ERASMUS TIMES: Stuttgart

Last Thursday I went on a lovely adventure to Stuttgart. I had been to Stuttgart before, while I was at secondary school, but tis a nice auld spot, so I went again. And it didn't do any harm. In order to get the most out of our day we left at 7am. I'm not the most coordinated early in the morning, so this mean I had to be awake for 5am. I think it's safe to assume my flatmates hate me, as I was thundering around the flat at 5am.

"Aaaah don't kill me, Daisy!" - Myrtle Wilson

We walked to our meeting point where we got on our private coach (wooooOOOOoooo) and headed north. When I got on the bus, I was disappointed to find that people wanted to do things other than sleep. namely take photos and talk loudly. This displeased me. They soon came around though, falling asleep like the rest of us. That or there was a fumes leak.

Our first port of call was the Mercedes Benz museum (wooooOOOOoooo). I had heard many good things about it, so I was looking forward to it. It didn't disappoint. I wouldn't be the world's biggest motoring enthusiast, but I enjoyed it immensely. There was a pope-mobile, vintage Mercedes Roadsters and delightful cars from the 1920s, which one could imagine Daisy Buchanan mowing someone down in.

Judging Schiller is judging you. 

After a little picnic and another short bus journey, we went into the city centre and did a little tour. We got a look at the new and old palaces, the Konigsbau, Schillerplatz, among a few other bits and pieces. It's certainly a very pretty city. We then were left to wander about for an hour or two, which I spent looking for a Starbucks and then having a Starbucks. They wonderfully got my name right and to put an end to the suspense, I had a hot chocolate. And it was nom.

In order to get some learnings in, we visited the Landtag, which is the parliament for the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. We got to listen to and observe the parliament in session (they were discussing the provision of care for the elderly) and we got to speak to a nice man from the Green Party. One of our guides decided to take it upon herself to translate everything he was saying for us, even though we understood 90% of it. Bless her for making the effort, but it was as if we had put what the man was saying through Google translate. They were indeed English words, but were in very "creative" contexts. At that point we headed home and we got McDonalds when we got back. Winner.

I can highly recommend Stuttgart. It was nice to be in a relatively large urban centre again and there was a nice atmosphere around the city, which was probably owing to the preparations for Christmas markets among other things. I think I should like to go back there again before the year is out.

ERASMUS TIMES: I read a book.

Note the Milka wrapper in the backround.
One of a number of fallen comrades.

So, in an attempt to enhance my German learnings, I decided to try and read a book entirely in German. You'd think that after 8 years of learning German, this kind of an activity would be a regular part of my routine. Well it wasn't. And just because I've read one book in German, doesn't mean I can say that it is. I'd want to be doing it fair regular if it was to be a routine.

 The book I chose to read? 'Nick and Norah: Soundtrack einer Nacht' by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. And before you ask, yes that is a translation of 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist'. I wasn't going to start with 'Vor dem Gesetz,' now was I? And before you tell me that it was written for teenage girls, I already know. There was a general consensus of 'is that all it is?' from anyone I told I was reading it, but I never claimed to be any kind of literary sophisticate.

 It was a pretty enjoyable read, from what I understood and in my defence that was about 80% of it. I'll own up now and admit that I have seen the film version starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, but the plot of the book and the plot of the film differ quite a bit. For those who don't know, 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist' tells the story of two young'uns who are both emerging from weird relationships. Nick had recently been dumped by his girlfriend Tris and Norah is in the midst of an on/off relationship with Tal. In an attempt to win an argument, Norah asks Nick to be her 5 minute boyfriend and following from this encounter, the two spend the evening together. That's about the bones of the plot, if I'm not to give too much away.

 As you will have observed above, the novel was co-authored. What Cohn and Levithan did was split the narrative: Cohn did every second chapter, writing from the perspective of Norah and Levithan did the remaining chapters, writing from the perspective of Nick. This was the element of the novel I liked best. It was quite sweet that there was an increasing overlap of shared ideas and feelings between the two characters as the novel progressed. I thought the translation was pretty solid too. References were made through English in parts, to retain the youth-culture-centric core of the novel. I think it was worthwhile reading, because there was a more youthful, casual register of German used in the narrative.

 So all in all, 'Nick and Norah: Soundtrack einer Nacht' was a pretty enjoyable read and a suitable first assay into reading German-language literature. I highly recommend. Now it's just a case of deciding what to read next, which is likely to be more in the vein of young adult fiction. If I come out of this without developing a Peter Pan Complex, I'll be doing well.

Soundtrack der Woche (yes, I did steal this general idea from the title of the book):
In keeping with the literary theme and simultaneously professing my love for Kate Bush, my song for the week is 'Wuthering Heights'. 'Cos I'm cool like that.

ERASMUS TIMES: Update- Everything is as it was.

Being the neglectful blogger that I am, it has been over a month since my last post. It is with the guilt of a catholic school-child at confession that I admit this. I was once that catholic school-child, so I am speaking from experience. Since my last post I have put in two weeks of lectures and university work. Most of these two weeks were spent dicking about, trying to ignore the inevitable course work, etc. This week classes have really started proper. As a result I have been faced with the challenge of the copy rooms, the library, registering for classes and other such dreadful things. Incidentally these hellish situations seemed to fall around the same time as Halloween. Coincidence? Yes.

Classes seem to be good so far. My understanding isn't quite what it should be at, but I'm hoping this will improve. Ideally quite quickly. From what I understand of the content, it's pretty interesting stuff! I've taken on introductory classes for German film and German linguistics which have proven quite engaging so far. Though, I may just be massively confused. I'm taking quite a few language classes too, which are enlightening.  Enlightening in the sense I didn't realise I was such a thicko.

The week was punctuated nicely by a bank holiday on Thursday. It was All Souls Day, so everyone got the day off to busy themselves being holy. Or to busy themselves lying in bed with a horrific hangover from Halloween. I spent mine being a domestic goddess... and then dicking about with Phoebe and Claire. It's thrilling bits of information like that, are why I write this blog.

LG,
Orla

Soundtrack der Woche:
It is for no particular reason that I have been listening to 'William, it was reallly nothing' by The Smiths. Said I'd make ye privy to that tantalising part of my week.