On Saturday evening Babel and I finally arrived home after a week of Esperanto-craziness at the IS. It was an unusual week, albeit in an enjoyable sort of way, and I hardly know where to start with describing it. I actually suspect I won’t get very far with describing it at all, because I’m off to the land of no internet in Oswestry for the rest of the week, but if I shall begin at the beginning and see how far we get

The beginning is actually that I was very scared about going and not looking forward to it as much as one might reasonablely expect a person to be looking forward to their holiday. I had admittedly survived the IJK during the summer in an ultimately rather positive manner, but I for reasons which I would struggle to explain, I felt significantly less confident going into this event than I had during the summer. I don’t know, I guess I was reasonably happy over the summer, whereas the past month or so at work had been rather horrible, and I felt generally rather upset and miserable. The more depressed I feel, the less confidence I have and the more I just want to hide under my bed and not come out. I think it’s harder to be cheerful anyway at this time of year when the nights are so dark, as opposed to in the summer when life seems sunny and full of possibilities. So there was a part of me which didn’t actually want to go to the IS at all, which felt like it could no longer remember how to speak Esperanto, and which felt utterly incapable of the mental exertion required to walk into rooms full of new people and speak to them. Plus I knew from the start that realistically I wasn’t going to be able to spend very much time with Babel, him having a lot of other commitments to fulfil….

This is all a long-winded way of saying that I didn’t want to go abroad for a week and leave behind my favourite thing in the whole world; my new, shiny laptop! :cry:

Nevertheless, the tickets were booked and whether I felt mentally prepared for the adventure or not was irrelevant. Babel did an outstanding job of waking up on time and arrived at my house by 4.30 to collect me. I had been a little apprehensive about whether we would find our way to the airport carpark without getting lost, but with the aid of some helpful directions we were soon there and dropping off the Moosemobile. The carpark was admittedly rather a long way away from the airport – or at least, the bus journey seemed to take quite a long time – but it was well worth it for the excellent value of less than £25 for an entire week

Having arrived at the airport, my forward planning in checking in online the night before proved to have been an excellent idea, as we were able to circumvent the queue of several hundred people who were waiting outside the Lufthansa check-in desk and drop our bags off in a matter of minutes, before breezing through security with enough time to spare for breakfast. There’s a very nice cafe in terminal one of Birmingham airport which offers a breakfast much more reasonably priced than the Wetherspoons in terminal two, and in no length of time we were tucking into a hearty feed of bacon and eggs. I even got some free hash browns because I said I didn’t want any baked beans

The flight to Germany was rather uneventful. The weather wasn’t good enough to have much of a view, even though I’d managed to nab the window seat. By 10am we had landed in Frankfurt and the journey ahead of us was so simple, especially in comparison to our journey to the IJK during the summer, that we had chance to do a bit of sight-seeing in the city. I was especially excited about this, having visited Frankfurt once several years ago but only having had chance to get a very brief overview of the place. Stashing our suitcases in the baggage lockers, we set off to see what we could see!

I don’t think Frankfurt is ever going to win an award for being the most attractive city in Germany, although arguably it’s more attractive than Birmingham, but I think it’s quite an exciting place. By pure coincidence we headed out down the main road from the station and came across one of the sights I was most interested in seeing; the headquarters of the European Central Bank. I had a vague recollection of having seen this from the distance last time I was in Frankfurt, and having got close enough to establish there was an absolutely enormous Euro symbol erected outside it, before being dragged away by uninterested relatives. This time I was determined to get a proper look at it, and having the good fortune not to be on my own, I was even able to get a photo of myself taken in front of it. I appreciate it might not be to everybody’s taste, but I think it’s really beautiful

We wandered along the main shopping street, stopping off for a nostalgic look in Woolworth, and I thought that my day couldn’t get any more exciting, until I turned a corner and all of a sudden saw the most amazing thing you can imagine. I would upload a photo for you but I’m worried that I might die in the attempt, so instead I’ll just link you here
so you can see for yourselves…

It may seem that your eyes are deceiving you, but I am in a position to inform you that no, it is not a mirage; there really is a pub in Frankfurt which is named after Birmingham Having seen it, we felt morally obliged to go in and take a look, and seeing as it was nearly lunchtime for anyone who’d been up since 4am, we soon ended up eating rather delicious Bratwurst in the peculiar surroundings of random British memorabilia. After that we managed to find the river, which was another item on my “things to see in Frankfurt” list, and then wandered around aimlessly in the hope of finding a bookstore. Frankfurt seemed shockingly devoid of bookshops at first, but eventually we stumbled across a branch of Hugendubel and it was worth the wait I walked away not only with a German translation of a Sharpe novel, but also as the proud owner of a globe. And not just any old globe, oh no! This one is a tasteful shade of brown and has all the names of the countries written on it in German!!!

All too soon it was time to leave and head off towards the IS. We caught a train first to Marburg, before changing onto a small regional line towards Biedenkopf. It was a very short journey, in total only 1 hour 45 minutes, but there was nevertheless no small amount of confusion when we reached Biedenkopf due to the fact that we hadn’t realised it was a town with 2 stations! Initially having disembarked at the wrong one, we eventually found our way to the right one, and from there to the youth hostel where we would be staying for the week.

I was interested to see what the quality of accommodation in the youth hostel would be like, and am pleased to be able to report that it was very high indeed. Our room was bigger than I expected, having a single bed as well as two bunks, and there was even space for a little table and two chairs in addition to a wardrobe each. What surprised me most, however, was the fact that we had our own ensuite bathroom! Very nice indeed

The rest of the first evening is a little indistinct for me. I assume we must have eaten at some point, but I don’t recall it. There was some sort of interkona vespero in the evening but I didn’t participate in it. Babel and I went downstairs and milled about for a while, but I felt exceptionally nervous and utterly incapable of socialising. A glass of wine might have helped, but the trinkejo was only able to serve beer and before many minutes had passed I had decided I couldn’t cope with the situation and run away upstairs. There I proceeded to attempt to cry myself to sleep, although didn’t entirely succeed because I was still awake when Babel reappeared some time later. I dunno, I just really didn’t want to be there and the whole week was looming in front of me like a great big black scary thing that was going to overwhelm me. Plus it was pretty late at night and I hadn’t had much sleep and I’m prone to get tearful when I’m tired Somewhere in the middle of this I succeeded in banging my head on the bunk bed, which only added insult to injury But eventually I was all cried out, and ready to fall asleep. When I woke up the next morning it was with the resolution that I was going to keep as busy as possible, so as not to give myself time to get so scared and unhappy again…

Tags: biedenkopf, Esperanto, Germany, internacia seminario

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