Ok, no pictures tonight. I feel like I've been constantly doing things for like...5 days now. Very little rest, very little time to reflect...just time to do. That's how I kind of imagined Germany would be, just because I want to make the most out of my time here while it lasts. I already feel like I'm racing the clock before I have to go home.
A recap on the freakin' weekend:
On Friday night, a few of us went out and had a small get together at another dorm, which is farther out of town than mine. One of the girls from UW (Amy) and I missed the stop we were supposed to get off at so we got kind of lost in the suburbs of Bonn. It's odd to me that there's a dormitory out in the quietest part of the city. So it goes. Anyway, that night I found myself in a smoky local dive bar (my favorite type!). Saturday we were inclined to take the steep hike up to the top of Drachenfels, which was a castle at one point but now is just ruins. I didn't want to ruin the moment up there with a bad joke, but I did. The view of Bonn from the top was beautiful and worth the hike, and honestly I wasn't that sore afterwords. (lies)
Sunday Amy, Koala and I played euchre at Raina's BEAUTIFUL dorm. She was the lucky recipient of the nicest dorm on campus, complete with automatic lighting/window shades and a stainless steel kitchen. My kitchen doesn't even have a microwave! I guess we have plenty of mold to compensate though. I was pretty awful, but it was my first time playing. After that we spent the rest of the evening at a really chill shisha bar with some Germans and people from places other than Wisconsin where we got to sit on pillows. Machte spaß.
It's weird because when I started this post, I was totally thinking in German and it was actually hard for me to switch to English completely. Even as I type this I'm thinking phrases in German. It's weird to be bilingual, I think especially in the learning/earlier phases because the two aren't completely formed and to me are still fully dependent on each other. I hope I can get to the point where I'm fluent enough to separate the two and not have to translate but rather have German just be intuitive. Dreams be dreams. It's amazing though because after today I'm actually thinking in German! Crazy. It's also weird because when I talk to people here, it's a weird mix of the two sometimes, and other friends of mine also do this. We come out with mutant phrases like, "damn! (pronounced "dahm!") or "morgen is going to be hard" or "ja das können wir machen though."
Today was loooonnngggg. I woke up early to get to the Hauptgebäude for our first class of the term. This month we just have a long, five times a week three hours a day German class and then in the afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have either one or two other classes that we got to pick. When I got there, they hadn't sorted us into our levels dependent on our scores from that test on Friday (remember, not a piece of cake!). It was nerve-wracking because they put all of our names up on a projector and everyone could see who was in which group. It was especially bad because they called off each and every name, beginning with those who belonged in the easiest class 1 (never took German) all up to the fluent German speakers in the hardest class 14. I started getting nervous, thinking that they had forgotten me. Finally, they called my name and I'm in group 12 of 14. Not too shabby, I'd say, for not having studied at all...
The class itself was probably at my level. It seemed like there were a couple of people there who didn't understand a lick of German or speak it either, but could do grammar and write and read. That kind of bothered me, because what I need to work most on is my speaking skills! I'm fine at understanding, reading and writing (not perfect, I can always use work...) but I really need practice talking. I'm happy. however, because we have the opportunity to participate in Kaffeestunde, where we can just sit around and talk with Germans in the afternoons. I think that'll be most helpful.
Anyway, so the other class which I was forced to pick really quickly and without consulting any descriptions of the classes is called "Meet the Germans!" I wanted to take Theatre, but I couldn't without also taking choir, (NEVER) because I placed into level B 2/2, which apparently limits what other classes I can take. I could only take classes designated for the B and C levels, even though most of my friends are taking the others...bummer. I'll meet new people though, so that'll be great. And I'll be (ideally) learning to speak better German in the process. I'll keep you updated on what exactly "Meet the Germans!" is, but alls I know is that we start tomorrow.
Today was busy in other ways, as well. We had a welcome speech given to us in German by the director of the University. It still astounds me that literally everything I hear from my school is in German. Even more astounding is that I can understand it.
After that, a group of us wandered around downtown and then Amy and I went to meet up with her Bonn Buddy, Alexandra, and we got to take a car (!) off campus into downtown to a really interesting restaurant for drinks (read: hot white chocolate/vanilla) and now I'm home and going to sleep.
You're all caught up now. Tschüs!
ps. BONN IS AWESOME. this city is ideal.
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