Anyone got any recommendations of German music I should be listening to?

I’ll be shouting for Deutschland in half an hour! Come on my German babes, Italy are out and you’re my only hope!

Don’t get me wrong. I adore Wales – I love how we’re never in the World Cup so everyone supports ‘Anyone But England’, I’m loving the weather right now and I especially love occasionally hearing a bit of Welsh while walking through Cardiff town centre… but my goodness, I miss Germany terribly. Family and friends time has been great, but I’m really feeling a bit of the old Heimweh* right now.

Part of it may be that I’m being a little bit lazy now I’m at home and have far too much time to overthink things. Perhaps it’s also a case of reality hitting me, hard, since I’ve arrived back in Wales. A lot of people I started Swansea University with are leaving and heading either to their respective home towns or to completely different places where they’ll embark on their ‘grown up’ life. It’s made me realise that I need to make some decisions about where I want to be this time next year, whereas this time last year I knew that I’d be in Germany in a few months.

What a depressing post this is turning out to be!! Any of you just back from a Year Abroad and feeling the effects?

*That would be homesickness. Even though Germany’s not my mother country, I feel that’s an appropriate word.

Right now I’m adjusting to the language change around me; clearly not as difficult a task as I’m switching to my native English instead of to the really-not-native German, but I’m still saying ‘Danke’, ‘bitte’ and ‘Hallo!’ to anyone I interact with. It’s weird to hear English all around me! Not to mention that I keep expecting to see my  favourite bakery haunts and Bratwursts on offer in the train station. When I picked up my train tickets, I searched for the option to print my journey itinerary and of course found none, because I’m not dealing with Deutsche Bahn anymore! No instances of anyone noticing my newly acquired German stare… yet.

Now I’ve been home just under a week, it’s crazy how quickly you can settle into your old routine. As for what’s in store for me this Summer, well that  mostly depends on whether or not I’ll get a job! For now I’m enjoying the gorgeous weather and looking forward to Swansea on Sunday. It feels good to be back.

I can’t quite believe that this week is my last. This time next week I’ll be back in Wales, in fact, at this exact time next week I’ll be at training! While I’m excited to be back in the U.K, leaving Germany will be difficult. I love Germany, I love Germans and their orderly, staring, beer-drinking ways. Germany feels like a second home to me, and I’ll miss Dortmund terribly.

But I’ve said enough about how much I’ll miss Germany – I just wanted to share the fact that my parents are now, for all intents and purposes, GERMAN. They travelled to Cologne for a mini city break and to basically take half of my things home. So, this meant I exchanged my very full suitcase for their very empty one… except they forgot that their passports were in the back pocket. HOW SILLY. I got a text this morning (because my Mum tried to ring me several times and just got answered by a German man, this is what happens when you forget to put the dial code in) and sent over their passport numbers, and after much toing and froing around Cologne airport on their part, they succeeded in getting back to the U.K!

I really really hope this doesn’t happen to me next week! Note to self : CHECK FOR PASSPORT EVERY FIVE MINUTES!

Well, well, well, look what just turned up on Spiegel.de’s international section :

The Germanic Stare-Down : Whatcha Lookin’ at Granny?

You jump into the subway on your way to work in the morning and plop down in the nearest seat. Glancing up from the morning paper, you can’t help but notice that the person across from you is staring at you for all he’s worth. You break the gaze, but each time you look back, he’s still staring. Is it a challenge? A come-on? Do you have food on your face? You look away, but can’t help squirming.

Welcome to Germany, the land where a bit of intense eye contact is a daily occurrence — so much so that many expats and visitors have dubbed it the “Germanic Stare Down.

This article offers some interesting explanations for the stare, such as Germany’s past concerning the Staatssicherheit, more commonly known as Stasi. For those not in the know, the Stasi were the secret police of the GDR (East Germany) and were highly efficient in their spying methods, from wiring houses to even coercing civilians into becoming unofficial spies, sometimes having them gather information on their own family. Though I wouldn’t say that this was the case in NRW, being in the West of Germany.

I’ve come to love the German Stare anyway. My tactic is to stare back, though I’ve seen the old grin, wave and ‘HIYAAA’ employed to great effect. The article suggests the old ‘take a photo, it’d last longer’ route – when I first visited Augsburg, we challenged one another to actually do this auf  Deutsch. So : ‘Mach ein Foto, es wird laenger dauern’!’

I wonder if I’m more of a Starey Marey after nine months in Deutschland?

