| MARCH Julia�s Birthday Party Although Julia�s Birthday wasn�t on the 2nd of March , her party was on the 2nd of March. One of the highlight of the party was the Haitian or Tahitian War Dance instead of the Schoko-Igele Troop which I speacially gave a name to each of them. But whatever it is, I was one of the �Haitian or Tahitian War Dancer�. Not only we have to dance those funny moves, we also had to chant some strange words. It goes like this : Kamat� Kamat� Kiaora Kiaora Kamat� Kamat� Kiaora Kiaora Ot�mi T�tana Pohuru Pohuru Ot�mi T�tana Pohuru Pohuru Nanan� Fakafititer� Arahu Pan� - 2x Hupan� Kopan� Nanan� Fakafititer� BLEA! Real cool war Dance. War Dancers : Fabian, Fabio, Lukas & Jo-Han Salsa Dancing - 3rd March 2001 As Gustavo is a Venezualan, a Latino, we (Gustavo, Poliana (another Latino), Julia and I)(and even Messners) decided to go to a disco/pub with Salsa dancing every first Saturday of the month. Atmosphere was seriously great when we were there at 8:00 p.m. Music were great, smokeless atmosphere, lots of space. Unfortunately, after an hour later, more people came in till you can hardly walk, smoke filled the air, space were taken up and you couldn�t find a place to sit. The situation became unbearable, I just couldn�t stand the smoke. (I don�t know why, I just can�t stand the smoke of cigarettes) I decided that I will go out of the place to get fresh air. It wasn�t a great idea though as the temperature was -1�c and raining, so it was rather cold outside. But compared to the smoke and suffocating surroundings, I�ll choose cold anytime. Adeline�s Surprise Telephone Call 4of March 2001, 9:05 p.m. just as I wanted to get back to my room to have some rest, the phone rang and it was for me. As I don�t really have lots of female friends at that time, I can virtually guess who is on the phone. Even without thinking I said, �Hello , Julia� and I thought �Hmm.. Julia is trying to be funny, she is imitating another voice� ,then I thought, �maybe it could be my classmate� but the voice didn�t sound very German to me. So I went on insisting that she is Julia until she said �I�m Adeline�. It was a total surprise. Never really expect my partner in Germany, Adeline Choo would phone me. Chatted for a rather long time. It was really nice to hear a Malaysian voice from Germany. The Famous Bee Incident It wasn�t any event worth mentioning but this story became kind of famous due to my over-repetition of this story. 8th March 2001, While waiting for the bus that goes to Schw�bisch Gm�nd with the �Bargauers� (Residents of Bargau), a bee came flying around. It flew for quiet a while around us until it landed on Jessica�s (my classmate) jacket. It wasn�t any kind of landing, but the bee left some weird liquid (probably honey) on her jacket which prodouced some kind of weird smell. So after that ,this became the Famous Bee Incident. Nothing worth mentioning actually. Rotary Event : A Visit to the �Staatgalerie Stuttgart� - 10th of March 2001 Went to the Stuttgart�s State Gallery with Rotarians of Rotary Club of Schw�bisch Gm�nd , their wives and exchange students to look at the at that time �current� exhibition with the theme �Yves Tanguy und der Surrealismus�. (Yves Tanguy and the Surrealism). Like what the theme suggested, we were treated to admire a collections of paintings with the surrealism theme. For those who liked dark themes like ghosts, demons, ghouls, spirits and others, they would have probably enjoyed it. One floor was filled with paintings of ghosts and other devilish figures. After the trip to admire Yves� paintings, we went to Winterbach to have our dinner. Berlin Trip 12-16 March 2001 12 March 2001 Started the journey from Heubach to Berlin at about 7:00 a.m. Arrived at about 2:30 p.m. My roommates for this Berlin trip were Oliver (Oli), Markus, Thorsten (Torde) , Anatoli (Toli) and Christian (Lacky). Our room was �Room 01.03� We had no formal programme for the first day so it was free sight-seeing session for us. We walked around Berlin aimlessly from the �east� to �west� to �east� and ..... It is really fun to walk aimlessly. The only unfortunate thing is that the famous �Brandenb�rger Tor� (Brandenburg Gate) is under renovation and is covered with a cloth showing advertisement of a telephone company in Germany. The most embarrassing part came when the five of us (Oli, Toli, Markus, Torde and I) wanted to enter the 5 star hotel but was stopped by the guard (in full British Soldier uniform) from entering. We managed to get back to the hostel a little past 9:00 p.m. The rest of the night was spent by playing cards, watching TV and hanging around in other rooms. 