenburg to Freiburg-im-Breisgau at about 11.55; the total journey taking just shy of five hours. The first thing we did in Freiburg was to find the hostel, which wasn't too difficult in itself. The hardest thing was avoiding being run over by trams, cyclists, and buses - all of whom seemed to come from every direction possible! After about 30 minutes we found the hostel, and we decided to dump our stuff before heading back to Freiburg station for a little exploration of the Black Forest.
The journey back to the train station from the hostel was a little bit of a run towards the end; hindered slightly by the car-friendly pedestrian crossings! Nevertheless we made it, albeit slightly out of breath, onto the train. Whilst on the train, the driver announced that if you wanted to go all the way to where we wanted to go, you had to be sat in the front three coaches...we were in the fourth, so had to change coaches at one of the stations. The journey was another hour on the train, but it was truly part of the experience; I spent most of the journey in awe of the surroundings. One minute you would be going through a pretty dense wooded area, then through a tunnel, and then on the wall of a gorge, uphill, downhill - just fantastic views all the way. On the way to Aha, our destination, we saw snow on the tops of the mountains within the Black Forest, which was surprising considering the outside temperature was definitely not below 20!
After about an hour we arrived in Aha, which is on the edge of the Schluchsee. Schluchsee is the largest expanse of water in the whole of the Black Forest. It's a reservoir which has a walk all the way around the outside. The walk is about 18km, although we didn't do it all! We did spend about three hours walking along the beaches, and paths bordering the lake. The views were fantastic, the lake itself was tranquil, and serene! The weather was perfect too - the sun was shining, the sky was cloudless. After several hours, we headed back to Freiburg on the train, and found somewhere to eat. The evening was spent playing cards, until about 10, when we thought it would be sensible/necessary to have a relatively early night!
We got up about 8 on Sunday, and were out by 8.45. We decided to spend the morning looking around the city of Freiburg itself. The first thing we did was to climb up to the observation tower, which is about 460m above the city, the views you got from the tower were magnificent; the city and the forest were both spectacular. The city itself is very nice, it has plenty of pretty buildings, and nice little streams running down both sides of the streets within the city centre.
After a couple of hours, we went and caught the train to Basel, in Switzerland. The train journey itself was about an hour long, and after about 45 minutes, both Harriet and me came to the realisation that Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. I know I study European Studies as part of my degree, but I can't be expected to remember everything! The fact that they aren't part of the EU means that they don't use the Euro, preferring, instead to use the Swiss Franc. This is quite annoying when you have a wallet full of Euros! It was a perfect photo opportunity - that moment!
Basel itself is the third largest city in Switzerland, and lies on the banks of the Rhine. The city is quite pretty, and a rather eclectic mix of French, German, Italian and Swiss influences! Whilst walking round the city, it's possible to hear a selection of European languages! We spent a few hours walking round the city, taking in the sights, and taking some photos!
We caught the train from Basel back in a Saarbruecken direction at about 15.35. The first train took us to the Deutsche Bahn station in Basel, where we changed onto a train for Offenburg. From Offenburg we aimed to follow the same route home as the one which we'd taken to Freiburg. This was all going swimmingly, until Karlsruhe, where the train to Landau was delayed by about 10 minutes (about 7 minutes longer than our connection!). So, we sought advice from the Deutsche Bahn automated ticket machine. The machine advised us to travel to Neustadt, from where we caught a train to Kaiserslautern, where we changed to a train to Saarbruecken. Despite the travel complications we arrived back in Saarbruecken a mere six minutes later than we would have done if we'd taken the original train. Back home in good time for a nice early night in readiness for another fun-filled week at school!
As ever, you can see the pics from my Black Forest & Basel Bonanza here!
Plans for the next week are not overly numerous; a party in Homburg, and a day trip to Bonn!
This week started the same as any other week! I had to get up relatively early on Monday for a couple of lessons of fun at the Gesamtschule, where I was a cover teacher for several of my lessons on my days there. Despite not being in my job description, I see no reason to turn it down, it's all experience at the end of the day! The Gymnasium has been pretty standard too, working with the older kids, and doing marking!
Several of the afternoons were spent, during this week, sitting outside enjoying the Saarlaendisch Sunshine - and coming out with a healthy glow!
Friday was Mum's birthday; so being the dutiful, and caring son that I am, I decided to send a card. Now, I thought I'd buy the stamps from the automated machines in town, when I was there on Saturday evening, before meeting my tandem partner. This was a flawless plan, except for one minor thing that I overlooked! That was the chance that the person who was using the machine before me was converting his life savings into Deutsche Post Postage Stamps. I kid you not, he was at this machine for a good 15 minutes. Every time I thought he was finished, he seemed to start the process all over again! Now, as everyone who knows me will undoubtedly say, I'm a patient soul, but this guy was beginning to push his luck! Eventually though, he'd independently prevented Deutsche Post from going bust, and I was able to buy the stamp I needed (a procedure which took about 90 seconds!), and the card arrived only 1 day late; which I will obviously be blaming on Royal Mail!
