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!