13 March 2001 At 9:00 p.m. we had a sight seeing tour in a bus guided by a tour guide (of course). She said that Berlin is ever changing and within two weeks, Berlin will not look the same again because there are so many construction going on at the same time. To test that what she had said is correct, I bought two postcard showing Berlin from a bird-eye view and she is correct, there is a big difference between the two postcard. Went to the Technical Museum at noon and later to the �Mauermuseum Haus Am Checkpoint Charlie� at about 2:30 p.m. Checkpoint Charlie was the most important checkpoint during former days when Berlin was divided into four sections with the French, British, Americans and Russians dominating each sections. The only unfortunate thing is that the is barely a trace of the checkpoint but the fortunate thing is that there is English translation or else I couldn�t understand a thing there. Later in the evening at 7:30 p.m. is the �Kabarett� in Europa-Center . A compilation of short sketches involving political themes and others. It was two hours long with a break in between and at that time, I couldn�t understand the sketch and was fighting real hard to stay awake which I succeeded. Then it was the eve of Iris� birthday, so most of us celebrated for her. Being the only one who can speak other languages that are not spoken in Germany, I had to teach them to sing Happy Birthday song in Chinese (Mandarin) ,Malay and even Japanese (which I cannot speak). We sang like almost ten different version of Happy Birthday. (All in a different language). They also insisted on doing the Cantonese version of �Cheers� instead of the normal German �Prost�. So we had to shout �Yam Seng� for so many times. The Waitress was looking at us for most of the time. It can be real funny when the Germans shout �Yam Seng� but in the end, their pronunciation became real good. 14 March 2001 Before heading to the Ministerium to hear some guy (a Minister ,I supposed) speak on BSE, Agriculture and politics, the teacher Mr. Otto Steeb had warn us that we must not fall asleep in the Ministerium. I survived the test but there was one of us who fell asleep even though he was only 2 metres away from the speaker. Later was free time till 11 p.m. Toli, Felix, Veronika (pronounce as Feronica), Irene and I went for window-shopping and later to the �I-Max 3D� cinema near the Sony Centre. The 3D effects were superb but the story about the dinosaur was a little too childish. Out of five, two remain alert through out the show, two almost fell asleep (including myself) and one slept through the show. Later in the night was the Champions League clash between Arsenal and Bayern M�nchen (Bayern Munnich). Most of the boys from the parallel class were all ready for the match and were already fully dressed for the event. Almost all in Munich�s jersey. And when Elber scored, the whole hostel almost collapse because they were jumping and shouting so violently. (Just imagine you place 8 tarzans in a room) Later in the night, nearly half of us went to the disco, while the others (including me) stay back. We had other plan instead. We had supper in a Turkish restaurant instead. 15 March 2001 Early in the morning ,we visited the East Side Galery, one of the few remaining part of the Berlin wall. Took a group photo, with the infamous Berlin Wall as the background thanks to the teacher (Mr Steeb) who risked his life to take photographs for us. It was so funny as he had to run to the middle of the highway and back for at least ten times because everybody had passed the cameras to him. Later was the visit to the Pergamon Museum showing ancient sculptures and other stuffs from Greece, Rome and other ancient empire. Fortunately I had a translating machine to help me understand but unfortunately we had only 45 minutes to roam the place. The unfortunate thing happened during lunch time. My camera ran out of battery. And my camera just wouldn�t shut and is halfway closed. Fortunately the camera shop is nearby or else.... And the best part of the trip was the visit to the Reichstag (the Parliament building). We had to go through a series of security check-up before we were allowed to enter the place to listen to the Minister speaking. Unfortunate cameras are not allowed and the Bundeskanzler was not there. But it was still a good 10 minutes of listening to the Parliament session. Later we were given a talk by a Politician (from our very own Schw�bisch Gm�nd) in the lecture room. And after the talk is the visit to the very impressive part of the Reichstag building. ,the transparent dome. After that, our official for the day is over and we were given free time till 11 p.m. My group decided to go all the way up the Berlin tower (the TV tower which is also the tallest building in Berlin). We ate at the revolving restaurant at the height of 203.78 metres. We watched the whole of Berlin from above at least three times from bright till dark as the revolving restaurant completed at least 3 full round. It is funny that even though Berlin is so large, we still managed to bump into the other group. Later we found a really interesting but really ugly and dirty looking machine. It is a machine which will turn your coins into souvenirs. All of us were like crazily putting coins into the ugly looking machine and in a few seconds later we could hear a loud �BOOM� and something drop out of the machine. And it is our very own coin which was flatten by 800 kN of force. 