Oktoberfest + First week at Uni

Hello lovely people!

In this post, I want to tell you a bit about the famous Oktoberfest which takes place every year in Germany, and my first week at uni, which was definitely full of emotions..

So last week me, Lee and some of our new friends had the chance to go to the Oktoberfest in Berlin, and it was soooo good!! Oktoberfest is basically a fun fair- a bit like Goosefair in Nottingham, which is free of entry. There is lots of rides, German traditional food such as Bratwurst and lots of other fun things for kids and older people. However there is also a big tent, where the actual Oktoberfest takes place. We only had to pay like 5 euros to enter it. The tent consists of big tables & chairs, lots of alcohol- especially BEER and a big stage where they play music. It was such a good laugh. This place reminded me so much of Bierkeller in Nottingham. Everyone just dances on tables, wears all these traditional Bavarian clothes and has so much fun. It was definitely one of the best things I have ever experienced. Only thing I would recommend to anyone that wants to see it, is definitely wear comfortable shoes. Mainly because if you're gonna dance on the table/chairs, then there is a huge possibility that you might fall over. I have seen so many people slipping from their tables, mainly because most of them have beer spilled all over them. It was crazy. One lady fell over and everyone started screaming. I felt so sorry for her. And was so proud of myself for actually wearing comfortable shoes+clothes for a change. But I can tell you one thing for sure, Germans definitely know how to party in the October season, so it's definitely worth experiencing at some point in your life :) . !!!!

So after such a fun weekend, my first proper week at uni has officially began, and it didn't go as well as I thought it would. In my first seminar on Monday morning, I walked out crying my eyes out because I did not understand a word from it. It was so bad. And the constant fear that someone is going to ask me something and I won't know what to say, or that the lecturer is going to ask me a question in front of the whole class, made it 10x worse. I've been feeling like that throughout the whole week, and although it's a bit better now, I'm still struggling to understand everything that the teachers are saying. Another thing which put me off some of the modules, was definitely when they said we have to do a presentation at the end. In pretty much all of my seminars there are only German students there, and I can't imagine doing a presentation in German in front of the whole class. I think I would die of embarrassment. So I already had to drop some of them.. I would much rather write huge essays or do like 10 exams in a row than give a presentation to native German speakers. I've never been a fan of speaking in front of huge crowds, never mind in another language that I can barely speak. So that was a bit annoying, that I had to drop these subjects, because they do seem quite interesting. 

On top of that, I haven't been really getting much help from anyone. I still don't really know how it all works with the points that I'm getting, and it's so annoying that every time I ask someone for help, they're not really giving me straight answers. I have so many documents that I need to fill in, but at the minute I don't actually know where I even need to start from. There is just a lack of organisation within the uni. It's a good uni, but everything is a bit of a mess at the minute. Times like these actually make me miss Trent so much!, getting constant reminders from the teachers on what I need to do or fill in!! It's completely opposite here. 

The seminars and lectures are quite similar here like in the UK. I prefer lectures because it's so much easier to understand the content. And instead of me focusing on the language barrier, I actually feel like I'm learning something new. Seminars are the worst. I mean the teachers are pretty much talking most of the time, but because I'm in a smaller class full of German students, there is always more chance that one of them or even the teacher might ask me a question. And at the minute I think that's like my worst fear ever. I know I should probably start speaking to some of these students, it would be soo good for my language, but it's so hard at the minute. Especially when I can see most of them have their own group of friends, and I don't really want to annoy them. Or make them feel uncomfortable, because my language is nowhere near as good. I've picked some Politics, History and Germanistik modules. At the minute the Politics modules are the most interesting ones. But that could change with time. I've got a feeling that there is something wrong with my timetable, so as soon as I can sort that out and settle into the uni lifestyle, it should be all good. 

On Friday, I was just so glad to finish uni and have the weekend to myself. It's all been a bit too much. I think it's good for me in the long term- all these changes, but it's all just a bit crazy at the minute. I feel exactly the same way I felt when I moved to England, and I wanted to understand everything and everyone so badly, but it took me a while to actually learn the language properly. I feel like I'm going through the same thing at the minute. I know I shouldn't stress so much because everything takes time and patience. But it's so hard when you're constantly trying to be perfect at everything you're doing, and all of a sudden you're stuck in a foreign country. It's so crazy! I just hope that this week at uni is going to be a lot better :( I'm glad I've managed to make some friends with the Erasmus students, as it makes me feel lots better to know that I'm not the only one going through this. It's a shame though that there are not so many Erasmus students in my lectures. :(

The main focus for this week is definitely speaking to the right people, that can actually offer me some help with the lectures, and not being so scared to go into uni. I doubt that's going to happen knowing me, but I need to try!!

