So... it's not the weekend, like it usually is when I make time to write here, but I just feel like writing today, for no apparent reason. Mmmm it feels good to write a somewhat complicated sentence with multiple commas and not give it a second thought to rearranging all the verbs... I love English.
So, my mom discovered this great thing called "Nugat Bits" at the grocery store, and they are changing my life :) It's like a little chocolatey cereal bite, but it is filled with NUTELLA! It is disguised in the form of a cereal box, but it is no cereal.... Haha ok- I know what you are all thinking with my comments all over this blog page about amazing food, much of it being not the most light foods out there, that I am going to be the size of Harry's Aunt Marge in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, during her blown-up state, when I get home. But I actually haven't gained any weight while being here. I go running frequently though, which is really fun. I have this route where I pass a quiet, old church; a little lake; a big park full of Europeans walking their dogs (which btw, sometimes have similarities... the owner and their dog, I mean. It is so funny, you wouldn't think there would be a difference in European dogs and American dogs, but there totally is: the dogs here act so refined and calm and they are therefore allowed everywhere people are. Even on buses and in restaurants.); and a handful of corner bakeries and flower shops.
I am getting really sad for my class to end (which it does officially on Tuesday the 25th). It has reminded me of being in elementary school again, just with the whole concept of being in the same classroom with the same people and only your one teacher everyday. It has made us become a really close-knit class of 12, and therefore, it is a very comfortable and productive learning environment because we don't care about making mistakes in front of one another or asking the same questions over and over :) Our teacher is the best language teacher I have ever had and has very logical and organized lesson plans and direction, and conscientious of our individual levels and needs. He has been teaching German (though he also speaks English, Greek, and Czech fluently, along with the half-dozen or so other languages he knows a little bit of) at the Institute for 10 years, but this is his last semester here- he is moving to Koeln (Cologne) in January.
During the class breaks, I have had a couple of theology discussions (we speak in a German-English conglomerate) with a fellow classmate, Marcio, who is from Brazil. He is a very strong Christian who believes in modern and personal revelation and has been slowly reading the Bible in English on his own. I asked the missionaries for a Portuguese Book of Mormon to give him before classes are finished, so hopefully I will get the opportunity to give it to him.
I have also somehow only added to my 'books to read' list while being here, despite bringing like 6 here with me that I have read/will read. John (to refresh your memories: English major guy who is about to begin his graduate work in English) has been drawing up a personalized list for me, according to my areas of interests and previous reading experiences, of course :) Maybe I will include it for those of you interested to know what they might be, or who randomly need a book recommendation.
Dad has been under the weather the past few days, but is slowly recovering. Mom's classes end on Friday, and Kara has been busy with school, and Italian and Swedish callers. Haha jk.... kind of... She bought and has been slowly trucking through the first Harry Potter book in German though, and I am extremely impressed by her perseverance in such a daunting task. Mom and I, meanwhile, continue to enjoy German children's books with more pictures than words.
I hope you are all having a delightful week, and that Grandma's birthday party went well! Good luck with school, work, and all other events that demand your time and energy. From Germany with love,
Emily
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Tribute to Sharolee
So... I made a promise that I would someday write a blog entry in German, and the person I made that promise to is leaving on her mission to the Baltic Mission in 3 days (I am so excited for you Sharolee!) so this is my last chance to fulfill that promise.... so for those of you who don't speak German, I am sorry. And for those of you who do, I am also sorry because this is going to be really bad.
Ich kann nicht es glauben: nachste Woche ist die letzte ganz Woche von meinen Deutsch Kurs! Ich bin sehr traurig, weil ich da vielen Freunden gemacht habe. Auch, wir haben nur sechs Wochen in Europa. Verruckt!
Heute, haben wir Mittagessen im Kirche mit der Gemeinde gegessen (Jedermann hat Speisen mitgebracht). Dann, sind die Missionaire bei uns fur Dinner angekommen, weil wir einen neuen Missionair haben. Er heiszt Elder Schenk und kommt aus Idaho Falls, Idaho. Wir sind am Mittwoch Abend zusammen mit dem alte Missionaire zuessen gegangen.
Okay I am switching back to English for this part cause I think many will want to know this. So on Saturday night, we went out to dinner at a traditional German restaurant with Pika, and then we sent her off on the train to visit her friend Imke one last time and then she is headed back to the states on Wednesday. So sad for us, though happy for Pato, and you all. But we will miss her oodles.
