Last days in Germany...

Wow. This month has FLOWN by.  As excited as I am to go to Wien, I’m really going to miss Schwäbisch Hall!  I’ve learned SO much German (or maybe just remembered a lot), met incredible people, and had tons of exciting adventures.

I haven’t written for a while, so here’s a quick summary of my time in Germany since my last update:

German beer

Really good.  Really cheap.  And I’m legal.  Although I guess I’ll be legal in the States in 3 days.  Still.  As my Goethe teacher says, “In Germany, beer is like water.” So true.  Although I’m proud to say I definitely drink more water than beer.

[Side note: although Germany is apparently very green, everyone still drinks out of plastic water bottles.  I, on the other hand, carry my dented, scratched-up metal Calvin water bottle everywhere, and then try to sneak a few sips during meals so I don’t have to pay for water.  I don’t know if that’s kosher, but I refuse to pay for water!!!]

Trips

Comburg: This is about a 30 minute walk from the Goethe Institute.  I saw it one day while I was running and then some friends and I walked around it for an hour a so.  It’s basically an old church...but it looks like a CASTLE!  Absolutely beautiful.  I felt like I was in a fairytale. 

Frankfurt:  I saw the Goethe-Haus!  Definitely the highlight.  I know Frankfurt’s a big, financial center, but seeing Goethe’s childhood home was my favorite part of that trip!  I even got to see one of the early versions of Faust!

Ulm:  Probably my favorite trip.  It was REALLY cold, and I was sick, but the trip was definitely worth it.  I climbed the steeple Ulmer Münster, which is the highest steeple in the world! 768 steps!  I also received lots of propaganda from various German political parties.  The other neat thing about Ulm is that some of it is on the river (the Donau).  The river just flows right under buildings and houses etc.  It kind of reminded me of what I imagine Venice is like. 

Tübingen:  If I hadn’t been so cold and sick and we hadn’t traveled 6 hours for a grand total of 3 hours to stay in the city, I would have enjoyed this trip more.  We went for Allemanischer Faschings, which is basically this big parade of people in costumes.  The point is to scare away evil spirits.  If I was evil, I guess it worked.  I went into a café and drank coffee and tea until it was time to leave.  During this time, I met two women from Colorado whose husbands were in the military.  I got up to blow my nose for what seemed like the 100^th time that day, and when I went to the door of the bathroom, one of the woman was there too.  She said, “H and D (the letters printed on the doors)...H stands for Herren und D stands for Damen.  Damen is women, right?”  Yes.  She was right.  But really?  She had lived in Germany TWO YEARS and she did not even know something as practical as which bathroom to enter!  I mean, I could understand if she’d been there a few months.  But TWO YEARS!  If I ever live in another country that long, I really hope I am at least relatively proficient...at least proficient enough to tell which bathroom I should use!  I don’t know.  I feel like if you’re living in someone else’s culture, you owe it to those people to learn a bit of their language.  They’re showing you hospitality and you should return the favor.

                                                

Classes 

There were 8 people in my class (I think) from countries including Indonesia, Korea, the U.S., Turkey, and Romania.  Our teacher was German (like all Goethe teachers).  We took tests when we first arrived that determined which course we were in.  I think my class was a perfect fit for me at first, but then all my German started coming back to me and I think a higher class would have been a little better.  Still, I learned a lot and had fun (even though 8:15 is a little early for me to start class!).  It was really great to just focus on German and nothing else!!!  In the past, I’ve never really enjoyed my language classes, I think because they were always my “blow-off” classes.  The teachers/professors didn’t expect much and I didn’t have time to put much effort into a class that I could get an easy A in.  True, it didn’t matter at all how well I did in this class.  We had tests, but they didn’t really count for anything.  But since that was the only academic commitment I had, I worked fairly hard!  And my classroom learning was reinforced all day, everyday at lunch, walking through the town, visiting bookstores, etc.  Sometimes I would learn a word in class and then hear it later that day.  It was such EASY and FUN learning! 

I also went to some optional classes: phonetics, listening comprehension, and humanities terminology.  My favorite was definitely the last of these.  It was really hard and kind of overwhelming, but really useful.  The professor was really old, and even though I generally knew what he was talking about, all of the students (all 3 of us) had a hard time understanding how to do the exercises.  It was kind of embarrassing at first, but we got better and learned a lot of new words.  I even got to read some Heidegger in German!

Friends

I LOVE the people I met here.  It was so fun to hang out with people from all around the world. The students going to Vienna with me are GREAT.  I’m really eager to get to know them better.

Language

It was so neat that German was the “lingua franca” for the most part.  Some people did speak pretty good English, but we would always go to German first.  It doesn’t feel so uncomfortable to speak anymore.  In fact, it feels ALMOST as natural as English in some situations.  I’m definitely able to navigate daily situations in German, and lots of native speakers have complimented me which is really encouraging!  I already commented above about those women and the bathrooms, but I had another thought about language and hospitality etc.  When we were climbing the Ulmer Münster, an American said, “Excuse me” as he passed by because the passage was very narrow and he couldn’t help but bump into me.  I don’t think he knew I was American because I hadn’t been speaking.  It struck me as kind of ridiculous when I heard those English words.  Really, “Entschuldigung” is not that hard to say.  I made a decision as I was climbing down the stairs: in my travels, I am going to make an effort to learn the basic phrases in the language of the country I’m visiting.  It just seems like the right thing to do.  It’s an act of respect.  Maybe I’m being pretentious or something, but that’s what I’ve decided for now.

Well, that was really long so I’ll stop now and update again once I’m in Wien!  Thanks for reading!

The first few days

Note: This blog is a few days old, because I’ve been so busy I have to write it in short chunks!

