Living like a Victorian

So, it's been nearly two weeks since The Big Move, and a lot has happened. My new place is great except there is one problem; there is no Wi-Fi. But I wasn't too worried - they have two computers downstairs in the computer room. No problem, I thought, I'll just do my blogging/emailing/banking from there. But nothing's ever as simple as you think it's going to be is it? Turns out that the software loaded onto those computers dates back to about 1993, the Internet Explorer is so old that it no longer supports most of the sites I was trying to access (and is painfully slow), and to top it all there is (for some reason) a child block, meaning I was unable to access my blog or my bank accounts. The Stone Age machines could just about cope with Facebook and my Hotmail account, but even they had to be viewed in 'Basic Format' (which is very annoying, believe me!). It did make me realise though, how much I do rely on this modern technology. It was horrible not being able to Skype my friends and family, and banking is a slow and painful process when you can't be sitting in the comfort of your own home sorting it all out. On the bright side though, it meant that I was a lot more productive without the annoying temptation of being able to log in to Facebook at my leisure. I appreciate it is a wonderful way of staying in contact with lots of people all at once, especially at times like this when I am away, and being able to share photos so easily is fantastic. However, the inexplicable compulsion I feel to log on immediately I go online drives me crazy. Sometimes I even find myself stalking pictures of a primary school acquaintance's aunty's husband's cat (or some other such pointless activity) and then I think "JESSICA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" and have to instantly cease such past-times. So it has been nice to avoid all that. The answer to my problems though has been to buy a dongle, so now I have a pay-as-you-go internet, meaning I am now very frugal with the time I spend online, and only use it for Skyping, blogging, and banking. It takes me back to the dear old days of dial-up.

First World problems aside however, I have been busying myself these last couple of weeks with getting acquainted with all my new housemates (who are all very nice from what I know of them so far) going to school, and visiting other Language Assistants in Goerlitz and Dresden.

School
School is great - I'm really enjoying being there. I've been there three weeks now and more or less know my way around. I've got used to the early starts and have been given a lot more responsibility in the classrooms than during my first week. The hardest thing has been adjusting the speed at which I speak and getting to understand the huge spectrum of ability and having to alter my behaviour and speech accordingly. If you are thinking of spending a year abroad teaching, then be prepared to have to speak very, very slowly at times. Also, you have to get used to dealing with some incredibly shy students. I have been doing a lot of one-to-one speaking practice with students outside the classroom during the last couple of weeks, and not all of them are very forthcoming with information, with some of them being unwilling to look at you and tending to answer with just yesses and nos. Of course it's very understandable for them to feel like this, but I guess I just have to keep trying to find new ways to get them to feel more comfortable and to open up. However, I am finding one-to-one a lot easier than dealing with groups; naturally with every group you have the students who don't want to stop talking, and those who will do anything to avoid starting. Encouraging the quieter ones to contribute without feeling like I am picking on them and grilling them against their will is very difficult, as is trying to get the more talkative ones to hold back a little to give the others a chance without subsequently making them feel awkward about contributing further. I'm hoping that this will be something I'll get better at with time.

Goerlitz and Dresden
Goerlitz is an interesting town right on the border of Poland. In fact, you can see Poland across the street. Whilst I was there I crossed the street and was having lunch in Poland (fortunately they were accepting Euros as I had no Zloty to offer). The town has some beautiful buildings, but it's easy to get lost if you are a newcomer. There's probably no more there than any other middling sized town, but it is very spread out and so seems like it's huge. When I compared it to Bautzen I realised how tight and compact it is compared to sprawling Goerlitz. One thing I found particularly interesting about the town is that it has not quite recovered from being in the clutches of the GDR, but is being done up slowly but surely. Walking down the street I would see one brand spanking newly done up establishment and then right next to it a derelict, disused shambles of a place that obviously hasn't been touched for a good few decades. It's an absolutely fascinating place which I would say is highly worth a visit. Bars and pubs are few and far between though, so if you want somewhere for a crazy night out this probably shouldn't be your first port of call.

Now Dresden Neustadt is more geared towards students and does offer a good night out, and the clubs stay open until very late. I have not yet had a chance to look around the more touristy Altstadt, but I am planning to go again to have a good sightseeing day out.

So for now, Tschuess, and Schoenes Wochenende.

September 22nd 2013

So today was spent taking a casual trip to Poland for lunch. And I am now fluent in Polish (i.e. I spent my time pointing and repeating the following words like a demented parrot):

Tak - Yes
Nie - No
Dzien dobry - Hello
Prosze - Please
Dziekuje - Thankyou

My first impression was the ease with which you can travel from Germany to Poland and vice versa - no passports needed. After being totally baffled by this, my host family went on to inform me that this is now the same all over the EU, and the passport control at that part of the border had been taken down three years ago. So it was pretty odd to see German German German written everywhere, when the next moment there is not an 'Achtung' or 'Vorsicht' in sight and instead I am bombarded with masses of Polish.

So that was my first experience of Poland. Next, I was driven to Legnica, which is a little further in and on the way became less and less ignorant to the Polish culture, thanks to my hosts. For example, I didn't know that Poland is the fastest-growing economy in Europe at the moment (I had thought that was Germany - oops!), or that the eastern part of Poland that I was visiting actually used to be part of Germany.

Upon arrival at Legnica, I was struck by how quiet the town was, and then all was made clear when I saw that most of the population was in one or other of the church services going on at the time. Being a highly religious Roman Catholic country, the town was almost littered with fantastically gorgeous churches, but despite this, there were still people standing outside the doors because they couldn't get a seat. I was keen to look around the inside of one of these impressive buildings but would have to wait, so in the meantime I tried some traditional Polish cuisine, Zurek (an absolutely delicious soup), and had a mini-tour of part of Lednica, discovering that it is a town famous for its copper. There is even a copper museum there, but I didn't pay it a visit.

Eventually managed to have a look around one of the churches, and it was indeed incredibly ornate (as you might imagine). My one lasting memory of that church though will be my realisation of exactly how ingrained religion is into Polish society as opposed to the secular-slash-slightly-religious-slash-sort-of-Christian-when-it-suits-us mentality that seems to prevail in England; I went in right at the end of one of the services, just as people were getting up and leaving, and as people got up a lot of them bowed in the direction of the altar before they left. The last people to get up and do this before the church was completely empty was a man in his seventies dressed in a suit and a smart middle-aged woman. No surprises there I thought - just the kind of demographic I would expect to do such a thing. Then, someone came running out from a door at the side of the altar (I have no idea where he came from or what he was doing), and it was a teenage boy with a Grade 1 haircut, wearing a tracksuit, and chewing gum. But even though he was obviously in a hurry, he remembered to stop for a second, turn around, and briefly bow to the altar before quickly making his way out of the church.

After this, we made our way to Jawor, about 10 miles south, and I was taken to see the Protestant Church of Peace (Kosciol Pokoju), which was surprisingly ornate for what I would think of as a Protestant church. The walls are adorned with paintings, and the altar is decorated in gold. And it's very big - to put it into perspective, it can house 6,000 people.

So with my mind filled with new knowledge and a little bit of Polish, we drive back to Bautzen, and I feel that little bit more cultured. Now to get ready for the week ahead teaching English...