Today is Thursday. This week has been relaxing for me because of the extra activities I have chosen to participate in. Monday I just went to class. Monday's are nice because the people who are there for their first week must take the placement test. They schedule this around 8:30. They must have time to take the test, have their results processed, and talk to one of the teachers and maybe go on a short tour of the school. This means that the other students (me) don't have to be there for the first class until 10:00. :)
So, Monday, I just went to class and came home and did homework. Tuesday, after class I did my homework and read until 15:00. Then, I attended a seminar given by one of the teachers called "Berlin for Insiders." It was given in German, of course, but I could understand most of it. The teacher told us the places that Berliners like to go, like some of the most popular clubs, theaters and places to shop. She also gave a brief history about the Berlin Wall, which was the most interesting part of the seminar, in my opinion.
Then yesterday, I did the same thing after class. I got Curry Wurst for lunch and did my homework and read until 15:00. Yesterday they showed a popular German movie called Sonnenallee. It is a comedy about the DDR during the '70s. I suggest it to everyone. It is highly entertaining, even when the teachers at your German school make you watch it without English subtitles. It's very funny. Watch it.
Today I decided to not go to the political museum... The weather isn't very great today. It's grey and chilly outside, so I came home after class and here I am. I will be taking part in two excursions this weekend: one tomorrow and one Saturday which I will describe more in a later post.
Pertaining to the movie, here is the word for this post: lustig. Lustig is an adjective meaning funny or amusing.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
A Tour with Toni and German Football
This past weekend I decided to opt out of the school trip to Dresden because it was pretty expensive. Instead, I went on an evening bike tour with Toni. It was much better for me personally compared to the big group tours. Toni helps me understand her German and makes it much more personal and interesting. She knows a lot about Berlin, and I think she would make a great professional tour guide.
So, we rode bikes. Toni rode her mom's bike and I rode Toni's. Problem #1: They are much taller than I am; their legs are much longer than mine. Problem #2: the bike seats do not adjust. It took a little while before I got the hang of it. I had to have the right pedal at a certain height for me to be able to push off from the ground, mount the bike and pedal to gain enough momentum to keep going and prevent myself from falling off. I got better as we went on.
Most Berliners use public transportation and bicycles to get around. It is not uncommon for a person to not own a car. My family doesn't, that I know of. The great thing that the city of Berlin has done for bikes is create extra wide sidewalks and occasionally a bike lane on the roads. On every street I have come across, there has always been an indicated place for bikes to ride, either on the street or on the sidewalk.
So Toni showed me around Potsdamer Platz. This is a popular area for theaters. They were having the premier of the new Transformers movie at one of them. We got there when they were in the process of rolling out the red carpet. We didn't stay to watch, because neither of us cared to see any of the actors. Potsdamer Platz was also the first place I saw the Berlin Wall. Amazing.
We also rode through Tiergarten and by the Brandenburger Tor, where most of the celebrations for "Christopher Street Day (CSD)" were taking place. CSD is the day that Berlin celebrates homosexuals. It seems that Germany and the US have similar views on homosexuality. Berlin seems to be very accepting of it, because Berlin is a modern, new aged kind of city. I have heard, though, that many of the smaller towns in Germany don't take too kindly to homosexuals. So, we rode through all the celebrations and whatnot, and Toni pointed out many important buildings like the Reichstag and the Kennedy Museum while giving me little tidbits of history
We were out for about 2 or 3 hours. After I got used to the bike, I found that it was extremely comfortable to ride on. The seat was big and it rode very smoothly making the 2-3 hours seem effortless. Why don't we have more bikes like these? Berlin is also very flat, which might have contributed to the effortlessness.
That was the tour with Toni. On Sunday, Toni had a bunch of her friends over to watch the "football" game. Football being soccer of course. It is really much more sensible to call American soccer football instead. They use their feet all the time. How often do players use their feet in American football? Field goals, kick-offs and punts. That's not even 1/8th of the entire game! Anyway, I digress....
There were people over for the football game Sunday. It was the first game of the FIFA (women's) World Cup. It is in Germany this year, and of course the first game was in Berlin with Germany playing Canada.
When Germany is playing football in a situation like this, it is popular to get together with a bunch of friends and watch it on TV. So, this is what happened, except none of Toni's friends were really watching the game. We were all gathered around the TV, and I think I was the only one paying attention. I think they just use it as an excuse to all get together. They talked the whole time, and I was the silent one because they talk fast... I was trying to follow what they were talking about, but I couldn't keep up. I caught words and phrases every now and then, but it wasn't enough to understand the bigger concept.
After Germany won (2-1), they all left. It was quite the interesting experience. That was the extent of my weekend.
The word for this post is Fußball, pronounced fooz-ball. This, naturally, means football which is known in the U.S. as soccer.
So, we rode bikes. Toni rode her mom's bike and I rode Toni's. Problem #1: They are much taller than I am; their legs are much longer than mine. Problem #2: the bike seats do not adjust. It took a little while before I got the hang of it. I had to have the right pedal at a certain height for me to be able to push off from the ground, mount the bike and pedal to gain enough momentum to keep going and prevent myself from falling off. I got better as we went on.
Most Berliners use public transportation and bicycles to get around. It is not uncommon for a person to not own a car. My family doesn't, that I know of. The great thing that the city of Berlin has done for bikes is create extra wide sidewalks and occasionally a bike lane on the roads. On every street I have come across, there has always been an indicated place for bikes to ride, either on the street or on the sidewalk.
So Toni showed me around Potsdamer Platz. This is a popular area for theaters. They were having the premier of the new Transformers movie at one of them. We got there when they were in the process of rolling out the red carpet. We didn't stay to watch, because neither of us cared to see any of the actors. Potsdamer Platz was also the first place I saw the Berlin Wall. Amazing.
We also rode through Tiergarten and by the Brandenburger Tor, where most of the celebrations for "Christopher Street Day (CSD)" were taking place. CSD is the day that Berlin celebrates homosexuals. It seems that Germany and the US have similar views on homosexuality. Berlin seems to be very accepting of it, because Berlin is a modern, new aged kind of city. I have heard, though, that many of the smaller towns in Germany don't take too kindly to homosexuals. So, we rode through all the celebrations and whatnot, and Toni pointed out many important buildings like the Reichstag and the Kennedy Museum while giving me little tidbits of history
We were out for about 2 or 3 hours. After I got used to the bike, I found that it was extremely comfortable to ride on. The seat was big and it rode very smoothly making the 2-3 hours seem effortless. Why don't we have more bikes like these? Berlin is also very flat, which might have contributed to the effortlessness.
That was the tour with Toni. On Sunday, Toni had a bunch of her friends over to watch the "football" game. Football being soccer of course. It is really much more sensible to call American soccer football instead. They use their feet all the time. How often do players use their feet in American football? Field goals, kick-offs and punts. That's not even 1/8th of the entire game! Anyway, I digress....
There were people over for the football game Sunday. It was the first game of the FIFA (women's) World Cup. It is in Germany this year, and of course the first game was in Berlin with Germany playing Canada.
When Germany is playing football in a situation like this, it is popular to get together with a bunch of friends and watch it on TV. So, this is what happened, except none of Toni's friends were really watching the game. We were all gathered around the TV, and I think I was the only one paying attention. I think they just use it as an excuse to all get together. They talked the whole time, and I was the silent one because they talk fast... I was trying to follow what they were talking about, but I couldn't keep up. I caught words and phrases every now and then, but it wasn't enough to understand the bigger concept.
After Germany won (2-1), they all left. It was quite the interesting experience. That was the extent of my weekend.
The word for this post is Fußball, pronounced fooz-ball. This, naturally, means football which is known in the U.S. as soccer.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The Second Week
Sorry it's been so long. I am still alive, however, and staying very busy.
This past week was good. I feel like I can almost completely understand my teachers and I feel a little more confident in my speaking German.
The public transportation has become second nature. I have even almost become an expert at my route to school. I know that on the first U-Bahn ride, it is better to be in the first car because when I come to the station to change from the U-Bahn to the S-Bahn, the tunnel connecting the two stations begins on that side of the train. I also know that when I get onto the S-Bahn, it is better to be in the last car because of the direction I need to go to leave the station towards my school. I'm getting the hang of this.
