Ollie Wells

I was going to do this on a day to day basis, but I've now decided not to do that, since it would go on forever and bore the pants off you. Instead I'm going to do a kind of "take things as they come" approach!!

The trip to the Vaterland.

Took the SeaCat from Harwich to Hook of Holland on evening of the 12th July. Customer announcements in English and Dutch ­ reminded me of Grolsch adverts (Schtop, Schtop, this ferry is not ready yet!). As we got out to sea, the opened up the engines (huge water jet thingies). Started going very fast (for a ferry) ­ Warp factor 9 (she cannae take it nee more captain, she's gonna blow!).

Got into Hook about midnight, and Dad started driving. After getting lost and literally going round the houses, found the main road and headed for Germany. After reaching Germany (many hours later) stopped at rest area which is way better than British ones. Had first German sausage of trip. Got into Braunschweig (eventually) at about 10am, still quite sleepy. After EU Office were cretins for half an hour, finally got key to room, nothing more (apparently they were about to have a meeting).

We park in the halls of residence (hereafter known as APM or Affenfels) since there are three levels of parking at base of building, and I eventually find my room. On the 7th floor. Luckily there are lifts! Room isn't exactly what I had in mind, but it's OK really. I thought it might be bigger, with ensuite facilities and separate kitchen and lounge. How naïve! Room does however include a kind of ensuite bathroom made of two pieces of moulded plastic ­ quite clever and no sharp corners! Kitchen element involves two electric hobs (no oven) above a small fridge. Lounge consists of sofa bed (the only bed) and some shelving. But now I've been in it for a few weeks, I quite like it!

As a slight further digression (sorry), let me explain what the halls look like. To start with, it might help to mention that Affenfels is the unofficial name of the halls, given to it by the residents (and most of Braunschweig) and it literally means "monkey rock" (as in the rock in zoos that monkeys climb around on). I reckon the architect was on drugs when he designed this (probably one called APM). Either that, or it was designed by M. C. Escher and Salvador Dali when they were locked up in a room with a box of Lego. The thing sprawls like a concrete octopus, albeit with only four arms and no head, but cunningly incorporates three terrace gardens a couple of floors up. In total it's 12 floors high, with floor one being underground.

After that brief (hah) digression, back to the story. After unpacking, we went to the neighbouring bank to try and open an account (sensible plan, yes?). Nice lady says we can't open one without a residence permit (another thing EU Office had forgotten about). Unfortunately, EU Office is now closed. Damn.

Next day, we go into the city. Now, Braunschweig may not be the biggest of cities, but it sure does pack the shops in. Among the mass of shops are two huge department stores (Karstadt and Kaufhof). In fact, Karstadt is so big, it uses three different buildings, each one four floors high! Another thing that is instantly noticed in Braunschweig is the number of ice cream cafes. There's one on every street. And they're all busy somehow!

On Sunday, we go to Hannover. Nice place, considering most of it got bombed in WW2! Visited the town hall which has big models of city from different times in history, including pre and post war. Immediate thoughts that sprung to mind:
1) Don't mention the war.
2) Don't appear English.
3) Say "Yeah, and don't do it again."

Next day, try to get residence permit, but EU Office people are conveniently all on holiday (nicely planned!). The following day, Dad goes home with a car load of cheap booze (it is extremely cheap here), and I then try to sort things out. Fortunately, EU Office is now open, and manage to get all relevant paperwork. Then go to council/government offices to get residence permit, and then to bank. Hurrah! Everything sorted out in one morning!

As weekend approaches, I go to Prague for a friend's stag party. Very nice place, cheap food, beautiful sights. If you haven't been, then go there!! Try the Parnas restaurant as well (v. posh).

Not much happened in the next week, but went to Grange-Over-Sands in Cumbria at weekend for MoD training course. Got to see all old friends from year out. Great time had by all (thanks CM(Pers)!!).

After returning from the Foot and Mouth ridden Lake District, had a day to relax before starting work.

Started work/summer placement on 1st August in local Volkswagen factory (only a couple of stops on a tram from APM). Got shown around rear axles department and factory floor. Lots of automated assembly lines and people doing quality checks. Oh, and lots of robots. Very cool (if you know about my obsession with robots!). Then got told the working hours. 6am to 1am (no lunch break). When?? I have to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning to get to work (since factory runs entirely on shifts), but at least I get the whole afternoon to do things.