The abundance of May public holidays aren’t all that I’ll miss in Germany; it’s odd having built a life here and having to leave it. My (now daily now there’s one at the end of my road) trips to Rewe, Backwerk (bakery) and the Kiosks (especially on Sundays when everything except the Kiosks are closed!) shall be sorely missed, not to mention all the German acquaintances I’ve made, from my housemates, to the teachers to the students at school. I’ll truly miss Team Fabelhaft – a group of people who so often reduce me to tears of laughter – so they can all expect visits when we return to the U.K.

So much has changed since I set off to Cologne at the end of August ‘09 – some changes have been beneficial, others have been regretful, but I wouldn’t change this year abroad for the world. In fact, I’d love to do it all over again.  There’s a scheme in Nordrhein Westfalen which involves native speakers being on payroll as teachers in schools here for contracts lasting a year. So you never know, after I finish my degree I could be back in good old NRW again…

Not to mention that slang differs between regions – think about what you called the shoes you used for sports in primary school, either like the ones above or those black ones with the elastic in the front. If you asked me what they were called, I’d say daps. Ask someone from England, they’re plimsolls. Then go across the Atlantic and ask an American and they’ll say something different again!

Germany’s no different. Thankfully I haven’t encountered many problems in the way of difficult dialects, but I’ve heard tales from other year abroaders who’ve struggled with Schwäbisch (you’ll hear this in Baden-Würtennberg) or Bayerisch (Bavaria).

For example:  order a Bratwurst here in Dortmund and you’re wanting a ‘Bratwurst mit Brötchen’ – head to Bavaria and you’re wanting a ‘Bratwurst mit Semmel’ . Ever heard the story about how John F Kennedy once called himself a doughnut when giving a speech in West Berlin? It’s a long- standing urban myth that the oft quoted ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ actually means ‘I am a doughnut’ because of a grammatical error. Perhaps in Nordrhein-Westfalen, but not so in Berlin, where Berliners are called Pfannkuchen. The differences are even more noticeable when you compare Austrian German with Germany’s German. Heuer instead of dieses Jahr (this year), Grüß Gott instead of Guten Tag… it’s enough to make your head spin!

These kinds of linguistic differences with regards to slang are what make studying a language both difficult and interesting at the same time. Language is constantly changing, you’re never going to be aware of all the colloquialisms of your own language, let alone those from other languages!

Monday we received a letter saying that they had found an old bomb from World War 2 in the park opposite our house, and therefore they had to evacuate the surrounding areas while they removed it. I’ve kept the letter for ‘OH LOOK I HAD TO BE EVACUATED’ sakes!

Slightly annoying – I was ill off school on Tuesday and didn’t particularly want to leave my bed… managed to leave before the police arrived to tell me to go, but I saw an army of Stadt Dortmund’s Ordnungsamt people piling out of the U-Bahn – a sea of navy blue uniforms and red berets, what a sight. Everything in the area was pretty much on lockdown, including the Biergarten in Westpark and the supermarket nearby – not the U-Bahn though thank goodness, so Ciaran and myself went for a cheeky bit to eat (Bratwurst for me, Kebab for Ciaran!).

Not nearly as eventful as I’d hoped really. My flat was still there when I arrived home, so that was a bonus.

I’ve been ill this week, so that’s why I’ve been lacking on the posting front, been feeling a little bit too sorry for myself really! Also can’t believe that I’m in my last four weeks here in Germany. Going to miss it so much, but I’m looking forward to getting back home. Been thinking a lot about the lack of Karate in my life, and I want it back. Imagine not sewing for a year for various reasons, and I’m sure many of you would be feeling how I am! On the one hand I’m really looking forward to getting back, but on the other I’m terrified of how crap I’m going to be! The only way I’ll get better is by training though, so that won’t stop me.

I had a last ditch attempt at finding somewhere to train two weeks ago, did a trial at a Wing Chun club; it wasn’t too bad! Very very different from what I’ve done previously, but unfortunately not worth what they wanted to charge me. It’s 59 Euros a month to train there, but on top of that you have to pay a membership/insurance charge which ranged in the 100s somewhere. Obviously I was only going to be there for about a month and a half, so they cut me a deal in which they’d charge me a lump sum of 130 Euros for everything – twice a week training plus insurance and that. Let’s put this into context. I pay £25 a month for 3/4 times a week training at Karate, and I’m fairly certain the insurance doesn’t come anywhere near £50, let alone £100. So you can see why I was reluctant! Also another of the guys training there really wound me up. He would laugh at me whenever I’d make a mistake, misunderstand something or whatever, which certainly isn’t conductive to making me want to stay and train there.

Phew! Excuse the rant!