Working my way... somewhere

I have my own office. I have my own office. I feel slightly ashamed of the fact that the thing that is the most exciting for me about this new job is a white and grey room of about sixteen square metres. I guess it's the thrill of feeling like I have power over something, after years of being at the bottom of whatever ladder I happened to be on, even if it is just which pictures I have on the wall.

Today I bought two plants (my power is ever-increasing- who knows what I will do next... first pictures, now plants, next the world!) and they are making this space seem a tiny little bit less corporate. I look at them and feel the rising panic dim.

It turns out that having responsibilty is slighty queasy-making, even if your boss is very relaxed and there's really no-one to check up on you. At any time there are five or six things I should be doing running through my head and it's going to take a while before that feels like normal background noise.

A normal day for me seems to be: I come into the office, say hello to the walls, sit down and check my email. Halfway through doing that I realise I need to check something from one of my classes, get up to find it, notice a job I didn't finish from yesterday sticking out of the large piles of paper on my desk, pick it up, go to the photocopier to copy something, get back at my desk, check to find an email I should answer, get up to answer the bell, speak to a confused German about something I have no idea about, tell them I'll do something about it, sit down again and realise I don't know where the document I just picked up is, get up to look for it, find it, look at my watch to realise I have a class in an hour and should prepare, get a phone call about a translation and have no idea where my boss is or when he'll be back, sit down to my desk, get a call from my boss who is in the office next door (since when?), discuss something fruitlessly with him for half an hour, scrape something together for my class and then arrive with thirty seconds to spare realising I've forgotten my folder and my presentation cards and have to make up a lesson on the spot.

But as you can tell, I'm coping with the chaos quite well. It'll only be a matter of time before I manage to get at least one thing done each day.

Kiel is somewhere

Well my first month of being an acting Director of Studies is almost over and it hasn't gone too badly. This is mainly because I've only been teaching about ten hours a week, which makes it a lot easier to do other things like hire new people, reorganise the library and throw away about four years of accumulated paperwork and dead plants. The two people I interviewed on the phone appear not be axe-murders, drug addicts or maniacs of any other kind. This is hopeful.

It could all go pear-shaped very quickly, however, because the secretary has gone on holidays and I have always suspected she ran the school. Unfortunately she is not being replaced so our customers will have to deal with my boss, who's often teaching, or me, who knows nothing. This is in the fine tradition of temporary staff, who inevitably can't help you with what you need, don't know what you're talking about and will have to refer you to X, who is on holiday.

This weekend I'm in Berlin- as usual I love it, love it, love it- and on the train on the way here I gave myself a treat and bought an English paper. I was enjoying understanding more than headlines and keywords when I came across an article that stopped me in my tracks. It was about a German/Turkish writer who has done very well and was doing a book reading in Berlin. Not so thrilling? But wait. I start reading the article about what it was like for him, being the son of Turkish immigrants in Germany, and how in his home town of Kiel... what?! I almost fell off my plush inter-city train seat. The man is from Kiel? And is now famous? And rich? Hurrah! I left the train with the sense of arriving in one literary capital after leaving another. I knew there was more to Kiel than the suit-wearing, seasonal-vegetable eating, non-jay-walking crowd I know and love.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/27/news/author.php

I'll have some torshy thanks

Apparently torshy is another word for pickles in Arabic. Who knew. And how did we survive wihout Wikipedia?

The end of a rather small era

Can you tell we're in northern Europe...?


Too cool for school (not me)




Last week I officially finished my short teaching job at the vocational school and it was very sad. Things I'll miss: students who are younger than me and who I could make blush, the very polite secretaries, calling myself Frau T*rsh, shaking hands with everyone in the mornings, working at a big school and being able to play games in class. Things I won't miss: being eyed by every male student as I walked down the corridors, having to trek upstairs to get the damn dictionaries and then to put them back again, having to remember all my colleagues by both names, watching my favorite students get paid out by their mates for stuffing up their English and being called Frau T*rsh by everyone else.

Summertime I get around

Summer in Kiel.

It is thirty degrees- that's why Germany lost the match, according to one commentator. It was the same excuse the lady at the bank gave me as to why the printer wasn't working- too hot. The queues at the ice-cream shop are enormous and rising by the day, it opens at eleven and as I rode past this morning there were forty people standing outside it at twenty to. And three groups of teenagers making their way towards it, I heard one yell to the other group, the ice-cream shop is closed! Groans from everyone.

I am the only person in Kiel wearing a hat, apart from Arianne, another Aussie friend of Simon's, and a punk wearing a cap, probably for the freak value. Road workers turn and stare, children point. I ride on, knowing I won't get skin cancer.

The gummy bears Arianne bought are melting, the posters are falling off the walls at work, the chocolate in the stores is mush. Not many companies are air-conditioned, this morning I went to the bank I teach at and the student's office was heating only, no cooling. The only shops which have cold drinks are some major supermarkets and the petrol stations.

Today I have bought a singlet in Germany for the first time ever, and a natty pair of knickerbockers. It is hot.

Berlin! Berlin!

Oh thank god, the Germans won. The national mood has never been this good, and I don't have to listen to all my students complaining all week. Hurray!

A thousand words

Paul and Alex in Hamburg watching a game.



Schanzenviertel, Hamburg, World Cup fever



Some crazy fans after the Australian: Japan game.



Paul and I being tourists in front of the Town Hall in Hamburg.



Paul stuck in a revolving door.



The coolest siblings in the world.



The helpful notice at the railway stations in Hamburg and Kiel... and the reason I have a job.

The Kiel Week poisoning

I can't wait until the Kiel Week has been the refrain from every single person I have met in Kiel so far, oh you'll love the Kiel Week they said, irritatingly adding an uneccesary definite article wantonly, even the English speakers (I have even caught myself doing it), it's great, it's international, it's the only time of the year when the city is really full of life and there's lots happening.

Ha. So on Friday night I go to the International Market at the Town Hall Square, which boasted many admittedly quite cool stands from countries like Finnland, the Czech Republic, Mexico and so on, but which also has an Australian stand which sold Fosters, barbeques prawns on a stick, strawberries and cream and some little sandwiches which looked decidedly Danish to me. Oh, and Akubras and Blunstone boots, as well as many hilarious road signs like beware crocodile, world's best nan and so on. And I bought a crepe, my second of the week actually, and I'm pretty sure it made me sick. My feeling has been confirmed by all the people who have said, oh yeah that often happens, by the way we forgot to tell you don't eat anything at the Kiel Week. Especially near the end. Ha.

The upshot of all this whinging is that I got to watch Australia lose, lying on my coayh feeling like I was going to vomit. Strangely though, I feel kind of relieved (not about wanting to vomit). Being ardently nationalistic felt a little like watching myself through glass, it just didn't feel right. Especially when the last game I watched was with a bunch of other Aussie screaming abuse at the screen everytime anything didn't go their way. It was a bit of an eye-opener. Sure, I'm more sypathetic to sports fans now, but I'm still pretty sure I don't want to be one. Not more than once every four years anyway.

It's actually a week of goodbyes this week. Patricia left yesterday for a new job in Munich and Mat's leaving on Thursday. It's terribly sad. I can't quite believe I've been here with him for just under a year. I look back on my first weeks here and it seems like a million years away.


Mat and I went on a last bike ride and found this cool pond in the middle of a big park not twenty minutes from here. There were hundreds of people jogging (alright, maybe twenty), people riding horses and the sound of aircraft overhead but it was still nice and peaceful. I just hope I can keep my adventuring spirit alive when he's gone.

What a lovely way to burn

I got yelled at for crossing on the red today. A nasty old man called me the equivalent of a bloody idiot as I was rushing across the road to grab Paul from a bus as he got off at the main train station. He was about to leave after hanging out with me for a week, I hadn't slept well, it was hot and sticky, Australia lost against Brazil, it was a highly emotional moment and I was not in the mood in the slightest. I told the grumpy old bastard I didn't understand and I was sorry (why do I persist in this annoying anglo habit. I'm not bloody sorry and I'd do it again) and he cut me off and called me nasty names. So I snapped thank you in German in an extremely pissed off voice and he was so surpised he shut up. Honestly. Although it's kind of lame that even when I'm being rude it's just saying a nice word in a nasty way.