Since then, it's been pretty standard, working in the morning, doing stuff in the afternoons (like sleep!). I've eventually got my phone sorted out, and my network connection, so I'm totally wired up in my room!

Finally to round things off, a few general notes about Braunschweig:

Everyone speaks German, some also speak a bit of English (they like to show it off whenever they can).
The city exists in a wormhole. Streets seem to loop around each other, so shops suddenly appear behind you, and some new streets and shops are created every day.
The trams appear to be free so far! You just hop on and off.
People are pretty much similar to British in terms of hoardes of OAPs, teenagers with skateboards and microscooters, and odd haircuts.
**Really cool** Big supermarkets have escalators that you can stand on with your trolley!!

Things wrong with Germany (in general):

They drive on the wrong side of the road.
They use the wrong money.
They speak the wrong language.
They use the wrong keyboards (keys are all mixed up ­ thank God I can't touch type!!).
Electric plug sockets don't have power switches (and they're the wrong shape!).

Well, there you have it. Sorry it's so long, but I tend to ramble sometimes. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask me. I haven't gone into extreme detail since many of you would try to kill yourselves out of boredom, but if you want me to expand on anything, just email me.

A few bits about Braunschweig (and bits in Braunschweig):

Over 900 years ago, the settlement of "Bruno's Wiek" was the intersection of important medieval trade routes, and in the 12th century became the royal residence of Henry the Lion (not a cartoon character).

The city was also home to Wilhelm Raabe and Friedrich Gerstäker (writers) and Carl Friedrich Gauss (mathematician, scientist, general smart arse).

Grotrian-Steinweg and Schimmel pianos are made here, as are photographic equipment and lots of other fancy stuff.

The Anton Ulrich Museum is numbered among the largest in northern Germany and includes masterpieces by Rembrandt, Rubens, and Vermeer.

In the old court theatre, Lessing's tragedy "Emilia Galotti" was premiered for the first time in 1772, as was Goethe's "Faust" in 1829.

The technical university (the one I'm at) was founded in 1745 and is the oldest technical institute of higher learning in Germany.

The poured bronze (and at one time gilded) lion monument on the "Burgplatz", dating from 1166 was the first free-standing monument north of the Alps.

Braunschweig Newsletter No. 3

Well, it's been quite a few weeks since the last newsletter, so as it's the end of my first week of term here, I thought I'd better give a sitrep (situation report).

Starting where the last newsletter finished off, the last few weeks of my placement in Volkswagen passed quite quickly. I was able to see a lot more areas of the factory, including the huge painting system which featured numerous large baths of God-alone-knows what kind of solvents and phosphates to degrease the axles and then large vats of black paint. The whole process involved the use of an "unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism" to dunk sets of axles into each bath, rather like an elaborate torture chamber. Another device I saw on a separate day was a fancy metrology machine that measures the location of holes on axle parts. Nice bit of kit, but takes half a day to calibrate properly (cue multiple cups of hot beverages, accompanied by newspapers).

At the end of work, after all my forms had been filled in, a cheery farewell was said, and there ended the placement. My boss was also interested in possibly getting me to carry on with the main project I had been working on during my academic year. I think he was quite impressed with me, and I was also handy when communicating with English speaking companies!!

Final registration in the form of getting a student card is still incomplete due to the questionable (in)ability of the EU Office to get all the SOCRATES students' details to the main registration system. Fortunately, it's not too urgent, and I've got a good few weeks to wait for the details to be transferred.

I managed to suss out my timetable before the start of term by looking at the master timetable in the electrical engineering building. A couple of the subjects I was planning on doing were either unavailable, or looked a bit scary on second thoughts, but I was able to replace them with suitable alternatives. I guess the age old maxim of "no plan survives contact with the enemy" still holds in academia!!

The lectures themselves are quite different from the way English lectures are. The lecture theatres are well kept, large, spacious and have large windows. Not one bit of graffiti to be seen anywhere. I guess German students hold a bit more respect for what they're doing!! Although the timetable is split into 45 minute segments, all the lectures are either double or triple, meaning that my lectures are either 1_ hours or 2_ hours long! Surprisingly enough, no-one has fell asleep yet, which is even more amazing considering the next fact. The first lectures of the day start at 8am and the last ones can finish as late as 7pm. Fortunately, most of my lectures are around the lunchtime mark, so I've only got a couple of early ones, including my practical course, which features 4 hour long periods (8am to 12pm).

