J Rock and Life

This time next week I'll be coming home for Christmas. When I realised I had a such a short amount of time to visit the Christmas Markets I decided to actually start planning some stuff. So...today I visited the quaint typically southern German town of Speyer. I visited the Dom and the tower and of course the Christmas Market, where I bought the obligatory Glühwein. It was really nice there. Not much to do, but nevertheless a really nice place to visit. Also whilst I was there I went into a J Rock shop they had there (part of the reason for choosing to go to Speyer). It was so cool!!!! They had magazines, CD's, Plectrums and even a tour tshirts. I was gonna get a GazettE one but one was huge and the other one, with chibi versions of the members on it was too small Nevermind...I shall return to there again. I bought two magazines there, and cos I bought them, the very nice shop owner gave me Reita's and hide's plectrums for free!!! Sazza says she hates me now...but it's worth it! When I'd finished looking around Speyer, I realised it was only one o'clock, so I decided to visit another Christmas Market in Mannheim. It was on my way back on the train, so I thought why not. As I was waiting for the train it started snowing! Just goes to show how cold it was today.
The Mannheim Christmas Market is huge!! Well, it's probably just a little bit bigger than the Heidelberg one, but it's all in one place, instead of being spread about. It was sooooo christmassy!! I loved it! They even hard 1/2 Metre Bratwursts there! I instead went for the smaller option of a Currywurst I decided that it might be a good idea to go home when I started shivering and when I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

Now...on to the exciting news...I'm going to Nuremberg next Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The home of Germany's most famous and oldest Christmas Market!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course there are other things there too, which is why I'm spending all day there. I want to do so much, I just hope I have enough time. I plan on visiting Flocke at the Zoo, the cute youtube video's of her have tempted me!! The Germanisches Museum also looks very interesting, so I might go there too. I'm soooo excited!!! On the down side it's 3 hours there and 3 hours back, all on the day before I fly home for Christmas. So...within that 24 hours I will have been in...Heidelberg,Mannheim, Darmstadt, Aschaffenburg, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Bristol and then home. I'm guessing I'm gonna be slightly sick of travelling by then!

At the moment, I have 3 days, where I don't know what to do or where to go, so hopefully I'll find something interesting to do.

Until next time

Bye!

So, it's getting to that time of year again, which means I have to think up presents for my parents. I really have no idea what to get them. I love Christmas, it's just that I don't love not knowing what to get them. To make things worse it's my mum's birthday 3 days after Christmas day, so I've got to think up 2 lots of presents for her! So if any one has any ideas I'd really appreciate your help

After being immensely jealous of Sazza and her snow in Potsdam I awoke this morning to discover SNOW in Heidelberg!! It's so pretty and white! YAY!! I love snow sooooooooo much and I just hope it lasts! It seems cold enough, so let's just hope it doesn't rain! I'm going up to the Königstuhl tomorrow, where I should be able to see over Heidelberg and its snowny-ness! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

After deciding to skip my first lecture on Wednesday, I reluctantly got out of bed and went to Landeskunde. Our lecturer was in Cologne, so instead we we going on a tour of the Altstadt. As we were going around, we went off to this little square behind the Hauptstrasse and we were stood there for about 15/20 mins. Our tour guide was talking about some important time for Heidelberg, I think something about an ape on the bridge and I stared to feel weird. I felt really hot and I was feeling nauseous. All of a sudden, I started stumbling around and then my vision blacked out. I couldn't see a thing and I just kept hearing people calling my name. I almost fainted which was so scary. Someone from the Akademisches Auslands Amt grabbed me to stop me falling over and then led me to somewhere where I could sit down. It was horrible, cos I couldn't explain what was wrong cos I couldn't think of the German words! Note to self:learn more vocab! Afterwards I felt more or less ok, but I had a really bad headache. I carried on going round the altstadt afterwards and I seemed to be ok. It was so embarrassing though. ALL of the erasmus students were there and saw me stumbling about looking like I was drunk. It was also really scary too. I almost fainted and I couldn't see anything for about a minute. What's wrong with me
I can't even go and see a doctor, cos I don't have one in Germany, so I'd have to go back to Manchester and that's not something that I really want to do unless absolutely necessary. I can't even talk to my parents about it, cos they'd get all worried and my mum would probably want to come over. I suppose this isn't the best time not to be insured! I mean, I've got the European health card, but that's it. I chose not to get German medical insurance, cos I thought I wouldn't need it. I haven't been to the doctors in like the past 10 years for anything other than injections and I've never had to go into hospital. It's just typical that something like this happens to me whilst I'm in Germany.
Let's just hope it doesn't happen again.

