Brexit or Stronger In?

Hello my fellow readers,

it has been too long. I've spend most of last year finishing my degree, and after graduating (yes, I did finally graduate) I had to move for my job. I am currently living in Cologne while doing a graduate programme at a Fortune 500 company. Travelling is part of my job now, and it is so to an extend where being at home becomes a rarity. This however is not what I want to write about today. I will gladly write more about the people I have had the pleasure of meeting during my many travels in the last couple of months and about the experiences I have made. Today I want to write about something that is close to my heart, maybe closer than it should be.

The upcoming referendum in the UK - the Brexit.

Why Did You Go?

Hey fellow readers,

After due consideration, I have decided to try and keep this running despite the obvious lack of internationality at the moment. Which obviously will not be all that interesting for some of you others however might still enjoy it.

I tried to really give an insight of what a German person would experience going to England - what's different, what's similar. Whilst I was living with people from England, others do not. In fact a lot of the ERASMUS students do keep to themselves in the foreign country. They create their own little states and live in their old little worlds. Do not get me wrong, by all means, this is not necessarily a bad thing. To a certain extend, I did this as well. I travelled with other international students a lot, I spent loads of time getting to know their countries and their customs. I enjoyed it almost as much as I have enjoyed spending time with my room mates and the guys I met along the way and to be quite honest, I never really cared where they were from, I wanted to meet people and with a bit of distance to it all, I finally understood why. It was about the challenges that changed me along the way. So why was it such a unique experience for me and why should you want to go?

Summer Trips and Rain

Finally it's time for yet another entry in what has become a rather inactive blog. Exam period and my time in Germany was surprisingly time consuming. Luckily there was not a lot happening in this time anyway so I'll skip straight to the good part or well the part after exams.

Naturally you would think, the second you finish your exams you'd want to have a couple of drinks. Surprisingly enough I did but let's not get into that.

Spring and a Friendly Visitor

Last week was probably the best week of all my year. Saying this might upset people sharing great experiences with me a little bit in the first place and yet I am making this drastic statement. Why? Simply because the sun was shining. The difference is enormous and the fun you can get from lying around the lake and enjoying the sun after what has been 5 months without really seeing the sun can be quite depressing. I am not the guy to become depressed quickly, in fact I have not become depressed at all but seeing the sun made me yet a bit happier. Work has been laid to rest for a couple of hours each day and all the sorrows carried away by warm sunrays hitting the face and body of everyone. I would've never imagined writing about a simple thing like a sunny day before but England and a tough winter in general makes you realize the sun with all its power.

Yet last week was great for an entirely different reason. Anna Lena went to visit me for the weekend and what a weekend it turned out to be! On Friday we celebrated Dan's birthday by going to Happy Hour (Beer for £ 1.50) followed by going to a casino and a club in Bristol. Cheers to "All on 17" and the people I went with, it was a great night. Coming home at 4:30 can only be topped by waking up at 8:30 again and going to do some sight seeing. So this is what we did! I will skip telling you about the part of the day I spent realizing just how stupid I am (reading Anna Lena's project makes me feel exceptionally dumb). Due to being tired and having a lot to talk about, we spent the evening at home.

Sunday started like you would want it to start. Waking up feeling perfectly awake and ready to so something amazing. For Anna Lena and me this meant going to Chris' place to eat lunch. Cheers for all the good food (Fajita's and Schnitzel) and for this great game of football in Victoria's Park, and if you think this is not a good end, I agree with you but I am off to meet friends for a coffee and I cannot make them wait any longer.

German and a proper fun ending will follow soon - I hope.
See you all!

St. Patrick's in Ireland

Realizing the great opportunity at hand, we decided to go to Dublin for Paddy's. Looking forward to this trip to Dublin and Galway I didn't even mind waking up at 3:20 in the morning to go to the airport and after wasting most of the morning due to being tired and lazy, we had a great guided walking tour around Dublin's most important monuments (including more than one pub). It was fantastic and for free. Truth be told, I forgot half of what our amazing guide said already but nevertheless it was very informative and enjoyable. After walking around the city a little bit longer and some great Irish dancing lessons, the night finished in a great hostel with pasta and a very talkative room mate (hope she doesn't read this). Awake as I was the next day, the Guinness tour in the morning was cancelled and we prepared ourselves for the national patron to arrive. The massive amount of people to see the parade was sheer overwhelming, however I could not see a lot. I hope the pictures tell you roughly what it was like.

German Writing and the Fun of Translating

As my English skills reach skyrockets, people started losing track of what I was writing. Therefore and because I miss the language, my next big blog entry will be dedicated to the German language and my family. Which of cause could cause an uproar with the non-German readers. Thanks to me being a "nice guy", Bea's words not mine, I will therefore avoid this and write in English as well. Of cause this means that people who have a general understanding of both languages will laugh at either my poor English translation or my poor German. I want to stress that I am fully aware of this and only here to entertain you.

