Fri, Apr 18th 2008, 12:20
ich liebe dieses Leben I love this life
ich liebe diesen Tag I love this day
ich liebe diese Welt. I love this world
A song by German band, Juli
(This song helped me out a lot with declinating articles in German). Click
here to view a music video on YouTube.
The post man was very generous this week, and I received five postcards!
Both from Finland
Mannheim, Germany
This one is from Taiwan. The sender writes that the card represents the old copy of a Chinese classic novel "The Dream of the Red Chamber". It was a story of a rich and high class family from their glorious period until their collapse, which involved love, friendship, brotherhood, and official circles. The most contribution of this novel is to introduce readers the detailed life style in that era, the Ching dynasty.
This one is from West Virginia University, and the sender claims that his team beat Arizona's team in basketball last month. I don't keep up with sports, so I wouldn't know :)
I'm doing this because I haven't done anything worth blogging about for the past few weeks. But don't worry, next week I'll be sure to write lots of whiney posts about how I am suffering after my wisdom tooth extraction. This is from the blog, Simply Me.
Maybe I should eat another cookie.
I love when Mike tells stupid jokes.
People would say that I'm too quiet.
I don't understand German grammar!
When I wake up in the morning I am usually grumpy.
I lost a lot of things when I moved.
Life is full of embarassing moments.
My past is full of embarassing moments.
I get annoyed when I let my anger get the best of me
Parties are uncomfortable.
I wish I had more motivation.
Dogs are smelly.
Cats are rude.
Tomorrow I'm going to buy fresh croissants at the bakery down the street. Yum!
I have low tolerance for people.
I'm completely terrified of being alone.
I wonder why I am doing this.
Never in my life have I had my wisdom teeth extracted :(
High school was miserable.
When I'm nervous I avoid eye contact.
One time at a family gathering we all played dress up.
Take my advice try not to worry as much as I do.
Making my bed is something I only do when I visit my grandmother.
I'm almost always sitting right here.
I'm addicted to watching old music videos on YouTube
I want someone to comment on this blog.
3 Comment(s)
Mon, Apr 14th 2008, 07:05
The AmiExpat asked, "What do you like about living in Germany?"
This is a topic I have struggled with, because I honestly do want to go back to Arizona, and I am often homesick. But it is important to focus on the positives, and I know that it has been an amazing opportunity to be able to live in Germany, so I thank you for the question!
The best way I can think of is to put it in a list:
It's green.
It's historic.
It's so close to places I'd like to travel, so it makes it seem more possible.
I am getting my wisdom teeth removed for free, when it would have cost me thousands of dollars back in the U.S.
Buying fresh croissants in bakeries.
People don't eat out as often, so I hope I will learn to cook more and save money.
Cleaner cities.
People aren't as wasteful here and I hope it would eventually rub off on me.
The Germans recycle more.
Beautiful architecture.
More things to take pictures of (Phoenix is not very picturesque).
Being forced to live out of my comfort zone is probably in some ways good for me.
I like the public transportation.
It should eventually (hopefully) lead to me learning a foreign language.
And...probably the most important reason, is that I get to be with Mike.
3 Comment(s)
Mon, Apr 14th 2008, 03:52
Small talk is something I am terrible at in English, so in German it is ten times as awkward and difficult for me.
Germans also seem to be pretty terrible at small talk. The concept of small talk is to talk about light subjects that aren't really important. Well, Germans don't appreciate superficiality, and don't like to waste time for nothing, so small talk is a relatively novel idea here.
In my German class we discussed possible topics for small talk, and where you might have to engage in such conversations. I also read a really good blog about the difficulties of making small talk in a non-native language, on the blog Life in Germany. You should check it out.
Anytime I meet new people, or visit Mike's family, I am stuck with the dilemma of trying to think of things to say in a language I am very bad at. This makes it incredibly hard to make friends, and also very hard to form relationships with his family. I mostly try to use the universal language of smiling, and make the occasional silly, one-word remarks to make people laugh. Nothing too different from what I do in English, I guess.
Hopefully as I get better at the language, I will think of more things to say, but small talk is a skill I need to work on in English as well.
1 Comment(s)
Sun, Apr 13th 2008, 06:07
TV Show
This weekend we went to Markersdorf to celebrate Mike's Oma's birthday. His grandparents live in Mückenhain, which is even smaller than Markersdorf. Their house is very old and was once a prison. We went to the restaurant in their village and I ordered grilled pork with scrambled eggs on the top and fried potatoes on the side. Mike's grandmother and mother ate tongue, which I find really disgusting. I tried a bite once, and it felt just like you would expect it to, like chewing on a tongue. Very icky.
For dessert I ordered ice cream, and Mike's grandparents had a shot of alcohol. I tried to imagine my grandparents having a shot after meals, but couldn't. Later I felt bad, because I had forgotten about the tradition in Germany where the person who is having the birthday treats everyone else. I wouldn't have ordered dessert had I remembered that.
