A quick game of catch-up

Wednesday September 3, 2008
After my minor surgery Wednesday night I ate with my host and her son which was so fun. We had a wonderful conversation talking about McDonalds, Texas double whoppers, the German school system, and “Sprichter Wörter” (or idioms like to kill a bird with one stone). We also discussed the difference between the German word for toe, toes, tooth, teeth, and strong all of which are one vowel sound different. So in an effort to keep me from telling everyone I pulled sea urchin out of my teeth instead of my toe, Max gave me a diagram to help me remember the difference! He’s so wonderful!

Thursday September 4, 2008
Finally a productive German class. FINALLY. The first three days were miserably impossible. I spent the majority of the beginning of the week sneaking a peak at my dictionary under my desk and wondering how in the world I was ever going to keep up. But some how, some way, it all came together today. I understood the words coming out of Corrina’s mouth and am happy to report that my German overall has gotten so much better even in just a little over a week. For the first time in my life I’m saying sentences completely grammatically correct (which if you know German, you know is impossible).

After class on Thursday I came home for lunch and to write a paper. I ended up having a pretty humorous conversation with my host mom as I tried to determine how to say “and then water started flowing for the fountain” in German. I’m pretty sure we never quite made it there.

I headed back to an IES Info session on traveling in Europe and then headed to the National Gallery (again) so that I could take pictures of some of my favorite pieces from last week. Thursday was also Mike’s birthday so we met with a lot of people in Mitte and went out to celebrate. A good and interesting time as usual. On our way to meet up with everyone I found myself in a conversation with an older couple form Stuttgart who I convinced to talk to me in German!! We talked about Texas, Bush, Obama (anyone surprised), and Kennedy’s speech in Berlin which the woman had attended!!! How cool! When we finally wrapped up our conversation the man told me that my German was incredibly good and wished me a great semester at Humboldt. Finally a successful conversation with a stranger!!!

(Dan and me at the birthday celebration!)

Friday September 5, 2008
Friday we played a detective game in Mitte which lead us to some of the important parts of the city center. One of our assignments was to ask 5 people about the American election and OH MY GOSH, these people know more about the election than I do. And no, I’m not even close to joking!

After staying 40 minutes later than expected at school, I headed back home to listen to Teasley’s sermon (which was wonderful, duh) before meeting up at the Turkish Market and then going to Balzac Coffee. And then, the most wonderful part of my day… Perry and I went on a date! First we perused Galeria Kaufhaus, H&M, and Zara and then went to the most authentic German restaurant we’ve seen yet and order Wiener Schnitzel and Berliner Weisse. And it was wunderbar!

It’s just so funny to think about. Perry is by far my best friend here and yet I’ve only known her for 10 days. It’s just so bizarre to be thrown into a relationship like this. I love it, it’s just so different than anything I’ve ever experienced before!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for tonight. I’ll update you on my excursion to Potsdam tomorrow!

Go Deacs!!!