The Giant Lobster Monster

"Do you know any restaurant that offers seafood?"
"Hmm.."
"Not just fish, but shellfish like crabs and mussels?"
"No, I'm sorry."

She should know, she runs this hotel after all.

I left through the front door, stopped and looked longingly at the sea.
This is a lovely place in the north of Wales called Llandudno, the last stop of my journey. It's surrounded by two shores in the East and West, a small mountain on a peninsula in the North called Great Orme and a view of the largest mountains of Wales and England in the South, the highest of them giving its name to the Snowdonia National Park.

As beautiful as all this is, don't these Brits know about the delicious treasures hidden out there in the sea? Or is there anything I don't know about, like a bedtime story that children are told so they mature with the very same inmost fear of seafood as their parents did?

A fear appropriate to the ancient legend of the three hundred brave and fictitious fishermen tricked into sailing into the open sea, only to be ripped apart, crunched into bite-sized chunks and eaten alive (if still) by the Giant Lobster Monster. Which only dwells in the nearest surroundings of Great Britain. And which everyone knows about, of course, but me.

Nowadays, as if in some way of a still nourished rebellious action, the Brits tend to fry every fish they catch and surround it with some "French fries". What's so French about that?

That's when fate introduced me to François. He told me the neighbouring town Conwy is known for its local mussels, as is Anglesey, a Welsh island not far-off either.
So I had to meet a French guy in a French restaurant to tell me about the local goods. I suppose the Welsh are just too humble to mention some of them and as a matter of fact there are more than enough they can be proud of.

During my trip in England and Wales I encountered stunning countrysides, many sheeps and an exceptionally polite and serene people and although time went by so fast, I was allowed to catch a glimpse of my true self and of the things to come in my life.

I am very thankful for that as well as I am for my loyal readers, friends and mental supporters, I enjoyed writing this blog and receiving your feedback very much!

Now, please enjoy this slideshow for a review of my final days in Wales:

In case you'll once come to visit Conwy or Llandudno, you might enjoy visiting the Conwy Butterfly Jungle or staying at the Headlands Hotel (lovely staff, the owner knows some great stories, has two dogs, serves you a delicious breakfast and you get the best view in town as it is probably the highest of the hotels in Llandudno).

I also suggest going on a trip to Llanberis from where you can take the Snowdown Mountain Railway or just take some walks in the beautiful surroundings. There are many interesting things to see in Llanberis, so you should take your time.

If you stay in Llandudno, the Great Orme offers many attractions, one of them being the Copper Mines. The Tramway and the Aerial Cable Car are two ways to easily get to the summit.

Never Trust a Train Station

Because looks might be deceiving.

When I first arrived in England and was on my way from Manchester to my workplace, I had to change trains in Chester. I assumed that Chester might be a smaller spin-off of Manchester, hence the name. Having only seen the inconspicuous train station, I decided not to visit Chester in the upcoming weeks.

Luckily, I'm flexible and talk to people and was soon told that Chester had indeed very much to offer, especially a large zoo. That is the only thing I missed out on though as I was too busy falling for this city!

The atmosphere in Chester is very unique as are many of its Victorian buildings and medieval relics, first and foremost the city walls surrounding the complete centre. You can take long walks upon them, circling the beautiful central streets, large green spaces, churches and the castle, partly accompanied by the river Dee or the canal. You'll discover hidden restaurants and bars, small shops and lovingly arranged private gardens.

Black-and-white buildings, cobbled streets and the so-called Rows, yet another of Chester's hallmarks, characterise the actual town centre. The Rows date back to medieval times and are unique in Britain. They are essentially shops on two levels: the lower ones a bit below street level while the upper ones can be reached via stairs leading to continuous walkways.

Despite being such a small town, Chester offers excellent shopping, eating and leisure opportunities in a well-kept medieval ambience and therefore receives the infamous Dominique Award For Achievements In Outstanding Likeability.

Enjoy some photos in this slideshow:

A Quiet Evening in a Quiet Town

Wrexham is the largest town in North Wales boasting the impressive number of 42,000 citizens.
Having visited Manchester and Birmingham, I should have known what to expect in comparison, though. And so it came that Charly and I spent a really easygoing evening walking around the few and deserted streets in the town centre and wondering once again about the occasionally encountered girls strangely styled. Charly hit the mark quite well: "It looks like they're going to a masked ball." And truly, most girl groups behaved as if they organized their very own slumber party, only not at home.

Now relax and enjoy this tiny slideshow:

What Am I Doing Here Anyway?

You might have been wondering why I have such a great time in Great Britain.
Well, it has not all been fun, but also hard work. For example choosing what to do the upcoming weekend and deciding what to postpone to the next holidays which are sure to follow.

