This day started early. Our „Business English“ lecture starts at 8:30 a.m. – unusual time. Even – or perhaps also especially – our teacher doesn’t like the time. But we all came more or less within the academic quarter (or, in German: Akademisches Viertel) to the lesson. Well – not that TU officially has something like an academic quarter, as far as I know, but everyone comes a bit late, so it’s like to have one. The lessons take place in the probably most shabby building of the technical university – the language centre. The value of language teaching, expressed in the quality and comfort of the provided rooms, looks not too high, here as also often in Germany.
While the language teachers in the university of Frankfurt have to bring their own beamer to the lectures – here the teacher brings her electric heater, because the rooms are too cold. The whole building has only old single-glass windows and the central heating is not strong enough to provide temperatures at which one could sit for hours without a winter-coat. After the experience last time – while it had still 14°C outside – today I remembered the temperatures and picked my ski-underwear. In the end it was not that necessary – the central heating of Sofia works since today. As almost all buildings have district heating in Sofia, all of them will have heating at more or less the same time. Also my dormitory and the other blocks of the university have heating – since today. Anyhow with only 6-8°C today it was still pretty cold in the lecture room.
And as if the academic English lesson would not have been enough, we gained a physical one: it started to rain – in a way I would imagine in England. It didn’t stop untill now and the result is some kind of flood on the streets. I was really happy to wear my hiking shoes this morning. The way back was difficult: don’t slip in the mud, don’t step into deep puddles and have an eye on the cars passing by – they could give you a free mud-shower….
The street between block 8 and 9 - more a lake....
The street near my block.....