Attention girls!!

I highly recommend reading this blog: http://www.emmascrivener.org.uk/index.html
particularly the 'My Story' bit.

Guys, you ought to read it too of course :P

Herbstferien Antics 1. (Bremen)

Trendy-looking Bremen (cathedral spires in the background).

Me looking rather foolish stroking a bronze (?) pig. Tourists eh...
(Ok, so the dress isn't actually that short... I just have a rather annoying coat.)

A view of the River Weser at dusk.

So this was a slightly odd ritual to observe... the guy was sweeping beer-bottle tops down the steps of the cathedral and then some other guy was chucking them back up at him! Wikipedia says (also verified by my flatmate!) that "when a man reaches the age of 30 and is not married, he must sweep the cathedral steps until a young lady gives him a kiss and then he is released from his duty. Women who reach their thirtieth birthday unmarried go to polish the cathedral doorknobs in the company of friends and family until they are released by the kiss of a young man"

Germans like writing on walls, a lot! Bit of a dodgy translation though (left).

Not sure if you can see it, but if you look very, very carefully you may be able to see the ridiculously pointy knees this statue has. They're like 3 inches long!! It's tradition to touch these strange knees. Obviously, I couldn't resist...

The long tomorrow.

The church is being constantly tempted to accept this world as her home... but if she is wise she will consider that she stands in the valley between the mountain peaks of eternity past and eternity to come. The past is gone forever and the present is passing as swift as the the shadow on the sundial of Ahaz. Even if the earth should continue a million years not one of us could stay to enjoy it. We do well to think of the long tomorrow.

A. W. Tozer

My trusty companion, who gets me to work and back and pretty much everywhere, aka my lovely bike! Ok, well it may not be the trendiest thing ever produced in the history of bicycles, but it was free. You know what they say, 'never look a gift horse in the mouth'!
I basically just flopped down here and admired the view for a wee while.
Kiessee is in the background.






Here's Kiessee, but I guess once you've seen one lake, you've seen them all! It's a bit non-descript, but a nice place nonetheless to just go and chill on a warm, autumn day.





Thought I'd better conclude with something a bit more cultural. Here's the Deutsches Theater, Göttingen, which I do intend to visit at some point but haven't gotten round to it yet. I think it looks more like an english stately home... a bit of Austen wouldn't seem out of place!


More pictures to follow soon.

Just to prove I am actually in Germany...

It's about time I put up a few pictures of Göttingen and of my various adventures so here goes...


These were taken in Duderstadt during my first weekend in Germany when I was staying with my personal tutor. It's a quaint little town with lots of country markets and fayres going on. From right to left it the rather interesting Rathaus (town hall) and then a catholic church, the name which I have quite lamely forgotten. But I'm sure you can all find it for yourselves!

Here is the Kloster in Altenberg, just south of Cologne, where I had my induction with the British Council and the PAD. It's quite an amazing piece of architecture, though the picture doesn't really do it justice! It's worth a visit. The inside isn't quite as ornate but does contain some interesting history about the area.






These sculptures are in one of the graveyards in Göttingen! They seem to have turned half of the graveyard into a park and there's a really nice lake and play area for kids. Sadly however, graffiti seems not only to be an english problem...






And here is the River Leine, just west of Göttingen. A couple of weeks ago I cycled south alongside the Leine to a large boating lake called Kiessee, getting slightly lost along the way because the biking map I had was really small, plus the signs weren't great, and so I ended riding alongside a tributary to the river and then stopping after about 20 minutes thinking it strange that I was still travelling west! Anyway, I found my way to Kiessee in the end.


Where I live, in Weende in the north of Göttingen, there's masses of countryside and farmers' fields, which made my bike ride even more enjoyable!

This has certainly been a painful day. 1. because I'm starting with a lovely cough, cold and headache, and 2. because I just bought a new laptop to replace my Toshiba. There's nothing quite so difficult as having to part with more than half of your first month's wages on a laptop that you shouldn't really be buying but due to international incompetency is deemed necessary!

On returning to the computer technician to get a quote for a change of the mother board, I was promptly told that the shop neither stocks nor orders parts for Toshiba. Then I found out that no one in Göttingen stocks or sells anything for Toshiba... the nearest place is the european toshiba centre in Neuss or possibly Hamburg...way too far away.

Then followed an afternoon of being passed from one person to another on the phone. PC World wanted nothing to do with me but put me through to toshiba, then toshiba passed me to the 'tech guys', who said that 'I could just take it into any Currys or PC World store and have it repaired'. hmmm we all know what the problem is there! I could possibly get my parents to take it back with them after they visit in November, but then I'd be without a laptop until christmas, meaning I'd spend more money on phone calls etc and just not be able to access my emails. Not really a viable option.
So finally I was put back through to Toshiba in the UK who gave me the number for Germany... dialled that...cue automated voice menu and a choice of either paying extra to speak to a technician (bearing in mind I already know what the problem is) or visit the website. So... yeah. I looked on the website on my housemate's laptop and again met the same problem, only this time it was even more amusing as it seems that my make of laptop is only sold in the UK and Ireland! Wonderful.

So kurz und bündig, it was either somehow get it picked up by Toshiba even though the german hotline number and website are just naff and don't give you any proper information as to how to do that. Plus it's also expensive because the laptop is out of warranty so I'd have to pay to get it picked up on top of whatever repairs they do.... result= hefty bill for a laptop that might not last me until the end of my degree. Or, simply do away with the hassle and buy a new one. Guess which one I went for. Though I must admit, I still did it rather begrudgingly!

Ah the fun of having to learn words like 'Arbeitsspeicher' and 'Betriebssystem'... There's some use at least to having your laptop go kaputt.