The highlight of the week, though, was undoubtedly the trip to Freiburg that we made at the weekend! The only bad, and it wasn't that bad really, thing was that the train from Saarbruecken left at 7.02 on Saturday morning; thus necessitating an early start! The first train journey took us to Pirmasens, which lies over the border in the Pfalz. From there we had a two minute connection (which, although it sounds tight, is pretty standard for Deutsche Bahn) on another train to Landau. From Landau, another train brought us to our old friend Karlsruhe, where we had a brief respite from train travel, before boarding another train to Offenburg. The final train brought us Offenburg to Freiburg-im-Breisgau at about 11.55; the total journey taking just shy of five hours. The first thing we did in Freiburg was to find the hostel, which wasn't too difficult in itself. The hardest thing was avoiding being run over by trams, cyclists, and buses - all of whom seemed to come from every direction possible! After about 30 minutes we found the hostel, and we decided to dump our stuff before heading back to Freiburg station for a little exploration of the Black Forest.
The journey back to the train station from the hostel was a little bit of a run towards the end; hindered slightly by the car-friendly pedestrian crossings! Nevertheless we made it, albeit slightly out of breath, onto the train. Whilst on the train, the driver announced that if you wanted to go all the way to where we wanted to go, you had to be sat in the front three coaches...we were in the fourth, so had to change coaches at one of the stations. The journey was another hour on the train, but it was truly part of the experience; I spent most of the journey in awe of the surroundings. One minute you would be going through a pretty dense wooded area, then through a tunnel, and then on the wall of a gorge, uphill, downhill - just fantastic views all the way. On the way to Aha, our destination, we saw snow on the tops of the mountains within the Black Forest, which was surprising considering the outside temperature was definitely not below 20!
After about an hour we arrived in Aha, which is on the edge of the Schluchsee. Schluchsee is the largest expanse of water in the whole of the Black Forest. It's a reservoir which has a walk all the way around the outside. The walk is about 18km, although we didn't do it all! We did spend about three hours walking along the beaches, and paths bordering the lake. The views were fantastic, the lake itself was tranquil, and serene! The weather was perfect too - the sun was shining, the sky was cloudless. After several hours, we headed back to Freiburg on the train, and found somewhere to eat. The evening was spent playing cards, until about 10, when we thought it would be sensible/necessary to have a relatively early night!
We got up about 8 on Sunday, and were out by 8.45. We decided to spend the morning looking around the city of Freiburg itself. The first thing we did was to climb up to the observation tower, which is about 460m above the city, the views you got from the tower were magnificent; the city and the forest were both spectacular. The city itself is very nice, it has plenty of pretty buildings, and nice little streams running down both sides of the streets within the city centre.
After a couple of hours, we went and caught the train to Basel, in Switzerland. The train journey itself was about an hour long, and after about 45 minutes, both Harriet and me came to the realisation that Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. I know I study European Studies as part of my degree, but I can't be expected to remember everything! The fact that they aren't part of the EU means that they don't use the Euro, preferring, instead to use the Swiss Franc. This is quite annoying when you have a wallet full of Euros! It was a perfect photo opportunity - that moment!
Basel itself is the third largest city in Switzerland, and lies on the banks of the Rhine. The city is quite pretty, and a rather eclectic mix of French, German, Italian and Swiss influences! Whilst walking round the city, it's possible to hear a selection of European languages! We spent a few hours walking round the city, taking in the sights, and taking some photos!
We caught the train from Basel back in a Saarbruecken direction at about 15.35. The first train took us to the Deutsche Bahn station in Basel, where we changed onto a train for Offenburg. From Offenburg we aimed to follow the same route home as the one which we'd taken to Freiburg. This was all going swimmingly, until Karlsruhe, where the train to Landau was delayed by about 10 minutes (about 7 minutes longer than our connection!). So, we sought advice from the Deutsche Bahn automated ticket machine. The machine advised us to travel to Neustadt, from where we caught a train to Kaiserslautern, where we changed to a train to Saarbruecken. Despite the travel complications we arrived back in Saarbruecken a mere six minutes later than we would have done if we'd taken the original train. Back home in good time for a nice early night in readiness for another fun-filled week at school!
As ever, you can see the pics from my Black Forest & Basel Bonanza here!
Plans for the next week are not overly numerous; a party in Homburg, and a day trip to Bonn!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
***STOP PRESS***
This isn't a proper blog entry, although I know one is due soon. But I've been busy on Google Maps this afternoon, and have created a map showing all the places I've visited so far. I will update it as I travel to different places on my year abroad...so keep checking back onto it!
Here's the link!
Enjoy!
Here's the link!
Enjoy!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Chapter 28 - Back to school
Saturday 10th - Sunday 18th April
This title is not named after the retailing season, although it will surely be appearing in shops soon! Instead, it is an unsarcastic, unironic statement about my first week back in Saarbruecken.
As at Christmas, I made the decision to travel on the Saturday before work started again on Monday. Two main reasons for this: SNCF, and sleep! SNCF because it's a Sunday, and their service is sometimes a little sketchy on Sunday, even if they had to decided not to partake in a mouvement social (a strike to you and I), and despite the fact that the majority of my journey is spent on my laurels reading a book, listening to my MP3 player, or simply admiring the view (albeit at 270 km/h), travelling halfway across Europe (well, through France anyway) can take it out of you - so I travel on Saturday so that I can catch up on a little bit of train-lag before going back to work, where it's expected that I'm not still rubbing sleepy dust out of my eyes!
