Freitag, Oktober 07, 2005
Guten Freitag
(I have to get back in the habit of updating this daily...arg!!)
My second Deutsche-Stunde (Donnerstag) was much the same as the first. The prof is really cute--he plays the Beatles during downtime--but the class is crawling. I talked with Ina about it and came upon this conclusion--it is not as though I am far ahead of the class, I need to learn what they are learning but I don't need the same amount of practice/reinforcement. Ok, Ich heiße Heather. Done. We don't need to go over it 979873294 billion times ya know? And some of the exercises seem really dumb..they are similar to the things we did in Spanish in school, but the difference is that now I am LIVING in the country... I need to speak the language, not connect the question to the picture. Arg ;-)
It was a good Friday. A nice run in the morning, I made a good lunch. Ahhh... tough life. ;-) At night, Lars, die kinder, und ich gaen zu Branke und Stefans Haus für ein Party. This little boy immediately attached himself to me because we both had horses on our shirts... I was wearing my hand-me-down University of Hannover hoodie :) I ran around after him for awhile, and was really proud when I understood when he told me that when I speak (spreche) my language (sprache) it sounds like blahblahloolololodoooodododoo. The feeling is mutual, kid.
At the picnic table, Lars started telling me about his father, who is very ill right now. Lars' dad was a young child during WWII and witnessed some pretty horrific things. His family lived near the German-Poland border, and toward the end of the war the mom & two sons (Lars' dad, age four, and uncle, age two) had to escape. The mom bartered a place for them on the train using some tobacco leaves. The family made it to a town somewhere between Hannover & Berlin and tried to seek shelter. They couldn't find anywhere to go and the Russians were coming, so the mom followed a mass of women down into these basements. Of course, the Russians found them... The Russians began to rape (and kill) the women... Lars' grandmother held up her sons in front of her (can you imagine?!?!) and said, 'If you are going to take me, you have to take the children too.' The Russian soldier took pity on her.
What a shocking, awful story. Living here and hearing things like that, I have to remind myself, 'Oh. Germany was the bad guy.' War is horrible.
Tara came over later that evening and we watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (with Lars, he liked it) and baked zucchini brot. My mom's delicious recipe (which I loved as a kid...and still love!) has now been eaten by myfamily, Tara & her au pair family, neighbors, parents and kids at Kathi's kindergarten, and the recipe has been passed to some family friends. Yay :)
My second Deutsche-Stunde (Donnerstag) was much the same as the first. The prof is really cute--he plays the Beatles during downtime--but the class is crawling. I talked with Ina about it and came upon this conclusion--it is not as though I am far ahead of the class, I need to learn what they are learning but I don't need the same amount of practice/reinforcement. Ok, Ich heiße Heather. Done. We don't need to go over it 979873294 billion times ya know? And some of the exercises seem really dumb..they are similar to the things we did in Spanish in school, but the difference is that now I am LIVING in the country... I need to speak the language, not connect the question to the picture. Arg ;-)
It was a good Friday. A nice run in the morning, I made a good lunch. Ahhh... tough life. ;-) At night, Lars, die kinder, und ich gaen zu Branke und Stefans Haus für ein Party. This little boy immediately attached himself to me because we both had horses on our shirts... I was wearing my hand-me-down University of Hannover hoodie :) I ran around after him for awhile, and was really proud when I understood when he told me that when I speak (spreche) my language (sprache) it sounds like blahblahloolololodoooodododoo. The feeling is mutual, kid.
At the picnic table, Lars started telling me about his father, who is very ill right now. Lars' dad was a young child during WWII and witnessed some pretty horrific things. His family lived near the German-Poland border, and toward the end of the war the mom & two sons (Lars' dad, age four, and uncle, age two) had to escape. The mom bartered a place for them on the train using some tobacco leaves. The family made it to a town somewhere between Hannover & Berlin and tried to seek shelter. They couldn't find anywhere to go and the Russians were coming, so the mom followed a mass of women down into these basements. Of course, the Russians found them... The Russians began to rape (and kill) the women... Lars' grandmother held up her sons in front of her (can you imagine?!?!) and said, 'If you are going to take me, you have to take the children too.' The Russian soldier took pity on her.
What a shocking, awful story. Living here and hearing things like that, I have to remind myself, 'Oh. Germany was the bad guy.' War is horrible.
Tara came over later that evening and we watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (with Lars, he liked it) and baked zucchini brot. My mom's delicious recipe (which I loved as a kid...and still love!) has now been eaten by myfamily, Tara & her au pair family, neighbors, parents and kids at Kathi's kindergarten, and the recipe has been passed to some family friends. Yay :)
# posted by Heather @ 8:52 PM 
