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| One of the fields |
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| It was a good brat at that, though rather hot |
Sunday, June 8, 2014
A Lazy Saturday
Today was a nice relaxing day. I woke up late and then had some good breakfast cereal. Then I went by S-bahn and U-bahn to the BUM, or Berlin Ultimate Mitte. It is a beach tournament that goes on in the middle of Berlin. The team I hope to be playing with this summer played in it, so I wanted both to see them and to see some ultimate. I had a lot of fun watching, and really wanted to play. There were soo many German national team jerseys there. I am sure by the end of the summer I will figure out a way to get one of their jerseys or shorts. I need one so badly.
I didn't do very much other than that, besides eating a Brat. Short post today, I know, but it was a fairly uneventful and relaxing day. I made some minor changes to the blog to include a calendar of what I am doing here and the link to the photos.
Friday, June 6, 2014
The End of the First Week of School
This post is a bit all over the place, because I haven't done many concrete things in any certain order...
Well the first week is done. It went by extremely quickly. I love this class because it is never boring. He avoids large grammar sections, and we never work alone. The little we talked about grammar today was done as a group. Since there are only 10 people in the class, it makes it very easy to do so.
Today we had our first presentation. Some people were better than others (I was definitely not the best, but not the worst either). He let us freely choose our topics, so there was a pretty diverse selection. I spoke about how environmental Boulder is compared to Berlin. My point was that in Boulder we care a bit more about the trash we make (Das Abfall...which reminds me we should change the Oktoberfest signs to Müll if we haven't already), but Europe is much more concerned with energy conservation. I had done an essay on it last semester, so I knew many of the words (this is the reason I chose it), but it was still difficult to talk about continually. Other people talked about history, architecture, locations, food and more. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.
This weekend is Karneval, so every German in the city has Monday off...except us. My host family is off to the Czech Republic for the weekend, and all the shops will be closed on Sunday and Monday, but not us. There will be one door open at the FU, and the Mensa (cafeteria) won't be open. I must remember to get some lunch food tomorrow at some supermarket because I won't be able to eat anything else.
I walked with Mavia back to Dahlem-Dorf for the U-bahn after class. I thoroughly enjoy talking with her because it has to be done completely in German, but she is also a foreign student to Germany, so she can understand my difficulties (and has some of her own). With American students I can cop out and explain something in English, so it is fun to do everything in German. Hopefully when I meet some ultimate players, I can also do this. She also speaks slowly with words that I know, so it isn't too difficult to understand (because those are the words that she knows as well!). I talked to her a bit about her wheelchair because she wasn't in class this morning due to a drained battery. The battery can last about 2 days of normal use, she said, which I am impressed with. If I was her, I would charge during class...so maybe it requires more than just a cable. She can go about as fast as a jog, too, so she doesn't have trouble keeping up with anyone. She is very happy to have an electronic chair because in Peru there are only manual ones, and she would get very tired if she had to roll everywhere herself. The U-bahn seems very accomodating, and the driver went and got a ramp so she could get on (because at the old stations the train is not flush with the platform).
This weekend I am looking forward to seeing the BUM (Berlin Ultimate Mitte) which is a large beach ultimate tournament that occurs in the middle of the city. Wall City, the team I am hoping to play with, is seeded 3rd in the tournament, so I hope to see them play. I am also looking forward to seeing the Reichstag building on Sunday, and hopefully finding somewhere to celebrate Karneval. It is pretty cool that we get to celebrate both Karneval and the WM (world cup) while I am here. I just wish I knew a group of people with whom I could go. I now know a lot of people but don't have any method of contacting them.
I am going to work on commenting a lot of photos on the album, so that it is a little bit more explanatory.
Well the first week is done. It went by extremely quickly. I love this class because it is never boring. He avoids large grammar sections, and we never work alone. The little we talked about grammar today was done as a group. Since there are only 10 people in the class, it makes it very easy to do so.