So, the journey started about 7.55 at Chippenham railway station, where it was a very nice day, and I had far too many layers on (simply to save me having to put them in the already bulging suitcase!). Now being a seasoned traveller I'd half expected the train to be late into Chippenham, but it had managed not to be. So, we left on time, and powered our way towards the only London station named after a bear who likes marmalade sandwiches. All was going tickety-boo (well clickety-clack, but you get the idea) until just outside Reading, where we seemed to stop for a while in the middle of nowhere. The Train Manager told us that there was an issue on the line in the Slough area, which was why were being held up before Reading. We eventually crawled into Reading, where the Train Manager was able to find out that the delay had been caused by someone jumping in front of a train in the Slough area, and the line was duly closed to allow a clear-up operation to begin, and then the lines were only gradually re-opened, which meant that the signalmen (and I daresay women) had to sort out the backlog. This they managed, and then we continued on our way to London, arriving a mere 45 minutes late. I would like to take this opportunity to do something which I don't do very often, and that's to have a bit of a rant!
My chosen topic this time is "People who jump in front of trains". Now, before I start I should say that I accept that suicide is not an easy decision to take, and the people who choose to end it all, are desperate and at their wits' end, and this rant is not about suicide itself, simply about the choice of someone to jump in front of a train. For this reason, I would ask people not to jump down my throat for what's about to come!
Jumping in front of a train is one of the most selfish ways of committing suicide that I can think of. On the very basic level, you will cause delays to the rail network, but let's face it the Train Companies can do that on their own without the help of someone standing in front of a train. So, all in all, the delays it causes are not my primary issue, merely an annoyance. That said, I seem to take delays better than others; one day when I was commuting to Bath, the trains had been cancelled, or severely delayed because of someone jumping in front of a train, and a lady comes down the stairs onto the paltform, and says "I hope he's dead!". I don't get that annoyed by it, instead I find an alternative way to uni. But, as I said that's not my main problem with it, my biggest issue is the effect it has on people who are innocent, and who have to deal directly with the person's suicide - people like the Train Driver, who may never be able to sleep at night again, the Police Officers of the British Transport Police who have to attend what they call 'one unders', along with the Network Rail employees who have to clear-up the line so that the trains can run again. All of these people have to deal with sights that are simply awful, and could cause untold psychological trauma. Or, in the case of Stanley Martin, the ultimate price, because someone decided to kill themselves by parking their car on the line and waiting for a train to crash into them.
Now as I said, this rant was about the effect that 'jumpers' have on others who were otherwise going about their normal daily business, and have had to deal with such horrors.
Now I've got that off my chest, I shall continue with the story! I got to St. Pancras, where I had arrived about 3 hours before my train was due to leave, so I went to a cafe and read my book with a mug of coffee in the sunshine whilst waiting for check-in to open. The Eurostar left, pucntually, and had an uninterupted journey to Paris, except for the planned stop in Lille. We arrived in Paris about half five, and as I walked to Paris Est I found somewhere to eat some tea, before meeting Esther at the station. We travelled back on the ICE together, where we also arrived on time, which is a rarity amongst the trains to/from Paris! After a short bus journey home, I was in bed by 11 o'clock!
Sunday was spent unpacking, well, rather putting away the stuff I'd already unpacked (onto the floor) and I had a private lesson in the afternoon. Otherwise, it was a quiet day, involving me pretty much catching up on a weekend of stuff I'd missed on iPlayer!
The first week back at school was full of the usual post-holiday chaos! With the ash cloud posing problems all over Europe, I was impressed that none of the teachers had been silly enough to get themselves stranded in a really hot, sunny country, instead of being shut in a room with 30 excitable children! I also rose to a certain level of fame, or the negative form thereof, because it was during this week that the English Abitur (A-Level) exam took place, on the higher tier of which all of the students in Saarland would have been told what to do by yours truly. That said, I still haven't heard it, and my ask one of my teachers if I could have a copy of it, so I can enjoy my slurring of the letter 'r' in a typically Westcountry manner!
It was this weekend in which Esther and I had originally planned on going to Munich, but time constraints let us down. It was only on the train back from Paris that we were supposed to be going then, and as nothing had been booked or organised, we shelved it, perhaps for another year! Instead, I took advantage of the fantastic weather which we've been experiencing in Saarbruecken, and spent most of the weekend by the Saar in the sun! Over the weekend there were also a couple of evening get-togethers too, in which I took part.
So, what's coming up next week? Not a lot regarding school, it's been a pretty quiet week really. There is a weekend trip to Freiburg im Breisgau (on the edge of the black forest, near the Swiss & French borders) for me and Harriet to look forward to.
This title is not named after the retailing season, although it will surely be appearing in shops soon! Instead, it is an unsarcastic, unironic statement about my first week back in Saarbruecken.
As at Christmas, I made the decision to travel on the Saturday before work started again on Monday. Two main reasons for this: SNCF, and sleep! SNCF because it's a Sunday, and their service is sometimes a little sketchy on Sunday, even if they had to decided not to partake in a mouvement social (a strike to you and I), and despite the fact that the majority of my journey is spent on my laurels reading a book, listening to my MP3 player, or simply admiring the view (albeit at 270 km/h), travelling halfway across Europe (well, through France anyway) can take it out of you - so I travel on Saturday so that I can catch up on a little bit of train-lag before going back to work, where it's expected that I'm not still rubbing sleepy dust out of my eyes!