Photos of the Recital

So here we go again - might overplay my hand today a little bit but I just wanted to bring this out there, mainly because people want to see how gorgeous (yet badly compared to everyone else who was there) I looked.

It's been a long long time...

I hate to do this but the last few weeks left me no choice but to start my new post with an apology. I wasn't able to write for quite some time and I really regret not taking the time. My holidays in Germany where the best two weeks I've ever spend in Germany which is not so much about the quality of the week as it is about how great it is to see friends, parents and siblings again after not seeing them for such a long time. Strange as it may seem, while feeling at home and absolutely happy, I missed Bath and the people around. In fact I thought more about Bath and the upcoming 2nd term then about things to do in Germany. Nevertheless my weeks were packed with events, parties, meeting people and of cause: Christmas. Oh what a wonderful time of the year. My flight got cancelled and I was scared of the idea to not spend Christmas with my family but in England. Luckily I found my way back to France by train and ferry where my parents - perfect as they have always been picked me up and drove me safely home. A true Christmas miracle if I may say so and seeing that this is my blog: I may.

Last week in England

The last few days or even weeks were really silent around me and I have to apologize for that. It was not that I did not want to write nor was it because I did not have anything to write about; on the contrary, so much was going on that I had troubles finding some spare seconds.

My London trip is long gone yet you did not hear from it which is not so bad seeing that London is a city everyone should visit and everyone has heard a lot about it already. Needless to say going there with my good international friends was even better. The week after that, I visited Anna Lena in Coventry. We were really indecisive about what language we should speak and spoke a funny mixture of German and English. After going clubbing on Friday night, Anna Lena and I went to the Christmas market in Birmingham because, and I quote, "Coventry is a bit ugly". The Christmas market was fun, the university of Warwick in Coventry was big - just big - and obviously I had to miss my train and return an hour late. I do not know what it is with me and trains....

The Travelling Time

I do not seem to come to a rest, time runs past me, and I don't know where to find another second to really breath. Last week was a pretty good week, I am really happy to play handball again, even if it is just training at the moment. Coming up tomorrow are the last two English assessments and then there's only some maths stuff left for me to do before Christmas. In fact, thinking about it I do have a lot of work to do, and by postponing it, it actually gets more and more.

Never mind. This weekend I was in London with all of those people:

Edgar, Lara, Jan, Bea, Pauline, Jimena, Valeria, Clotilde, Christopher and Chloé

and the two people missing from that above picture, Mathilde and I (plus random passengers)

Chapter 23: Sooooo Cold!

I cannot believe I will be able to give you two posts in one day, but that is happening and yes, if you have not read the first, do that now, and keep this one for later.

If you have already read the last post, you will find yourself prepared to go on a short journey to Wales with me. The plan was: 

• Getting up on the Saturday, getting a train to Newport and another train to Abergavenny.
• Enjoy a fun day there, sleep at a small hotel, get up in the morning and get a train to Cardiff.
• Haste through Cardiff, take a lot of pictures, and take a train home in the late evening.

Carols, Mulled wine and crêpes

Starting my blog with a post about Thursday seems a little weird to me, but it was such a busy week, that I could have posted every day on it's own. So Thursday arrived, and I'll jump ahead right to when the plot begins. Marian, my English teacher, invited our group to see a Christmas concert of the Primary Schools of Bath in the Abbey. It was beautiful, and full of true Christmas spirit. In fact, one group managed to put on a performance, that even for grown ups would be difficult. After the Concert, we went to the Christmas market to drink a mulled wine, and walk around the town, which was lit in so beautiful colours. Again, since my descriptive style is no where near good, let me show you:

Invitation of the Mayor

The week started great with me finishing most of my studies on Monday during the day. Also I decided to try to get into the handball team, which obviously won't be easy, but it can't hurt. So I had to buy indoor sport shoes on Tuesday after my lectures finished. I went to the City Centre which really is a brilliant place to shop, if you want designer clothes. As you can imagine, it took me some time to find a shop that. In the end, I found a nice shop, and I was greeted like a king. Needless to say, I got some shoes without having to spend much time trying different shoes on. I spend a lot of money for them, but that was al right. When I got home, our landlady who did a house inspection again was already gone, and all she left was a note, that we would have do decide whether we wanted to rent the house next year again or not. That was not really a question for me, and I did not do very much the rest of the afternoon, apart from eating my first McDonald's menu in England. It was delicious. My plans for the evening were exciting. The mayor invited the international students to a reception. All you needed to do is show up in your national dress or smart clothes, and bring your invitation. The reception was in the Pump Room (see picture below this paragraph), which is a beautiful room, with a big chandelier in the centre of the room, and a grand piano on a podium on one side of the room. Since my description is nowhere close to what the room looks like, just enjoy the pictures, that convey some of the beauties of the room. In my opinion it was even more beautiful than this. After speeches by the Mayor, a student representative and a spokesman for the Roman Baths we were invited into the Roman Baths at night. While it is supposed to be a wonderful place at daylight, I have not been in there, so I can not judge myself, it is breathtaking at nights. For pictures, see below again.