Oh I wanted to tell you about my experience on Thursday night. My school had this really cool night of international music where any of the students could share their musical talents. So Carrie and another girl Rachel who is also an opera singer, sang a song from Hansel and Gretel and it was AMAZING. Tony, a music major from California played an amazing classical piano piece. Also, Brandon another American, played some Neil Young on his guitar and seriously made me itch to get my hands on a guitar again.... I somehow got addicted in the short time between Brighton and coming to Europe.... anyway, he did a really good job, and then my personal favorite number was when a girl from Switzerland combined with a girl from Canada to sing a Celine Dion song in French, since Celine Dion is from Canada, but is apparently currently living in Switzerland so it all tied together.... ok no I am kinda making fun of them because well..... it was Celine Dion.... (sorry Elyse, I know you love her...) but they actually did a pretty good job. My real personal favorite number was actually these two men from Africa who speak not only a bunch of diferent African dialects and French, but also English and German. Anyway, the one, Blanchard, is completely blind, which I knew. What I didn't know was that he can play the piano!!!! He sat down at the piano and started playing and I was like, what the heck! He can play a trillion times better than me and I have full vision! And then, he started singing. This rich, deep voice in some beautiful African dialect. It was like nothing I have ever heard. And I seriously cannot get over his playing the piano- he just totally played by touch. And I am not just talking about playing the keys by touch of his fingers, I am talking about making music with his soul. You seriously just felt the music eminate from his soul, via the tools of his fingers and vocal chords- who needs eyes. Anyway, with all of the music talent that abounded from my fellow students at my school that night, I realized how many of the students studying there were doing so to enrich somethin to do with a music career or talent. Or maybe, just people who love and understand music are more quantitatively minded and have a better knack for learning another language. Although I don't seem to fall into either one of those categories, so maybe this is all just useless and false generalizations...
Well, Sharolee, I am so excited for you and wish you all the best on your mission and I can't wait to hear you speak Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, or whatever languages you know when you get back. And I promise I will write you lots!!!
And to everyone else, I miss you bunches and bunches and love you even more. Until next week,
Emily
Ich kann nicht es glauben: nachste Woche ist die letzte ganz Woche von meinen Deutsch Kurs! Ich bin sehr traurig, weil ich da vielen Freunden gemacht habe. Auch, wir haben nur sechs Wochen in Europa. Verruckt!
Heute, haben wir Mittagessen im Kirche mit der Gemeinde gegessen (Jedermann hat Speisen mitgebracht). Dann, sind die Missionaire bei uns fur Dinner angekommen, weil wir einen neuen Missionair haben. Er heiszt Elder Schenk und kommt aus Idaho Falls, Idaho. Wir sind am Mittwoch Abend zusammen mit dem alte Missionaire zuessen gegangen.
Okay I am switching back to English for this part cause I think many will want to know this. So on Saturday night, we went out to dinner at a traditional German restaurant with Pika, and then we sent her off on the train to visit her friend Imke one last time and then she is headed back to the states on Wednesday. So sad for us, though happy for Pato, and you all. But we will miss her oodles.
Oh I wanted to tell you about my experience on Thursday night. My school had this really cool night of international music where any of the students could share their musical talents. So Carrie and another girl Rachel who is also an opera singer, sang a song from Hansel and Gretel and it was AMAZING. Tony, a music major from California played an amazing classical piano piece. Also, Brandon another American, played some Neil Young on his guitar and seriously made me itch to get my hands on a guitar again.... I somehow got addicted in the short time between Brighton and coming to Europe.... anyway, he did a really good job, and then my personal favorite number was when a girl from Switzerland combined with a girl from Canada to sing a Celine Dion song in French, since Celine Dion is from Canada, but is apparently currently living in Switzerland so it all tied together.... ok no I am kinda making fun of them because well..... it was Celine Dion.... (sorry Elyse, I know you love her...) but they actually did a pretty good job. My real personal favorite number was actually these two men from Africa who speak not only a bunch of diferent African dialects and French, but also English and German. Anyway, the one, Blanchard, is completely blind, which I knew. What I didn't know was that he can play the piano!!!! He sat down at the piano and started playing and I was like, what the heck! He can play a trillion times better than me and I have full vision! And then, he started singing. This rich, deep voice in some beautiful African dialect. It was like nothing I have ever heard. And I seriously cannot get over his playing the piano- he just totally played by touch. And I am not just talking about playing the keys by touch of his fingers, I am talking about making music with his soul. You seriously just felt the music eminate from his soul, via the tools of his fingers and vocal chords- who needs eyes. Anyway, with all of the music talent that abounded from my fellow students at my school that night, I realized how many of the students studying there were doing so to enrich somethin to do with a music career or talent. Or maybe, just people who love and understand music are more quantitatively minded and have a better knack for learning another language. Although I don't seem to fall into either one of those categories, so maybe this is all just useless and false generalizations...