So, the journey started about 7.55 at Chippenham railway station, where it was a very nice day, and I had far too many layers on (simply to save me having to put them in the already bulging suitcase!). Now being a seasoned traveller I'd half expected the train to be late into Chippenham, but it had managed not to be. So, we left on time, and powered our way towards the only London station named after a bear who likes marmalade sandwiches. All was going tickety-boo (well clickety-clack, but you get the idea) until just outside Reading, where we seemed to stop for a while in the middle of nowhere. The Train Manager told us that there was an issue on the line in the Slough area, which was why were being held up before Reading. We eventually crawled into Reading, where the Train Manager was able to find out that the delay had been caused by someone jumping in front of a train in the Slough area, and the line was duly closed to allow a clear-up operation to begin, and then the lines were only gradually re-opened, which meant that the signalmen (and I daresay women) had to sort out the backlog. This they managed, and then we continued on our way to London, arriving a mere 45 minutes late. I would like to take this opportunity to do something which I don't do very often, and that's to have a bit of a rant!
My chosen topic this time is "People who jump in front of trains". Now, before I start I should say that I accept that suicide is not an easy decision to take, and the people who choose to end it all, are desperate and at their wits' end, and this rant is not about suicide itself, simply about the choice of someone to jump in front of a train. For this reason, I would ask people not to jump down my throat for what's about to come!
Jumping in front of a train is one of the most selfish ways of committing suicide that I can think of. On the very basic level, you will cause delays to the rail network, but let's face it the Train Companies can do that on their own without the help of someone standing in front of a train. So, all in all, the delays it causes are not my primary issue, merely an annoyance. That said, I seem to take delays better than others; one day when I was commuting to Bath, the trains had been cancelled, or severely delayed because of someone jumping in front of a train, and a lady comes down the stairs onto the paltform, and says "I hope he's dead!". I don't get that annoyed by it, instead I find an alternative way to uni. But, as I said that's not my main problem with it, my biggest issue is the effect it has on people who are innocent, and who have to deal directly with the person's suicide - people like the Train Driver, who may never be able to sleep at night again, the Police Officers of the British Transport Police who have to attend what they call 'one unders', along with the Network Rail employees who have to clear-up the line so that the trains can run again. All of these people have to deal with sights that are simply awful, and could cause untold psychological trauma. Or, in the case of Stanley Martin, the ultimate price, because someone decided to kill themselves by parking their car on the line and waiting for a train to crash into them.
Now as I said, this rant was about the effect that 'jumpers' have on others who were otherwise going about their normal daily business, and have had to deal with such horrors.
Now I've got that off my chest, I shall continue with the story! I got to St. Pancras, where I had arrived about 3 hours before my train was due to leave, so I went to a cafe and read my book with a mug of coffee in the sunshine whilst waiting for check-in to open. The Eurostar left, pucntually, and had an uninterupted journey to Paris, except for the planned stop in Lille. We arrived in Paris about half five, and as I walked to Paris Est I found somewhere to eat some tea, before meeting Esther at the station. We travelled back on the ICE together, where we also arrived on time, which is a rarity amongst the trains to/from Paris! After a short bus journey home, I was in bed by 11 o'clock!
Sunday was spent unpacking, well, rather putting away the stuff I'd already unpacked (onto the floor) and I had a private lesson in the afternoon. Otherwise, it was a quiet day, involving me pretty much catching up on a weekend of stuff I'd missed on iPlayer!
The first week back at school was full of the usual post-holiday chaos! With the ash cloud posing problems all over Europe, I was impressed that none of the teachers had been silly enough to get themselves stranded in a really hot, sunny country, instead of being shut in a room with 30 excitable children! I also rose to a certain level of fame, or the negative form thereof, because it was during this week that the English Abitur (A-Level) exam took place, on the higher tier of which all of the students in Saarland would have been told what to do by yours truly. That said, I still haven't heard it, and my ask one of my teachers if I could have a copy of it, so I can enjoy my slurring of the letter 'r' in a typically Westcountry manner!
It was this weekend in which Esther and I had originally planned on going to Munich, but time constraints let us down. It was only on the train back from Paris that we were supposed to be going then, and as nothing had been booked or organised, we shelved it, perhaps for another year! Instead, I took advantage of the fantastic weather which we've been experiencing in Saarbruecken, and spent most of the weekend by the Saar in the sun! Over the weekend there were also a couple of evening get-togethers too, in which I took part.
So, what's coming up next week? Not a lot regarding school, it's been a pretty quiet week really. There is a weekend trip to Freiburg im Breisgau (on the edge of the black forest, near the Swiss & French borders) for me and Harriet to look forward to.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Chapter 27 - Jena
Monday 15th - Friday 26th March
Astute readers of this blog will realise that this entry is for two weeks. There are two main reasons for this; 1) Not a lot really happened in the first week (what did will be explained in this entry!), and b) I'm too lazy to write two separate blog entries in one afternoon, so thought I'd include the few things that I did in the first thing with the week in Jena! Those of you with nothing better to do than read this (Hi Dad!), will also realise that, as usual, this entry is late! I could come up with some excuse about being eaten by a hungry lion rampaging through the streets of Chippenham, and having had to wait to pass through its digestive tracts before I could get on the laptop, but you might find it lacking in plausability, so I will therefore just tell the truth, I forgot about it!