Today we had our first presentation. Some people were better than others (I was definitely not the best, but not the worst either). He let us freely choose our topics, so there was a pretty diverse selection. I spoke about how environmental Boulder is compared to Berlin. My point was that in Boulder we care a bit more about the trash we make (Das Abfall...which reminds me we should change the Oktoberfest signs to Müll if we haven't already), but Europe is much more concerned with energy conservation. I had done an essay on it last semester, so I knew many of the words (this is the reason I chose it), but it was still difficult to talk about continually. Other people talked about history, architecture, locations, food and more. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.
This weekend is Karneval, so every German in the city has Monday off...except us. My host family is off to the Czech Republic for the weekend, and all the shops will be closed on Sunday and Monday, but not us. There will be one door open at the FU, and the Mensa (cafeteria) won't be open. I must remember to get some lunch food tomorrow at some supermarket because I won't be able to eat anything else.
I walked with Mavia back to Dahlem-Dorf for the U-bahn after class. I thoroughly enjoy talking with her because it has to be done completely in German, but she is also a foreign student to Germany, so she can understand my difficulties (and has some of her own). With American students I can cop out and explain something in English, so it is fun to do everything in German. Hopefully when I meet some ultimate players, I can also do this. She also speaks slowly with words that I know, so it isn't too difficult to understand (because those are the words that she knows as well!). I talked to her a bit about her wheelchair because she wasn't in class this morning due to a drained battery. The battery can last about 2 days of normal use, she said, which I am impressed with. If I was her, I would charge during class...so maybe it requires more than just a cable. She can go about as fast as a jog, too, so she doesn't have trouble keeping up with anyone. She is very happy to have an electronic chair because in Peru there are only manual ones, and she would get very tired if she had to roll everywhere herself. The U-bahn seems very accomodating, and the driver went and got a ramp so she could get on (because at the old stations the train is not flush with the platform).
This weekend I am looking forward to seeing the BUM (Berlin Ultimate Mitte) which is a large beach ultimate tournament that occurs in the middle of the city. Wall City, the team I am hoping to play with, is seeded 3rd in the tournament, so I hope to see them play. I am also looking forward to seeing the Reichstag building on Sunday, and hopefully finding somewhere to celebrate Karneval. It is pretty cool that we get to celebrate both Karneval and the WM (world cup) while I am here. I just wish I knew a group of people with whom I could go. I now know a lot of people but don't have any method of contacting them.
I am going to work on commenting a lot of photos on the album, so that it is a little bit more explanatory.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The End of the First Week
It's hard to believe it is only been a week, but I left at about this time on Thursday last week (left from my house that is...). So far so good!
Today I woke up to a cloudy morning, but the temperature remained the same: 60. After having their version of Raisin Bran (basically raisin oats...and possibly homemade), I stepped outside to see the ground slightly damp. I turned around and grabbed my rain coat (Regenmantel), thinking - as Coloradan's do - that there would be more rain later in the day. There may have been one or two slight drops on the way to the S-bahn and U-bahn, but other than that I needn't have brought it. The rest of the day was like all the rest of the days so far, sunny and 65ish. I love this weather.
I really enjoy this German class. The teacher is very friendly and is willing to change the topic of conversation based on what comes up. This means that we can have some great conversations. We have almost not (fast nichts) focused on Grammer at all. It is purely a speaking course, which is spectacular for me. I have my grammar down pat, and I can at least correct myself when I say something incorrectly, so the intensive conversation class is perfect.
I met Mavia, a student from Peru, today at lunchtime. She speaks only Spanish and German (though she says she understands most English...she just can't remember how to speak it after learning German). This is wonderful because it means all of us have to practice our German with her, because she can't converse with us in English. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with her and learning all about what she is doing here. She has been here for three months, and as far as I can tell, knew almost no German before coming here. She has been taking German courses for only three months, and to me sounds almost fluent. I am very impressed with her and I like that she was able to improve that much in just three months. I am also impressed because she is in a motorized wheelchair, and yet she still has come to a different country. I believe she is a GI doctor, and is taking a break after working for a couple of years. I got a little lost in that part of the conversation so I am not super sure.
I am going to be here for almost three months, so I can see that being really good for me. In fact even now I can feel some German rolling off the tongue easier. I definitely am understanding more and more every day. I can converse almost completely in German with people who are also learning the language (Fremdsprachler). I find it more difficult to converse with native speakers...maybe because I am intimidated or embarrassed. It is getting better and better though, the more I talk with my host family and classmates.
After lunch we had some more class, including going over the news again. This was again very informative. The projector's fan broke, but he played the audio and then went over it with us again. He is so patient it's amazing. We spent probably about 20 minutes on 5 or so sentences, because he would make sure that we understood each word before moving on (because he only explains it in German, it can take some time, but it is very good for us to learn). He also spent some time going over idioms or connotations associated with words or phrases. It is very interesting to learn about, and it is also a good way to get introduced to the news.
Everyone here is much more interested in the news than in America. The two state-funded channels (channel 1 and 2) broadcast 15 minutes of uninterrupted news in the evening. Channel 1 broadcasts (senden) from 8 - 8:15 and channel 2 broadcasts from 9:45 - 10. We watch even more abbreviated versions in class, which are condensed to 100 seconds. Today we listened to a broadcast by Deutsche Welle which has slower speaking than normal. It also has the transcript written out. This is probably one of my favorite parts of the day.
After class a few of us stuck around to see the first film, Fack Ju Göhte (F*** You Shakespeare). Every Thursday, FUBiS is going to put on a German film with English subtitles. This is was, in a word, hilarious. It was about a criminal who discovers that his friend buried the money he had before going to prison in a plot which later became a school. He gets a job as a teacher at the school so he can dig for the money. He uses very unconventional methods (including a paintball gun and taking the kids on a field trip to a crack house) to get a handle on the crazy kids. It was one of the funniest movies I had seen, though mom certainly wouldn't have liked the language in it.
I then came home to a wonderful South African meal (very Indian though, with curry and yellow rice) with Sebastian (the last kid I hadn't met) and his girlfriend. The sun is setting (sunset lasts for about 3 hours here...from 6-9ish) and the birds are chirping. I have to prepare a Refarat, or speech, for tomorrow. I am going to talk about the differences in how we take care of the environment in Boulder and in Germany.
Today I woke up to a cloudy morning, but the temperature remained the same: 60. After having their version of Raisin Bran (basically raisin oats...and possibly homemade), I stepped outside to see the ground slightly damp. I turned around and grabbed my rain coat (Regenmantel), thinking - as Coloradan's do - that there would be more rain later in the day. There may have been one or two slight drops on the way to the S-bahn and U-bahn, but other than that I needn't have brought it. The rest of the day was like all the rest of the days so far, sunny and 65ish. I love this weather.
I really enjoy this German class. The teacher is very friendly and is willing to change the topic of conversation based on what comes up. This means that we can have some great conversations. We have almost not (fast nichts) focused on Grammer at all. It is purely a speaking course, which is spectacular for me. I have my grammar down pat, and I can at least correct myself when I say something incorrectly, so the intensive conversation class is perfect.
I met Mavia, a student from Peru, today at lunchtime. She speaks only Spanish and German (though she says she understands most English...she just can't remember how to speak it after learning German). This is wonderful because it means all of us have to practice our German with her, because she can't converse with us in English. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with her and learning all about what she is doing here. She has been here for three months, and as far as I can tell, knew almost no German before coming here. She has been taking German courses for only three months, and to me sounds almost fluent. I am very impressed with her and I like that she was able to improve that much in just three months. I am also impressed because she is in a motorized wheelchair, and yet she still has come to a different country. I believe she is a GI doctor, and is taking a break after working for a couple of years. I got a little lost in that part of the conversation so I am not super sure.
I am going to be here for almost three months, so I can see that being really good for me. In fact even now I can feel some German rolling off the tongue easier. I definitely am understanding more and more every day. I can converse almost completely in German with people who are also learning the language (Fremdsprachler). I find it more difficult to converse with native speakers...maybe because I am intimidated or embarrassed. It is getting better and better though, the more I talk with my host family and classmates.
After lunch we had some more class, including going over the news again. This was again very informative. The projector's fan broke, but he played the audio and then went over it with us again. He is so patient it's amazing. We spent probably about 20 minutes on 5 or so sentences, because he would make sure that we understood each word before moving on (because he only explains it in German, it can take some time, but it is very good for us to learn). He also spent some time going over idioms or connotations associated with words or phrases. It is very interesting to learn about, and it is also a good way to get introduced to the news.
Everyone here is much more interested in the news than in America. The two state-funded channels (channel 1 and 2) broadcast 15 minutes of uninterrupted news in the evening. Channel 1 broadcasts (senden) from 8 - 8:15 and channel 2 broadcasts from 9:45 - 10. We watch even more abbreviated versions in class, which are condensed to 100 seconds. Today we listened to a broadcast by Deutsche Welle which has slower speaking than normal. It also has the transcript written out. This is probably one of my favorite parts of the day.
After class a few of us stuck around to see the first film, Fack Ju Göhte (F*** You Shakespeare). Every Thursday, FUBiS is going to put on a German film with English subtitles. This is was, in a word, hilarious. It was about a criminal who discovers that his friend buried the money he had before going to prison in a plot which later became a school. He gets a job as a teacher at the school so he can dig for the money. He uses very unconventional methods (including a paintball gun and taking the kids on a field trip to a crack house) to get a handle on the crazy kids. It was one of the funniest movies I had seen, though mom certainly wouldn't have liked the language in it.
I then came home to a wonderful South African meal (very Indian though, with curry and yellow rice) with Sebastian (the last kid I hadn't met) and his girlfriend. The sun is setting (sunset lasts for about 3 hours here...from 6-9ish) and the birds are chirping. I have to prepare a Refarat, or speech, for tomorrow. I am going to talk about the differences in how we take care of the environment in Boulder and in Germany.
First Day of Intensiv B2
Well, today was a whirlwind of activity but I thoroughly enjoyed it all. On my travels I seem to have taken almost 200 pictures today, which I find somewhat impressive given that I was only tourist-ing for 5 hours or so. I suppose that is more than I have previously though, so I can see why I took so many. I think that I might start editing out the lesser pictures from my album when I have the time, because I can see it growing very quickly. I will start with old photos though, because I like you all seeing all of my new ones...even the ones that aren't completely in focus.
My day started a little bit earlier than yesterday. I got up at 7:45 this morning because I had to leave a little bit earlier for class. My new class is on the main campus of the FU, right next to the big library. It takes me about half an hour to get there from my house. (It is a bummer that you can only see the map on the link I give you. On the app on my phone, you can replay the trip on google earth, which zooms you across the land. It offers a really interesting perspective of your walk, because you usually can see over the trees with Google earth. I believe if you download the file and have Google Earth on your computer, you can open it up in there and see what I mean. I don't have it on my computer, so I can't try it out first. If someone does try this and it works, let me know, because that would be very cool).
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| The Berlin Cathedral, one of the many photos taken today. |
Luckily the people in my new class were very nice before the teacher came in, and he was just as nice. He was one of the ones who interviewed me on Monday, which made me think he thought I shouldn't be in the class. I spent the first bit of the class trying to prove that I should be there, and I believe that I know a similar amount to others in the class. This one will be challenging and I believe that I will learn a lot.
I really liked the class because we had a lot of conversation, and I don't believe the teacher even speaks English. We have students from India, China and Peru in the class as well, which is very interesting. We learned a lot in the first part of the day, and then a small group of us went to Dahlem-Dorf for lunch. I didn't want to go to the Mensa again, so I was a strong supporter of that decision. I also seemed to be the only person who knew how to get around, so they used me for my directions. I had some schnitzel in bread, which was very good. I also tried a new soda, which is a mixture of Fanta and Coke, and thought it was good.