The good thing about all this is that I can actually understand the majority of what is said, and there are often printed lecture notes that come in handy! The lecturers speak pretty clearly, and everyone seems really nice so far.

So, all things considered, it looks like it's turned out nice again. Apart from the weather, which although sunny a few days ago, has now started to resemble autumn properly by turning dreary and wet. But it appears that the weather is similar in UK, so never mind!

Braunschweig Newsletter No. 4

Term is going very well, I'm still understanding lectures, and have settled in well to the general routine ­ this also means I start at 8am on two days of the week! A few more observations about lectures:
At the end of the lecture, everyone knocks on their desk as a sort of applause for the lecturer. This probably wouldn't work in England, but the Germans are really into this.
The courses are often split into "lecture" taught by the professor, and "Exercises" handled by a "Mitarbeiter" (assistant or postgrad kind of person).
The postgrad-types are kept in their place by having the task of cleaning the blackboards with a J-cloth and a squeegee (seriously!) when the professor has filled the blackboard with notes. Some of the Mitarbeiters seem to take this as an insult, and go out of their way to wipe the boards clean before you've had a chance to write the notes down.
Some students just get up and leave (or arrive) in the middle of lectures. I assume this is due to overlapping courses, but I could be wrong.
Since engineering is such an international field, many of the photocopies and handouts are actually in English, so I'm sorted there!

I have managed to sort my project out ­ control of a little mobile robot via CANbus ­ and am now busily learning C++. I have my own little area of the robotics laboratory, featuring two desktop computers, and a laptop. I am also able to get a bit of money for working on my project, as it is considered as work for the robotics institute, so that's an added bonus!

Since my project is in the robotics institute, I have managed to meet most of the people there, and know some of them well. I was even able to attend a departmental lunch the other week, full of typical German cuisine ­ cold meats, pasta salad, sausages, etc. I will also be going walking in the Harz mountains (at the bottom of Niedersachsen) on Friday with the robotics people, so I have fitted in well here.

Well, that's the academic end of things, now for the social bit, which will explain the odd greeting at the top of the newsletter.

A few weeks ago, I met some Americans from Rhode Island who are here on a similar exchange thing for a year. A couple of them live on my corridor, but there are about 20 of them in total. I have also met a few Canadians from Waterloo (near Toronto). They are all really nice, and we go out for meals and drinks quite regularly. Last Thursday, I also had Thanksgiving dinner with them, and this weekend just passed, I went to Berlin with them. The only slight glitch is the language barrier between us, as they talk about pants quite a lot, and they of course mean trousers (silly people). This catches me out quite a bit, and I find it very amusing in a childish way (comments such as "I'll be wearing my leather pants", "My pants are all wet", "I went to the city to buy some pants" pop up every now and then ­ God help them when they visit England!!)

And it's true about the different senses of humour ­ sometimes they don't understand my jokes (but then again, neither do my Southampton friends sometimes!), and now a British comedy show ("Smack the Pony") is on German TV, and they can't get their heads around that at all. Never mind.

I've also met some other international people (via the Americans), including French, Swedish, and even another guy from England.

Aside from this, I've also managed to go to the cinema nearly every week to watch the new releases (in German). They have a special "Super Kino Dienstag" which is a half price day throughout the country and tickets are only £2.50.

So, generally speaking, everything is going extremely well here. Plus, the Christmas market starts this week, so lots of mulled wine and stuff in the city! I'll be coming home to England for the Christmas holidays, so I'll try to visit some of you if I can!!.

Braunschweig Newsletter No. 6.

Hello, good evening and welcome to yet another trip down newsletter road. First up, many apologies for not sending a newsletter earlier, but first there was the end of term and exams, and then I was back in UK, and then there's been the start of the new semester. But now I can take a step back and look at what has happened in the last month or two (or three!).

Picking up from where I left off last time, near the end of January I went to a Robotics institute "social" evening involving all the secretaries, assistants and postgrad people (the Professor couldn't make it that evening). We watched a couple of DVDs, letting the beer and crisps flow freely (there was much rejoicing, but I won't be mentioning it every time it occurs in this newsletter!).