So, without any further ado, let's look at what happened in the first week of this double-barrelled entry! It is, in fact, so long ago that I'm writing this with my diary beside me to try and remind me what I did! It would appear that I taught some lessons on topics as varied as: Classroom Phrases, Weather Words, Holiday Words, Corrupt MPs and their slightly dubious expenses claims, and using question words as connectives. And I did my washing and tidied my room in preparation for my trip to Jena! Saturday was spent packing, being generally lazy, accompanied with a bit more cleaning! So, that was the first week of this double barrelled entry, this one wasn't very long, (continuing the shotgun metaphor), consider it a warning shot for what is about to come!
Then we come to Sunday, which is the day of my departure from Saarbruecken. My train doesn't leave until 14.30, but being me I'm up ridiculously early, so spend the morning in bed, lolling around, and double checking I've got everything, and then double checking the double checking! The majority of the trip was made by ICE, which is just as well really, as Jena is almost as far away from Saarbruecken as it's possible to go in Germany! Now, for those of you who don't know ICE is the very Germanically named, Inter-City Express; they're sleak, white with a red stripe down them, pretty comfy and can reach speads of up to 300 km/h. They are the pride of Deutsche Bahn, and I'm sure the only reason they run them to Paris is to show the sill people at SNCF how silly their rectangular TGVs look! But, as Ronnie Corbett was famed for doing during his monologues, I appear to have digressed slightly! I got on the ICE in Saarbruecken to Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof. This journey took about 90 minutes - although we did experience delays of about quarter of an hour because of engineering works. I'd like Network Rail to note that the trains ran DESPITE the engineering works, and experienced only MINOR delays, no rail replacement was required, no-one really minded, after all it was a Sunday, no-one goes to a meeting, or work on Sunday in Germany! Anyway, in Frankfurt, I got on another ICE, this time to Weimar (more about this historical city later!).This trip took about 2.5 hours, and I'd be lying if I said I was pleased to get off, if only for the opportunity to stretch my legs properly! Before I go further than Weimar, I'd like to refer back to my description of the ICE, where I said it can reach speeds of 300 km/h. Neither of mine got anywhere near this speed - the second ICE never got above 160 km/h, which, as those who are good at maths will notice, is only 100 mph. Now I'm not one to complain (stop that sniggering) but the train I catch from Chippenham to Bath normally manages about 125 on the way, and they date from the 1970s. Needless to say I felt a little bit disappointed that DB hadn't built high-speed lines to where I wanted to go (how damned inconsiderate). Anyway, back to Weimar Hauptbahnhof! I got on a Regional Express, semi-fast stopping service, to Jena (only 2 stations away) and was picked up by Christin, my former German Assistant, at the train station. As it happens, that despite engineering works on most parts of my journey, I still reached my final destination on time, punctually, as is to be expected from Deutsche Bahn.
So, Monday morning comes around, not too early, thankfully, and I'm able to fully appreciate where I'm staying in Jena. When you look at the window of her flat, which is on the 7th floor, you see equally tall tower blocks of flats, all built in the same style - a project of the former GDR Government; that said, they do the job they were intended for, and unlike the Palast der Republik (now, thankfully, demolished) in Berlin, they're not riddled with asbestos or any other such toxin! After a leisurely breakfast, I left Christin to write some of her uni work and agreed to meet her on the train to Weimar around lunchtime. I spent the morning wandering around the city of Jena itself. Jena is a city, which has been built up around the university, which was in fact the main reason there's a city there at all! walking through the city it is possible to see the difference between the old town and the new town. Later in the week I did a walking tour of Jena, so I'll talk more about it then!
After a stroll around Jena, I made my way to the train station, and caught the train to Weimar, where I would meet Christin. The train was made up of three separate DMUs without corridors between them, so rather than try to guess which one she would have got on, it seemed to make mroe sense to just meet at the final station! We thought it would be nice to do a walking tour of Weimar, as this way you can be have some of the interesting buildings explained to you, as well as the history of the city itself. Weimar is an important city for people with all sorts of interests. Its most cultural claims to fame are that both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller lived in Weimar for a substantial part of their lives. For those of you who haven't heard of Goethe or Schiller - they are possibly the most famous literary masters from the whole of Germany, so, quite rightly, Weimar is proud to celebrate them! They also have a plaque for J.S. Bach who spent a short time in Weimar. Bringing it more up to date - thinking primarily about the immediate post World War One time, Weimar was chosen as the seat of the new Government. Why Weimar instead of Berlin? Bascially the people from Weimar weren't as troublesome and prone to protesting and rioting as their Berlin counterparts. The Theatre was chosen as the new Parliament building, and so began the foundations of democracy in Germany. Out of this new political world, came the Bauhaus movement, which was, in it's day, revolutionary. Bauhaus influenced not only architechture, but interior design, and furniture amongst other othings. Bauhaus was banned and the Bauhaus Insitute in Weimar was closed down upon Hitler's accession to power, as it was seen to be not German enough! Hitler was also keen on spending time in Weimar, despite its links to the detested Weimar Republic! So, after a very pleasant afternoon in Weimar, we headed back to Christin's flat in Jena!