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| My lunch with Cam and Xiner (I think thats how you spell it) in the background |
We then had class for the second part of the day, which included going through the news segment produced by the government. I really enjoyed this because we could go sentence by sentence through the news and understand what they were saying (the teacher helped us with many of the words). I hope that we do that a lot more often.
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| Uncomfortably anatomically correct benches (?) at Dahlem-Dorf |
After class a small group of us decided to be tourists before the river boat tour in the evening. Xiner (again, not sure if that is how you spell the name) and two others, whose names I have already forgotten (this is rough) joined me in taking the U-bahn all the way to Potsdamer Platz, where we got out so we could explore the Brandenburger Tor. We wandered around for a while, stopping in one tourist shop to get some postcards, and and then hopped on a bus to go to Alexanderplatz, which is near where we were going to meet up with the boat. After walking around the area for a bit (and getting some ice cream), we headed over to the boat.
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| Ein Erdbeerbecher (cup of strawberries and ice cream) |
After navigating around some construction (they are building another U-Bahn line, the first to East Berlin), we got on the boat which was going to take us around the Spree river, which runs through the heart of Berlin. I was very excited for this, because I have been here almost a week and have done very little sight-seeing. I was not disappointed, because we traveled past many many beautiful buildings, such as the Berlin cathedral, museum island, the Reichstag building (which I get to tour on Sunday, including a trip around the dome on top), and many more.The boat tour lasted about an hour, but we saw many awesome buildings. After the tour we went to a burrito place near Alexander Platz and ate some pretty good burritos. The whole restaurant was San Francisco themed, which was odd. I really wanted to eat some Brats, but the rest of the group wanted to go to the burrito place. I will get my brats eventually.
I have taken a TON of photos, and you can find them here. Just let me know if you don't know what something is and I will figure it out. As always the location data is shared, so you can see where I took all of those pictures. The light was perfect from the west, because they have a sunset that lasts from about 6 to 9 (the sun sets at about 9:15 to 9:30). Sadly, most buildings and statues are best viewed from the East, so the pictures were darker than I wished.
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| Museum Island |
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| Reichstag building |
I have taken a TON of photos, and you can find them here. Just let me know if you don't know what something is and I will figure it out. As always the location data is shared, so you can see where I took all of those pictures. The light was perfect from the west, because they have a sunset that lasts from about 6 to 9 (the sun sets at about 9:15 to 9:30). Sadly, most buildings and statues are best viewed from the East, so the pictures were darker than I wished.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
The First Day of Intensiv B1
I woke up at 8 to a cloudy but still warm morning. I had another delicious breakfast of bread with butter and cherry marmalade (I only know how to spell that word in German, apparently). I then took the S- and U-bahns to get to Brentanostr. for my first day of school. The link is to the map of my route. I discovered the train travels at 50 mi/hr almost exactly. Sadly I don't believe speed to be in the information presented online. The straight line from Heidelberger Platz to Breitenbach Platz is when I was travelling by U-bahn. You can somewhat see the actual track to the right of the straight line.
We started immediately with instruction but much to my dismay it was all stuff I knew before: Perfekt, the past participle. I settled in hoping new information would be presented. I enjoyed talking with the instructor and the people in the class, and we had some fun games and such that made the class fun. We were in class from 9 to 10:30, and then had a half hour break. Not having anything to do, I caught up on email and then talked with some classmates. We then had class from 11:00 to 12:30 and another break from 12:30 to 2. During the break I went with some other classmates to the Mensa, or cafeteria, on the main campus of FU. It is quite a trip, and I don't believe the food nor prices were worth it. It was good meeting more people though.
