What is Foreign Exchange to Me?

"A year of of my life. My life in a year."

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Friday, September 16, 2011

Can Anyone Say Deutschland!? :)


German is probably the most literal language there is, and I love it. For example, the direct translation of ‘pocket’ is ‘pants bag,’ ‘bracelet’ is ‘arm band’ and ‘bags under your eyes’ are ‘tear sacks.’ It’s awesome. Now if only I could pronounce the words.

A group of 11th grade boys have ‘taken me in’ so to speak and I spend most of my free time with them. I have at least one of them in almost every class so they try and translate the gist of what’s going on for me. I make fun of their English and they make fun of my German, it’s all good and fun. Also, they take turns giving me German grammar lessons which is defiantly needed seeing that German grammar is NOTHING like English grammar. German can be very deceiving when translated directly to English. For example, the direct translate of “I want to poke you” is “I want you, to poke.”
I still have not gotten used to turning the faucet to the right for cold water, you probably think I’m kidding seeing as it has been over 5 weeks sense I arrived here, but I’m not. It’s so frustrating. I’m kind of hoping I just suffer through it for this year, so when I go back to California, I won’t have to get used to turning it to the left again.

I spent the past weekend in Wolfsberg with exchange students Jordan (from Michigan) One (pronounced Oh-nay, from Mexico) and Ryan (from Washington). Jordan’s host sister gave us German lessons and we went to a Rotary party where I got 74 old Danish/German people to get up and dance. I felt very influential and it was quite fun. They were also impressed that I knew how to dance so well, and I wished my friend Greg Martin (who was a huge inspiration for me to go on exchange) was there with me, partly because he went on exchange to Denmark two years ago, and partly because I love dancing with him.

All in all, I don’t see how Germany could get any better. Ich liebe Deustchland! :)

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Days in Germany