This week, I participated in two excursions with the school. I also wanted to go to the seminar of German pop music from 1970-2010, but the teacher was detained for some reason and it was cancelled. The first excursion I participated in was on Wednesday. We went for a three hour walk from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburger Tor. I can't seem to find a suitable map to illustrate this, but the street we walked on mostly is called "Unter den Linden." It was exciting to finally see some of Berlin's most well-known landmarks like the Berlin TV tower, the Berliner Dom, Museum Island, the Reichstag (German's Parliament), the Weltzeituhr (world time clock), Humbolt University and the Brandenburger Tor. It was quite an interesting tour. Here is the group in front of the Brandenburger Tor. Do I stand out as an American?
Then on Thursday, I went with a school group to visit the Pergamon Museum. It was not as interesting to me as the Jewish Museum last week, but this is what was there. There are three wings in the museum and they are the antiquities collection of the architectural
halls and the sculpture wing, the Near Eastern Museum
and the Museum of Islamic Art. Here, I saw Shahnameh, the Persian Book of the Kings, as well as the Quran. There was some very interesting architecture inside the museum as well. However, when I stored my backpack in the locker that cost a euro to use, I forgot my camera.
Friday, I took my first test. It was very easy. I know for certain that I answered everything on two of the four sections correctly. Another section I feel extremely confident about and the last section, I am not so sure. I am still having a difficult time remember the different genders for each noun.
Before the test, we played a game in class. We were going on a trip and packing our bags and we had to tell what we would bring. We had to use at least one adjective with our item. The catch is, we had to remember what everyone else was bringing too. The teacher started it off saying that he was going to bring his broken glasses. Then the guy from Norway who sits to my left must say, "I will take your broken glasses and my empty coffee mug." And then I say, "I will take your broken glasses, your empty coffee mug and my boring book" and so on. There are 10 people including the teacher in my class and we did two rounds. I was the next to the last to go on the second round, so I had to say 19 things altogether.
The difficulty about doing this game in German is the genders and adjective endings. When you say "my" in German, the word you use whether it be mein, meine, meinen, meiner or meinem depends on what case you are in and what gender the noun is. Luckily, we were always using the accusative case during the game, so the case was not changing. Accusative case is simply the case of the direct object in a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I drive the car." the direct object is the car. What am I driving? The car.
And now, the adjective endings. When you use adjectives to describe nouns in German, it has to have a certain ending. Where in English, we simply say blue pants, a blue dress, a blue skirt, blue shoes, it is not as easy in German. My teacher often says how boring English is because of the simplicity, but that German is so interesting!For the accusative adjective endings, for masculine nouns the ending is -en. Blue in German is blau so when using an adjective with a masculine noun you must say blauen. For neuter nouns it's blaues, feminine blaue and plural blauen. And these endings are just for the accusative case using articles like "a" and "an." There is a whole different set of endings for adjectives when using nouns with a "the" article. So, in my opinion the test that I took at the end of class was much, much easier than the game we played.
Friday evening, there was a street festival a few blocks down the road. I went with Toni and some of her friends. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a male belly dancer until this day. He did one song by himself and then was joined by four girls for the next song and they only wish they could dance like he could.
At the festival, there were many stands set up selling alcohol, t-shirts, dresses, souvenirs, food, purses and anything you can think of. We walked around and looked at the different things and also listened to some of the music being played on the two or three different stages. It was fun.
I have been eating well this week. Here are a few lunch pictures:
McDonald's in Berlin tastes exactly the same as McDonald's in Birmingham. The portion sizes are smaller here though. I got a small drink and fries, and it seems like the drink is the same size as the water cups they give you in the U.S. and the fries are the value size. I am not complaining at all. I wish we had smaller portions like this in the states. I haven't seen many fat people here at all. Everyone seems to be in good, healthy shape. I think I've lost 5 pounds since being here too.
So, when I am going to and from school and taking part in all of my excursions, I always make sure I have a water bottle with me. The German word for this blog is "Wasser" which means water. In German, there is no "w" sound. The w's are pronounced as v's. So this is actually pronounced as "vasser."
Tschuss!
