What is Foreign Exchange to Me?

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

Google Translate (Google Übersetzer)

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

“Walking in a Winter Wonder Land”

I feel like I live in a snow globe. Snapshot_20120206Yesterday, I was happy to wake up to a “winter wonderland” so to speak, until I looked at the thermostat and saw that it was -18°C (-1°F). It’ s one thing when it’s negative in Celsius, but when the temperature is negative in Fahrenheit, it’s a completely different P2071033story. I spent the entire morning siting in a chair with a blanket and just watching it snow, my host-dad even set a timer and said when it goes off, I should watch the television instead.

*host-brother walks in room*

Brother: “Hey, Angie is this your milk?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Brother: “Cool”*drinks milk, leaves room*

If nothing else, I’m not allowed to complain that my brother doesn’t treat me like family. I love Julien, Isa, and Achim (my host-parents) just as much as I love my biological family, they have become my real family. Which means,no matter how much Julien and I love each other, we argue. For example, just last week Julien and I were eating dinner when mid-conversation I stood up and yelled, “Julien, do I seriously need to explain why it is inappropriate to grab our crotches at the dinner table!?”

Monday I met my third host-family bimageecause I will be moving at the end of this month. I have three brothers and a sister, but to make a long explanation short, only one of my brothers will be living at home with us. So far so good though, I get along really well with my host-mom and after finding out I’m from the San Francisco area, she told me to tell my biological parents that she is going to pack herself into my suitcase and fly back with me this summer.

Last week, when we picked up my host-parents from the train stations after their two week cruise of the Caribbean, one of the first things my host-mom P1191003asked me was, “Did you get a haircut?” I told her I cut it myself and she said it looks really good. I thought it was funny how it was the first thing my host-mom said to me after being gone for two weeks, yet my host-brother didn’t notice it even though he lived with me the whole time, and was even home when I cut my hair.

My German has gotten to the point where I understand people better when they speak to me in German, compared to in English, and even in my English lessons, sometimes I don’t know how to explain something to the class in English, but I can do it without missing a beat in German. I love my English teacher though, whenever he makes a bad mistake or gets angry, he just stands there and uses every English swear word he knows under his breath and I think it’s hilarious. However, despite my German getting better and better, I still make mistakes. For example, today I accidentally asked my friend if his balls were cold, instead of his ears.

Finally, for anyone who hasn’t heard, THE GIANTS WON THE SUPER BOWL! I stayed up until 4:30 a.m. Monday morning to watch it (my dad will be so proud to hear that!) and it was definitely a game worth staying up for; however, it was a bit confusing. In German ‘nichts’ is one (of many) way to say ‘no’ orSnapshot_20120206_3 ‘nothing’ and one of the most prominent players on the Giants offense has the last name “Nicks” so every time he got a first down the announcer would say “NICKS mit dem FIRST DOWN” and I thought they didn’t make the first down. This is yet another time I’m glad my German has progressed so thoroughly because I actually understood all the commentary, and it was hilarious. At times the announcer would say, “Oh! That was an evil tackle!” or, “There was a ‘remember me’ tackle!” But I think my favorite was when he said, “Ouch! They hit their helmets together! Is that even allowed? Man, it must have hurt!”

Don’t forget to vote “Angie’s Odyssey” in bab.la’s blog competition! Voting ends February 12th Germany time!

Vote the best IX12 blog

No comments:

Post a Comment

Days in Germany