June 2012

After a 2 hour delay (thanks to Italian military exercises) we needed to take a 45 minute coach from the Ryanair "Venice" Airport to the city itself, and after arriving in the afternoon we did a little sightseeing in the evening, which was more pleasant (cooler temperatures and less tourists), whilst the next day we walked around the city again, seeing the Rialto bridge and San Marco Square.

Rialto Bridge

St. Mark's Square

We were there for only two days, but that was enough for us, as it is only a small city. The city itself is really very pretty, and with no roads at all, just canals and paths, it is an interesting experience that I would definitely recommend you all to do - just don't go in the middle of summer. It was 30˚C and incredibly humid - far too much for us Northern Europeans in the group (The Turk and Hungarian meanwhile compared it to a cold summer's day).

This week I have a presentation and an exam to take, and then on Friday I will fly home for the weekend!

On Saturday I had my last class on a weekend (of hopefully ever!). I now only have an exam on a Saturday morning to look forward to, and then I can finally have my weekends back to normal!

Today I had a presentation in a group of 6, however yesterday was a huge problem, as one of our group members found she couldn't get the work (which was supposed to already be done) finished that night, as she had homework left still to do, setting her priorities elsewhere - it also meant that other people had to then do the work instead. This particularly annoyed me, putting it on the same level of sandwich gate back in November. However the work is now done, and I now have 15 of the 30 credits I require this semester, and after next week I will have another 12!

Hope you are all well, as you have probably noticed, Euro 2012 is is full swing, and Germany is for the only time in the year, actually excited about being German! Everywhere you look are German flags, Germans with face painted flags and flower petals around their necks. And with all these flags at my disposal, I joined in too!

It's kinda fun to see places on TV all the time where I've been, such as Kyiv, Warsaw and Lviv - Halina who I lived with last semester is a volunteer in Lviv. Here in Bremen, there is a big public viewing of every match in the city, and every day hundreds of crazed people go to see the games, which we have also joined in for a few times. Yesterday we went to see the Germany game there, and the crowd was the biggest I had seen. Whilst last week I went to see the Swedish games with my housemates - pretty funny when England beat Sweden.

Last week I had a presentation to give on Stereotypes of Germans, which was made even more amusing for me, by my inclusion of the Fawlty Towers Germans episode - however only the lecturer actually got offended, as the German students actually got the joke.

Hope you enjoyed the Jubilee Weekend! I managed to see most of it whilst I was here, and it looked great, even if it did make me a little homesick - although its only two months until I'm back properly, and a month today until my weekend at home! As before, the weather is generally the same as at home, just slightly warmer, and so yes, we have also had plenty of rain (the most I've ever seen here) which came as a bit of relief at first after the sunbathing weather of two weeks ago. At first I was so pleased to be reminded of home, that I announced during my German class that I actually quite like rain, as it reminds me of home - to which they all laughed! It also let me use my Union Jack umbrella, so there are some good sides too.

Today me and 3 of my friends who also take my course went on a trip (not by our own willing, I care to admit) to the artist village of Worpswede, to the north of Bremen. This was to measure the place's sustainabilty - by which we walked around looking at the village, and then spoke with a woman from Tourist Information. I think had it been a nice sunny hot day like two weeks ago it would have been a great day out - however trapsing round an artyfarty village in the rain is not quite so great. Although it we made the best of it, and it was a nice day out! This month I have 5 presentations, which of course includes one on Climate Change (I've produced so much information about its role in the tourism industry, I literally need to copy and paste 99% of it!), and another that I only found out about on Friday afternoon, due in for Saturday morning - What better way of spending an Erasmus Friday night!?!

So with all the work to do, as well as miserable weather outside, it has been quite depressive and boring (or so I keep telling myself) - this all culminated in last night's fiasco, when I decided to cut my own hair, which in hindsight it probably would have been better not to have done. Although after completing most of it myself and then getting the rest tidied up by my new flatmate (yes Halina, you have been replaced), I kind of like it! (April's hat is still in the cupboard to be reused if necessary.