On Saturday I went to Berlin to see an old friend Julia, from my exchange that I did 3 years ago while I was at college, and it was so nice to see a familiar face. And on top of that I went to Berlin for a change. Alexanderplatz was busy as always. I was actually planning to do some shopping but there was so many people everywhere, I gave up on this idea. On Sunday, I had a proper relaxing day with Lee, however we also went for a walk to a beautiful park called - Babelsberg Park. It was so nice. Potsdam has so many beautiful parks, but this one so far is my favourite one!! If you go up the hill you get a nice view of the whole city, which will be shown in the pictures below :) I've already made a list of so many things that I want to see before I leave Germany, as Potsdam has so much to offer. The only thing that worries me is the weather at the minute. Last week was so warm, we went to a lake near Charlottenhof and I was wearing my shorts and it was still hot. Today I had to wear my winter coat for the first time. So I've got a feeling this winter is going to be very cold and full of snow or huge climate changes. But that won't stop me from exploring the whole city. ;) As soon as Lee starts his new job, I'm going to do a lot of exploring. I just hope that the weather is not going to get so bad to a point where I can't leave the house, because it will be so cold. But at the same time, I would love to see a proper snow this year. The past few years in England, the winter has been pretty much the same. It will snow for a couple of hours, then everything will melt. So I hope I will get to see some of it this year. :) Not for too long though :p

Thanks for reading my post, MR x

First stress

Hello :)

Well, where do I even start from. Last week was very eventful and definitely full of emotions and STRESS!!

Well firstly, I'm going to start with the events from last week. Together with Lee, we had to go into the Registration Office straight after I got back from Poland, and to say that this week was stressful that experience was actually quite good. I went there, thinking this is going to be the worst day of my life, no one is going to understand a word I'm saying, and surprisingly the lady spoke English. Of course I did not expect that, and I did actually prepare myself to say what needed to be said in Deutsch, but she was so nice, and had no expectations what so ever for us to speak in German so that was great. On top of that the same day we went to the 'Deutsche Bank' to set up an account. Although this experience was completely different to the one in the council, as the lady actually spoke to me throughout the whole process in German, for some strange reason I felt really comfortable to talk to her in German. There was obviously some mistakes made, and I probably did not make sense most of the time, she was very understanding. The best thing about this experience was for sure, the fact that I could literally understand everything. It made me feel so much better about myself and this whole experience. Like my self confidence is finally developing and I'm no longer scared to talk to native German speakers. Just a tip for everyone that is thinking about moving to Germany, always register in the local council because you could be in a lot of trouble if you don't get that sorted. I had no idea that this had to be done, but I guess that's what's internet for. To make our lives easier.   This is a picture of the appointment sheet that we have received from the council.

So not long after this Lee came up with a strange idea that he wants to get a car, which I thought was great, but so random to come up with it on early Friday morning. He found a Volkswagen Golf all the way in Berlin, so we went there on the train to see what the car actually looks like. And that was a funny experience. The owner of the car could not speak in English, but we've managed to communicate somehow. We was so close to buying the car, but something didn't feel right from the start. Like it was so obvious that the car was not in a good state, but we was going to go for it anyway. We was literally about to buy it, but then decided to come back the next day. And I'm so glad we did that. Just after we left, Lee managed to find a better car and it was actually in Potsdam. He decided to go for it and I love it. It's like a proper family car, it's actually huge!! but it feels so much better than the other car. I don't feel like it's going to break down at any point, like the other car did during our test drive so that's probably the best thing about it. And I can see that Lee loves it as well. Driving makes him feel so much better, and I think that's exactly what he needed after choosing to move to a foreign land just to be here with me #bestboyfriend
So after he bought the car, we had to go through the whole registration process and insurance thing. And honestly that experience was just a completely different, mad story. In Germany, the car registration process works completely differently to how it does in England. When you actually buy the car it does not come with number plates. You have to register the car first in the registration office, then you receive the number plates and can apply for insurance. Which is all a bit mad but anyway...