Leisure is not the only thing that drives me, though, so I spent the weekdays digging into a medical research project at the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry. As it turned out, this hospital is world-famous for its achievements in orthopaedics, so I can say that I am pretty happy to get the chance to contribute a little bit.

The time I spent here has opened my eyes for many things, especially how useful maths and some parts of the body actually can be. Understanding more of them has been incredibly fun and fulfilling.

My work has been the smallest imaginable part of the project, but I am thankful to have been offered the possibility to add it to the final goal.

My thanks go to my supervisor Jens Gerwien, soon to be Dr. Gerwien, and to Prof. Dr. Peter Wack from the FH Wilhelmshaven in Germany who made all this possible in the first place. Also thanks to my employer IT Frankfurt GmbH for letting me take these 4 weeks off and finally thanks to my colleagues, friends and family for giving me so much support and encouragement.

How to Know When You're in Great Britain

You're probably in Great Britain if all of the following things consecutively happen to you:

• People smile at you for no reason. They make jokes, and good ones even. Even the grandmas. The police officers' hats are a good example of a constantly uttered, yet unspoken joke.

• Fellow train passengers don't mind shouting when summoning the train conductor to come over and help you. I was never so astonished at the ways I received help.
• People are happy to wait before crossing your sight until you've taken your 10th shot of a location. Looking at you, they just smile and go on.
  
• Whole grain bread with a firm chewability vanishes from store shelves. As does chocolate muesli.

• Everyday food makes you do noises. Every day.

• But hey, there's worse.

• Remember, the important thing is that its taste is better than its looks!

• People say "cheers" for each and every door you keep open for them, say "sorry" when scarcely getting in your way and are "sorry for letting you wait" if you're being served after having queued.
  
• You are called lad, chap, mate, fella or luv, depending on age and gender of the person adressing you. A luvely people, these Brits.
  
• There are seperate taps for boiling hot and freezing cold water. I didn't figure it out yet, but there must be some use to it.

• Women dress weird for no reason and when spoken to act as if everything was as usual. Which is the case.
• People wear the same amount of clothes neither minding temperature nor weather conditions.

• You get to see everything from good looking to "eh!?".

• Cities tend to look Victorian.

• Outskirts all look the same and the houses in the outskirts all look the same.

• And God said, Let there be power sockets: and there were power sockets. And God, looking on the power sockets, saw that it was good: and God made a division between the on and the off state. And God said, Actually, these switches were a brilliant idea!

• You start being fond of levers. They give you this feeling of accomplishment when flushing the toilet.

• Doors are simply pushed and pulled and you realize door handles might not always be the most convenient way to open doors.

• You need to open not one, but two doors to get to the toilet. Three altogether if you're male and want to sit down. Then, if you want to close this very last door, there is either room for you or the door.
• You sit with your back turned to the street when waiting for your bus. Or is it yours? Ah no, sit down again.

• Pedestrian traffic lights are mounted in breast height, so you might find yourself staring at a woman if both happen to stand too close to one another (now consider how much British women wear depending on the temperature).

• You are surrounded by the most beautiful landscape.

• And it is not easy to get there via public transport. Forget about buses in the evening or on Sundays in rural parts.

• You want to stay and enjoy life just a little bit more.
  

The Beauty of the Small

Feeling the freedom you can have in life is going on a trip not knowing when and how you will return and where you are going to stay the night. And not even caring about it. This is how I spent my weekend.
Luckily enough, as public transport can become difficult after 5 pm.

On Saturday I went to the small beautiful Welsh town Llangollen. Its charm spreads from the river Dee which runs right through it and along the valley, up to the surrounding hills sprinkled with quite talkative and curious, but easily scared sheep. One of these hills is topped with ruins of a medieval castle named Castell Dinas Brân. Simply put, this was yet the highlight of my trip to the UK. And yes, the British women have been considered in this statistic.

Enjoy the photos (and 2 videos) showing some of the fantastic views in this slideshow:

An experience like that was hard to match, but my trip to the small English town Shrewsbury turned out to be the right thing to do the day after. I followed the recommended route through the city centre which actually took the predicted 2 hours. I added another 3 hours to stroll around, have a truly delicious meal and take in the flair of so many medieval buildings, narrow alleyways and cobbled roads.
The town is almost entirely encircled by a bight of the river Severn and along with a huge park having a romantic sunken garden at its heart, the rest of the day was left to enjoy the tranquility of these surroundings.

Proof can be found in this slideshow:

Airborne

Just before I'm off again to another weekend packed with soothing boat rides, I hereby provide you with a nice set of pictures to enjoy, accompanied by only a small preface:

Imagine you're planning a hot air balloon ride on a day with a brilliant blue sky, both of which actually happened to me yesterday morning. This is England though, so the blue sky soon wrapped itself in its dressing gown (with lots of gray stains) and started taking a shower. And again. And again.