After our 2-3:30 session (our last of the day) I talked with the teacher. We had received back our essays, and I had gotten a ++ grade, which further confirmed my suspicions that I should be in the next level up. I'm positive I got placed at the lower level because I can't speak the language very well, but I went to her to check. She agreed that I could try the B2 class and took me to see another man. This man repetedly warned me (in very fast and (to me) unintelligible German) that it would be difficult and that even though I am switching books, if it is too hard I can drop back down to B1. I agreed and got my new book and got told of my new classroom, which turned out to be on the FU campus, almost a mile away.
I decided to set off to see where that classroom was before having to find it early tomorrow morning. The paper originally said it was on "Grundstock." or the ground floor, but the teacher said basement. I searched all over the building's basement without luck and then went to the FUBiS office for help. After kindly offering to excort me there, the woman there just showed me a map of how to get there. It turns out it was on the ground floor, as originally wirtten, and that the "29" in the name dealt with the Straße involved. All the pieces of the puzzle connected and I thanked her for the help. It turns out they label their hallways like streets, and have addresses like my classroom: 29/135 which means Straße 29, nummer 135. I found the classroom and am prepared to find it tomorrow. Sadly, it takes 10 more minutes to get to there than the last place, so I will probably have to wake (aufwachen...another word that I relearned today. Participle is ist aufgewacht) a little earlier.
I am slightly nervous about once again getting a new class with new people in a new building, when I was close to making friends with many people in the last building. I'm sure that with tomorrow's Spree river boat tour (which I have been convinced was happening since Monday...and was wrong every time) and the movie on Thursday, I will have plenty of time to meet many more people. I am really looking forward to exploring the city of Berlin, and can't wait to meet people so I can go with them and explore after class. Hopefully the homework won't be insane.
We had a good dinner with pork and potatoes and white asparagus (der Spargel...what a weird word), grown by a friend of the Bäckle's and freshly picked. The asparagus were litterally covered with a mixture made from butter and breadcrumbs...that's it. Sounds like mom's dream, but it actually was somewhat stomach-upsetting. I sadly couldn't finish the veggies, but I enjoyed the rest of the meal!
We started immediately with instruction but much to my dismay it was all stuff I knew before: Perfekt, the past participle. I settled in hoping new information would be presented. I enjoyed talking with the instructor and the people in the class, and we had some fun games and such that made the class fun. We were in class from 9 to 10:30, and then had a half hour break. Not having anything to do, I caught up on email and then talked with some classmates. We then had class from 11:00 to 12:30 and another break from 12:30 to 2. During the break I went with some other classmates to the Mensa, or cafeteria, on the main campus of FU. It is quite a trip, and I don't believe the food nor prices were worth it. It was good meeting more people though.
After our 2-3:30 session (our last of the day) I talked with the teacher. We had received back our essays, and I had gotten a ++ grade, which further confirmed my suspicions that I should be in the next level up. I'm positive I got placed at the lower level because I can't speak the language very well, but I went to her to check. She agreed that I could try the B2 class and took me to see another man. This man repetedly warned me (in very fast and (to me) unintelligible German) that it would be difficult and that even though I am switching books, if it is too hard I can drop back down to B1. I agreed and got my new book and got told of my new classroom, which turned out to be on the FU campus, almost a mile away.
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| My ++. Almost no problems with it! |
I am slightly nervous about once again getting a new class with new people in a new building, when I was close to making friends with many people in the last building. I'm sure that with tomorrow's Spree river boat tour (which I have been convinced was happening since Monday...and was wrong every time) and the movie on Thursday, I will have plenty of time to meet many more people. I am really looking forward to exploring the city of Berlin, and can't wait to meet people so I can go with them and explore after class. Hopefully the homework won't be insane.
We had a good dinner with pork and potatoes and white asparagus (der Spargel...what a weird word), grown by a friend of the Bäckle's and freshly picked. The asparagus were litterally covered with a mixture made from butter and breadcrumbs...that's it. Sounds like mom's dream, but it actually was somewhat stomach-upsetting. I sadly couldn't finish the veggies, but I enjoyed the rest of the meal!
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| Pork, potatoes and asparagus. |
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