Chapter IX

In which Josh enters the new year & returns to Germany.

Firstly, apologies for the delay; I managed to lock myself out of my internet connexion here in Germany from streaming too many Grey’s Anatomys. I’ll be uploading the next entry which I’ve written in the meantime in the next couple of days.

I had a jolly nice time around New Year’s, particularly at the birthday party of the lovely Amy, which took place a day or two before. Her little soirée got off to a lovely start chez Rollason, with everyone dressed to the nines in black tie, sipping on father Rollo’s literary-themed, punning cocktails (a nod to Amy’s English degree). A particularly enjoyable name was North-Hangover Abbey. The fun carried on into town, where we drank cocktails from teapots and cups, which was an odd, but appreciated touch. Katie was sure she could hear the sea in the teapot lid, and I was goosed by an overly saucy wench by the bar. I ended up in the “delightful” Fever, a Cheltenham club once described to me as looking like “the murder scene from the start of an Ashes to Ashes episode”, where my outfit drew much attention and an unfortunate number of slurred James Bond comments from the dipsomaniacal clientele.

I did not feel up to a big New Year’s Eve, and so spent the day welly-shod, walking my dog Boris through the Forest of Dean. The walk was a lovely breath of fresh air, and we behaved like perfect children, frolicking on the flooded paths and making full use of our waterproof footwear. Sadly, I was unable to find any satisfactory Wellington boots in town earlier that day and was reduced to wearing a pair of black, sparkly, transvestite-sized lady ones. I saw in the New Year with a glass of champagne at home and 1^st January found me in a spa with Mummy, Daddy and Oliver.

Shortly after New Year’s, I got my act together and defected back to Germany. Unfortunately, my flight was due to land five minutes after the last flibco bus to Trier before ten to midnight (this was at four o’clock), and I resigned myself to an eight-hour wait. Fond as I am of old Frankfurt-Hahn, I did not relish the thought of kicking my heels in an airport where “Departures” consists of five, what can only be called, rooms. However, thanks to a fortuitous turn of events, it just so happened that I ran into one of my Erasmus friends, Pippa (rather remarkable, when I only associate with three or four of them), so at least had company. Once at Frankfurt-Hahn, a second stroke of luck! We were overheard talking about Trier by a certain Beth, who apparently was doing a British Council assistantship in the town. She seemed much more practically-minded than Pippa and me, and certainly more competent in the outside world, and likewise viewed the prospect of waiting with little relish. She proposed catching a taxi to a nearby town, which lies along the line of a train route we might travel along for free. We desultorily agreed, preferring to spend twelve Euros to being inconvenienced, nauseating as the taxi-ride turned out to be.

Arriving in this little town beginning with T-, we found our way to the train station; a somewhat grandiose title for what was nothing but a single track stopping near an Aldi. The time-table was baffling, referring to a great many more platforms than the station boasted (i.e. one). We waited uneasily. When a train pulled in just minutes before ours was due, and we couldn’t see where ours would fit, we became concerned. Beth resolved to ask on the train, springing on and leaving her bag with us, we being unwilling, due to a fear of being carted off to who knew where or looking a fool. As the train began to make worrying sounds and we panicked that we’d be left stranded with a strange girl’s luggage, Beth sticks her head out and urgently beckons us: “Get on the train!”

It turns out that we had to catch this (only) train as a shuttle to the larger station at Bullay (to which station the earlier time-table had, in fact, applied). It seemed a bloody silly business to us, but we got back to Trier with no further trouble, arriving around eight o’clock (a damn sight earlier than we otherwise should have done). This was actually jolly fortunate, as, after parting ways with Beth, we had time to pick up a bit of food. As it turned out, I had a lot less food left in my freezer than I had thought, and my cupboard was distinctly Old Mother Hubbardy. We would, of course, have been unable to go the following day, it being a Sunday (when the Germans refuse to open shops).

Since the recommencement of term, I have been enjoying my lectures very much. This might well be because I haven’t yet had time to tire of them, but there was a particularly interesting Gender Studies lecture on trans- and intersexuality, which had a lot of crossover with the Language & Identity lectures at Oxford and the reading which I have been doing for my research dissertation, and fell nicely in line with my interest in Queer Studies. I also received the highest possible mark on my translation test at the end of last term, which pleased me.

In other news, I’ve been for a few bimbles around Trier, now divested of its festive finery (although the Christmas tree on the campus stayed up well after Epiphany…). I treated myself to a new LP, as Saturn has a rather good selection, although had a semi-awkward run-in with the boyf’s mother (as we've all but broken up), but have also met up with all of my German friends, which has been lovely. I also made an outing out to Saarbrücken, not having been since October. It was a jolly nice day, although I gorged rather excessively at Pizza Hut and didn’t eat again for at least a day. Much fun was had towards the end of the day, dicking around trying on all of the Fasching (Carnival) costumes in Kaufhof. There were some delightfully cheeky ones (c.f. above), and as we got sillier, I ended up being put in a Dirndl (below), much to the bewilderment of a couple of older ladies. I think I’ve decided on a costume, but will wait to buy it back in Trier. Speaking of shocking elderly German ladies though, I made a slight faux pas on a recent trip to the shop Müller. Having bought a room perfume-diffuser, lubricant and a drink, I was reminded of Victoria Wood’s joke about buying spermicide and throwing in a set of corn-plasters “to fox the assistant”. This provoked me to joke that it was an odd set of items and declare, whilst queuing, that it looked like I was planning “a dehydrating, smelly sex romp”. It quite slipped my mind that the gist of this would be intelligible to a German-speaker and the old dear ahead of me whirled round with a look of abject horror on her face. At least I had the good fortune not to have been behind one of the many nuns who pop, with suspicious frequency, into town.

Anyway, returning to the theme of Fasching, I find myself terribly excited about Altweiber, and leave you this time with a rather amusing snippet from an article I came across on the subject:

Alkoholisierte Jugendliche sind das Problem

 

In den letzten Jahren sind diese öffentlichen Partys immer mehr in Missgunst gefallen, denn vor allem Jugendliche nutzten diese Gelegenheit, sehr viel Alkohol zu konsumieren und danach äußerst ausfallend zu agieren. Der Weiberdonnerstag 2012 auf dem Hauptmarkt in Trier war alles in allem ein Desaster.

Also, it’s snowed again. And I would encourage whomever said that the Germans were without whimsy to regard the below photograph.

“Alcoholic Youths Are the Problem

These public parties have, in recent years, more and more frequently ended badly. This is primarily due to young people using the opportunity to consume vast amounts of alcohol, thereafter behaving damned abusively.

Weiberdonnerstag 2012, in the Trier main square, was nothing less than a disaster.”

It certainly doesn’t sound anything at all like my last experience of Altweiber in Bad Kreuznach ’08…