They have this little holiday half way through a school term here in the UK called “half term”. Genius name. I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea or not… Monday still only a few days away and we enter straight back into the long days and hard work all over again! What will happen to the momentum we had? Will it be tainted with this little break or will it be stronger than before? Perhaps, because my students have been used to having many of their English teachers leave, seeing me will comfort them and encourage them. I am not leaving, nor am I giving up on them.
Only time will tell.
The crazy thing about half term is you have the freedom to do what ever you want or can fit into a week.
Challenge accepted.
My week is not over and yet, I must blog a little (actually a novel) about the whirlwind and relaxing time it has been.
I have just arrived back home to London. Writing that in itself is ever so strange. London is home now. Well, for now. My fellow Aussie friend and I went to Germany to stay with.. You guessed it.. Another Aussie. Tim lives in a little town near Ulm in southern Germany. He’s there to play and train in handball. Handball is the big sport in Laupheim. European handball- the one we sometimes played for sport in school or at uni games). It’s a big deal over in Europe (explains the Australian version of the name). Getting to Laupheim was an adventure in itself. Let me take you there:
Saturday night.
Caitie and her other gap student friend and I met for sushi in Borough Markets. Amazing. Caitie and I went back to my house so I could pack. We stayed awake until midnight. Missed the bus. Got a cab. Caught a train to Victoria Station where we thought we were supposed to catch a train. Trains had stopped (of course they had). Caught the bus to Standstead Airport (where is that place any ways?). Ate gourmet hot dogs at 3:30am. We had to go to Marks and Spencer’s to get cheese though, because unenthusiastic Hot Dog man had run out… We made him smile later though when we offered hm the cheese we had bought (500g). He politely declined.
After recording some entertaining 1D covers throughout the airport and duty free shopping we were almost ready to board. Almost. Then i decided to read the ticket information. We hadn’t gotten our passports checked. We had checked in online.
We panicked and went back through security. The security man said we may not be able to get out of the country. Good.
We rushed through the airport backwards and forwards and round and round to find the truth. We ended up in the plane. I love the mad rush to a peaceful plane. You expect a round of applause or a stand in ovation “You did It guys!”… But nope. Never happens. (Unless I am the one on the plane. I’ll clap for you. Which we did on the train when an elderly lady ran to the leaving train and it stopped. She responded in a happy, but flustered voice something in German. Yay! ).
After a quick nap on the plane we landed in Frankfurt. Now it was going to be easy, just a bus and a train and we will be on our way to Ulm. Or was it a train and then a bus? How many trains ? Tim had booked us a ticket. It seemed so simple. Most of the ticket was in German, the important parts seemed to be in English. Or maybe I was just so good at German! How much German could I remember from my last expedition around Europe or year 7…. A little bit.
We had actually landed in Frankfurt Hahn. That’s like the local country stop that only locals go to. To the bus driver outside we said train station. He said 11.
11 euros?
11 minutes?
11 pounds ?
11 o’clock. Obviously.
The next part was a blur… Literally I cried with laughter most of the time. I could not keep it together.
We were the only ones in the bus. The whole place has deserted, post apocalyptic, call of duty vibes. It got worse. The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and bus driver said “Train,” and pointed towards a building.
“Danke!” We called out through giggles as we feared we may have trusted him a little too much.
Training Centre
that was it. I was out. Hysterical laughter is my forte. I was one the ice! There was no other noises except our giggles, who am I kidding. I was past that. I was cackling! Caitie was more composed and saw human life! She ventured out and discovered that we were at a Ryan air flight attendant camp. They could thankfully speak English and were two hours away from finding out if they were going to qualify! They explained to us that we were in the middle of no where … Yes.
And they helped us back to the airport and onto a bus to Frankfurt Main. We snuck onto a train. Our tickets has expired. I’m pretty sure we weren’t even at the right station. This reminded me of my Europe trip in 2010, I was 17 and this little half term holiday confirmed we were insane teenagers. Now I am just a crazy adult. This train said it was going to Ulm! We were on track again! Such a fancy train too. We got comfy. We were 5 hours away.
Until the ticket conductor checked our tickets…
The next train wasn’t as pretty. The conductor was nice enough to write up a new plan for us to save euros. It involved many trains, with a small amount of time for changeovers. This meant vending machines, cafes, laughing, pretending to be a sleep, playing the “tourist” “silly girls” card as much as possible for us for the next couple of hours. We missed connections, saw things twice and finally made it to Ulm!!!
Let’s just say we paid extra to change our return journey.
We slept well that night.
This was just the start of the week! Thankfully Tim and his German saved us most of the week.
By the end of the week (minus being fluent in German) we felt like locals. We got to stay in a little studio, that seemed like something out of an IKEA catalogue. Actually most of Laupheim did. We ate everything we could that was German. We used windowsills as fridges, ate Nutella from jars, tried beers, gluvine, hot chocolates, pastries, Schnitzels, sausage salad (imagine strips of sausage in sauce & want some veggies with your sausage ? No. Good), Liebercase (can’t even remember how to spell it, but big sausage meat on bread with mustard), pretzels, curry wurst, cakes, pancakes for pancake day, big ravioli type thing, it’s safe to say we are eating our way through Europe. This was confirmed on our trek back to London. Breakfast in Laupheim, Lunch in Munich, dinner in Copenhagen and desert in London.
We saw some great things too! Watched a Handball training session, got to have a go at it too! We watched live games on television, saw old pubs, modern castles, climbed the highest church steeple in the world (not to the top because it was closed due to icy weather). I Played football in the airport with some kids. We saw some fantastic German architecture, some buildings falling into canals – buildings legitimately have a lean. We joined in with a Fasching (witch and carnival festival thing, of which I’m still trying to understand the reasons behind) street parade. It was amazing to see all the costumes and hear the songs! The atmosphere was so great , and the free sweets! Winning!
In between all of these meals, sights, conversations and sleeping we got to have some very good relaxing time too! What a week! Here’s some snaps
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Main Lessons learnt:
To appreciate the cold in England, go somewhere colder. 7 degrees is a warm winters day now compared to the -5 in Germany.
swedenmay 