Paris!!

To celebrate Mum's birthday, I surprised her by joining her in Paris for the weekend.  I can't say that the German railway system was running at it's well known efficiency, as I had one unscheduled night in Aachen.  However, my 29 hours in Paris were amazing.  We managed to see all of the big sights but I will definitely be heading back to do things properly.

Berenice in the Louvre

The view from my hotel!

The Art Work in my hotel room

Mini Arc in the road

Sacre Cour

Moulin Rouge

Eiffel Tower

Notre Dame

Mum and Me in front of Notre Dame

And so week three begins...

Here I am now in my third full week in Germany, still not working and still on the hunt for a flat.  However, I am keeping busy.  This week I have found the local cinema and seen Das A-Team.  They do a Ladies Night once a month.  For August (tomorrow night), it's letters to Julia and the one I'm really excited about in September, is Eat, Pray, Love.  So I am managing to add to my film list without shelling out a fortune for DVDs and also improving my German at the same time.  My host, Nathalie, introduced me to a good way to improve my German last night which is to watch the Cosby Show in English and German to pick up new vocab!  What a great idea!  It's years since I watched that show and it's hilarious how dated the fashions look already.  What a blast from the past!

Also yesterday, I managed to cross another one off my 30 before I am 30 list by joining a French class.  I really want to make the most of it if I am to sit my AS Level this year, I need to.  Although, having all of this time off to get paperwork sorted, I don't know if they will let me out for exams too.  I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

At the weekend I bought a Bahncard on special offer since it was the anniversary (175 years) of rail travel in Germany.  This means I can get reduced price rail tickets for travel all over Germany so I am planning a trip to see my friend Amira in Aachen next month and get the travel bug back.

Later this week I am going to be meeting the rest of the teachers on this native speaker programme which will be nice.  So far I only know Linda and she is lovely so hopefully, I will get to know some more nice people to spend time with and hopefully also practice my Spanish with as one is a native Spanish speaker.

La Strada (Part 2)

Snday was another busy day for the La Strada festival and this time I managed to see some more before rain stopped play.

This is not just the back of someone's head - if you look closely, as we had to, you will see the dancers through the crowd.

Here are a French act (you can only see half) with some amazing Diabolo skills.

Here you can see just how popular some shows were.  We were unable to get in here to see the mime.

This was the main setting for the action in the Marktplatz.

Here's one we braved from the safety and warmth of Alex's on Domhof as it had started raining.  Again, it's a bit hard to see but the two men in uniform putting the red and white tape out are actors.

This was the same clown from the beach the day before but I managed to catch more of his show today which was quite funny and very international (think I counted five languages!)

After the clown show, we sat in the park for some churros!  (Something I have yet to actually find in Barcelona)  and then the heavens opened which meant that the rest of the performances in the park were cancelled and an early finish for us.

La Strada (Part 1)

Well, as part of my first full day with the Thielmann family, we took a trip to the beach (yes Briony, beach) in Bremen to see part of La Strada for children.  It was a day of firsts really - my first time in a long time on a bike!  And I managed not to fall off!  My first time on the Weser River as we took the ferry across to the beach and my first time at La Strada.

La Strada is basically a street festival that starts Thursday night and finishes on Sunday evening.  Different goups take part in all kinds of different performances in different areas of Bremen.  On the beach today for the children there was a clown and an "art installation" which was basically giant inflatables for the children to play on!

The Ferry

The Ferry

The Weser

The La Strada Clown

La Strada Part 2 will be along tomorrow when I venture into the centre of Bremen to see - hopefully - a wider range of performances.

The Kindness of Strangers

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster week this week.  It didn't get off to the best of starts.  In the first place my papers didn't come through (and still haven't) so I haven't been able to go in to work.  On Tuesday, I had two appointments to keep, the first with the bank manager who was going to explain my new account to me.  It might not sound that important but the hostel has been inundated with post for me, just from the bank rather than the post that I actually need.  So I have a mountain of papers and little idea as to what I need to do with them all.  Anyway, the appointment was set for 3.30.  I arrived at 3.25 and someone was already in his office (glass office I might add, so he was well aware that I was there).  3.30 came and went, as did 3.45 and 4pm.  Finally, at 4.15, he still had made no show of getting rid of the cutomer or even given me a sign as to how long I would have to wait so I left for my other appointment.

The second appointment had been scheduled for last Friday - it was to view a flat I had seen online before I left England and I had made the appointment the Friday before.  I'm pinning quite a lot of hopes on the flat based on the ad, the location and how it looks from the outside, especially after my lack of success last week.  So I had already been disappointed when the viewing was put back first to Monday and then Tuesday.  I arrived bang on time at 5.30 and nobody was there, I rang the doorbell, tried a neighbour and still - nothing.  I rang the letting agents office - no reply.  I waited there until 6pm and nobody arrived.  I emailed the agency as soon as I got back and still I have had no explanation but I was so fed up with myself on Tuesday night - getting nowhere fast with sorting things out.