Well, Sharolee, I am so excited for you and wish you all the best on your mission and I can't wait to hear you speak Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, or whatever languages you know when you get back. And I promise I will write you lots!!!
And to everyone else, I miss you bunches and bunches and love you even more. Until next week,
Emily
Sunday, November 9, 2008
School, politics, the weather: same old. EXCEPT THAT I AM IN GERMANY!
Ok so we just got back from the Thomas's house. They are a family in the branch and their 5 kids make up the entire primary and young men's. We are their home teachers and we had them over 2 weeks ago for dinner and games so this time we went over to their apartment. It is actually a crazy small world story: Sister Thomas was a foreign exchange student about 15 years ago in a U.S. high school. But not just any high school, PLEASANT GROVE HIGH SCHOOL. As in the high school Kara and I went to. Yeah. Crazy ironic. She even had the same P.E. teacher as me, good old Coach Bone who retired just last year. Anyway, Sister Thomas's English is brilliant and she has no accent whatsoever, and they are a really nice couple. And their kids, oh my goodness they are adorable. If my kids are half as cute as theirs I will feel really good about myself. There is Dennis (12), Imke (11), Johanna (10), Lasse (8), and Bente (6). Kara and I played Uno and some other random German card game with them for hours and it was so much fun. It is really fun to not be super self conscious about speaking German in front of them too because you don't feel obligated to speak in full sentences; you can just spurt out phrases, exclamations and slang words. Anyway, it was a really fun evening.
It was fast and testimony meeting at church today and Dad bore his testimony. I was asked to give the closing prayer and I (amazingly, and unlike last time when I chickened out) said it in German.
School is going fairly well. I mean, no- it gets more and more frustrating and seemingly impossible, but I have been told to regard that as a good sign, so all is good.
I had several people congratulate me on our new President. It was all every newspaper, radio, and news channel could talk about this past week. I have to say I am quite glad of the results, at least while I am here in Germany, due to the fact that all Europeans are obsessed with Obama and seriously would have broke into riots if he was not elected. They may not be as unbiased and informed as they think they are on American politics, but I have realized how profoundly American government and politics affect them here, and many other countries globally.
The weather here is still amazingly nice. The grass is even still green, but only the reddest of leaves still cling to the sparse trees. It has yet to snow in Goettingen, but the clouds feel at their leisure to rain as often and as much as they desire.
Ok, that must mark a fairly uneventful week if I am reverting to talking about the weather, so I will peace out. Bis nachste Woche. Ich liebe euch!
It was fast and testimony meeting at church today and Dad bore his testimony. I was asked to give the closing prayer and I (amazingly, and unlike last time when I chickened out) said it in German.
School is going fairly well. I mean, no- it gets more and more frustrating and seemingly impossible, but I have been told to regard that as a good sign, so all is good.
I had several people congratulate me on our new President. It was all every newspaper, radio, and news channel could talk about this past week. I have to say I am quite glad of the results, at least while I am here in Germany, due to the fact that all Europeans are obsessed with Obama and seriously would have broke into riots if he was not elected. They may not be as unbiased and informed as they think they are on American politics, but I have realized how profoundly American government and politics affect them here, and many other countries globally.
The weather here is still amazingly nice. The grass is even still green, but only the reddest of leaves still cling to the sparse trees. It has yet to snow in Goettingen, but the clouds feel at their leisure to rain as often and as much as they desire.
Ok, that must mark a fairly uneventful week if I am reverting to talking about the weather, so I will peace out. Bis nachste Woche. Ich liebe euch!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
"At least it's not raining..."