So, Tuesday was the trip to Leipzig. The good thing about Jena is that it was pretty central for all the places we wanted to visit (perhaps that's why we went there!). Leipzig was about an hour's drive from Jena. Now I should say I have been to Leipzig before, but only to the train station and an italian restaurant to have some dinner, so I may have missed some of it! We started off by visiting the Panometer in Leipzig. I ought to explain the concept of a Panometer - it's basically a decomissioned Gas Store which has an exhibition inside it, but more impressively a circular 30ft high photographic quality artwork of a certain theme. The one in Leipzig is of the Rainforest, and the lighting there was done to reflect different times of day and weather conditions, and there were sound effects too; it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that if you shut your eyes you really could imagine that you were in the Amazon. You may not have really understood quite what it was by my explanation, so here's the website (unfortunately the German one only as English one doesn't seem to work at the moment!) The website does have a slideshow of some pictures of the one we visited. Click Me After spending a good two hours walking round there, we headed into Leipzig and undertook another Walking Tour. The guide was very enthusiastic about Leipzig, and full of interesting pieces of information, and stories about Leipzig. Leipzig started as a crossroads of the fur trade, and grew out of the fur industry. The station in Leipzig used to be the biggest, in terms of numbers of platforms, in the whole of Germany (now, following renovation of Leipzig - losing them two platforms, Frankfurt am Main now holds this record).
Following a nice afternoon in Leipzig we headed over to Altenburg where Christin had her dance training in advance of her competition at the weekend. After that, we went on to her parents' house in Goesnitz, where we would spend the night.
On Wednesday, Christin's Dad, Dieter, took me for a walk around Goesnitz, which is a relatively small town (about the size of Corsham for those of you from my neck of the woods). It also has the longest station platform in Germany, and is a changing point for several different trains. The afternoon saw our return to Jena, where Christin had Private Tuition in the afternoon. While she did some more of her uni essay, I did the walking tour of Jena, which told me more about the history of Jena. Jena developped out of the foundation of the university, the city was quite badly destroyed by the allied bombing during World War Two. The city was generally rebuilt in the post war, GDR era including a shiny glass tower in the middle of they city built in the 1970s, which complements the less aesthetically pleasing tower blocks built on the outskirts. After the tour, I went to Christin's Private Tuition where I helped a bit. In the evening, after having something to eat, we went back to Christin's Parents' in preparation for our trip to Dresden on the following day!
So, as I said previously (one sentence previously in fact!), Wednesday saw our trip to Dresden. Christin's Dad accompanied us on this trip. We did a double decker bus trip of the city; for two main reasons, primarily because it saved us having to drive around it in a car, and it told us more about the places in Dresden than we would have been able to find out from just driving around. Following the 90 minutes we spent on the bus, we then went on a walking tour which lasted about another 90 minutes. The walking tour took us around the Zwinger, the Opera House, and the Parade of Saxon emperors. Following the guided tours, Christin's Dad and I went for a walk by the river, and looked at the Frauenkirche, which was severely bombed out by the allies in the Valentine's Day raid of 1945. It was left as rubble by the GDR as a monument to comemorate the people killed in the bombing raid. There was another reason for this; the Government didn't have enough money to replace it. Following the fall of the East German Government it was decided that it would be rebuilt. It was rebuilt using a lot of the rubble from the original cathedral. They used a complicated computer programme to work out where the blocks came from on the original Cathedral, and replaced them in their original places. You can see this in my pictures, for which I'll post the link later! After a very nice day in Dresden, we went back to Christin's Parents' and I made sure I'd packed everything I needed for the flight back to the UK on the following day.
So Friday arrived, and was my last day in the Federal Republic before the Easter holidays. I was to fly back from Altenburg with Ryanair. I will comment on Ryanair later, but first let me describe Altenburg airport. To put it into context, Saarbruecken has 4 gates; A-D, Altenburg has 1, not called A, or 1; instead simply called The Gate (except in German, obviously!). The taxiway to the runway seemed to be poorly laid concrete slabs, slightly uneven, and in need of a little bit more cement in places! This stems from the days when Altenburg was a Soviet Airbase, which was closed off to the population from the area. Now back to Ryanair! Now I'd heard horror stories about Ryanair, mainly from the press, and watching Rhod Gilbert too much! That said, they met all three of the compulsory conditions which I require from an airline; 1) They took off [on time], 2) the plane stayed in the air, 3) the plane landed [in the right place], and what's more my luggage arrived in Stansted at the same time as me! So, I can't really fault them.
From Stansted, I caught an Easybus, which is an orange minibus, which cost me more to pay by credit card, than for the ticket itself! The journey took me to Baker Street, from where I went to Paddington and left my luggage in the left luggage office. From there I went to the British Museum, because it was open until late, and free, and then about half seven I returned to Paddington, collected my case, got some food, and then boarded the First Great Western train to Chippenham, and by 22.00 I was back in Chippenham, and 15 minutes later I was at home!
So, as I promised, here's the link for my photos from this trip. Click me. There will be another blog entry next week about my relatively painless journey back to Saarbruecken, and my first week back at school! See you soon!
