Tequila, a shopping trolley, and ice-skating

Thursday: End of week 3! Met up with Laurence and we had Japanese at MoschMosch, then went to the Brass Monkey and did the pub quiz with some other people.

Friday: I went to Mannheim with a group of Americans/ Canadians/ Irish...ans (what on earth is the collective noun?!). We were going to go to the Mannheim Oktoberfest, but it was a massive fail because they were only just setting up (the one tent) when we got there about 2pm. So, we decided to go shopping. It was a lovely day - I had to carry my coat for most of the day because it was so warm! Nice to actually walk around Mannheim a bit more, too.

Fail tent

Saturday: did my grocery shopping (including the purchase of 100 tea lights so that every night can be candle night!). That night was the Siedlungsfest. Siedlung translates as: settlement, colony, estate, village, habitation, housing scheme, housing estate (or in this case, large block of student accommodation), and a Fest is a party. There is a Siedlungsfest every semester; I went last semester after seeing the Wise Guys in concert, but it wasn't that amazing. Still fun, but we didn't stay for very long.

We did succeed in stealing some hats... ;)

Last night, however, I had a lot of fun. It was meant to start at 7pm, and Odett (housemate) and her friend Angela were going to go about 8:30 or 9 (and I was going with them). However, by 8:30 there wasn't even music going. Around 8:45 we started to hear some music, and so left here just after 9. We got there, and there were so few other people there, it was super awkward. The band was doing soundcheck (and they weren't amazing), so we talked to some people that we knew - the guy at the tequila stand does uni with Odett and Angela, and Alex (from whom we get internet) was helping man the bar. His housemate Fabian was also there (and his brother was on exchange in Adelaide for a year?! OH ADELAIDE. Even in Germany I cannot escape you). 

The empties at the tequila stand when we left

I suggested we go and drink the liqueur that Chrissi gave me for my birthday, but as we had no shot glasses at home we just took the bottle with us and got shot glasses from the tequila stand (we bribed them with peach liqueur which was, by the way, delicious). After we finished the bottle things were a lot more fun. We also had some tequila, and 'Bowle' (kind of like Gluehwein, but less delicious and with fruit floating at the top), and a 'Zombie' which had about 2498 types of alcohol but still just tasted like juice... delicious! We made several friends, one of whom we dubbed Hans-Peter after he wouldn't tell us his name (he later told me it is Sebastian, but Hans-Peter stuck), and we continually tried to steal his hat. Poor guy. Another friend we made I have no idea of his name, but he wanted to 'Prost!' (cheers) with us, and I didn't have a drink, so he gave me his beer to prost with and I had some and it was Becksish. At one point, we were all dancing, and Angela said "Einkaufswagen!" (shopping trolley)... AND THEN PROCEEDED to do the shopping trolley "dance" move!! I LOST IT, I couldn't stop laughing. I love discovering things like that that are just international. Anyway, it was a fun night. We came home about 2am I think, but I could hear the music so loudly through my window that I didn't sleep for a little while.

The walk to the ice arena was full of pretty scenery

Sunday (today), I woke up feeling not amazing, but surprisingly not tooooo bad. The extra hour (because daylight savings finished :( ) probably helped. At 1, I left the house to go and meet some girls from my Hauskreis to go Eislaufen or Schlittschuhfahren (ice-skating). We took the tram to a neighbouring town, Eppelheim, met a fourth girl there (whom I hadn't met before but whose sister was on exchange in Adelaide last semester - WHAT IS THIS?!), and we were all like, oh I don't remember the last time I went ice-skating! ...I won though, given the last time I remember was in 2004. It was like the Ice Arena, but unlike Mt Thebarton, there was no small beginner's rink, just one GIANT one. So that was fairly scary. Clodia and I made good friends with the barrier while Angela and Steffi skated like pros. We all joined hands after a while to try to get me and Clodia off the wall, but then I fell down and it CANED. So I had a bit of a Pause (break), then went back to it. After a while I fell over again so had another break. The others eventually came and had Pauses with me, then we all went back on the ice. Steffi and I went around the rink twice holding hands, and after that I thought I'd tempted fate enough so went and sat down again. This was, of course, incredibly painful, but it was better than falling down for a third time, I thought.

Randoms in a giant chain on the ice

After ice-skating, Steffi drove us (I love driving with Germans, it's just such a novelty!) to Jana's where we had hot chocolate and chilled in her room before going to church together (through the slowest traffic lights EVER!). The sermon went for about a year, and I was super tired, so I just didn't listen at all (it was a guest-sermoner), then afterwards Lisa, who is in my translation class, came up to us for a chat. I asked if she'd done the translation for this week and she said yes, and it was way harder than the last ones. I haven't done it yet, and it's due tomorrow, so I am going to stop blogging and do some work. DO NOT WANT. But I must.