This past week was good. I feel like I can almost completely understand my teachers and I feel a little more confident in my speaking German.
The public transportation has become second nature. I have even almost become an expert at my route to school. I know that on the first U-Bahn ride, it is better to be in the first car because when I come to the station to change from the U-Bahn to the S-Bahn, the tunnel connecting the two stations begins on that side of the train. I also know that when I get onto the S-Bahn, it is better to be in the last car because of the direction I need to go to leave the station towards my school. I'm getting the hang of this.
This week, I participated in two excursions with the school. I also wanted to go to the seminar of German pop music from 1970-2010, but the teacher was detained for some reason and it was cancelled. The first excursion I participated in was on Wednesday. We went for a three hour walk from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburger Tor. I can't seem to find a suitable map to illustrate this, but the street we walked on mostly is called "Unter den Linden." It was exciting to finally see some of Berlin's most well-known landmarks like the Berlin TV tower, the Berliner Dom, Museum Island, the Reichstag (German's Parliament), the Weltzeituhr (world time clock), Humbolt University and the Brandenburger Tor. It was quite an interesting tour. Here is the group in front of the Brandenburger Tor. Do I stand out as an American?
Then on Thursday, I went with a school group to visit the Pergamon Museum. It was not as interesting to me as the Jewish Museum last week, but this is what was there. There are three wings in the museum and they are the antiquities collection of the architectural
halls and the sculpture wing, the Near Eastern Museum
and the Museum of Islamic Art. Here, I saw Shahnameh, the Persian Book of the Kings, as well as the Quran. There was some very interesting architecture inside the museum as well. However, when I stored my backpack in the locker that cost a euro to use, I forgot my camera.
Friday, I took my first test. It was very easy. I know for certain that I answered everything on two of the four sections correctly. Another section I feel extremely confident about and the last section, I am not so sure. I am still having a difficult time remember the different genders for each noun.
Before the test, we played a game in class. We were going on a trip and packing our bags and we had to tell what we would bring. We had to use at least one adjective with our item. The catch is, we had to remember what everyone else was bringing too. The teacher started it off saying that he was going to bring his broken glasses. Then the guy from Norway who sits to my left must say, "I will take your broken glasses and my empty coffee mug." And then I say, "I will take your broken glasses, your empty coffee mug and my boring book" and so on. There are 10 people including the teacher in my class and we did two rounds. I was the next to the last to go on the second round, so I had to say 19 things altogether.
The difficulty about doing this game in German is the genders and adjective endings. When you say "my" in German, the word you use whether it be mein, meine, meinen, meiner or meinem depends on what case you are in and what gender the noun is. Luckily, we were always using the accusative case during the game, so the case was not changing. Accusative case is simply the case of the direct object in a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I drive the car." the direct object is the car. What am I driving? The car.
And now, the adjective endings. When you use adjectives to describe nouns in German, it has to have a certain ending. Where in English, we simply say blue pants, a blue dress, a blue skirt, blue shoes, it is not as easy in German. My teacher often says how boring English is because of the simplicity, but that German is so interesting!For the accusative adjective endings, for masculine nouns the ending is -en. Blue in German is blau so when using an adjective with a masculine noun you must say blauen. For neuter nouns it's blaues, feminine blaue and plural blauen. And these endings are just for the accusative case using articles like "a" and "an." There is a whole different set of endings for adjectives when using nouns with a "the" article. So, in my opinion the test that I took at the end of class was much, much easier than the game we played.
Friday evening, there was a street festival a few blocks down the road. I went with Toni and some of her friends. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a male belly dancer until this day. He did one song by himself and then was joined by four girls for the next song and they only wish they could dance like he could.
At the festival, there were many stands set up selling alcohol, t-shirts, dresses, souvenirs, food, purses and anything you can think of. We walked around and looked at the different things and also listened to some of the music being played on the two or three different stages. It was fun.
I have been eating well this week. Here are a few lunch pictures:
So, when I am going to and from school and taking part in all of my excursions, I always make sure I have a water bottle with me. The German word for this blog is "Wasser" which means water. In German, there is no "w" sound. The w's are pronounced as v's. So this is actually pronounced as "vasser."
Tschuss!
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