Mainz. Where to begin? I suppose the beginning. We left Friday night and arrived quite late in Mainz. It was snowing, which was lovely, but a bit irritating since we had to walk from the bus stop the University with all of our bags. Before embarking on our quest, we stopped at a kebap shop, which was sooo good. A kebap is basically pita bread/naan filled with a gyros kind of meat and salad with really good dressing. It was delicious. After this respite, we headed to the Uni. This took a good twenty minutes and we were completely covered in snow by the time we arrived. We slept in the sports hall, upstairs, on massage tables. The room was absolutely sweltering, but better hot than freezing.
Saturday was epee and sabre, so I didn't fence. I watched the competition and worked on my english paper. The gym was like an American one, it had two basketball courts and a high ceiling, which is much different from the gym at UCL. The campus of Johannes Gutenburg was also very similar to an American college campus. It was quite large and easy to get lost in. Luckily, everything was in the same building. Breakfast was good, lunch was great - soup with some sort of pasta dumpling meat filled things in it. The competition went on well into the evening and we didn't get out of the gym until about 9.00. Valerian, one of the sabruers, won the sabre tournament for the fourth year in a row. He's the one with the weird little hat on in the pictures. After all the matches, we headed out to find some sort of dinner. It was very cold, Chicago-style weather, and we ventured in to the town. We ate dinner at a German sort of restaurant, and I had weiner-schnitzel. It was good as were the chips. From there, we decided to head back to the sports hall, where the foilists in the group went to bed and the others stayed up to enjoy the evening in traditional German fashion.
Homan, Alex, Alex, and I were the foilists in the group and started fencing at 9.30 on Sunday morning. We were divided into poules of six to seven people and fenced everyone in our poule once. Needless to say, as a novice I did not do terribly well. However in my defense, my poule was extremely challenging as I had the top female foilist from Basel in my group. Each match in the poule went up to five hits. After the first set of poules were completed, a ranking list went up and I was 78 out of 81, which wasn't too bad. From there, they divided us into a second group of poules. Again, I did not do very well as far as winning is concerned, but I fenced well according to Valerian. I just need to hit on target. Go figure. One would think that would be easy. After the second poule, another list of rankings went up, and I was 80 out of 81. Although it was low, at least I wasn't last :) Consequently, I was out. I showered and packed up all of my kit and miscellaneous items to make sure I'd be ready when we left. Those of us who weren't fencing or watching sat around for a while and chatted until the match was over.
Just our luck, when we left it was snowing, again. We walked to the train station and had Chinese in Germany. I feel like something was morally wrong with that, but it still tasted pretty good. We went to wait for our bus, but due to the snow (which was hardly more than an inch on the ground), it was delayed and we didn't know how long it would take to arrive. Not wanting to leave it to chance, we took two cabs to the airport, which was a little more expensive than we were hoping to pay. But, we got there on time and boarded the plane with no problems. The flight was quick and we were back in London soon enough.
As far as kit is concerned, it is quite hot to wear one for the day and of course starts to smell rancid after fencing in it for an hour or two. I though marching band uniforms were bad, they are nothing compared to this. There is the plastron, the jacket, the pants, the socks, the glove, the mask, and for the ladies, a chest protector. All of these are made out of material that lessens the impact of the point, but doesn't completely prevent pain. Especially if one is fencing against a very aggressive male.
So that was Mainz. I really enjoyed myself and definitely learned alot. I cannot wait for future competitions or practices for that matter.
Aside from fencing, London has been great, I have one and a half papers left to turn in and only three weeks left. I can't believe the semester is almost over. I know Thanksgiving is this week, but it hardly feels like it. My flatmates and I are going to have a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night and we're all making different things, which should be good. Even though the stores have all been decorated and playing Christmas music since Halloween, the weather here does not lead me to believe that Christmas is just around the corner.
That's all I've got for now, back to Great Expectations and writing. Seems that's all I ever do here.
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