Awwww it was nice to have my little brother here for a week. Despite the unseasonal heatwave, the lack of privacy and the craziness of the World Cup and Kiel Week and the resulting sleeplessness, it was lovely. I only wish we could have done more together. Next time.

I have finally made a decision and agreed to the job at my dodgy company and thrown caution to the winds. Who needs it. Especially when I can always bludge off Simon who looks like he has a lot of work up his sleeve, while I won't have much for another two months. Which is great, because it's finally really summer here and all I feel like doing is lying around, possibly trying to do some exercise and enjoying a little time for me. Maybe I'll think about doing some cheap travelling. All I want now is to sleep for a week but unfortunately I still have some work to do this week, along with a few very important games to watch, and of course some time consuming large amounts of beer, bread and (sigh) cheese.

Summer breeze

Did I mention that it's finally summer in north Germany? Yesterday was the first day you could go swimming in the pool in Hamburg, and Kiel too, and last week I didn't see the darkness for seven days straight- it's just light all the time. The twillight goes for about an hour and begins at ten. Everyone says it could last a week, it could last for only days, so I should enjoy it. But the weirdest thing is how much it reminds me of home, without all the insects, and how much Germany doesn't seem that different when you don't have to put on ten layers of clothing and you can walk around in thongs. The biggest difference is how mad everyone goes when the sun comes out, which I now completely understand, and how everyone wants to be brown so wears their bikins at the park. Oh, and how when you say, but skin cancer...? everyone looks at you as though you are out of your mind. Which is fair enough.

Fever

I have to say it- I'm enjoying the soccer. I went overseas to try to escape the sport-mad, ignore everything else vibe that we've got going and I end up screaming and pumping my fist in the air when Australia comes back from the dead with three goals in the last eight minutes. Call it the German disease, call it homesickness, I can't resist. It's just too damn exciting.

The game yesterday was just fantastic- I'd just met up with Paul and Alex and was pretty wound-up about seeing them and then the game looked like it was going to be all over for Australia. Actually, up until then I hadn't really cared much either way, and was sure the Aussies were going to lose, but then my students made a few smart remarks about losers and for some reason I got a little defensive... I didn't say anything of course but I have to admit that when Australia won a little voice in my head said: hah!

We were sitting in a tent in a big park in Hamburg with about eight die-hard German men sitting behind us, who were thrilled whenever anything was happening, and who I think were more annoyed with us than anything else when we spent most of the game chatting. Martin, my cousin, was biting his knuckles in frustration (in a show of family loyalty he was supporting Australia) and when the first goal got through he was devestated. It all looked pretty bleak.

But then, just as the coverage was starting to show footage of the Australian crowd looking utterly unimpressed, it all began to happen, and I found myself swept up in this incredible rush of joy and, weirdly enough, pride. Now I understand why people watch sport, it really is a substitute for an emotional life. When the siren went we were all overcome. It was beautiful.

Then the Czech Republic beat the US and my perfect soccer day with my brother was complete.

Piccies for Mum

A recent weekend to Berlin, a visit to the new Jewish Memorial, me drinking a Berliner Weisser and a cool building Matt liked enough to photograph.






And me steering a sailing ship of a colleague from the technical school. I was so seasick afterwards.

A spring wedding

Torshy, 27, witness.

The glamorous couple

My lovely cousin once removed, Tomas, father of the groom.

In the rain, unfortunately, but that wasn't going to stop me getting excited about being a witness and putting up my hair. We got on the train at eight in the morning and caught the train back at ten thirty at night- I had forgotten how weddings are so exhausting- and spent most of the day ducking between shelter and the rain, the parents of the couple met for the first time and the registery office was strangely formal and preoccupied with paper but despite all that the couple themselves spent the day beaming, entertaining their guests with incredible graciousness and generally making us all reach for the bucket.

One odd thing for me was that there were no speeches or anything about the people themselves and the parents weren't very involved, but since I'm not intending to get married at all I have to say they were more involved than mine ever will be. At least they got a wedding out of it all. Also the vibe was a bit stiff, I introduced myself to Friederike's brother and he looked at me like I was mad. Nice kids though.

