I’m still the same

This is the first time I lie in Köln! So kewl. I thought since I haven’t really taken much care of this blog, I should write at least about the highlights of my first two weeks here. Some things are worth telling, after all.

So yeah, I’ve already been here for more than two weeks and a lot of things happened. If you’re one of my few fans who’ve read my articles, you probably still remember that little episode in Magdeburg when I was all by myself in a completely unknown country but shouldn’t be if I had written down a certain phone number. So to tempt fate once again, I decided it was a good idea not to read any information about my residence before coming here. I came here on a Saturday, early in the morning. Well, the night before, around 5 hours before I had to wake up for my flight, I thought about it while already in bed. “Oh, perhaps I should have written an email in advance saying I’m arriving tomorrow. Perhaps.” I got very nervous, but I didn’t have the time to change anything, so I just tried to forget about it. I thought if I couldn’t get in my room, I could still go to some hostel for the weekend. Well, once I set foot in Köln, I started to feel differently. I was carrying two pieces of luggage and I didn’t know the city and when I arrived to the station, I realised I hadn’t only forgotten about my room. I hadn’t taken a look at Google maps to know where I lived. I didn’t know which tram lines I had to take to get there. The usual smart me.

I actually got to my residence quite easily. But how was I supposed to know what the building was? There were two or three of them scattered in the same address. I saw the logo of the organisation that manages student residence halls in the city, so at least I knew I wasn’t in some private property. The thing is, since it was Saturday 1pm, nobody seemed to be around. I just sat there by the door. Still no one. Then I decided to take action. I had a look at the names in the intercom and recognized a Spanish surname. Before I came here I thought I shouldn’t talk much Spanish, but I wasn’t in a position where I could be demanding anything. Unluckily, some German guy answered and said there was no Spaniard there. So I went back to sitting. All this happened in an interval of around 30 minutes. Long enough to get unpleasant feelings. I was already thinking about the hostel/hotel option when an Asian looking girl came to get in the building. I didn’t ask, but she told me if I was coming inside, and I did. What I did have with me was my room number, so I went up to the 5th floor hoping I could simply knock on my own room’s door or on my neighbours’. Nobody answered. After a while sitting at the stairs, I heard someone one floor above and went running. There was this dark-haired girl that looked like she was about to save your humble narrator’s ass. And she did. She was a German-French girl that kindly helped me find a guy who had access to the building keys, checked my papers and led me to my abode.

By that time I was really hungry (it was around 2-3pm and hadn’t eaten much since 6am) and didn’t really expect to get into my own room for at least two more days, but I was lucky. I was extremely lucky. Now is when I’m supposed to learn a lesson once and for all. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think I will. So don’t trust me.

-Pasha Bearbaer

A month in the life

Today I lie from Spain and probably that won’t happen again in a long time, since in just a few hours I’ll be flying back to Germany, this time to Köln (Cologne). All I can say about that is that I’m looking forward to it. My mind needs reset. I need reset.

EDIT: I did start writing this in Spain, but was too lazy, so I’ve finished it in Germany.

If I had to summarize any other month, I’d probably just need a couple of lines to describe a boring routine. But August was obviously different. It all started by chance when I received an email from one of my teachers saying that they were offering this German course in Magdeburg for two students. That was around June and I really had nothing planned for the summer yet, except a visit to France that eventually never took place. So in a way I needed this to fill some time in the summer. Plus it would be a great chance to dust my German off and get it ready for my year in Köln. Those were all my thoughts on it beforehand. I guess I wasn’t expecting much from it either, besides the German language part of it. They say that if your expectations aren’t high, chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was.

I arrived on a Sunday. As everyone knows, I’m really smart, so I forgot to write down the number of my contact there, who was supposed to pick me up at the train station and lead me to my residence. So first thing I had to do is find the way on my own. Luckily it wasn’t so hard, just a couple of long streets and I was there. I got my keys and headed to my room. I was tired and sweaty. The place looked dead, but my roommate was there. He was from Uzbekistan. So I just lay on my bed and got to know him for a while. When it was time to sleep, I was scared to be in Germany, to be honest. I felt like I couldn’t speak the language and that leads to panic. First time I ever experienced that. Luckily I slept it off. Next day we would meet the organizers and other students, so everything was easier now. From then on I didn’t really have any problems, besides those with my shitty German.

I was assigned to the highest level there, C1. I thought that was cool, but when we actually started classes, I changed my mind. I spent the whole time looking words up in the dictionary and not being able to express myself properly, so I was overwhelmed. At the end of that day I told the teacher I’d try the lower level and see what to do. I eventually changed to B1, which I already was supposed to have, but I didn’t feel like spending August stressed, so I stayed. Classes were easy and therefore sometimes boring, but also funny. I had three hours every morning, but I could put up with it. After that I used to eat in the Mensa. Yeah, the first thing Germans told me to do when they met me was join Mensa. No, not really. That’s a easy and unfunny joke. Mensa is the name of the dining hall in Germany. The food was acceptable. Speaking about food, there are a couple of things that struck me about Germany. It’s not easy to find normal bread. You’ll find bread with all kinds of stuff on top of it, mostly seeds from the most random plants, like sunflower or poppy. Another thing is every dish had some kind of sauce, at least where I ate. You’d think that could be nice, but when they pour five times the amount you need it gets ridiculous and you end up hating sauces. There’s also two things about bottles in Germany. One is that you can return them and you get a small fee for them and that’s cool. On the other hand, you can’t open a top without taking it off completely. I tried to open it like everywhere else in the world: you take the top and a plastic ring stays around the neck of the bottle. But no, in Germany you can’t have a bottle with a plastic ring. Whatever.