When we got back from the restaurant everyone else went inside to rest before the next meal, so I suggested to Mike that we should take a bike ride to burn off the huge meal we had just eaten. Whenever we visit Mike's family, it is like an eating marathon. You are barely done digesting one meal before the next begins.
We took a nice bike ride around the village and to a lake that used to be a coal mine. It was a little too windy and cold, but the weather here is finally starting to warm up. I am really looking forward to the summer! I was a little upset with myself for forgetting to bring my camera on the trip, because I know pictures of the little village, the houses, and the flowers would have been nice to share.
After the bike ride we had "Kaffee trinken" (coffee drinking) which is a tradition for the Germans to do on weekend afternoons. I don't drink coffee, so I usually have water or juice. This shocks Mike's grandmother because in Europe people drink a lot of hot drinks like tea and coffee. And they rarely drink plain water, only sparkling mineral water. She asked how I could drink so many cold drinks, don't I have a cold stomach? But I guess in Arizona we don't really need warm drinks, even the coffees are iced!
Along with the coffee and tea, we eat cakes or cookies. We had streusel cake and also two store-bought cakes that were kind of creamy and had fruit in them. I like these best because they are sweeter. The sweets in Germany are not very sweet. They are quite plain and usually have fruit in them which tends to be more sour than sweet. This explains why his parents weren't crazy about my chocolate chip cookies which were incredibly sweet and buttery.
After Kaffee trinken, we talked a while and rested. Mike's grandfather showed me the photos on the wall, and pointed out who everyone was. He likes to impress me with his English by saying "thank you" atleast once every visit.
We left after that and went back to Mike's parents' house. Usually on Saturday night there is some big German television show to watch. I find these shows curious because they are live and often three to four hours long. I usually can't stay up until the end.
The most popular show is Wetten dass...? (roughly translated to Wanna bet?) Ordinary people offer to perform strange or difficult tasks. They also have celebrities and musical performances. I find it amusing to watch stars like Nicholas Cage, Celine Dion, Renee Zellweger, and Jerry Seinfeld sitting on the show looking very confused. My favorite bet was when a man claimed he could identify all of his cows by name, based on the way they sounded when eating apples. He was blindfolded, and the cows all had cute women's names. He was able to identify them all correctly!
Another show is called Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel, which is primarily a music show. When we watched, they had Hans Klok, a magician, on the show who performed along with Pamela Anderson. Hans Klok was really entertaining and I would like to see him perform live.
The show we watched last night was called Verstehen Sie Spass? (Do you understand fun?). It is kind of like a candid camera show where they play pranks on people. They told one family they were going to redecorate their home, then they made it really ugly looking and exactly the colors the family said they hated. They also had comedians on the show (which I found boring because it is very hard to understand comedy in a foreign language), and a joke-telling contest.
We are back at our apartment now. I just checked the mail and had a bunch of postcards waiting for me:
Taiwan, Montana, Portugal
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Fri, Apr 11th 2008, 05:12
My favorite web sites
The following are some fun/useful/amusing websites that I have discovered, and I thought I would share them with the two people who read my blog (Hi Mike!).
Pandora Radio (unfortunately I can't use this anymore since it is only available to listeners in the U.S.) At this website you can submit songs or artists that you like, and then according to those, the website will play you songs that it thinks you will like. You then continue to tell them which you like and which you don't, and I suppose that eventually it will only play things you like. Very cool.
AllRecipes.com This website allows you to make a profile where you accumulate favorite recipes. You can also submit your own, and rate others' recipes. I have used it many times to figure out how to make things from home. (The site also converts the measurements!)
Trip Advisor I have found this site to be very useful when planning a vacation. It shows hotel reviews and ratings.
PostCrossing This is the postcard exchange that I joined. You can send up to 5 postcards at a time, and once they are received, your address is randomly given to another user. I have received postcards from all over the world! You can see some of the postcards I have received here.
The Advertising Slogan Generator I blogged about this one earlier. It's not really useful, but it's definitely amusing.
YouTube you probably all know about this one, the site allows people to share videos and you can spend a lot of time looking through them
IMDB this is an internet movie database. You can find information on every film and filmstar. Also gives you ratings, so you know which ones to skip, and message boards, for when you don't understand the movie (Cache, anyone?)
Top 10 Incredible Sound Illusions I just found this the other day, it's best experienced with headphones, and some of them are really cool!
One final favorite is someone I have discovered since I moved to Germany, where the only English speaking television channel I receive is CNN International: this is Richard Quest!. He is a news anchor who also has two shows on the channel: Business Traveler and Quest. I have only seen Business Traveler, but the main thing I like about Richard is his accent and his enthusiasm. He is a real hoot. I recommend you check out the shows if you get the channel.
1 Comment(s)
This one is from Taiwan. The sender writes that the card represents the old copy of a Chinese classic novel "The Dream of the Red Chamber". It was a story of a rich and high class family from their glorious period until their collapse, which involved love, friendship, brotherhood, and official circles. The most contribution of this novel is to introduce readers the detailed life style in that era, the Ching dynasty.