However, by Wednesday morning, I had decided to put my energies to better use.  I emailed about ten more flats in the area to arrange new viewings, started planning my lessons for when I am finally allowed to start and picked up where I left off (nearly a month ago) with my French lessons.  I have even found a French class in the area that starts up in September so that I can get some speaking practice.  Also, I have been struggling with my dissertation proposal since the classes that I have been given by the school are not the ones that I thought I was getting and the project I had intended to do won't work now.  I didn't want to tell my advisor since it took a long time to get the university to agree to my doing the dissertation out here and I didn't want them to change their minds.  This morning, I had a brainwave though.  There was a project that I was working on in my NQT year that involved some new classroom ideas and techniques.  These didn't really apply to the school I was in last year but the German school has a very similar system and I am hoping to use this for my dissertation.  So now that I am feeling more motivated, I am going to spend the next few days getting the proposal ready and getting a reading list together for the next month or so.

The best news of the week though, I have saved until last and it is really what the title of this post is about.  Last night, I went to visit a teacher from school who had called to say that he and his wife had a spare room with it's own bathroom that I would be able to stay in.  I was a little nervous after we had set this meeting up - what if they didn't like me, what if they expected me to stay there for the whole time I was here, how limiting might it be to live with a young family?  A lot can be lost in translation and I wasn't even sure on what I had understood and what had yet to be discussed.  When I got off the tram, and headed for the address, I was amazed at how beautiful the area was.  This was more what I remembered from where I had lived in Germany before.  Everything was so green and peaceful.  When I arrived, I was introduced to the whole family.  Kai, Natalie and there two children Emil (3) and Fenna (1 next week).  The children are very cute.  The house is also beautiful and fairly big - cellar, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, living room, study and balcony over a gorgeous garden.  The whole second floor (bedroom, bathroom and study) is where I can stay but they also said that I am very welcome to spend time with the family or stay in my own space as I wish.  They also offered me the use of one of their bikes.  The garden has a huge plum tree with far more plums than they can eat so if anyone knows any good recipes... I quite fancy some time cooking over the weekend.  And for all of this, they expect nothing in return.  I intend to give them some money for bills etc, but they won't even ask for rent.  This small German family, who don't even know me are handing me a key to their house tomorrow and in doing so have completely restored my faith in humanity.  It's not something that's widespread and maybe it is only my opinion but I don't think there would be many in England willing to open their homes in such a way.

Anyway, I am going to buy some gifts for when I move tomorrow and make the most of my last day in the hostel.  This weekend is La Strada which I believe is a bit of a street festival / circus so I will hopefully have some pictures to post over the weekend.

My Space

So I promised some pictures of my room in the hostel and as single rooms in hostels go, I don't think it's a bad room.  In fact it has served me well considering my stay has been almost two weeks and counting!

My study area

My sleeping area

The kitchen

The En Suite

Bremen - the tourist destination

Since before I even applied for the job in Bremen, I had considered the city fairly small and industrial.  I kind of see it on a par with Leeds.  None of this was negative - I love Leeds, but I certainly hadn't considered it a tourist destination.  Many people haven't even heard of Bremen and it certainly doesn't compete with Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Cologne, Stuttgart or any of the other cities I had heard of growing up.  However, every day, as I spend more time in the city, I hear a range of languages (German, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Polish and Portuguese so far!) and realise that the city is indeed quite a destination for tourists and I doubt that they are disappointed.  On Friday and Saturday, I took in a bit more of the city and the sights and here are some of my photos:

This is the Town Hall or Rathaus which stands on the main square in the town centre, in front of it you can see the statue of Knight Roland - more about that later.

 Here, on the Western side of the square, are some traditional buildings which house several cafes and a chemist among other things.

Here in the North East corner is the St Petri cathedral which is one of the main sights in Bremen.  On this particular day there had just been a wedding service in the cathedral and as I arrived, I beautiful white horse drawn carriage took the happy couple away to their reception. 

 Inside the cathedral is a museum which houses some interesting exhibits.  The floor of the cathedral was excavated in the 1970s and several tombs were discovered with perfectly mummified bodies inside!  A bit creepy but interesting all the same.

 Also on Friday in the square, I was lucky enough to come across this peace protest which was being filmed for the local news.  The flowers remained there over the weekend.

 Finally on the main square - here is Roland.  He was a famous Knight who protected the freedoms of the people of Bremen.  The statue is one of the tallest in Germany.

Hidden away around the side of the Rathaus is this statue of those famous Bremen Musicians.  You can just make out the shiny front legs of the donkey - it's considered good luck to rub them when you visit.

Here are some pictures of Böttcherstrasse - a small street which once led from the square down to the river and used to home coopers who would sell barrels to those working on the ships in the harbour but when the harbour was moved the street fell out of use until it was restored during the 20th century.  It now houses several art galleries as well as some little cafes and cute tourist shops.