Oktober

Wow. I definitely still need to get better at this! What have I done with the past month? It’s just flown by! So Uni’s all started now, yep, definitely started – the lack of knowledge and basic vocabulary is already hitting me...

So, I met up with Anna and her friends from Heidelberg, which was rather nice, went to a few bars near Rosenthaler Platz, chatted, drank beer. Standard German night out! Then the next day we met up again to visit Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which was very interesting. We hired audio guides, which were very informative (definitely a lot more information than we could listen to in a single day! After saying bye to the three I headed home to start preparing dinner – having invited all the Danish girls (that I know, not alllll the Danish girls there are...), Evagoras and Kim round to prepare for what would hopefully be a fabulous Erasmus evening. Whilst the preparations provided a lot of fun – Evagoras needs to practise his jenga skills – the Erasmus Party was unfortunately somewhat lacking in the amazing departments. Arriving at 23.25 and being told it was after half 11, so we’d have to pay extra, we entered the effectively empty club. Not so great, but we know how to start the dancing! So we got a bit groovy on the dance floor, only to be flooded within half an hour with more Erasmus students than you could possibly imagine. Not cool. Yes, we’d like to meet new people, but there was absolutely no space free for that to happen! So we left far earlier than originally planned. Waste.

The next day I met up with Mette and some friends – a Danish girl she met here and also another from back home. We arranged to meet up with Arne (my flatmate) and some of his colleagues in a club called Magnet. Wow. Definitely actually worth the entrance money that night – we danced and danced and danced, the music was good, the drinks were there, and so we were – until 6.30!! So not getting back until 7.30 in the morning – feels like quite an achievement to me! Five hours later I went round Mette’s again, to discover the amazingness that is the fruit and veg market near her house. Wow. Pretty snazzy! Followed by my first German Nickerchen and a (mainly wine) picnic with Natali and Chris on the grass by Hackescher Markt (next to the Spree). And possibly some of the last sun of the year. We were lured to the Melodica Festival in Görlitzer Park by Anne’s promise of cake (which was definitely worth the trip!) and some laid back free music – definitely our style J Having won VIP entry to Hafenbar (there’s definitely some bias there from the judge, Mette! ;) ) we continued to Joe’s Karaoke session, with a promise of free entry, shots, and a lot of enjoyment! The Karaoke led to dancing and a night of groovy moves on all sides, and we kept the Karaoke spirit flowing with our standard dose of Mauerpark Karaoke, which was fabby doo daa (as always).

Monday (finally) brought my appointment at the Bürgeramt = Certificate of Residency = Successful Immatrikulation = good times! So my first Einführungsveranstaltung for Erasmus students – most boring thing I’ve ever sat through in my life! I was also lucky enough that Kim told me the night before about our Einführungsveranstaltung für Germanistik – rather lucky, because that one was actually helpful, made sure we knew that if we didn’t get our HU Learning Agreement signed before a certain deadline we wouldn’t get our Transcript of Results = massive problems when we get back to Birmingham at the end of the year!

My second horn lesson followed on Wednesday – I’m loving the Horn room in the Konzerthaus more every time I see it! They have a Fußball table, and the “Horn Chronicles”, which all the visiting horn players get to sign, and it’s pretty epic! I <3 it.

Mette, Anna and I spent Thursday afternoon looking at shoes near Potsdamer Platz, interesting to see how life could be, were my shoes waterproof! Should really do something about that... Then we met Anne at Friedrichstraße and stopped off at a Chinese takeaway on the way – spring rolls and noodles = yummy! Dussmann beckoned us with its free concert offering – Tim Bendzko!! Unfortunately the room was quite small, meaning the view was limited (I feel so sorry for the 400 or so people who didn’t manage to get in...), but it’s all about the atmosphere! Having not yet visited Oktoberfest, we decided to try and meet up with some of the people in Mette and Anna’s tutor group from the FU, however they were nowhere to be seen. We did, however, find some friendly older German people, which lead to beer and dancing (I think Anne really enjoyed her dance with the elderly drunk lady), and also a LOT of singing, yodelling included! After receiving a text from Lukas (one of the guys in this tutor group) we went to meet them at his flat for a few drinks, followed by a trip back to Alex once more for a club in a sky scraper – Weekend. Definitely NOT worth the money. We didn’t stay very long (but definitely long enough to use the wrong toilets). Probably never going back there again!

Friday was a cultural day – Nini had her best friend from Denmark visiting, so we all met up and went to visit Tacheles, which is rather snazzy, if I might say so myself! Many a cool picture occurred. And Falafels. Perfection in a meal! Then we went to a pub called “das Klo”, a crazy place, I must say! Pretty much everything is toilet orientated, and there’s a video playing with weird adverts, and you can get beer in these weird plastic urinal mugs. Very strange indeed. Mette and I found our ideal men on the way home (yes, in a playground), because... Well, because that’s just the age we’re at. I think I make her feel young...

