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Just thought I'd put this in as it was Maha's birthday yesterday and would've obviously loved to have been back in Leam for it. |
So here we are 2 months in and I think I can finally say I feel at home here. In my Intercultural Relations class, we looked at the 5 stages of Culture Shock and after speaking to a few other Erasmus students, I'd say it's a pretty accurate model. It starts off with the 'honeymoon' period at the start where everything's going at million miles per hour, you're getting to know your new city, see the sights, make new friends etc and it's all really exciting. However, like with most things going at such a fast pace, it eventually has to slow down and during this re-integration phase, everything begins to catch up with you and you became exhausted, lose all motivation and start rejecting your new culture, branding it as inferior compared to what you're used to at home. There might be moments where you want nothing more than to pack up and leave but this reaction is completely normal and probably something that you need to experience before you can start to feel at home abroad. It's easy to slip in between phases but once you've experienced this low once, it's usually so much easier to deal with the next time round.
Now I'm not saying this is what every person on a Year Abroad (YA) goes through. It's dumb to assume that every person goes through the same thing but there are usually certain phases that people tend to go through at some point during their (YA). For me, the honeymoon phase came to very abrupt halt after my passport got nicked. Before I came here, I assumed that after 9 years being away from home, I wouldn't get homesick at all but once the option to go back was taken away from me, then I definitely started to really miss England. Even during lectures or nights out, I would still have that concern in the back of my mind, wondering if I was gonna be able to make it back in time and it definitely didn't make settling in any easier. However, I finally sent everything off last Friday and as I've been charged for it, I'm assuming there weren't any problems with the paperwork and the new passport should be here in about 3 weeks. Although the waiting game can still be frustrating, it was a massive weight off my shoulders knowing that I've done all that I can and the only thing to do was to finally start enjoying life over here.
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Fingers crossed it gets here in time |
Although I didn't really choose the best way to start celebrating. After running around like a headless chicken making sure everything was filled out properly and sent off as well deciding what to send Maha for her birthday, I decided to spend most of Saturday in bed just to catch up on some sleep. Went to a Mexican restaurant with Katie for dinner on Sunday and the standout highlight had to be the waiter dousing our plate of chicken wings with tequila before setting alight right in front of us. (Emily Thompson, that's how you cook with tequila) Kinda tempted to go back again just so I can get a picture. We spent the majority of the time talking in German which was much needed as I haven't been speaking anywhere near as much German as I should be. It's so easy to slip into English, not just with native speakers, but with other Erasmus students as they tend to find it easier than German. I've been asked a few times if I think my German has improved which is a pretty tough question because I'm pretty sure it has, but it's a very tough thing to measure. Definitely need to start making more effort though and I've arranged to meet up with a German girl once a week so we can both practice our English and German but after speaking to her on facebook a few times, her English, like with every German person, is far better than my Deutsch so this should be interesting.
I should probably mention why I chose '8 Foot Road Signs and Zeit zur Sache' as the title. Well, as mentioned in the last entry, we had a discussion about love songs and their potential alternative meanings in my last translation class but today our tutor decided to take it a bit further by making us translate a song from 'Flight of the Conchords'. The song in question was called 'Business Time' and if you haven't heard it then here it is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU. After the initial laughs, we found it was actually quite challenging, as it was pretty hard to translate it in a way that doesn't get rid of the meaning. Think we ended up going for 'Zeit zur Sache' which I think translates to 'time to get down to business'. Definitely keeping hold of that piece of work. Later that night, we were meant to go this event that had been hyped up a lot but ended up going to a different club as the queue was barely moving (Nobody queues as well as the British). Still ended up having a really good night and unsurprisingly, I spent far too much money, couldn't pay for a taxi and ended up walking roughly 2 and a half miles home at 5am but not before deciding that halfway through, I had to bring this home with me.
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Definitely the strangest thing I've woken up to... |
Yes that is a giant road sign that I found on the way and yes I did carry it a mile uphill plus up 4 floors as it wouldn't fit in the lift. Don't worry, I am fully aware that I am a muppet for ever thinking this was a good idea and I'm still struggling to find a way to justify doing this. Until I decide what to do with it, it'll make a very nice ornament in the corner of my room.
Anyway, dinner's finally ready but thought I'd leave you with this little gem that I thought illustrates German efficiency at its finest.
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Why not? |
Bis sp
äter