What about the people? As I said earlier this month, the Motherland Russia had a majority among the students. The nationalities go as follows: Spain, Russia, Poland, Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine, Syria, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Japan. So yeah, most of them could speak and did speak Russian, but they were nice guys, they didn’t try to brainwash us with communist ideas or anything. Long live Lenin. Coincidentally, the book I had brought to read was A Clockwork Orange, which contains a kind of language based on Russian, but all I learned were random words. I also learned some Polish, even though it probably has the most complicated pronunciation of all. I thought it was interesting anyway, so that I’m even considering learning a little bit on my own. You know who’s writing this, someone who’s obsessed with languages for a reason I myself haven’t figured out yet.

Due to having resumed the writing of this article much later than I thought, I don’t know what else I could add, so I’m leaving it at that.

Pictures on facebook.

-Pasha Bearbaer

How to wake up

If the furniture of my room was made of rusty steel, I would be probably lying on a hospital bed, but luckily I’ll be lying  to you from the kitchen today. My life is extremely interesting and I could tell you about one of the many adventures that I live everyday, but I don’t like to show off, so today I’ll just start by telling you how I woke up today. Also, a blog is about short unimportant anecdotes, not about long interesting stories, isn’t it? Well, I have no idea, I’m just beginning.

I’m gonna buy a videocamera, I’ll install it in my room, pointing at my bed, and hopefully I’ll post videos here soon. No, I’m not planning on sleeping with a German celebrity and getting famous with one of those videos. The thing is, I wish I could see what happened this morning. Last night, I couldn’t sleep because of one of those beautiful wonders of nature, a mosquito. I didn’t have many options, so I just took my pillow and slept with my head on the other end. If I believed in God, I’d be asking myself, and everyone, and a priest, if I’m on the wrong path in life. I don’t need the Pope to tell me, I’m positive I chose the wrong side. Ironically, I slept quite good for a change. It’s not easy to sleep when your window is on the side of a street in which there’s a tram railway and a fire station. That wasn’t me who chose the wrong side, but the organizers of the course.

(This is a metaphor. I've been talking about last night up to now and in the next paragraph I'll be talking about the morning and this represents the sunrise. I'm so witty. Also, my blog has now images, which makes it not-boring forever.)

So to make this as realistic as possible, I should already be telling you what happened, because it was just 5 seconds after my brain woke up. If I had that video, this part would be in slow motion. So my brain decided to woke up, who knows why (actually, scientists probably know, nothing to search in the Bible here). And what do you do after you wake up? You get up. Now, there’s people who might roll out of bed, but the most common way of getting up includes sitting up first (another key to success in the blogosphere is linking to sources in your post entries, so here’s a link to back up what I just said. It looks long, but it’s completely worth it*). I’m a fan of old school, so what your humble narrator did this morning was that: raise his trunk. Now, I said it happened just 5 seconds after my brain got started. Technically, that’s not enough time for your eyes to open and see clearly after waking up. Unless, of course, you’re a fucking weirdo/creeper. I’m a very normal person, (everyone who knows me can support this fact) so I didn’t have time to see what was coming. I didn’t raise in slow motion, I did fast, and what was coming was the unexpected encounter of my head and the corner edge of the bookshelf over my bed. So I was violently forced to lie my head on the pillow again. From then on, I didn’t see too clearly. I remember sitting up on the side of my bed, touching the knocked area, confirming that what was on my fingers was blood and not ketchup, and running to the showers. There I probably scared/creeped the hell out of an anonymous fellow shower user with my moans. He might have thought morning sex was happening just two showers away from his, but the sight of blood streaming down wasn’t orgasmic at all. Again I wish I had a video, this time for those who have a fetish for the unusual combination of shower, blood and sleep in the eyes.

It did hurt and it still does when I touch it, but if you’re thinking I’m a wuss: shut up or I’ll tell on you, bully!

Here I lie. Or I overdo my stories.

*I actually didn’t read that article, but I hope you did. You need to start learning useful stuff, otherwise you’ll never ever make it, you scum. Read a book!

-Pasha Bearbaer

A quick summary

Here I lie on my bed on this umpteenth boring summer Sunday thinking about what to do and sadly waiting eagerly for the day to end. That’s one of the consequences of spending the summer in an inland city: people have fled to holiday spots. I could already experience that when I was in Manchester two summers ago, the difference being that that was a much bigger city than Magdeburg, where I am right now. From the 20th hour on there’s very few people on the streets and it’s not because they’re indoors at pubs or clubs. Of course, it’s especially young people who are scarce, just like they are in any other city without a beach in this time of the year.

The reason why I’m still here is because I’m taking a German course. In this German course there’s other people, yes, but not so many and we can’t revive the whole city by ourselves. Not only because we’re not too many, but I won’t go into the other reasons right now. We are a diverse Eurasian group, although Mother Russia and its daughters prevail. If this course was longer I’d learn Russian just by overhearing. The closest to me, culturally and geographically, are the two Polish girls. The rest: Turkey, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Vietnam… Concerning the classes, I’m in level B1, which I already have, so they’re easy and boring. I was initially assigned to level C1, but I couldn’t speak and got stressed, so I changed. It’s not an important course anyway, I’m here mainly to get ready for Köln.

That’s a very quick summary indeed, but I’m short of inspiration just as I am of fun right now, so I’ll resume some other day. Perhaps with some photos and other stuff to make this less boring, less me.

-Pasha Bearbaer

Prologue

Here I shall write in the English language about the trials and tribulations of my existence for everyone to read. I hereby promise myself this blog shall be used often enough and shall live as long as I live.

-Pasha Bearbaer