And to Think It Has Only Been 27 Weeks

As my German gets better, it becomes more and more like my English… which isn’t necessarily a good thing. When speaking English, I tend to make up my own words and unintentionally make sexual references because so many English words have double meanings. On the bright side, my German friends say my German is cute (which I honestly didn’t know was possible) because I say things like, “Now my nose is sad.” when I’m really cold. Also as my German progresses, I learn more slang, which is good because that means I’m becoming more fluent, but it also means my German sounds even more like that of a teenage boy. Not to mention apparently now when I speak English, I have a German accent.

*Going over the new vocabulary list in English*

German Friend: Hey Angie, does engaged mean what I think it means? Like Tommy and Amy became ENGAGED last weekend?

I have the greatest host-mom in the history of youth exchange. I love her (and the rest of my family)to death, she is hilarious. I move to my third and final family a week from this Friday, and while it will exciting, I can’t help but think I’ll miss this family. They have actually become my family, I argue with my parents, my brother and I fight… the whole deal, but at the end of the day we all (usually) love each other. Today while driving to school my host-dad was telling me how the house will be so boring and empty after I move next week, but I told him not to worry and we could Skype all the time so it would be like I’m still there.

Friday night, I went to my host-mom’s choir concert, which was about 1000 times better than I thought it was going to be. The pianist was amazing, as was the choir, and they had some really interesting props and songs such as “The girl with the three blue eyes.” The choir also sung a song called “America” where they had American flags as props and after singing the song, they folded the American flag as if it were a blanket, and as strange as it will sound, it was almost painful to watch. I’m not entirely sure what it is with us Americans, but we have so many ‘rules’ about to to treat our flag (i.e. it can’t touch the ground, it has to be folded a certain way.) that watching it be folded like a blanket just felt wrong. After the concert I went to a friend’s house where we just hung out and watched movies, but I think it’s the simple evenings that I will miss from Germany the most after I fly back to California this summer. The evenings that make it seem like I’m not an exchange student doing something special, but rather a normal German student hanging out with friends. 

Me: You can also say ‘hella,’ like ‘heeeeellla legit.’

German Friend: ‘Heeeeeelllla legit?’ Is that Spanish?

Teaching my German friends Californian slang is one of my favorite pastimes when we’re sitting around. It’s one thing to teach them English slang, but when the slang is native to California (such as the word ‘hella’), it’s just that much more special. The perfect opportunity came across Monday night when Leo, Johannes, Mathis, and I were planning on going climbing, but the gym was closed due to ‘poor weather conditions’ which I don’t really understand because climbing is inside… but because it was closed and the four of us were already together, we decided to go to Burger King. I still find it funny how we got together with the intention of working out, and ended up going to fast food instead.

Finally, thanks to everyone who voted in the bab.la competition! Out of the 239 entries, “Angie’s Odyssey” placed 14^th, so I think we did pretty decent!

Happy Belated Valentines Day!