Astute readers of this blog will realise that this entry is for two weeks. There are two main reasons for this; 1) Not a lot really happened in the first week (what did will be explained in this entry!), and b) I'm too lazy to write two separate blog entries in one afternoon, so thought I'd include the few things that I did in the first thing with the week in Jena! Those of you with nothing better to do than read this (Hi Dad!), will also realise that, as usual, this entry is late! I could come up with some excuse about being eaten by a hungry lion rampaging through the streets of Chippenham, and having had to wait to pass through its digestive tracts before I could get on the laptop, but you might find it lacking in plausability, so I will therefore just tell the truth, I forgot about it!
So, without any further ado, let's look at what happened in the first week of this double-barrelled entry! It is, in fact, so long ago that I'm writing this with my diary beside me to try and remind me what I did! It would appear that I taught some lessons on topics as varied as: Classroom Phrases, Weather Words, Holiday Words, Corrupt MPs and their slightly dubious expenses claims, and using question words as connectives. And I did my washing and tidied my room in preparation for my trip to Jena! Saturday was spent packing, being generally lazy, accompanied with a bit more cleaning! So, that was the first week of this double barrelled entry, this one wasn't very long, (continuing the shotgun metaphor), consider it a warning shot for what is about to come!
Then we come to Sunday, which is the day of my departure from Saarbruecken. My train doesn't leave until 14.30, but being me I'm up ridiculously early, so spend the morning in bed, lolling around, and double checking I've got everything, and then double checking the double checking! The majority of the trip was made by ICE, which is just as well really, as Jena is almost as far away from Saarbruecken as it's possible to go in Germany! Now, for those of you who don't know ICE is the very Germanically named, Inter-City Express; they're sleak, white with a red stripe down them, pretty comfy and can reach speads of up to 300 km/h. They are the pride of Deutsche Bahn, and I'm sure the only reason they run them to Paris is to show the sill people at SNCF how silly their rectangular TGVs look! But, as Ronnie Corbett was famed for doing during his monologues, I appear to have digressed slightly! I got on the ICE in Saarbruecken to Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof. This journey took about 90 minutes - although we did experience delays of about quarter of an hour because of engineering works. I'd like Network Rail to note that the trains ran DESPITE the engineering works, and experienced only MINOR delays, no rail replacement was required, no-one really minded, after all it was a Sunday, no-one goes to a meeting, or work on Sunday in Germany! Anyway, in Frankfurt, I got on another ICE, this time to Weimar (more about this historical city later!).This trip took about 2.5 hours, and I'd be lying if I said I was pleased to get off, if only for the opportunity to stretch my legs properly! Before I go further than Weimar, I'd like to refer back to my description of the ICE, where I said it can reach speeds of 300 km/h. Neither of mine got anywhere near this speed - the second ICE never got above 160 km/h, which, as those who are good at maths will notice, is only 100 mph. Now I'm not one to complain (stop that sniggering) but the train I catch from Chippenham to Bath normally manages about 125 on the way, and they date from the 1970s. Needless to say I felt a little bit disappointed that DB hadn't built high-speed lines to where I wanted to go (how damned inconsiderate). Anyway, back to Weimar Hauptbahnhof! I got on a Regional Express, semi-fast stopping service, to Jena (only 2 stations away) and was picked up by Christin, my former German Assistant, at the train station. As it happens, that despite engineering works on most parts of my journey, I still reached my final destination on time, punctually, as is to be expected from Deutsche Bahn.
So, Monday morning comes around, not too early, thankfully, and I'm able to fully appreciate where I'm staying in Jena. When you look at the window of her flat, which is on the 7th floor, you see equally tall tower blocks of flats, all built in the same style - a project of the former GDR Government; that said, they do the job they were intended for, and unlike the Palast der Republik (now, thankfully, demolished) in Berlin, they're not riddled with asbestos or any other such toxin! After a leisurely breakfast, I left Christin to write some of her uni work and agreed to meet her on the train to Weimar around lunchtime. I spent the morning wandering around the city of Jena itself. Jena is a city, which has been built up around the university, which was in fact the main reason there's a city there at all! walking through the city it is possible to see the difference between the old town and the new town. Later in the week I did a walking tour of Jena, so I'll talk more about it then!
After a stroll around Jena, I made my way to the train station, and caught the train to Weimar, where I would meet Christin. The train was made up of three separate DMUs without corridors between them, so rather than try to guess which one she would have got on, it seemed to make mroe sense to just meet at the final station! We thought it would be nice to do a walking tour of Weimar, as this way you can be have some of the interesting buildings explained to you, as well as the history of the city itself. Weimar is an important city for people with all sorts of interests. Its most cultural claims to fame are that both Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller lived in Weimar for a substantial part of their lives. For those of you who haven't heard of Goethe or Schiller - they are possibly the most famous literary masters from the whole of Germany, so, quite rightly, Weimar is proud to celebrate them! They also have a plaque for J.S. Bach who spent a short time in Weimar. Bringing it more up to date - thinking primarily about the immediate post World War One time, Weimar was chosen as the seat of the new Government. Why Weimar instead of Berlin? Bascially the people from Weimar weren't as troublesome and prone to protesting and rioting as their Berlin counterparts. The Theatre was chosen as the new Parliament building, and so began the foundations of democracy in Germany. Out of this new political world, came the Bauhaus movement, which was, in it's day, revolutionary. Bauhaus influenced not only architechture, but interior design, and furniture amongst other othings. Bauhaus was banned and the Bauhaus Insitute in Weimar was closed down upon Hitler's accession to power, as it was seen to be not German enough! Hitler was also keen on spending time in Weimar, despite its links to the detested Weimar Republic! So, after a very pleasant afternoon in Weimar, we headed back to Christin's flat in Jena!
