Seenachtsfest

This weekend in Konstanz was Seenachstfest! Seenachtsfest is a festival held every summer by the lake (literally it means lake night festival). It includes live music, food, and a huge fireworks display put on by Konstanz and Kreuzlingen, and people come from all the surrounding towns to see it.

I got to see the start of the festival on Friday, because for our last time meeting, Ulf and I were hanging out by the lake near the live music part of the fair. They also had this weird little ride contraption that looked kind of like a hang glider, where people got strapped in, flown up over the trees, and then dipped down into the lake (which has to be FREEZING since it's only broken 80 degrees a couple times this summer)--didn't really get that, haha. I thought it was really funny that all of the music was American, or at least in English. Ulf was really sweet and got me a present--a book of pictures and descriptions of places all over Germany, so that I can show everyone at home what a beautiful, amazing country I got to live in this summer! I'm excited to return the favor and show him around New York when he studies abroad in Canada. Participating in the tandem program was a really nice thing to do while I was here, I'm glad Thorin made me aware of it so that I could sign up!

Saturday night was the fireworks! In the morning, I met up with a friend of one of my apartmentmates from Richmond who had just moved to Konstanz, so that I could show her around. It's weird that now I know enough about Konstanz to give someone a tour! But hopefully she enjoyed it. Then I headed out to the fireworks in the evening. There were SO many people. Each town has a turn at their own fireworks, and then they finish with a joint show. I liked Konstanz's fireworks better than Kreuzlingen's--they were also set to American oldies music, stuff like Dancing Queen and Billie Jean, which I thought was so funny. I watched them from a bridge over the Rhine called the Fahrradbruecke--far enough away so that I didn't have to pay 16 euros admission, but still close enough for a fabulous view of fireworks over the Altstadt and the lake. It was a great show, especially at the end!!

I try to do everything I need to do around town and when I travel "auf Deutsch", as much as possible. I am getting pretty good at reading, but I still have trouble with speaking and understanding. Often when someone says something, I have to ask them to repeat it more slowly. Sometimes when I ask this they switch to English instead of repeating what they said in German, which really frustrates me. I want to learn and the only way I'm going to learn is by practicing! The most understanding person I met was in Berlin, with Alessia. We went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. The waitress heard us speaking English and started to bring us English menus and then said "oh, no, you probably want to practice your German!" and brought us German menus and spoke to us only in slow German. We told her how much we appreciated that and I gave her quite a nice tip, haha. I wish more people had that attitude, because I am working so hard to learn and I don't want people to just speak to me in English. But I guess it also must be frustrating for people to communicate with me when I don't understand.

I can't believe in a week I'll be packing my things to get ready to leave the next morning! This summer flew by...