I've arrived in Schwäbisch Hall!  I will be staying here for one month studying German at the Goethe Institute.  So far, I've already met a lot of great people.  The students here come from all of the world.  My roommate, for example is from Turkey.  She doesn't speak much English, so we have to speak German all the time.  I've also met people from Slovenia, Romania, Argentina, Brazil, and Indonesia, and I'm sure I'll meet many more people from other places!

It's absolutely beautiful here.  The buildings are all really old and lots of them have Fachwerk (those typical German criss-crossed beams).  There's a river that runs near the Institute that's really pretty, and with all the old buildings surrounding it, it's a gorgeous, almost fairytale-like setting.  Today I went running over there, and it was just...there are no words.

When I first got here, I didn't know anyone.  As soon as I arrived, I had an interview where I was tested on my speaking skills in German, and then I took a grammar test.  The interview was easy, but the grammar test was really hard!

Later on the first day, I had to go back to the main building after having unpacked my stuff in my room.  Unfortunately, I had no idea how to get there, and I didn't even know who was in the program with me.  So I googled the directions, but they weren't very good directions, and I couldn't find the underpass to cross the street. I asked someone for directions in German, and thankfully I understood everything!  However, I got lost again, although I eventually figured everything out.  Then I met the other students and we walked to dinner.  It was mostly just a get to know you dinner; nothing exciting happened, but I got to know some of the other Central students better.

Both yesterday and today I went to breakfast with my roommate. Yesterday we had a brief meeting with everyone from the Goethe Institute, and then we went to our classes.  There's a boy in my class who's also with the Central program and it's nice to have someone to hang out with during the breaks.  

I also (sort of) registered for my Uni Wien classes.  Basically, that means I told Ruth (our program coordinator) all the classes i would like to take, and then we see which ones I get into.  They're all linguistics classes except for one (it's a philosophy class...philosophy of language!).  

Ok, enough with all the facts.  Here are some reflections, mostly about language:

1.  There are some people who think you can never become entirely "fluent" in a language.  I always thought this was a totally ridiculous idea.  But lately, I'm not so sure.  Even when I know all the words and grammar I never feel like I'm fully expressing my thoughts.  Maybe this goes away once you can "think" in the other language...I'm not sure.  But as I get more "fluent," this is definitely something I want to be aware of.

2.  Well, now I’ve forgotten number two.  :)  

Stuttgart

It's only been about 2 days since I arrived in Germany, but I'm already in love! When I first arrived, I was a little overwhelmed by all the German, probably partially because I was so tired.  All the announcements in the airport were in German, all the signs, etc.  I mean, what else should I have expected?  But I just really wanted a tiny bit of English.  So I was really glad when I met these two British guys in the airport who wanted to talk to me.  I think we talked for about 3 hours, and one of them bought me coffee which I really needed after only a little bit of sleep.  They were really interesting and told me a lot about the economic and social situation in England.  Anyway, it was a nice break from German.  That night we went grocery shopping and then made dinner and went to bed.  We had Spätzle which is a traditional Swabian dish.  It's sort of this pasta stuff with meat and vegetables on the inside.  I didn't think I'd like it, but it was actually delicious!

   Not that you want to know what I had for every meal, but I have to write about breakfast the next day.  We had Brötchen (little bread).  The bread here is SOOO good.  And there are bakeries EVERYWHERE.  I can't wait to go to more in Schwäbisch Hall and Vienna!  I LOVE bread.

Later we went shopping with some of Svenja's friends.  When we left, we got in a car accident because this guy had ice on his windshield and didn't see us. That was pretty exciting!  Shopping was fun, but again a bit overwhelming, because it was hard to understand when Svenja talked to her friends.  They speak so fast to each other!

Last night we went to a club and stayed there until 4am.  This was a really cool experience.  I've never been to a club before, let alone stayed out till 4 in the morning!  I managed to drink one entire beer.  This is quite an accomplishment for me :)  It was REAAAALLY good though.  The reason we went out was because Svenja's friend was having a birthday party.  Lots of her friends were there and everyone was really nice, although it was hard to understand their German because the music was so loud.  Because of this, I was hesitant to talk to anyone because I didn't want to look like an idiot!  But it was still fun just to be in such a new environment.  We danced and talked and ate and drank.  I discovered that ketchup costs money here, which is quite a tragedy.

Today was incredible!  We went to Svenja's mother's home where I saw here whole family.  I haven't seen them in seven years!  We spoke German during lunch, and that was really fun.  I can already tell it's getting better.  I understand a lot more than I did even when I first arrived.  Anyway, the food was delicious and the company was even better.  Her siblings are so old now! Crazy!  It was so wonderful to see them.  Her mother was just so sweet to me.  In fact, I've been so grateful for Svenja's kindness to me too.  And her boyfriend's.  It's so wonderful to feel at home when I'm so far from home!

After that we went to the Fernsehturm (TV tower).  It's this big tower from which you can see a large part of Stuttgart when you go to the top.  It was really beautiful, but really cold, so we didn't stay that long.

This evening we had Schnitzel mit Nudeln (Schnitzel with noodels) for dinner.  It was good, just as everything has already been!  It's late here now, but I'm not tired because I took a three hour nap earlier!

Tomorrow Svenja's boyfriend is driving me to Schwäbisch Hall where I will study German for one month before going to Vienna.  I'm really excited to get better at German, meet new people, and explore a new city, but I'm really going to miss it here with Svenja, and perhaps she will come visit me this month.

I still can't believe I'm here.  Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes!  I miss you!

In DEUTSCHLAND!

I made it!  Sitting in the airport after a super long, but surprisingly good, flight.  I can't believe I'm here.  I already spoke German when I showed them my passport and I almost screamed I was so proud of myself.  Oh, I'm so excited for these adventures!