Bye

After waiting for a bus that never came, walking to a taxi rank that wasn't there, luckily waving a taxi down, waiting for a coach that was 30 minutes late, having a 2 hour coach ride, a 2 hour wait in the airport, a 1 hour flight and a 1 hour train ride to Potsdam I finally arrived!! It was worth it though and there began our awesome weekend! Sazza met me at Potsdam Hbf where we bought out Japan Festival tickets and then we went on a bus ride to Golm. After having a drink and a chat we went to the Mensa to get a meal and a desert for €1,20!! That's so cheap. I thought Heidelberg was cheap, where you could get that for about €3 but I was so wrong. After that we went into Berlin and had a wander around the shops and saw everyone setting up the Christmas markets. We also found Neo Tokyo!! I love that shop sooo much. I could have bought all the magazines there, they have so many and although they cost more than they would in Japan, they are still cheap compared to rip off Britain! I ended up buying a fools mate with alice nine. on the cover and a j beat with shou looking stoned on the cover. J beat is a german j rock magazine which is pretty cool cos I can actually understand what they are saying for once! The issue I bought is like an a to z of all the most important j rock bands with a couple of interviews in there too. Not to mention the alice nine poster that came with it! There was also a hide poster there too, so being the nice friend that I am I gave it to Sazza in return for an Uruha poster. She also got a Koda Kumi poster to add to her collection! After coming back from Berlin we watched the new alice nine. DVD and then went to sleep.

The next day we went to the Japan Festival! It was so cool and we saw a lot of displays and ate Japanese food. I had the beef gyu don whilst Sazza had the tofu udon. We also tried some Japanese fruits including apples, which the stall people repeatedly kept giving us. There were a lot of martial arts displays and through these we learnt a move that we have to use on J Rockers if we ever see them. Basically it ends up with them on top of you! After that we went home and I was practically forced to watch Moon Child I thought Hyde was good in it and it was sad when he died (although he came back) and the other guy (I think he's called Gackt?) was ok, he's got a stupid hairstyle and seemed a bit plastic but I suppose he was okay for a supporting actor We then went to bed after watching youtube.

On Sunday we went to the Japan Festival again, after getting up an hour later than planned so our planned sushi breakfast turned into a sushi lunch. It was sooo good and it was made in front of us. You could literally taste the freshness in it. The ninja's and austrian samurai's were really good too and we now know how to attack someone with an umbrella. There was also a slutty kimono show, where the models' underwear could clearly be seen. Clearly they do not get the idea of a kimono. Sazza also decided to buy a Gackt ring...
Showing how unobservant we were, we by change looked out of the window and saw the Berlin Wall. You would have thought that we would have noticed it a bit earlier really. It was pitch black by now, but we decided to go and have a look at it. It was so weird actually standing right next to the wall on the east side. Just the thought of doing that 20 years ago would have gotten you shot. The paintings on the wall are really good and it's just a shame that they've been damaged by graffiti. It's still weird to think that Germany used to be two countries and a wall was built separating a city into two. After that we went back to Potsdam to have a meal. Sazza told me that Chris and Michael suggested meeting up to go out for a meal, so although we weren't thrilled about the idea, we decided to be nice and go. Sazza had left messages for them on facebook and had even texted Chris but still no reply. After finding out how two faced Chris is, it wasn't the biggest disappointment ever when they didn't reply, but it's still the principle of the thing. They're the ones who suggested going out for a meal and yet they either ignored, or chose not to answer Sazza. Anyway...when we got there we saw a table reserved for about 6, so we sat on the one behind it. Turns out Sazza knew the people on the table behind us and then 5 mins later Chris shows up and sits with them! He came over and said hi and we had a brief chat, which was enough and gave a excuse for Michael that he was hung over. We had a really good meal there and had two glasses of Berliner Weisse grün each and a shot of amaretto (on the house) and then we went back to Golm.

On Monday we went to the Berlin Zoo, which was pretty good, although the Lions have stupidly small cages and we felt really bad for them. The tigers were also made into sausages (we couldn't find them and they weren't where they were supposed to be, so the logical explanation, was that they were in the sausages)so our lunch was tiger curry wurst! After that we went to the Jewish Museum which was really thought provoking and interesting. The memory void and the tower were really chilling and although it can no way show what it was like during the holocaust, it made us feel uncomfortable and showed us that it would have been much much worse then. I would definitely recommend it. After that I had to go home and leave Sazza and Berlin. I already want to go back as it just showed me how boring Heidelberg is compared to Berlin/Potsdam!

Saying that...Heidelberg is very pretty and old...and we have a castle, so come visit me!!!

