Laughing at Yourself is Healthy :)

As an austauch, I make a lot of mistakes while speaking. Thankfully, everyone still knows what I'm saying most of the time, but that doesn't keep them from laughing about it. Of course, I laugh too, but I typically don't know why I'm laughing until someone explains. Any alumni austauch or person who has spent time abroad in general knows that the first quarter of your year is spent doing exactly that- laughing without having any idea why. And nodding, lots of nodding. So anyway, because it's always healthy to laugh at yourself, I figured I'd let y'all laugh with me.

~List of Painlich Sprache Mistakes~

-In no particular order-

1. I attempted to say, "I'm ready!" Apparently bereit (ready) and breit (under the influence) *spelling mistake somewhere in there I'm sure* sound the same to me because I went on to yell aloud "I'm high!!" during gym class. 

2. Tried encouraging a friend to go to sleep...

What I tried to type- "Schlafen ist gesund!"

What I typed instead- "Schlagen ist gesund!"

Yeah, let me translate that for you. I told him that beating is healthy. 

3. Tried to tell Svenja I wanted to cook with her.

Told Svenja I wanted to cook her.

4. For the past month I've been saying "Good nude!" to my family before bed rather than "Good night!"

On the subject of vocabulary and whatnot, I feel as though I should mention that I'm slowly losing English words. I think I already mentioned the Spülmaschine incident where I forgot that it means dishwasher auf Englisch, but you know it's getting really serious when you forget thr English word for Ampel. Caro asked me what it was and I stood there for at least three minutes trying to remember before Hadia finally told us that Ampel is traffic light in English. The best I had come up with was "street light". That's the closest I got.

Basically, you have to be able to laugh at yourself to be an exchange student in a foreign country. It's 100% necessary and should probably be one of the 5000 questions on the initial application.

In other news, I went to a play called Kabale und Liebe with my German class and it was interesting to say the least. I really didn't understand the plot line until seeing the play, then realized it's basically a German Romeo and Juliet. Except in the gGerman version they drank glowing green liquid, died, and then rose from the dead to dance to Rammstein. It was really truly great though, and it was about an hour away so I got to go on my first school trip since arriving in Germany. On our way to the theater we stopped by Dunkin Donuts and ate blue donuts. :) It was so much fun to spend time getting to know a few of the girls better, and I'm definitely grateful they let me tag along with them. Three cheers for new friends!

Miriam spent the week in Munich and Sarah spent the week in London so I had the week alone with my host parents, which was just as fabulous as ever. Monday, unfortunately, I got sick in the morning so I spent majority of the day asleep, but when dinner came around Adelheid made me some rice so I could eat dinner with them and not upset my stomach again (which I thought was super sweet) and thn we watched more Star Wars. It was a sick day, but it was a good sick day. Tuesdy I went with Adelheid to a yoga class she was instructing, which is so cool because, guys. My host mom instructs yoga. I've found that I actually enjoy yoga, so that'll probably stick. Wednesday was the play, and I came home around 2200, I think. That was the day I felt like I flipped my language switch. I had previously depended on English as a crutch pretty often, but since Wednesday I'm pretty sure the only English I have spoken was to my boyfriend. I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the language. But yeah, I came home pretty late and my phone had been dead since the play. I feel as though this is a good example of how important host family/ exchange student communication is. When I told Adelheid I didn't text to check in because my phone had died she said "oh, that's why!" If I hadn't explained that, they may have gone on to think I was irresponsible and not considerate enough to check in, because that was my first time going out without my sisters. It's very important that you go out of your way to explain things as an exchange student, even if they are things you wouldn't have to do back home. (I don't have to check in with Dad. He has people tail me and keep tabs everytime I go out.) On Thursday,  our remote wouldn't work so we ended up watching "Die Show der Unglaublichen Helden." It was one of those game shows where the competitions are sporty and let me tell you; There's nothing to make you feel bad about yourself like a 76 year old woman doing a headstand. Today is Friday and Sarah and Miriam are comng home! Ich freue mich. :) 

We're going to Stuttgart tomorrow and staying until Tuesday. I'll probably post again around that time. Today was my last day of school before two weeks of fall break. I'm hoping to meet up with Isabell over break, a friend that I met before coming to Germany. I'll explain that when I post about our meetup.

I'm planning on making Thanksgiving dinner for my host family, so if anyone (Grammies, Ginnie, Dad) has recipes they wanna share with me or just ideas, let me know! I know some people have had a difficult time commenting on my blog so feel free to email/ Facebook me please!

That's all I can come up with to update y'all on currently. My return date is June 14th, so if anyone wants to plan to send be a Welcome Home dancing songagram, that'd be the day to do it.

Caro and I mit Blau donuts! :)

I'm Really Late

And I could make excuses or I could just go ahead and post it. So natürlich, the latter. :) Be forewarned though, I wrote this throughout several days so the timeline of it is not going to make any sense and, frankly, I'm too lazy to change a ton of "today"s to "Sunday"s. :p try to keep that in mind while you get completely confused by this post.

