Spätestens jetzt sollte der Ärger über den verpatzten Sommer verflogen sein. Denn dieser Herbst ist und bleibt einfach schön! Der Donnerstag beginnt wieder mit teilweise dichtem Nebel. Nachdem er sich aufgelöst hat, gibt es in ganz Deutschland nur noch eins: Sonne!
In terms of adapting to the culture, I do not think this was particularly difficult. Germany and England are very similar. The major differences are arbitrary. You quickly learn to do food shopping on Saturday as all shops are closed on Sunday. You also learn to close your windows on Saturday nights because German church bells go off the decibel scale. There really isn't much to adapt to, but lots to embrace. Germany has a fantastic festival culture, with warm and friendly locals, with 'Masse Bier' and .5l glasses of wine to lubricate the conversation. I have not encountered German family culture, but I will be going to a German friends home to meet her family which I am very excited for. I would go sooner but I would like to learn some more German before I go!
I have found moving to Germany much harder than I ever expected. I cant help but feel like I have a cloud of bad luck following me in this city. After I was attacked early on, all I wanted to do was start running and not look back, fortunately as I am flat footed I’m prone to blisters so this wasn’t a real option. I bought a bike because I thought I’d make much better time on my escape, but then that was stolen, so I guess I’m going to have live here after all. Although I think I am still under the cloud the people that I have met and the quality of the modules more than out weighs the bad luck. Although Mannheim would never make it into the Most Beautiful Places in German 1000 list, the surrounding area is beautiful, and it is not difficult to escape every once in a while, and I have had to rely on this so that my brain hasn't popped. It has been difficult here, but it would have been no fun if it was easy... and my confidence probably needed moving down a notch too. 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da life goes on.'.
There doesn’t seem to be a German word for registration, I realise this is against all stereotypes of German people. 'Registration' here means, go to the first lecture of the module and hope that there is enough seats to fit you in. Quite often there wasn’t. There was one module where I had to refuse to move from the floor so that I could take the module, thankfully I can now report I have a seat. The only other problem was that I failed to get a place on a module that I would have like to have taken, but this was my fault as I mixed up the times for the first lecture and after talking to the lecturer I learnt that the module was now fully booked. With this I am now taking 29 ETCS credit this term, so I will have to take at least 31 ETCS credits next term, but this should not be a problem. Registration has been exhausting and often frustrating. Information on modules is not localised so you have to really sit down and spend a lot of careful time researching times and dates, and locations. The timetable and portal here just doesn’t work. Often lectures have give us there own personal websites, so in addition to you morning routine you have to check a) all the lectures websites b) the portal c) emails d) the 'cancelled lectures' list. Its not the best way to start a days studying. As in all universities, your timetable can get very complicated, but when you have to organise, or create your own timetable system, with no way of automatically updating changes, its gets very tiresome and you have to expect that some times you are going to just miss something.
But a building is just brick and mortor, and a few bags of rubbish. It people that make the experiances and my flatmates are lovely. Most of them are from Spain, but they try very hard to speak english which im very greatful for. There are also lads from Japan, Canada, and a few from Scandanavia, everyone is fantastically friendly, and so is everyone else that i have met, and i feel like i have met hundreds of people so far! Anyway, im off to clean the kitchen...
My arrival to the accommodation was not the best experience in the world. The entrance was dimly lit, papers were strung across the floor and the walls looked like they needed re-building. The stairwell is even more scantly lit and frankly smelt a bit. My room is boxy and bare as you expect a student accommodation room to be, however with only lino on the floor and the 2 inch thick mattress made from hard foam and a sink in the corner it all makes for a prison-cell like feel. The only redeeming feature of the room is a large window which opens wide.
Next I went to the kitchen. My first sight was a 3ft high pile of rubbish bags in various states of decomposition, an squadron of flies guarding it and smell which was so strong I was surprised that the flies were surviving at all. There are 8 hobs and 2 ovens, two fridges and one freezer. This was not too bad until I opened the fridges and the oven (I still cant decide which is worse). The fridge space is minimal considering i'm sharing with 11 others; freezer space is non-existent.
Other notable items are a lovely games room, which I have been told is permanently locked and the actual town prison; 250m away, which I hope is also permanently locked. However things can be worse, the student accommodation block next to mine (about 50m away) is having one floor disinfected due to an 'increase in cases of Legionnaires Disease'. A verification of the phrase, 'things could be much worse'.