Bye!

Yay!!! Today I finally enrolled! Jetzt bin ich endlich immatrikuliert! After going to the Buerger Amt, then back to the alte PH and copying loads of things out, I finally became a 'proper' student of the PH in Heidelberg! After that we went to get my library card, my campus card, my semester ticket (for the buses, strassenbahns and bahns) and then went to sign my Mietvertrag. We couldn't set up a computer account today mainly cos I don't actually have my student id card yet, I only have a bit of paper with my name and a stamp from the PH on it. Hopefully I'll get that either tomorrow or on Thursday. I also need to choose my courses too, Ed said he'd already gotten a booklet about it but I haven't, so that'll be needed to be sorted out soon. Tomorrow I'm going to set up a bank account with Deutsche Bank, so they can take my rent of €186 (omg how cheap is that?!?!) a month out of it. Unfortunately no one was on Skype today when I went into the internet cafe, but I managed to post some blog accounts up and check all of the usual sites. Other than that I haven’t really done much today. Me, Tom, Ed and two Americans were going to go to the zoo this afternoon but according to Ed the Americans didn’t feel very well (bit weird that they BOTH didn’t feel very well!) so we didn’t go. I couldn’t be bothered going alone, as we’ll all probably go another day, so I just came back to my flat and watched my Alice in Wonderland DVD. It’s only 22 days until their new DVD comes out!! I can’t wait for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I still need to check whether it’s gonna have a European release as well as a Japanese one, cos it should do considering they are signed to CLJ just like the GazettE are. Although it would probably be pretty random, it might be funny to listen to Shou and see what he’s saying. I need to go and pack now, cos I don’t know whether I’m swapping rooms tomorrow or Thursday. The sooner the better really, it’ll be nice just to have one less thing to do! Oh btw, the GazettE’s new song Distorted Daytime is really really good! Kai played it on his radio show it’s gonna be the B side to Leech which is also an amazing song!
Anyway...until next time

Bye!!

Finally I´ve managed to post my blog entries! I´ve been writing them on my laptop and I keep forgetting to bring my memory stick in with me to the internet cafe so I can post them. It´s all done now though, so that´s one less thing to have to remember!! I´ll start writing the entries in German soon but it was good to be able to just be able to use English for a while!
Anyway, I´ve said everything in my blog posts, so there´s nothing else to say now!

Bis Bald

Tchüss!!

Sunday...
Last night was the pub tour. I can’t remember the last time I drank so much! I feel absolutely TERRIBLE today Ed managed to insult the American guy with just one sentence. He told him the Americans destroyed the English language and they can’t speak it properly! Although he’s right, maybe it wasn’t the best thing to say to someone when you’ve only just met them. One of the German guys that was taking us around convinced everyone to do this special Heidelberg style shot. It was basically Vodka and Tabasco sauce with a bit of lemon and sugar on top. It was one of the worst things I have EVER tried in my life! It tastes horrible and the Tabasco sauce leaves your mouth really warm afterwards. I don’t think I’ll ever do that again. At the end of the night I had a Döner and it was soooooo good! Germany really makes them better than we do in England. I’m supposed to be meeting up with Ed and Tom later to go and watch the football, but I don’t know if I’m going to go. They still allow smoking in pubs over here, so it’s not exactly gonna be pleasant in this Irish bar that they found. I’m not exactly interested in football either. It’s not even as if it’s a really big match, it’s just Everton vs. Newcastle.