To start, there is a long list of movies "everyone has seen" that I have yet to have watched. On that list you'll find Fight Club, Good Will Hunting, Grease, Anchorman, and the Toy Story trilogy. (I think it's a trilogy.) But a title you won't find? Star Wars. Thanks to my fabulous family, I have finally crossed it off of my list. Not to mention, it was in German (subtitles still count). I understand that Darth Vader is meant to be evil as is, but go watch the movie in German. Tell me that German speaking Vader is not the darn scariest thing you've ever had the experience of listening to. Also, no one warned me that Yoda is hilarious. I went into that expecting a serious lil green guy, never cracking a smile; instead I watched him beat R2 with a stick, fighting to keep his stolen cookie. I didn't expect to, but I found myself truly enjoying Star Wars. Especially for the Ewoks. 

Aside from Star Wars, I was introduced to a very important piece of culture this week- Die Sindong mit der Maus. A richtig cute children's shows that has a really good message but also extremely confused me. It teaches you stuff and it's that mix between a cartoon and real life and just sorta hard to explain. While on the topic of culture, the other night we ate a typical german dish for dinner and it was delicious. Käse Spätzle I think it was called. I also got to try these German pancakes that were like pancake tacos. They aren't sweet like our pancakes in America, not for syrup and fruit. We spread cheese and veggies and all sorts of yummy stuff on them. Including carrot salad, which is also delicious. Tonight, Sarah and I made pizza from scratch. And the real "from scratch". Not the pre-made crust kind. Pictures are at the bottom. Today is the German day of unity, so Miriam made banana/apple bread to look like the German flag. :)  I should probably just run a food blog with how often I talk about it. Sorry if I make you hungry. :p 

There's not much to say right now, but I feel obligated to post. I've mostly been spending a lot of my after-school freetime researching scholarships and checking into colleges I'm considering applying to. Going home to college and not BGHS is a weird thought, but it's exciting. It's all one adventure after another, but I'll be happy when it finally calms down too. 

As for updates, there are very few. Last weekend is summed up into dancing with Miriam and a plant which actually brings up a pretty humorous point-

I wasn't drunk, no worries. I don't drink. Yet, two hours into the party, everyone else is getting drunk and I'm still the only one dancing. With Miriam of course, she never lets me dance alone. It's just funny to me because everyone assumes I'm trashed because I'm the American that can't handle German beer but in reality, I'll spend the whole night drinking mineral water. I get asked really often why I wouldn't take advantage of the drinking age here, but why should I? "You need to have the full experience!" I certainly don't share that point of view, nor do I want to. Like my year won't be a true year in Germany if I don't drink? I don't know, it doesn't taste good to me, I know nothing good that comes of it, and most of all- I don't need it. I'm energetic and fun enough without alcohol, anyone that is my friend could tell you that. But that does not mean I shun the people who drink. Some people like the taste of it, and some people need that extra kick to help them loosen up and have fun. And here, it's just a part of the culture. Everyone is different. 

(Break in time of posts)

I planned on being early in posting which somehow turned into me being intensely late. But, I'm making up for it with pictures.

We spent Sunday in a city called Neuss, which is ancient. The Romans settled here, like back before Christ. That's an extremely long time ago, y'all. But, because of battles and time and whatnot, majority of it was torn down and replace hastily making it less aesthetically pleasing. There were pieces of a tower and insignias in the ground (photos below). The church lived up to the "huge and beautiful" reputation of those in Germany. Neuss was a highly catholic city so there were a lot of religious symbols around. (Pictures below)

We were taking a walk before dinner and checking out all the stuff around us when Adelheid suggested we take a picture by the river on the piece if machinery stuff. I thought that'd be really cool, but it did not end well. And not just my usual, "oops I made an ugly face" not ending well, but a serious awful ew no ending. Sarah and I climbed up there and I heard a crunch under my left foot, figured it was glass shards, and ignored it. After about 2 minutes of standing there getting steady for photos, Sarah shrieked and told me to move my foot. I looked down and, of course, it was the skeleton of a bird. So all of the pictures ended up being of me freaking out and doing that weird mix of laughing and crying. It was a great day anyway though, lots of laughter and great food. (Pictures of that too of course). After eating and talking, we said our bis späters, and Miriam drove us home. She drove both ways actually, new to driving, and she did really well. So there's my tragically late post!

Difference of the week:

The drink vending machines give out glass bottles and are equipped with a little bottle opener next to the change dispenser. 

I thought that was super cool.

Part of the church, I had a hard time taking photos of it because I was so close.

One of the in-ground insignias.

Food! :)

More food! I loved this a lot. 

Vegetarian pizza from scratch

Photo from the bird story...

And Sarah and I on a pig ☺️