the Pump Room

Christmas and Sightseeing

As Christmas approaches at an enormous speed, Bath has turned itself from a shopping paradise into a Christmas wonderland. It's not snowing yet, although I hope it will soon, but the streets in the city centre are flooded with lights, and being as beautiful as it is without the lights, it is just magical now. I have not gotten any decent pictures of this yet, but I will have magnificent pictures by next weekend, since the Christmas market will start on Thursday and I will definitely be there. Not much has happened this week, mainly because the university thought it would be fun to load up my schedule with unnecessarily hard essays, coursework and revision homework, but I have managed to go to a Bath Abbey tour, from which the new pictures (top right and below this paragraph) are. Bath Abbey is just amazingly beautiful, and I plan on doing the tower tour soon, to finally get a wonderful picture over the city centre of Bath.

Media Overload

After two weeks of silence, I strike back, more dramatic, more realistic, more brutal, more live, more....

Well, to be honest, not quite. The reason why I didn't write last week, was just the lack of time. I was away a lot, I had a great week, I have fallen far behind in my studies, and I have to do a lot for them today and tomorrow. But that's not for you to worry about. Instead, why don't you enjoy the beautiful Bonfire Night Firework of Bath - which actually was on the 6th of November instead of the 5th of November. I have not quite figured out why it was.

House Guests and How to Talk to British People

So here I am again, totally tired and yet still awake. Why should I be sleeping, it's only half eight. Which, by the way is 8:30 and not 7:30 as it would be in German. So why am I so tired? Good question, and I do not really have an answer to that. But let's go through it in chronological order. Sunday after I finished writing I spent the rest of the day doing nothing, in the evening Dan's brother Jase and his friend Paul came by to stay over this week, and Paul's brother came for a short visit on Sonday as well. We played poker, and drank some beers. On Monday I got up quite early, in order to do some work before my lectures, but the state of which we've left the kitchen on Sunday, and the fact that the landlady was about to come by in the afternoon left me no choice but to spend two hours of cleaning the kitchen. The landlady came, and checked if we would not leave the house in a total mess, that really confused my quite a bit, I cannot imagine something like that happening in Germany, but maybe I am totally wrong there. So I went to uni without having anything done for the week yet. I came home at 7 and was just looking forward to go asleep, when Dan convinced me to join him, Jase, Paul and Anton for a pint of beer, naturally I was up for that, and so we went to a pub that served beer for a pound a pint, which is a ridiculously good offer. So we've had quite a few. I had a great time talking to Jase, Paul and Dan. Wait, not with Anton? No, because they did not let him in because he didn't have his passport with him, and the ID was noch accepted as proof of age. Weird, and really annoying.

Bristol at Night and a Tea afterwards

Last week went rather slow for me, I did not really do much for university, but what I did was decent work. On Wednesday, I had great fun at my English classes again, and I suppose for meeting people, those English classes were by far the best choice. I had to write an Essay for my Cambridge class, and I was quite satisfied with the result. Hardly any mistakes, and Marian, my teacher, really liked my humorous humour. Needless to say, for me as a rather terrible student of all languages, I was quite proud of that fact. It was great fun again, but I was really tired afterwards, and yet I had to wait for another hour for me second English lecture of the day. In that time, I enjoyed talking to some students, one of whom will be more important later on, so I will introduce her now.

Between Proficiency Certificate and Problem Sheets

Hey all,

The second week of uni is over now, and I just wanted to give you a quick summary. I had to chose a different forth subject, which is quite nice up until now. I am quite happy with my maths unit choices so far. The problem sheets we get each week take up a lot of time, much more then in Germany, so basically I end up with the same amount of work as in Germany for the maths lectures.

Just some (useless) stats

Obviously I am a little bit bored right now, so after finishing my practice exercises for this week, I startet reflecting on what I did that week. I had three hours of lecture on Monday, two in Tuesday and two on Wednesday. That makes a total of seven hours in three day's which isn't that much. On Thursday I'll only have two hours of lecture as well, and on Friday I have four hours. That gives us a total of thirteen lecture hours a week, which compared to what I did in Germany seems like a bad joke.

And it somehow is... In Germany we have far more lecture time, and the lectures are helt at a different level.

As you would expect, there is a "but"...

First week conclusion

Hey you all.

It had been a funny and exciting Fresher's Week for me. Although I did not really attend much of it. I went to the maths introduction and to the exchange student introduction and of cause I met my personal tutor and my studies tutor. So let me start talking about that first.

The maths introduction was made for first year students mainly, so I did not really get any information I would have needed. The exchange student introduction was more useful, as I got information on travel around the UK and about English language courses. I will apply for those tomorrow, and hopefully I will be allowed to attend both I want to apply for.