So, Tuesday was the trip to Leipzig. The good thing about Jena is that it was pretty central for all the places we wanted to visit (perhaps that's why we went there!). Leipzig was about an hour's drive from Jena. Now I should say I have been to Leipzig before, but only to the train station and an italian restaurant to have some dinner, so I may have missed some of it! We started off by visiting the Panometer in Leipzig. I ought to explain the concept of a Panometer - it's basically a decomissioned Gas Store which has an exhibition inside it, but more impressively a circular 30ft high photographic quality artwork of a certain theme. The one in Leipzig is of the Rainforest, and the lighting there was done to reflect different times of day and weather conditions, and there were sound effects too; it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that if you shut your eyes you really could imagine that you were in the Amazon. You may not have really understood quite what it was by my explanation, so here's the website (unfortunately the German one only as English one doesn't seem to work at the moment!) The website does have a slideshow of some pictures of the one we visited. Click Me After spending a good two hours walking round there, we headed into Leipzig and undertook another Walking Tour. The guide was very enthusiastic about Leipzig, and full of interesting pieces of information, and stories about Leipzig. Leipzig started as a crossroads of the fur trade, and grew out of the fur industry. The station in Leipzig used to be the biggest, in terms of numbers of platforms, in the whole of Germany (now, following renovation of Leipzig - losing them two platforms, Frankfurt am Main now holds this record).
Following a nice afternoon in Leipzig we headed over to Altenburg where Christin had her dance training in advance of her competition at the weekend. After that, we went on to her parents' house in Goesnitz, where we would spend the night.
On Wednesday, Christin's Dad, Dieter, took me for a walk around Goesnitz, which is a relatively small town (about the size of Corsham for those of you from my neck of the woods). It also has the longest station platform in Germany, and is a changing point for several different trains. The afternoon saw our return to Jena, where Christin had Private Tuition in the afternoon. While she did some more of her uni essay, I did the walking tour of Jena, which told me more about the history of Jena. Jena developped out of the foundation of the university, the city was quite badly destroyed by the allied bombing during World War Two. The city was generally rebuilt in the post war, GDR era including a shiny glass tower in the middle of they city built in the 1970s, which complements the less aesthetically pleasing tower blocks built on the outskirts. After the tour, I went to Christin's Private Tuition where I helped a bit. In the evening, after having something to eat, we went back to Christin's Parents' in preparation for our trip to Dresden on the following day!
So, as I said previously (one sentence previously in fact!), Wednesday saw our trip to Dresden. Christin's Dad accompanied us on this trip. We did a double decker bus trip of the city; for two main reasons, primarily because it saved us having to drive around it in a car, and it told us more about the places in Dresden than we would have been able to find out from just driving around. Following the 90 minutes we spent on the bus, we then went on a walking tour which lasted about another 90 minutes. The walking tour took us around the Zwinger, the Opera House, and the Parade of Saxon emperors. Following the guided tours, Christin's Dad and I went for a walk by the river, and looked at the Frauenkirche, which was severely bombed out by the allies in the Valentine's Day raid of 1945. It was left as rubble by the GDR as a monument to comemorate the people killed in the bombing raid. There was another reason for this; the Government didn't have enough money to replace it. Following the fall of the East German Government it was decided that it would be rebuilt. It was rebuilt using a lot of the rubble from the original cathedral. They used a complicated computer programme to work out where the blocks came from on the original Cathedral, and replaced them in their original places. You can see this in my pictures, for which I'll post the link later! After a very nice day in Dresden, we went back to Christin's Parents' and I made sure I'd packed everything I needed for the flight back to the UK on the following day.
So Friday arrived, and was my last day in the Federal Republic before the Easter holidays. I was to fly back from Altenburg with Ryanair. I will comment on Ryanair later, but first let me describe Altenburg airport. To put it into context, Saarbruecken has 4 gates; A-D, Altenburg has 1, not called A, or 1; instead simply called The Gate (except in German, obviously!). The taxiway to the runway seemed to be poorly laid concrete slabs, slightly uneven, and in need of a little bit more cement in places! This stems from the days when Altenburg was a Soviet Airbase, which was closed off to the population from the area. Now back to Ryanair! Now I'd heard horror stories about Ryanair, mainly from the press, and watching Rhod Gilbert too much! That said, they met all three of the compulsory conditions which I require from an airline; 1) They took off [on time], 2) the plane stayed in the air, 3) the plane landed [in the right place], and what's more my luggage arrived in Stansted at the same time as me! So, I can't really fault them.
From Stansted, I caught an Easybus, which is an orange minibus, which cost me more to pay by credit card, than for the ticket itself! The journey took me to Baker Street, from where I went to Paddington and left my luggage in the left luggage office. From there I went to the British Museum, because it was open until late, and free, and then about half seven I returned to Paddington, collected my case, got some food, and then boarded the First Great Western train to Chippenham, and by 22.00 I was back in Chippenham, and 15 minutes later I was at home!
So, as I promised, here's the link for my photos from this trip. Click me. There will be another blog entry next week about my relatively painless journey back to Saarbruecken, and my first week back at school! See you soon!
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