There were kids everywhere (Simon was disappointed that they were quite well-behaved and not wiling to play with him and destroy the house) and not much drunkenness to be seen. Understandable from Friederike's point of view since she's up the duff, but on the whole kind of odd. Not sure if it was the sobriety or the well-behaved children which freaked me out- could there be some kind of link there?

Family family. What an odd thing it all is. My hair looked nice though, which is something.

It's a mad world

Random crazy new life moment- doing ski gymnastics at the Uni yesterday to the I-want-to-kill-myself track, It's a mad world, from the film Donnie Darko. Me and fifty Germans rotating our pelvises to lines like "The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had".

On the weekend we had our sharehouse party and it was surprisingly fun. I managed to stay up all night which was good, given that we had two DJs pumping incredibly loud music from two rooms away and sleep was pretty much out of the question. The whole flat filled up by about half-past twelve- they like to do things later here- and Andy was trying to kick out the last guests at six in the morning, when the police arrived. Apparently they were quite pleasant and offered to help. The girls from my old flat came and it was lovely to see them and feel like I had friends. Matt's flatmate Judith also came, who is lovely too, so all in all we weren't the sad flatmates without guests we thought we'd be. Some of Simon's new workmates came too, one of whom was hilariously uptight. She told me, while her German boyfriend was sitting next to her, that the continental Europeans simply couldn't be sensitive and were starting, slowly, to learn how to respect other cultures. Uh huh.

Yesterday I met our new English colleague for the first time- totally intense guy with a life drama situtation to rival the best of them. While chugging as much wine into himself as he could, he told me all about his awful marriage break up and his various successes and failures- including an MBA at a prestigious university and being bankrupt. He's only here for his son, which is sad and also kind of beautiful. Talking to him was so intense I almost had to go and have a cry afterwards, it was all so ghastly. Can't wait for September, when I get to manage him.

This Friday is Martin's wedding and the weaher is looking a bit dubious- grey and kind of wet. Hopefully some miracle will occur and the sun will burst out and bless the day. Now I kind of wish I had an alternative cold weather outfit, damn it.

Life is like, sooo hard.

Being a teacher is fun

A lovely morning class at the technical school- although I haven't left yet so there's still a good chance I'll be verbally sexually harrassed on the way out. Actually that's only hapened once but given that it's spring, ninety percent of the students here are males between the ages of sixteen and thirty and I'm now wearing short sleeves, the staring and not so whispered comments have started to become a pretty frequent occurance. And also the whole building smells like BO.

I really like teaching the students here sometimes- it's fantastic to work with young people who think everything you tell them is cool and interesting, even if it's just 'in Australia it's really hot in December' and they just soak up the language in a way adults just can't, really. Also they've got that young persons's enthusiasm for activites, which is to say that sometimes they look at you like you're the most boring thing they're even seen and sometimes they have so much fun they forget they're learning at all.

Today I had the brainwave to mix up the groups so they were not sitting with their usual friends and asked them to tell the group how to do something, even something simple. Just the right thing to say to a German... I also told them that anyone speaking German in the ten minutes would have to buy me an ice-cream- in Spring they become the national currency- and amazingly, it worked. Even those who are reluctant to speak spoke, and some who are slow speakers but enthusiastic had the chance to speak with no-one interrupting them.

One group were laughing so hard, presumably at one member's attempts to get around my 'keep it above the belt rule'- totally ineffective I might add- that I almost didn't recognise them from the surly students I had last week. Another student called me Miss T*rsh, at which I told him off, and then he asked me heaps of questions, calling me Hanna. I think it's just so exotic to them to be able to call teachers by their first name- crazy kids.

One of my pre-reading activites was to write down four words connected with a country. Two samples of words for America:

Area 51, white house, war, Bush

highways, big country, Statue of Liberty, freedom

I have proof

A lovely weekend talking to people at home and lying in the sun on our roof. I even have photos to prove that it was sunny.

Simon and I went to the market and Saturday and spent a small fortune on fresh fruit and vegetables that were actually tasty as opposed to the even more overpriced crap you get in the supermarkets here. We made asparagus with butter, roasted beetroot salad and pan-friend mushroom in bear-garlic- very popular here. Washed down with a lot of white wine. It was fantastic.

