Uncharacteristically for me, I didn’t write any kind of diary or even take notes during the IS, and so for that reason I’m struggling to remember what happened on which day. I might have to abandon the chronological approach and go for just talking about what I can remember instead

Monday is a little hazy for a start. I *think* that this was the day I decided to attend the progresanta kurso which was being organised by Robert and taking place in the trinkejo. I didn’t attend all of the subsequent sessions but I was glad that I went to the initial one at least, because for the first time in the IS so far I began to regain a tiny bit of confidence. There wasn’t a specific structure to the lesson but we all went round and introduced ourselves, then discussed some grammatical queries. At the end we played a very silly game where each person had to say one sentence of a story in turn, kind of like Jackanory. The end result was utterly ridiculous but it was a good way of breaking the ice, and afterwards over dinner I was able to make conversation with a couple of people I’d never spoken to before. I would normally *never* independently choose to speak to a person I didn’t know, so I felt this was progress indeed

In the afternoon there didn’t seem to be much of interest going on, so I decided to go for a long walk. Well, I think Babel was on duty and I didn’t just want to sit in the room by myself. I’d made a promise to my family that I would bring them back some peppermint Ritter Sport so I needed to find a supermarket. I also wanted to send postcards to various people, and it became a bit of a mission to find some. I had already experienced difficulties buying postcards earlier in the year when I was in Szombathely, but that was more due to the language barrier in Hungary than anything else. In Germany I figured it ought to be a lot simpler, but I was wrong

My first stop was the tourist information office where I managed to pick up a town plan. I was quite prepared to pay for one, so it was a pleasant surprise when the lady informed me that it was free Encouraged by this success and feeling my German flooding back to me, I decided to ask her if she had any postcards. I must confess that I didn’t seriously expect the answer to this question to be no. I am quite sure that I have never been to a tourist information office anywhere in the world which didn’t sell postcards, and whilst I admittedly couldn’t see any on display, I figured they might be in a box behind the counter like in Szombathley.

Well, I figured wrong The nice lady regretfully informed me that she didn’t sell postcards, but there might be some in the bookshop. I’d already had my eye on the local bookshop, so this seemed like a good excuse to go in. When I did I found that there was indeed an ample display of postcards, but they were all the Wrong Sort. To an English person it might be hard to imagine what the Wrong Sort of postcard can be, but in Germany people don’t tend to go in for greetings cards in a big way, instead preferring to send birthday/good luck/get well soon postcards. There were postcards for every occasion in this bookshop, which seemed to double as a bit of a stationers too, but none with a picture of the town

The woman in the bookshop looked distinctly unfriendly so I didn’t fancy asking her for advice. Instead I decided to have a bit of a wander round the town on the lookout for a newsagent. I hadn’t seen evidence of a newsagent of any kind as of yet, but I was certain there had to be one, perhaps in the general vicinity of the station, and that was the only other sort of establishment I could think of which might sell postcards.

It took a long time, but eventually I found one. Not before I had inspected two supermarkets, however, and purchased a large bag of Paprika crisps, a packet of cupcakes, a copy of der Spiegel and six bars of Ritter Sport. The newsagent looked a bit dingy but came up trumps with the postcards, and now my only remaining challenge was to buy myself some stamps. The most logical place to do this appeared to be the post office, and armed with my new town-plan I headed towards it. Unfortunately, it appeared to have closed down two weeks prior to my arrival. Drat There was still a machine for buying stamps outside, but the only problem was that it didn’t distinguish between the prices of those needed for internal mail and the prices of those needed for airmail. In the end I wrestled with the machine six times and bought a selection of stamps twice the value of those I thought I needed. Success!

After so much exertion, I felt severely in need of a coffee and so set out in search of a bakery. I found a very pleasant one indeed; it was too full to drink in but I got a takeaway and sat on a bench outside, watching the world go by… Actually that makes it sounds a bit more romantic than it was; it was -5 degrees and there wasn’t really anyone going by at all, but it *was* good coffee.

Feeling fortified, I was ready to explore the furthermost reaches of the town. I’d already spied a very pretty little river, but I was intrigued by the hilly landscape and wanted to go further afield. Unfortunately it was nearly half four by this stage and whilst it wasn’t dark yet, there was every promise that it would be in the near future. Striking off into unknown woods therefore seemed a little foolhardy, so I contented myself with walking along the main road for a couple of miles as far as the neighbouring village of Ludwigshuette. There was even less going on in Ludwigshuette than in Biedenkopf, but it was a scenic stroll and the exercise helped cheer me up a bit.

If I remember correctly, Monday was the night of “Kiu volas iĝi milionulo”, a very professional Esperanto version of the famous “Who wants to be a millionaire” game. Rolf took the role of Chris Tarrant, even having the hair to match, and the questions were hilariously funny. Some of them were terribly difficult too, and I found the ones which involved proverbs particularly confusing. There were a few technical glitches en route, but if anything these just added to the overall enjoyment of the proceedings, and as far as evening entertainment goes, this was definitely my favourite

Once the quiz was over, Babel and I headed to the trinkejo. It was rather busy, there being karaoke ongoing, and for a while I stood by the door and watched. The trinkejo was in a happier state by Monday night, the shops now being open so that the organisers had been able to buy some red wine. Babel started serving behind the bar, and I ended up standing next to him so I could steal his crisps, and before I knew what was happening I had ended up serving people too, despite the fact that I had expressly said before the start of the week that the one thing I didn’t want to do was work in the trinkejo. I was paranoid that I was going to break something, but actually the beer was in bottles and so relatively easy to serve. The main problem was more giving change.

As I said to various people over the course of the next few evenings, you really wouldn’t know I had a degree in mathematics If my mental arithmetic in English is appalling, my mental arithmetic in Esperanto is worse because even if I’ve calculated the correct number in my mind I run the risk of translating it incorrectly, eg. 70 as 17 or vice versa. I might just about have been okay if I were handling pounds, but of course in this situation it was euros only and even at the best of times I have problems distinguishing the different euro coins, never mind in a situation of stress and after a couple of glasses of wine. I probably drank a little too much wine in an attempt to get over my nerves, but whilst I was horribly scared to the point of feeling sick the whole time, in a way it was a kind of positive experience because I felt like I was doing something vaguely useful

The karaoke was fun to watch, especially when Babel did his rendition of “Big Balls”, but nevertheless I was glad when someone came to relieve me of my duties at 4am. And incidentally, in case you know me and don’t believe this really happened, here is the proof

Tags: biedenkopf, Esperanto, internacia seminario

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