There's a saying about a region of France which goes "En Bretagne il fait beau plusieurs fois par jour." ("The weather's fine in Bretagne several times a day."), but the UK manages quite well to keep up the same flexibility.

Take this photo tour if you want to know if my story ended well!

Oh, this is for Peter: The square fields in the west of Oswestry are waterworks providing Liverpool with fresh water. The flat hill in the north is a fort from the Iron Age. The people who once lived there put wooden walls around it to defend themselves and only kept a small opening. Must have been quite a cozy village kind of way of living.

If you ever happen to be in Shropshire and want to do a balloon flight, I can truly recommend Espiritu Balloon Flights. They made the trip to be the wonderful and enjoyable experience that it was.

There And Back Again (From Birmingham)

Yes, yes, Birmingham has its beautiful places. There, it's out.

It's also got enough to offer to entertain yourself, good places to eat at and to leisurely take a stroll in the sun.
But it's more like a huge present clumsily wrapped in torn up old newspapers and with lots of hideous padding to push aside to get through to the treats you deserve and, let's be honest, can expect from UK's second city.

I was lucky to have spent one night in this city so I could invest enough time to find these beautiful and charming places.

My favorites were undeniably the canals, the most romantic place in "Brum" as the citizens like to call their hometown. The canals are a system of historic waterways interspersing a part of the city and which were once used to transport the coal fueling the Industrial Revolution. The canals are still in use today, but to transport goods more friendly to the environment like tourists and mobile breakfast facilities (yes, you can have your breakfast on one of these long narrow boats).
It is a perfect place to relax in one of the many cafés or to take a walk along the red brick buildings and iron bridges, near to the water.

Alongside the canals is Broad Street, not very promising in daylight, but supposed to be one of the highlights in Brum's nightlife.
The National Sea Life Centre is situated nearby as well and was really worth the visit on my second day just for the means of relaxing with perfectly soothing music, albeit being quite expensive.

Crossing the motorway going right through the city (eh!?), one reaches the main city centre which spans from the Victoria and Chamberlain Squares with a collection of varied important buildings from the 19th century like the Town Hall, the Council House and the Museum and Art Gallery, over the shopping mile named New Street and the equally named main train station which is merged with a shopping mall and finally reaching the Bullring, yet another enourmous shopping mall boasting three floors, each of them leading outside to street level on different sides, so it's easy to get lost.

Actually I got lost several times in what seemed like the outskirts of the city, but which were only the vast deserted streets allowing one to travel between the lively centres. The construction sites sprinkled like seeds throughout the city also allowed a glimpse on what Birmingham might look like once it's risen from its ashes.

Naturally and finally, I must also mention the food aspects of this city as this is what I'm thriving on most in life! So what better way to start this weekend's trip than go visit Cadbury World with a French gourmet friend of mine named Charly? Yes, Charly and the Chocolate Factory was the name of the game and it played and tasted quite well as we were handed fresh chocolate bars everytime before being led to the next children's ride attraction.

Some chocolate bars later and having attained much knowledge about how chocolate was produced in one of the world's largest confectionery selling companies whose name never really caught my attention, we were on our way back to New Street train station and from there to the Chinese Quarter to find something to eat with a bit more meat.
This is where things seemed to go as wrong as they possibly could. We thought we missed the Quarter, but actually passed right through it without even noticing it. Not wanting to waste any more time, we went to an English pub where I had the absolutely worst rumpsteak in my life ever. This was no steak, it was the literal shoe sole with the laces pulled through. That I was served peas instead of beans might have been a mistake, but the sole must have been done on purpose.
Oh, Charly also opened a small bag of mint sauce and let me smell it. No comment on that one.

Later that evening I wanted to try Balti food which is a special kind of Indian food and was invented in Birmingham. I was told where I could find the most and best Indian restaurants near the Chinese Quarter, but found only two which had also been closed long ago.
I gave it another shot and asked a handful of people for a sushi restaurant near the Chinese Quarter. I was either stubbornly given directions to "Wokmania", which was exactly what I was repeatedly not looking for, or just received a blank, puzzled stare.

Was I really expecting too much? It turned out that I was.

Finally I made it to a Japanese restaurant with an extensive list of nigiri and maki on the menu, but as I wanted to order I was told they didn't do sushi anymore. Instead I chose a bento box with unbelievably tender sirloin steak stripes, fresh vegetables, even some sashimi and a miso soup. After the tenacious experience earlier that day it felt good to know that at least the Japanese cuisine is reliable wherever you are.

I didn't want to give up on my sushi though, so on my second day I seized the chance as I walked by a sushi restaurant by accident. My experience there was the same as with the whole city itself. You are only offered four different types of maki, but these were extra-ordinarily good.


