Yesterday in German class we, to practice our German, interviewed IES's intern auf Deutsch. He's a gymnasium (high school) student at the JFK school which is a German/American school, so he's completely fluent in English.... I can't tell you how much we envy him for being bilingual! Oh, the life advantages! Anyway, it was really interesting.
Two things worth noting came of this conversation: first, he highly recommended going to Croatia, which is somewhere I've wanted to go since I was in middle school flipping through the cruise catalogs and saw photos like this. This reminded me that I really need to try to get there. Second, we asked him what his view on American politics/Obama is. Since he goes to the JFK school, he and his peers have a pretty decent idea of whats going on (sadly, more than many Americans). He said that he and others his age feel that Obama is a good leader, and that many republicans in congress just vote down dem's ideas simply because they're from democrats, even if they're good ideas that will help society. The German professors in the room agreed. I found it interesting that the prevailing view among his peers is the same among mine, and my professors/academic circle at HWS. Obviously half of you rolled your eyes through that entire paragraph, but that's life.
I then proceeded to do 4 hours of reading before my 4pm class, for which I had the same reading as I'd had for one session of my class on Berlin in freshman year. Interesting!
I was so burned out when I got home, so I made a delicious dinner and then watched Mamma Mia auf Deutsch, sans-subtitles (well, 40 minutes of it until I fell asleep! hehe).
I'll just say that trying to speak German back to my host mom right when I wake up is probably the hardest thing I've tried to do here. I just cannot channel German within 15 minutes of waking up! Times like this... and many others.... I wonder why I didn't go to France. I'd be getting so good at French and I'd actually know what's going on around me instead of being totally oblivious. But it's all part of the learning process - I'm learning an awesome new language and can't wait to see the gains I can make by the time the semester ends.
On a happier note, Lucy comes in the morning so I'm off to IES to get a lot of homework done and then do some exploring in the afternoon (it's completely cloudy out.. so much for that sun).
Sorry for the lack of photos on the blog, I just haven't felt like taking photos lately because there's been nothing interesting to shoot on the day-to-day. #problem!
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