Oooooh yeah, winter’s finally arrived. On Monday, Jan 14, the first snow flakes fell from the sky and covered everything in white (oh, and ice of course). Since then it’s been a few crazy days: people have constantly been sliding and falling down the little path just opposite my house (including myself) and I’ve been constantly annoyed because of the pavements being all muddy and slippery. But then again it’s cool to have at least a little bit of snow, and besides that it’s good fun to see all the local people run mad.^^ The reason why the English can’t cope with snow is simple: they don’t use winter tyres and that causes severe problems when there’s lots of snow of course …
Anyway, Monday and Wednesday of last week were dedicated to choir rehearsals again. We are definitely getting much better every week, especially with the Joint Choral Society. 🙂 I’m very lucky that there’s several people giving me a lift home, otherwise I’d be screwed cause walking really is not a good idea at the moment.
On Thursday we had a lovely discussion in school. I asked my colleague Linda why English people never say “Enjoy your meal” when someone’s eating even though they’re super polite when it comes to all other things (back in Austria, people say “Mahlzeit” even if they just meet in the hallway^^). Her explanation was: “Well, I guess, your food is just more eatable than ours.” 😀 Pure awesomeness.
Saturday was a very busy day indeed as my French colleague Sarah, Derby Grammar School’s French assistant Elsa and I went to Derby Museum & Art Gallery. We saw many paintings by famous artist Joseph Wright of Derby, e.g. his most popular one called “A Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun” (oh dear, must’ve been an eloquent chap!). They also had lovely modern paintings and photographs as well as historic china and a selection of old glasses (see below). One of the museum attendants approached me straight away when I entered the room and asked me whether I was a Cambridge student because of the bag I was carrying. 😀 I told him no, so he told me all I needed to know about Joseph Wright, e.g. that he did the famous painting of Mr Fitzwilliam, a painting we already saw at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. 🙂
After our visit, we went to the cinema to see “Les Misérables” (in English of course^^). Even though it’s a very long movie, I’d say that it’s pretty good , though it’d probably be better to see it in a proper theatre (live music!). Anyway, later that night I went out with my mates from Howard St to celebrate Laura’s graduation which took place the day before. Congrats, Laura!! 🙂 The next day I spent a few hours with two other German FLAs at a pub called “The Standing Order”, one of the cheapest places in town, allegedly doing great food. I didn’t particularly like the place as it’s really big and not very “pub-like”, though hanging out with Christian and Marco was good fun. 🙂
Here’s some pictures of the snow and (the area around) Derby Museum:
