So today is Saturday. I've had class for one week and when I first started, I thought they may have placed me in a class too advanced for me. Most of the other students (there are 12) speak German, if not entirely grammatically correct, with a large enough vocabulary to understand and get their point across. That's where I have problems...I have such a small vocabulary in German, most of the time I lose track of what's being said because there are too many words I don't know for me to derive meaning from context. I've sorta made a fool of myself on a few different occasions when I've been asked a question and not been able to answer it. I'd even considered requesting to be transferred to a lower-level class but the teacher who interviewed me obviously thought I was good enough to be here...so here is where I'll stay. In order to make sure I don't make a fool of myself again in the coming weeks, my first weekend will be spent not sightseeing or shopping or taking photos of this beautiful city, but instead studying my German textbook from NMSU. I am sure glad I decided to bring it! My plan was only to take it to my parents house where I'd spend a couple weeks before my departure relaxing and reviewing my German...that didn't happen and since I never took it out of my suitcase to review there, it came with me to Germany...a spot of good luck that, because now I'm going to need it!
My classmates are nice. The first person to talk to me was Helene, a girl my age from France. She invited me to a bakery down the street where I met Maria, who is from Mexico, and Donna, who is from...a country in Asia which I don't remember. In my class there is also Alice, who is from Switzerland, Gosha, whose name I don't know how to spell but that's the phonetic spelling, Marya and Sergi (again these spelling are probably wrong...) from the Ukraine, Carlos, who is also from Mexico, Syungi (spelling?) from Korea, Baptiste, who is also from France, a boy who has only been in class twice so I can't remember his name or country of origin, and myself. Every one of my classmates is here learning German either for their job or to better their chances of getting a good job. They all seemed a little taken aback that I was learning German just because I wanted to. My teacher asked me why I was learning German the first day and I said because it is interesting. She though I hadn't understood so she proceeded to ask the other students to demonstrate how I should be answering the question. I told her I'm not studying German for work, it's not important to my career, and I just wanted to learn German so I would have a second language. I don't think she believed me. Interestingly, though, all these students are here for their careers but they've all been sent by their parents. You can tell by their dress and the way they speak, they're all from the high class of their respective countries. One of the students, Marya, actually only came because her friend (boyfriend?) Sergi is learning German to get a better job in the aerospace engineering field. I think I'm the only person here who sees this (studying in Germany) as a financial challenge and the only time in the foreseeable future that I will be able to travel. Oh, well, I plan to make the best of it!
There's also some international business going on in the house where I live. I live with a nice couple named Wolfgang and Katherine Ecker. They host four international students, counting myself. The first one I met is Jan, who is from Luxemburg, then Jesus, who is from Spain, and finally a man from Lebanon whose name I didn't quite catch when we met. They are all older than me. Jan is 27, Jesus is probably around 30 and the one from Lebanon is probably also around 30.
Anyway, since I'm going to be spending this weekend utterly vampiristic and not go outdoors at all, I won't have any new pictures or anything interesting really to say. Except...how do you ask someone how to use their washing machine without sounding stupid? I don't know enough German to understand the settings on the machines, but I'll need clean clothes eventually...any thoughts? Any way...that's all I've got for now. Here goes to a weekend of studying (and hopefully catching up with my international classmates)!
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