16 March 2001 Everybody was called into the room to vote. Vote to see if we will be visiting another town or head straight back home. As the majority wanted to go back home, we went straight back home, a few hours earlier than the scheduled time. End Of Winter - 19th March 2001 As if the weather knew that it was last full day of Winter, it began to unleash its greatest wind since I arrived in Germany. The trees were tilted when I was outside the house. The wind was so strong that I thought I would have �gone with the wind� if I were just a few kilogram or pounds lighter. It was really difficult to walk against the wind. And true to the title of being the last day of Winter, it snowed a little in Heubach. (Although it continued to snow even during Spring) First Day of Spring - 20th March 2001 Although it was officially Spring, it didn�t look any bit like Spring. Trees without leaves, temperature dipping below 5�c occasionally, sad-looking scenery and other signs of winter. The worst came when it snowed rather heavily during the first day of Spring. The Old Lady On the first day of Spring itself, something bizarre happened. While walking to the VHS (the place where I have my German course), there was a girl in front of me. And a little later I heard somebody shouted and saw a little boy falling to the ground as if he had a fall while playing hide and seek. 10 seconds later, I saw the girl in front of me, kind of like rushed to the little boy and I turned over to look at her and (to my horror) I saw an old lady instead of a little boy. We dropped our bags to help her and brought her back to her house which is not too far away. The old lady was still shivering even though we already brought her back to her house. We managed to calm her down. (The girl did it, not me as my German at that time was still limited) Although she was still shivering, but she is probably the happiest person I�ve seen since I came to Germany. She told us not to be worry as her husband will be back home soon. And she became a little calmer and even wanted to give us presents as reward which we flatly rejected. And she keep on talking non-stop even though she was still shivering. She insisted on sending us off even though we said she must rest. Even after sending us off, she was holding my hand and keep on thanking me which I felt was unnecessary but you just couldn�t reject an old lady�s sincerity. Later the girl asked me if I am from Rosenstein Gymnasium, I was a little shocked of as to how did she knew that I am from the Rosenstein Gymnasium. Later I found out that she was in the same class as my host sister Alexandra. What a small world. Anyway her name was Jenny but unfortunately I still do not know the reason as to why the old lady had fell down in the street. Shit Happens! 22nd March 2001, 6:45 p.m. , after being drenched in the rain, something incredible happened. Yes, I stepped on a piece of shit. Not any ordinary shit, but from the tomcat in the house. Couldn�t blame the poor cat as he was stuck inside the basement unable to get out of the house for the whole day. It isn�t normal for that cat to Although I may have stepped on its shit, but it was considered lucky. Lucky that it was not my bag who fall victim to �that�. I placed my bag just 5 centimetres from that thing. Well, shit happens! Sommerzeit (Summer Time) - 23 Hours in a Day At a certain time of the year, we have to change the time of our clock to one hour earlier. This is so that we have an extra hour of brightness. (psychologically) For year 2001, it was on the 25th of March 2001 (Sunday) at 0200 where we had to adjust our clock to one hour faster. So on the 25th of March 2001, we had only 23 hours in that day. Edgar the Spanish Exchange Student As Alexandra (my host sister) was in Spain for a short period as an exchange student, this year, my host family will receive an exchange student in return. So we got Edgar. He�s quite a nice guy and we made some good language jokes together. So my first host family ,Kienzle had two exchange students simultaneously from 28th of March - 6th of April 2001. |