Take a look at the photos I took in this slideshow:

Here are my top places to visit in Birmingham:

• Cadbury World
• Victoria and Brindleyplace Squares
• The canals
• Bullring Shopping Centre
• Glee comedy and music club
  
• National Sea Life Centre
• Mount Fuji Japanese Restaurant

Skimmed Milk

So many movies I've watched in English, so many sitcoms I've enjoyed, so many books I've read and never was I to learn about skimmed milk. Or semi-skimmed milk that is, for that's what I was actually looking for in the supermarket the other day.

You never have two fictional characters arguing about whether to buy skimmed, semi-skimmed or full milk. Or that gentle conditioners are best for sensitive clothing and that a free range chicken must be a happy chicken. These are unnecessary details not worth mentioning. They don't really push the tension in a story. But believe me, they push mine in real life.

Brits are Tough

It might not shine through their friendly and caring behaviour, but Brits are tough. Way tougher than me. Even the women. Also they are way sexier than me. Well, not all, but they compensate with astonishing self-confidence. They wear so few and tiny pieces of clothing that I can only assume that their immune system must have evolved in the isolated environment of this rainy and cold island to fit its very special weather conditions.

On Saturday I arrived in Manchester. After having found a nice hotel with classical English furniture, thick carpets everywhere almost drowning my trolley's wheels and a bed with a really distinct odour, I went out to check out Chinatown and immediately went straight back to my room to get my cap, so freezing cold was it.

Soon I encountered women which seemed to wear less the later it got. It felt like going on holidays in the Antarctic and it looked like going to the Bahamas. Two of them actually wore light summer dresses, floating about in a tight breeze.

This was really confusing my brain. And besides such lightly dressed ladies, there are more crucial things to get used to like looking to the right side (which is on the right) first thing when traversing a road, which made it really difficult altogether.

Please take a look at the following picture.

If you look close enough, you will recognize two weird creatures. One is in the background, a dragon made of metal, and the other one might have popped into your sight straight away. The latter specimen is found in Germany usually only in summer. I guess they travel to the UK to hibernate, so that's why I never see them during winter. Thing is, they don't seem to realize it's even colder and wetter in the UK than it is in Germany right now.

Brits seem to like bricks as well. Bricks are tough. Just take a look at these:

Besides that, Manchester is a really fascinating place. Old buildings from the Industrial Age are mixed with new and shiny ones. Everything seems to blend together somehow. I found myself turning corners and facing enormous buildings so many times: there is the library, the Town Hall (which I mistook for the cathedral at first), two huge shopping malls, the Hilton tower and many more. The buildings are very well kept and have a very clean, elegant and majestic look, but once you follow a small allay, you feel like being transported back to the industrial times, surrounded by broken pipes, rusty ladders coming down tall brick walls and other weird metal devices fixed to them, possibly once used to lift heavy weights from carriages.

One thing about the people here I find very charming is the self-irony they tend to display. Several times I found it all very surrealistically Monty Python-esque. It’s the way they speak and act, which can be unbelievably funny just below the surface. It breaks the ice and they seem to know it. It's the easy and intelligent way of life.

Take a look at this slideshow for more pictures of Manchester!

How does it feel to be a tourist?

I couldn't really wait so I grabbed my camera today, went downtown in my hometown Mainz and started practicing how to be a good tourist. Only once did I get in the way of an old, grumpy grandpa who couldn't wait to get a seat in one of Germany's oldest coffeehouses (as I learned today!), the Dom-Café ("Dom" does not actually refer to me, it means cathedral). Otherwise, the city centre was cramped with happy people bathing in the warm sun.

I was treated so friendly by so many people in so many souvenir shops today and considering the nice weather I'm curious to see how the English and Welsh people and climate will compare. I can't wait to be surrounded by native speakers of the language that I love so much and having seen so many beautiful pictures of the Welsh countryside, I won't surely miss home too much.

Now go ahead and enjoy these sunny pictures of Mainz (click here to watch a slideshow)!

Nice Germans

Let's hope I'll integrate as well as these guys!

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

One week left to go!

So here I am, actually writing my first entry in my Wales diary.

There's only one week left to go, my appartment needs thorough cleaning and tidying and I'm still looking up words in English. I'm curious to see how I will cope having to speak English hopefully non-stop for the first time in my life! I suppose I'll enjoy it so much I won't want to go back to Germany in the end.
Well, but that's getting ahead of myself. I'll wait and see in time!

The journey starts on April 19. I'll fly to Manchester where I will hopefully meet up with a very nice girl I met on CouchSurfing with whom I'll spend the first day and who will show me around.
On Sunday, I'll catch a train to a small town near Wrexham where I will participate in a science project in a hospital which is doing researches on ankle prosthesis. I don't know what will happen for the next 4 weeks to follow as this will most probably depend on my project's progress, but my plan is to get to know the people and the surroundings on weekdays, go on some trips on the weekends and maybe even have the fourth week off to seek even deeper knowledge and pleasure.

Wish me fun and luck!