Monday.....
Today I was meant to enrol. Me and Rahel arranged to meet at the Alte PH building which she assured me was easy to find. Her directions were just keep going straight. So at 9am I left my flat leaving 30 mins to find this place. I thought that this would be more than enough time. I was wrong. I soon found out that you couldn’t keep going straight so I just stayed on the same bit of road, thinking that was the best option. Turns out it wasn’t. I ended up (after walking for about 45 mins )on a bridge over the River Neckar. Somewhere I definitely wasn’t meant to be. So after getting a map out and looking like a lost tourist I tried to be logical and just walk in the direction of where the building looked on the map. It worked much better than with Rahel’s directions! So after walking for about 75 mins I finally got there. When I got to the office where I was meant to enrol, I found out that we were meant to go to the Buergeramt first. Unnyappy!!! It’s was yet another long walk away, but before we went there I had to get a form saying I was exempt from the health insurance thing that you have to have (because I have a medical card ). While I was getting the form, the woman who was giving to me was trying to convince me to take out health insurance which would cost around €54 a month just in case on the very slight possibility that I might have to go into hospital, my card wouldn’t cover me. I refused her, which she didn’t seem too pleased about. There was no way that I was gonna pay over €500 for something that I wont even use!! So after I got that I went back into the other main office, where this woman asked me if I would be willing to swap rooms with a blind girl. I could hardly say no, that would just make me seem really cold and horrible! Apparently she can’t find her way to where she is living right now and she’d prefer my flat because: 1) I only live with one other person not 3 and 2) it’s right by the bus stop on the main road. That means that we have to go to another office, fill out another form and then I have to haul all of my stuff to a different part of the campus! That’ll happen on Wednesday probably, after I’ve had my German test to see how good I am. So......back to enrolling. Me and Rahel went to the Buerger Amt, only to find out that it’s closed on a Monday!! This was turning into the morning from hell! We then went back to tell them I couldn’t enrol, so I’ll have to do it tomorrow now. The only other thing I did was pay the semester Beitrag. I’ve got absolutely no idea what it’s for, but it was €64. When I finally left Rahel, I went into town, partly because I wanted to go to the Internet Cafe again (looks like it’s gonna be my second home) and I was hungry, as I barely ate anything yesterday, and I didn’t have anything for breakfast. I went into Asia Snack and the food was sooooooooo good!! It really made my day a bit better. For €2,50 you can get a plate of noodles with chicken and veg which is more than enough to fill you up for the rest of the day. and that was a small portion!! It’s probably cheaper just to eat there all the time instead of cooking meals. After that I headed on down to the Internet Cafe and spent ages there, catching up on facebook, my emails and most importantly J Rock!!! I also ‘spoke’ (typed) to Aurinelle via Skype. I have no idea why but at the beginning she thought I was Hanan and she was asking me how Charlotte was. LOL!!! Just I was about to ask how it is to be stuck with Zahra, she told me Zahra was with her, so that was quite lucky! They’ve both been in Leipzig for just under a month now! That’s nothing compared to my 4 days! She also said she’s probably not gonna come to Heidelberg in April, cos it’ll be to much hassle to move again. I understand what she means, but that means that I’ll just be stuck with Ed
While I was there, I also managed to download Tora’s radio show (YA-BAY-YO wtf?!?!) from last Friday and I also found a translation for it too!! He’s taken over from Reita’s Radio Jack Show and although I really enjoyed listening to Reita, Tora is sooooooo (x10000000) much better!! Even though I don’t understand what he’s saying, I could listen to him all night. He’s got such a sexy voice!! By the looks of it, he’s gonna try and get Saga to come on the show too, which should be funny!
After that I went to get an ice latte from Starbucks and then I headed on back to the flat. Everything is so boring here! There’s absolutely nothing to do with no internet, so hopefully my new room will have it and my life might just get a bit better!

Friday....
Today I'm meeting up with Rahel and one of her friends at 8 pm, which means that I have to get to Kirchenheim which is miles away It involves a journey on the Bus and then the SB.I just hope I wont get lost. Rahel lent me a map of Heidelberg, so hopefully I should be ok. There's really nothing you can do on a Feiertag, as everything's shut. I thought about going out to find out where Ed lives, but then decided not to as it would be really awkward if I just turned up on his doorstep and just said hi. He's got a friend out here anyway, so he's probably with him. Yesterday, when we got the bus to the Wohnheim, we passed the zoo, which has bears. I only know this, as I saw them because they're right next to the side of the road!!! I'm living 5 mins from bears! What if they escape?!?! I don't know if I'll have internet in my room yet and it's so boring just sitting here doing nothing. There's a weird shaped telephone point, so hopefully I'll be able to use that to connect to the internet but I'll have to buy a separate cable for it. I don't know what I'll do if I can't access the internet from my room. It'll be the end of the world!!!!!!!!!!!
Tomorrow there's a Stadtralley so that should be interesting. I'll be able to find out where everything is. There's also a pub tour which wont be as good, but I might as well go cos there's nothing else to do! I'll be getting a German sim card/ new phone on Monday, so at least if I need to make any calls in Germany, they wont cost me as much. I still haven't met my flatmate, although all of her (could be a he, but by the stuff in the bathroom and kitchen I'd say it was a her) stuff is out. It would be good to have someone to talk to cos it feels really isolated here at the moment. At least if I'd have the internet, I could use skype but I don't know right now. It's times like these that make me wish that me and Susan had chosen to go to the same uni!

