So right now everyone is going crazy over the women's World Cup, which is being played all throughout Germany this month. Germany's team has won its first two games, making for some very excited celebrations in my dorm. The US is also expected to do very well, and are playing today, so go America!
Right after Eric left, it finally started feeling like summer here, unfortunately (I hate hot weather and Europe is not air-conditioned). It hit 90 degrees and up two days in a row. I had no heat in Paris in the winter and I would choose that again over having no AC here when it's 90+. So I went out and bought a fan. The temperature immediately fell 20 degrees. But I'm sure sometime over the next 2 months it will go back up, sadly.
I haven't done too much that's exciting this week...hid from the high temperatures by eating gelati, and been working hard on my German and on my reading. I found some free German podcasts online to help me learn, and I'm trying really hard to work on grammar. The sentence structure and word order is really confusing, it's kind of backwards from English. German also has four grammatical cases which can change the nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives, which are driving me insane. But I'm powering through--I'm on page 3 of translating Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and I will be seeing the movie in German in 2 weeks. I am noticing improvements in how much I understand but I'm still not satisfied--I want to understand more of what goes on around me. I keep being told I have unrealistic expectations, however. Well, I have two more months to improve!
My language partner, Ulf, took me to the Bismarck Turm in Konstanz yesterday (Bismarck Tower). Otto von Bismarck was the chancellor of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm, and was instrumental in unifying Germany. The tower is on a hill surrounded by a vineyard, which was cool. Apparently there are Bismarck Turm all over Germany, but according to Wikipedia the one in KN is considered important because it's on a border of the newly unified Germany.
Some of my newest German words:
aufgeregt=excited. you can also say ich freue mich auf (I am looking forward to...)
deibisch=the closest English equivalent would be thieving or thievish. funny word.
gleichweis=likewise. I was really proud of myself because I figured out how to spell the word and what it meant on my own! I wished the lady who took my rent money "Gut Wochenende" (good weekend--I have since found out that you are supposed to say "Schönest Wochenende"), and that was what she responded.
This is the first time I'm spending the 4th of July out of the country--I hope everyone at home is having a great holiday weekend! Wish I could come home and have a hot dog haha.
me standing in Germany and Switzerland at the same time!
view of the vineyard and the lake from the Bismarck tower hill
Bismarck Turm
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