The next big thing to happen (well, not THAT big), was my project being adjusted, due to the original supervisor deciding to take some time off to look after his family. A new postgrad / assistant guy has replaced him (Thorsten ­ now there's a good German name!), and so my project is now to get a system up and running, where cameras on the ceiling of the lab look at the floor and a program then tells the little mobile robots where to go, so they don't run into tables and people. So almost all of the work I had done for the other project is now useless!! Such is life, I guess. J

After that palaver, it was the end of term, and exams loomed up like a big loomy thing (sorry, couldn't think of a good metaphor). Before I continue, I'd like to point out that the exam system is completely different over here ­ most exams are oral instead of written, and I've found good and bad points about them in comparison to the written exams I am used to:
Good points ­ oral exams are quicker, so theoretically less painful; you're not required to remember lots of equations ­ it's more about knowing facts and details than playing with numbers; sometimes you can get a second chance to explain something, so the examiner understands what you're talking about, and doesn't get the wrong end of the stick.
Bad points ­ you don't have 90 minutes to mull over the questions before answering; you can't pick 3 out of the 5 given questions ­ every question they ask you counts; you're sitting in a room with only two other people ­ the professor from the lectures, and one of his assistants. The professor asks the questions and the assistant sits quietly next to the prof and makes notes (so does the prof) ­ it reminds me of the old "good cop, bad cop" films, and feels a bit like interrogation (I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!).

You do have a pencil and paper in case diagrams are required, but then you have to deal with interpreting the diagram the professor has drawn (is that ninety degrees apart or just a line at a funny angle?). Anyway, one of my exams was a good pass, two were low passes, and unfortunately I failed the other one. Luckily I can retake the failed one and I've also been allowed to retake one of the exams I just scraped through in. These will take place in the next few weeks.

So, after exams, and a farewell meal with the Rhode Islanders who were going off to their various placements around Germany, it was back to UK for a few weeks. I'd just like to say Hi to Jim at this point, who stayed with me for a few days near the end of my exams and then went off around Europe when I went back to UK. If anyone else wants to visit me here, then you're more than welcome to pop over!!

During my "holiday" back at home, many things happened (I won't go into detail here) and lots of you met me at some point. For those of you who I didn't see, maybe I'll be able to see you in the Summer.

The return trip to Germany was accompanied by my parents, since we were going to Berlin for the Easter weekend. We stayed in a little hotel next to Wittenbergplatz, and were just round the corner from KaDeWe, the biggest department store in Germany (I think). During our stay, we saw a lot of the touristy things in Berlin, and when I get the photos developed, I will put them up on a website (along with everything else, when I remember to scan lots of stuff in).

After my parents had returned to England, the new semester started, and it was back to work as usual. I only have two subjects this semester, so the rest of the time can be dedicated to project work. My project supervisor and I have spent most of this past week sticking black spots on the laboratory floor and calibrating the camera image (it's a long story), and all in all, things are going well. I have also met even more Americans (where are they all coming from?), this time from Oklahoma and Arkansas!

That's all for now, folks, so until next time, leb wohl, und tschüß!

You may remember that last time, I mentioned I had met some more Americans. Since then, I have also met some fellow Engländer (that's English people) and some Swedes (from Sweden, not the vegetables). The English people (all girls) are from York University and they all study "Germanistik" (German and linguistics). The Swedes are going to become English teachers (go figure!). Anyway, this has resulted in more social things happening, which can only be a good thing. In fact, we've been to quite a few parties together and we all go to the Schüssel on Tuesday evenings (it's the day in the pub when all the foreign students meet, organised by the European Exchange office).

One of our trips (again organised by the European office) was to Hamburg Harbour during the birthday celebrations of the Harbour (813 years old!!). Many stalls on the harbour front were set up with games, rides, food and beer (of course), and there were naturally lots of ships moored up which people could look in. The only thing that could get in our way was the weather, which it did, at about 4pm. But by that time, we'd done everything anyway.

The day after that was my birthday and so some of my friends and I went out for a meal at the local Italian restaurant. Which was nice.

Last week was "Exkursionswoche", a quasi-half-term week where some of the faculties organise big expensive trips. I chose not to go on one of these, but rather do things with my English-speaking friends. So we had a picnic on one (very sunny) day, watched a film at the cinema another day, and some of us went to Berlin for the day (again) last weekend. All in all, a lot of fun.

Now I'm back into the second part of the summer semester, and everything is going well. The courses are really good, and my project is coming along well (after the torture of fixing bugs in the program!). There's now only five and a half weeks of lectures left, and then exams, and after that, I go home to good old Blighty.

Well that's about all from the other side of the Channel for now.