Saturday...
Last night was really good. I met up with Rahel and she took me to one of her friends house. Some more of her friends joined us and we ate Zwiebelkuchen and Gebratenes(?) apples and drank some kind of wine that one of her friends had made. I didn't really speak much all night as they were either talking about teacher related things or old German nursery rhymes...all of which I know nothing about. It did get slightly boring as the night went on and I became more and more tired because I stopped trying to understand everything they were saying and just sat there. All of her friends were really nice though. People (Erasmus students) keep saying that the Germans are really cold and unfriendly but I haven't found it like that at all. Everyone I've spoken to have been really nice. An old man spoke to me at the bus stop today and even though I have never seen him before in my life he was really friendly! The minute I told him I was from England he started speaking English with me which was slightly irritating (because I want to learn German) but also at the same time really nice as he was trying to make it easier for me. We went on the Stadtrallye today. It was the biggest waste of time EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Firstly I had to get up at about 9 am ON A SATURDAY!!! The weather was horrible to. It was cold and raining. We then were put into teams and had to go take pictures of fast food restaurants and go and find pointless things. In Heidelberg there is one main road which is pretty straight so it's impossible to get lost in so the whole tour was pointless. Although on the brighter side of things I did see 2 Japanese restaurants that I want to go to. I just need to make some friends now to go with! When we finally finished the tour, me Ed and Tom walked back to the bus stops and it started to HAIL!! It's only the beginning of October and it's hailing! After that I went to find an internet cafe because I needed my 'fix'. I'd gone way too long without it and it was so good to be connected to the outside world again. I spent almost 2 hours there and had a drink and it only cost me €3! That was the best amount of money I've spent since I've been here! Tonight is the Pub tour so although I wouldn’t normally go if I was at home I’ll go because it’ll be much better than being alone in my room.

I'm finally in Heidelberg after a journey which seemed to last FOREVER!!! After managing to get to the airport for 4:30 am I (well my mum) had to pay £50 for excess baggage. It could have been £90 but the nice lady at the check in desk only made it £50. In total my suitcase weighed 29kg when only 20kg was allowed. I'm just glad they didn't weigh my hand luggage, because that would have probably been overweight too. At the gate, there was this really hot Japanese guy who was going onto the same flight as me!!! That made my morning slightly better! Suddenly I found myself becoming just like Hanan and becoming a bit of a stalker and I followed him onto the bus which was taking us to the plane and I sat opposite from him, so I could keep sneaking glances at him. We weren't seated anywhere near each other on the plane which was a shame, but never mind, I'm sure there'll be other hot Japanese guys, especially in Japan! When we actually got onto the plane we found out that we had a delay and had to sit there for an hour before we could take off. That was sooooooooooooooooo annoying. There's nothing worse than to be sitting in a plane when you're not going anywhere. When I arrived in Frankfurt Airport, instead of having just under 2 hours to get my bags and make my way to the station, I had just over 30 mins, so everything was a bit rushed It's no fun hauling around about 40 kgs of luggage with you when you're not entirely sure where you're going. After changing trains at Mannheim, I finally made it to Heidelberg, where I was met by Rahel (meine Patin) and she took me to my accommodation. The Uni told me that I would be staying in 486-496 In Neuenheimer Feld. I thought that would be a flat, in which 10 rooms were located. It wasn't. It turned out to be 10 buildings!! I arrived there at about 12 pm which meant that the Hausmeister was having lunch, which therefore meant that I couldn't get the keys So, we then decided what to do for an hour and a half and decided to try and find out exactly which building I would be staying in. After walking around each building and looking at the Klingellist outside of the front doors I finally found which one I was staying in. 486. This one was the last one I tried. How typical! I then found out that I was situated on the 3rd Floor and I had to climb a TON of stairs just to get there. This was still with my 40 kgs of luggage. There was no lift (unnyappy!) Who makes student accommodation without a lift nowadays?!?!?!? It was now late enough that the Hausmeister was back from lunch, so I could go and get my keys. There were 2 of them in the office, one old one with a moustache and a young one who was really hot! (and really tall too). He gave me my keys and then I moved in. It turns out that I'm living with one other person in our flat which is pretty big for just 2 people. My room is pretty big too (bigger than the one in Manchester). Our kitchen in awful. We've got two hobs and a fridge. No oven or freezer!!! How the hell am I meant to live with just that?!?! I had to go shopping pretty soon, as on Friday it's a Feiertag, which means everything will be shut The supermarkt next to the building was really crap. They hardly sell anything and most of the shelves were empty, so I ended up getting some orange juice, bread tomatoes and ham and some Pringles and cookies. Not the best of foods to be living off. It should last until Saturday though. After coming back to my room, I had a nap, as I hadn't slept in 29 hours and when I woke up, I unpacked my case. My flatmate still wasn't home so I listed to some music for a bit and then went to bed.