My first baking session in Berlin came on the Saturday – Chris’ birthday party being the perfect occasion for such a session! Mette and I went all out with our chocolate brownie cake (I definitely ate more of the mixture than I ought), and it was genuinely AMAZING. No one could deny. Silver Wings was then blessed with our presence (despite the minor drawback of Mette’s MASSIVE splinter), free champagne on arrival = definitely a good thing! Though probably less good for the next day. Definitely less good for the next day. After a bit of chatting on facebook with Emma, an Irish girl doing her Erasmus at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik, we decided to attend the last night of Oktoberfest in Berlin. Having promised myself little drink and an early night, we naturally ordered a litre each upon arrival (putting the guy opposite us to shame!), and were soon joined by three Swedish guys and two Berliners, heading off with some of them afterwards and ending up somewhere near Warschauerstraße. Definitely not an early night, and rather unhelpful in my getting to uni for 8.00 the next day! I managed it, however, only to find out that it was a Freier Tag – I could definitely have done with those extra two hours in bed! Oh well. I went for a walk with one of the German girls who was also waiting for this seminar and we went for a hot drink and a chat. It was lovely, and she was very nice and helpful! At 10.00 my Einführungsveranstaltung für Musikwissenschaft (which was actually occurring) started, and I chatted with some of the lovely new “ersties”, and turns out there are rather a lot of Musikwissenschaft Erasmus students! And a Danish girl, who is actually doing here whole Bachelor here – interesting! That evening I attended my first orchestra rehearsal – approving muchly of Mahler 1, though I’ve never played in quite such a large orchestra before – 10 horns, wow! But lovely anyway. Afterwards we all went for a drink in “der Keller”. Expecting it to be some sort of bar, I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to genuinely be a cellar underneath the University’s main building! It was pretty much perfect – a fridge full of beer, you put 1,-€ in the pot and take a beer, and you chat. Wow. We need that in England!

Since the next day Uni suddenly hasn’t seemed to let me get a word in edgeways! I’ve visited SO many Seminars, Übungs and Vorlesungs, it’s crazy! On Wednesday I met up with Lula, who I bumped into during Immatrikulation, and we went for a drink and chat, which was good – nice to speak German with a fluent speaker! Thursday brought all the Musikwissenschaft Erasmus students together for a chat and some wine, which was definitely good to get to know each other, and a few of us went for pizza afterwards as well, which was nice. And definitely encouraged me to go on the Music Kneipentour the next day, where I got to know quite a few of the students better, definitely a bonus.

The weekend was the first of much homework needing doing! But I semi-got on top of it, which was a relief, and on Sunday we had our standard Mauerpark session, this time being followed by sushi (very nice) and a session in Al Hamra, where there’s an open-mike evening every Sunday, which was great fun!

Last week brought pretty much more of the same – Orchestra, I met Emma on Tuesday and we bought a crate of beer, ate dinner, watched some tv and drank. Which was relaxing. On Wednesday I had my next horn lesson (this time at a music school), I’m loving my horn lessons more and more every time I have one! And then in the evening I met up with Liselotte (another girl I met during registration) and Maxi to go to a bar and have a chat, all in German and rather complex, but it’s got to be good for me, right? Plus it definitely helped me the next day – I got a text from Liselotte asking me if I could help the people she works part-time with – they need a native English speaker to check over the translation on a new English website, so I spent my Thursday afternoon/Friday there = monies for Ren J

Friday = my first real German houseparty – Halloween!! Having been told by Julia that no one would be dressed up, I met up with Almut (who had carved her own pumpkin!) and arrived at a fully decorated house, with many a vampire, and any possible Halloween character you could imagine!! But it wasn’t too bad, because a girl called Agnetha painted my face for me, she’s pretty good at that sort of thing! She’d also done her own, and had this crazy thing with her eyes. Yeah, freaky! I didn’t stay too late, though, because I had my audition for the HU Orchester the next day, which went well, except I had a bit of an argument with the conductor over what I should play in the orchestra – he wants me to play first horn Schubert, but I really want to play in the Mahler (of course!). So at the moment I’m still playing in both, and hopefully he’ll decide it’s useful to have so many horns in the Mahler...

Ooooh, nearly up to date! Monday: orchestra, as per, followed by a beer in der Keller. Emma and I met up on Tuesday evening, we ate dinner together again, and made a bit more headway on our crate of beer, along with Arne, aided by the drinking jenga game, and some crazy Korn shot things... Hmmm – I’m not convinced! On Wednesday I had another horn lesson (yay), and in the evening I met up with Kim, Evagoras, Alex and Ruth, who’s flown over from England and is making a fleeting trip round all the universities in Germany to check everything’s ok. So that was nice, we all went for a drink and had a rather interesting chat. Very nice. Then last night I went to Stammtisch with other Erasmus students at the HU, which was good, nice atmosphere and to meet people. There was also a free jazz concert in the cellar, which we made good use of! And today? I met up with Mette and Anna for lunch, and am going off for orchestra in a bit – busy busy busy! And maybe I’ll meet up with Mette and Anna again this evening – who knows?!

So yes. Wow. That was long, sorry guys! But you didn’t HAVE to read it :P
Bis bald (oder vielleicht nicht so bald...)!