Budapest, Prague and Dresden pics

So glad to be on holiday- our first evening in Budapest.




The gorgeous old Synagogue in Pest.




Inside the Synagogue.




The flooding Danube.




In Prague with my lovely Czech student from Sydney who took us out for a night on the town.




Matt after eating a pig's knee in Prague.




Drinking the world's best beer in Prague.




Exhausted but cool in Dresden.

Sunny days

Yesterday I was invited to a colleague's house from the technical college in Gaarden (not a misspelling) and I was so knackered from the weekend I almost didn't go. But since it's almost a criminal offence to waste a long weekend I decided to drag myself off the bed and trek out to a village an hour away from Kiel.

The day started off like a typical Sydney day- at least as far as I can remember- sunny, a light wind and about twenty degrees. It was so lovely to sit on the train with the shafts of sunlight across my face, watching the green fields rolling off into the distance and the cows grazing. I don't think I've ever noticed that there were any cows up here.

Anyway then I got onto a bus which meandered its way through Neumünster and off to the little village where Monica lives. It had bus stop names like 'church' and 'school', as well as rolling past a traditional Mayday beer and sausage gathering (we call that a barbeque right?) sponsored by the CDU- the Christian Democrats in the town square.

When I got to their cosy house, a two storey semi-detached with a garden and a big living area, a nice change from pokey little apartments, I was immediately presented with a glass of champagne and given the tour. It has been so long since I've been in a house filled with books and art that it was like returning home. I was given a wonderful lunch, plied with wine and told all about the wildlife around here, which apparently includes wild boars and deer, both of which are on the increase. It was a whole other Germany and I really liked it. Especially the intelligent conversation with two very clever and interested people- such a relief not to have to be cool.

I arived home very chilled, quite drunk and in a great mood to face the week, which has so far been great, accompanied by sun sun sun and my new clothes which always cheers me up. Although some shoes for the wedding would be great...

There are swans in the lake in the centre of the city, called the Little Kiel, and dafodills on every street corner. People are wearing t-shirts and looking relaxed, there are cherry trees in blossom and I can't quite believe it is the same town.

Weekend in Hamburg

The sun is shining, we just got back from a weekend in Hamburg hanging out with my lovely cousins in their glamorous apartments and I am exhausted- too much fun and travelling in a group always makes me exhausted. As usual, being in Hamburg makes me question why I'm in Kiel- and why I've now agreed to stay another year or so.

Hamburg is so chic- I might as well be in Sydney really- and Kiel really is a small town with all that goes with it. I guess that's someting I find kind of interesting, how different it is from my previous experience. Although if I were living in a bigger city maybe people who come to Europe might visit me...

It's overwhelming today- the choices that life offer- and I wonder if I will spend every weekend of my life feeling like this. A little lost, a little aimless and disoriented. It's the Sunday blues every time- that feeling of stretched out tension that goes with work and life. I don't like it much but I seem to constantly put myself in a position where I feel it. Perhaps because the positive side is that feeling of satisfaction that comes with work, of being spent and tired but knowing that you did your best, you put your all into something.

Weekend self-help. That should be a new section in the bookshops.

Brief moments of joy

Well it happened- the sun came out in Kiel. Right now, of course, it is raining but yesterday it was almost twenty degrees. And I´m ashamed to say I was really too hot. It was lovely, the whole city came alive, cafes sprouted up from places I'd never noticed before and people were drinking beer outside, rowing on the fjord, jogging, fishing, you name it.

On the bus today a German lady tapped me politely on the shoulder and said something to me I couldn't hear because my headphones were on. I said "Sorry?" "Is that your scarf?" she said, using the polite form of you. I looked down and there was my Italian nonna umbrella I bought at the Vatican with its lovely blueflowers on a pink background sitting beneath my foot. I was so amazed at the act of courtesy I just said "That is my umbrella. Thank you." I guess I should have expected my umbrella to be too out there for Kiel.

I went for a jog on the weekend (lasted about ten horrible minutes) and had a lovely moment when I ran past a very fat grey goose waddling past me. There is something I have never experienced before. Every day here I see a new kind of bird, hopefully minus bird flu.