Okay so yesterday (Saturday), a bunch of my classmates decided they wanted to take a day trip to Eisanach to see the Wartburg Castle and I decided to tag along. It was a 2 hour train ride there and it was freezing cold and foggy when we go there. Steve had done a lot of research beforehand and found out that the bus that goes up to Wartburg every half hour, but after waiting an hour.... we finally noticed the small print on the bus schedule. It said something about Nov. 1st and calling ahead 45 minutes. We realized that it was in fact, Nov. 1st, but we couldn't quite figure out the complete meaning of the German sentence due to some disagreement about small, yet amazingly important words such as until, only, etc. Anyway, we finally decided to call the number listed on the bus schedule but no one answered. So then after a lot of asking people, who really didn't know what they were talking about, we went back to the Bahnhof and asked one of the ticket ladies there. She found a pamphlet with a newer number on that, so then we were finally able to secure a bus to come at the next half hour. So, 2 1/2 hours after arriving in Eisenach, we were on our way up there. It turns out that after Nov. 1st, if you want to take the bus, you have to call because it is no longer tourist season... yeah. Well we know now!
Anyway, we got up there and took a tour of the castle. It was awesome! I have been to a fair number of European castles and fortresses now, but this one was exceptionally cool. It was built in 1166 and had much of the original roots, but since it was in use until the 1950's, parts of it kept being updated every hundred years or so and so it has styles over a range of 800 years. It's true claim to fame, and the main reason why I wanted to tour it, is because it is where Martin Luther hid under the name "Squire George" and translated the New Testament into German from December 1521- February 1522. I had finally seen that really well done movie "Luther" about the life of Martin Luther, just a few weeks ago, so my interest was especially heightened. It was crazy to actually stand in the simple room where he worked tirelessly over a 2-month period and began the first stages of the Restoration.
So, we realized that it was getting pretty late, and that if we didn't catch the 5 PM train out of Eisenach, we would have to wait an additional 2 hours to leave, so we ran down the mountain, because no more buses were coming. Amazingly, though we got to the Bahnhof 2 minutes after our train should have left, it was still waiting for us, so luckily we got home by 7 PM. I was exhausted after being outside in the penetrating, damp cold and walking (or running) around all day. We saw the first snow I have seen here up by the Castle. But our response to any unfortunate event or complaint of someone being cold, was "At least it's not raining!" Because it rained the whole day when we were in Celle on Thursday. But it was totally worth it, and I am really glad to be fitting in all these weekend or day trips between school.
Today we went to Hannover for stake conference. Janet made a really yummy dinner tonight (taco soup) and we are all sad for her to leave back to Utah tomorrow morning. It has been really fun for Mom to have her over her birthday and for "the Blender Sisters" (named that for the weird voices they do around each other, dating back to a sleepover they had once upon a time, when the tried to impersonate the sound their voices made while talking into a blender... yeah, and everyone thinks the Woodbury girl cousins are so weird and unique with the voices) to reunite the past 8 days.
Anyway, we got up there and took a tour of the castle. It was awesome! I have been to a fair number of European castles and fortresses now, but this one was exceptionally cool. It was built in 1166 and had much of the original roots, but since it was in use until the 1950's, parts of it kept being updated every hundred years or so and so it has styles over a range of 800 years. It's true claim to fame, and the main reason why I wanted to tour it, is because it is where Martin Luther hid under the name "Squire George" and translated the New Testament into German from December 1521- February 1522. I had finally seen that really well done movie "Luther" about the life of Martin Luther, just a few weeks ago, so my interest was especially heightened. It was crazy to actually stand in the simple room where he worked tirelessly over a 2-month period and began the first stages of the Restoration.
So, we realized that it was getting pretty late, and that if we didn't catch the 5 PM train out of Eisenach, we would have to wait an additional 2 hours to leave, so we ran down the mountain, because no more buses were coming. Amazingly, though we got to the Bahnhof 2 minutes after our train should have left, it was still waiting for us, so luckily we got home by 7 PM. I was exhausted after being outside in the penetrating, damp cold and walking (or running) around all day. We saw the first snow I have seen here up by the Castle. But our response to any unfortunate event or complaint of someone being cold, was "At least it's not raining!" Because it rained the whole day when we were in Celle on Thursday. But it was totally worth it, and I am really glad to be fitting in all these weekend or day trips between school.
Today we went to Hannover for stake conference. Janet made a really yummy dinner tonight (taco soup) and we are all sad for her to leave back to Utah tomorrow morning. It has been really fun for Mom to have her over her birthday and for "the Blender Sisters" (named that for the weird voices they do around each other, dating back to a sleepover they had once upon a time, when the tried to impersonate the sound their voices made while talking into a blender... yeah, and everyone thinks the Woodbury girl cousins are so weird and unique with the voices) to reunite the past 8 days.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
