Friday, September 3
Jetzt bin Ich in Deutschland!
For those that don't speak German, that means "I'm now in Germany!", which is completely and utterly true. I'm typing this on my laptop whilst sitting in a cafe in the airport terminal, waiting for my coach to Heidelberg.Speaking of which, I'm not going to be able to move into the halls of residence at the university tonight, because the connecting coach doesn't arrive in Heidelberg until gone 6pm local time, which is approximately 2 hours after the accomodation office closes. I should have gone for the ultra-early flight from Stanstead.
There would have been less screaming babies on that flight too. Luckily, I ended up with an aisle seat on the plane, which gave me the opportunity to stretch my legs a bit. Somewhat less fortuituously (that looks like I've spelt it wrong), across the aisle from me were a couple with a toddler and a baby that looked less than 6 months old. As cute as it (I didn't ask) was, it screamed for practically the entire descent into Frankfurt, on account of its ears popping. Oh well, these things can't be avoided.
I was sat next to another couple, and I figured out pretty early in the flight that they were German. It was the speaking in German and reading a German book that gave it away. I was engrossed in my newspaper for most of the flight (The Independent is a lot of reading), but I plucked up the courage to converse with them for the last 15 minutes.
And I have to say that I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that my German is half-decent. I managed to have quite a good conversation about Heidelberg and living in Germany, both understanding what they said to me and making myself intelligible in return. Grammatically perfect I may not have been, but at least meaning was being understood.
I was also happy with the fact that I (mostly) understood what they were saying to me. Listening has always been my weakest of the four areas of foreign languages (the others being speaking, reading and writing), and it was this that I was dreading most about moving to Germany. Remember those Austrian guys who came to my pub this summer, and spoke so incredibly quickly that I was instantly nervous about the whole Germany thing? It seems they are the exception. I can understand German people! Hurrah!
Now if only that could continue for the rest of the year... Here's hoping. And praying, come to think of it.
And now I find myself sat outside this little cafe in the terminal, munching on a muffin and drinking a Sprite, waiting for the coach to Heidelberg. God knows how long that will be, although the information board will probably tell me if I bother to look. I'm lazy like that.
Right, that's enough typing for now. I'll get this posted as and when I can, but I'm not sure when that'll be. At least it was written contemporaneously, rather than 2 days later, which is my usual way of doing things...