On Monday morning, we was getting prepared to go to our appointment for the car, and I knew this was not going to be my day. Like you know when sometimes you get this gut feeling, like something is not right, and with my luck that was unfortunately right. Well firstly, we missed the train and for some reason, the trains on that day were not coming so often, so we had no time to go and see if the car was still in the same spot. We left it in some abandoned car park, near some crazy, scary forests, so we just wanted to see out of curiosity if the car was still there.. But seen as we missed the train, that was no longer possible. We did manage to get into the council for the right time though. As we turned up and actually waited there for nearly 40 minutes, I went to the lady in the reception just to double check if everything was right, just to find out that our appointment was not actually until the 16th of October. I've managed somehow, to beg her in German to change the date for the same day, as I could see Lee was dying to drive his new car, and without this whole process it was not possible. On top of that we didn't really want to leave our car in some abandoned car park on the other side of Potsdam, so yeah it got changed to 13;35, which was 2 hours after.. We literally had nothing to do so had to walk around the Brandenburger Tor area, for 2 hours and it was raining as well. That was so horrible I literally genuinely thought nothing else can happen that could ruin my day, but that was literally the start of it. As we returned to the council and actually managed to speak to someone, he turned out to be a really nasty human being. Literally could not understand half of the stuff he was saying to me. And instead of trying to make the situation easier, he started having a really bad attitude with me. This experience made me realise, what some of these people have to go through in England when they cannot understand a word, and they can see someone is laughing at them. Like all these foreign customers that use to come to me when I worked in the hotel, and struggled so much. At this point I felt so much sympathy for them and knew exactly what they was going through. It was awful. I literally felt like crying because everything I was saying was not making sense, mainly because it was a completely different vocabulary to what I've always used at uni. I went to this meeting feeling so confident and prepared, but walked out feeling like I'm back to square one. For the first time in Potsdam, I felt so foreign and out of space, only because some guy did not feel the need to have respect for his customer. But at least we've actually managed to get all the papers we needed for the number plate. And not long after that Lee was able to drive his car. And I could see how happy he was. It sort of made my day. But just to add to this story, we've actually missed a bus from the train station to the car park place, so we had to walk in the rain (it was about a 30 minute walk) It was nothing in comparison though to the experience in the registration office. So that did not bother me one bit. I think walk in the rain was actually good for me. I was so angry and upset, that this was probably exactly what I needed. Thinking about it now though, it was worth going through that, because now it's so much easier to do little things, like shopping or driving for a quick trip to Berlin, rather than getting buses and trains all the time. After we collected the car, the weather got actually better so we decided to go for a quick pint as you can see on the picture above, to a really really nice pub that was not far from this car park, so that was nice. It's nice having someone around that completely understands what you're going through and all of a sudden you don't feel so alone anymore.

Just to add to this crazy story, the same day we've actually decided to drive to Berlin to see the 'Oktoberfest' and of course I should of known, that this was not going to work out after such a nasty day, but deep down I was hoping this day could actually end nicely. False expectations of course. We didn't leave till a bit later on, because we had things to do and didn't get back home till quite late, so we actually drove to Berlin, only for the navigation to take us to the wrong place and by the time we've actually realised, it was too late to go to the Oktoberfest. We ended up in a shisha bar instead, so that was pretty cool. But as we got into the car to drive back to Potsdam, the tyre has actually popped. So there's me and Lee stuck in a foreign country, with a popped tyre in the middle of nowhere in Berlin. It was just a crazy day and it all got just a bit too much. But luckily we had some spare tyres in the back of the car, as it was literally just bought and collected a few hours before. I was so glad to just go bed and never look back on this day!!

Other than this, I've actually started my as we call in England, 'Freshers week' at uni, so on Wednesday I had to go into the Griebnitzsee campus, to collect all the important documents and my student semester card. It's still not really making any sense to me, like the whole process is so much different than in England, so I still haven't managed to sign up for any lectures and I don't really know who I can talk to, to ask for help. But uni doesn't start until the 16th so that gives me another week to hopefully sort everything out. It's all very confusing though. I did manage to meet a few students from England and actually went to a 'Welcome Party' with them, so that was nice to get out the house for a bit, and do something different. Unfortunately I did not manage to take any pictures that night but I'm glad I've actually managed to meet a few lovely people. And actually see what German party looks like.

Due to our failed trip to the Oktoberfest in Berlin, we actually went to the Potsdam one. And to be honest with you all it was absolutely shocking. We actually ended up going with Lee and Simeon (our new friend) to the pub, because it was such a disappointment. But hey at least it was something new, nothing what we expected though. Hopefully this weekend we will manage to go to the Berlin Oktoberfest, as it's actually on until the end of this week, so that will be nice.

Lastly, I just wanted to show you all what our flat and the whole building looks like. It's actually changed so much since the first week when we have moved here. The workers have actually done a pretty decent job, to say it was just a building site when we first moved in. Downstairs there is a common area, and a little reception you could go to when you have an issue. But Lee actually works there, so that's pretty cool. If there is a problem, I just need to have a chat with him But it's pretty useful for other students that are completely on their own. There is lots of sofas, and they are actually setting up a little cinema downstairs. There is also a pretty colourful laundry room, study room and a decent gym. So I can't complain. I've already started my sessions there Underneath there is a couple of pictures of how the place is looking. It's changed sooo much! And just to end this, I want to thank Lee for setting up laminate floor in our room and for painting the wall. I've actually realised that I forgot to mention it in my last post, but he's done it all himself while I was in Poland. And it's made the place look 10x better. I'm so proud of him, for putting all the hard work  This place definitely feels more like home. Now I just need to learn the language properly, so no more stressful situations will be taking place. I think that's enough for this week. 

Emojis used from- https://www.piliapp.com/emoji/in-blog/

Thank you for taking your time to read this, M x