Hello everyone!
Last week I had a wonderful time visiting ITALY! My american father was there on vacation and I went down to see him. I took a train, so it was an all-day traveling thing, but I got to see some beautiful european landscapes. Austria reminded me a lot of The Sound of Music (which no one here has heard of) with all the high green mountains and clear blue water. Northern Italy was also amazing. There were so many vineyards! Everything was still very green and the weather was warm.
We stayed in a villa in a small town called Monte San Savino with about 20 other people. We took excursions everyday and learned a lot about the Italian culture. The first day I arrived, we just relaxed and I swam in the pool! I tried to soak up as much sun as I can before I went back to Germany where it is cloudy most of the time. The next day we went to Siena and explored. Apparently there is a big horse race there every year in Il Palio which was the main plaza. All of the buildings were very old and very typical italian style. The highlight of the trip was the Duomo in Siena. The details on the exterior were incredible. On Tuesday we went to a smaller city called San Gimignano were climbed one of the high towers and got to look out onto the breath-taking Toscan landscape. We went into a 1,000 year old church and ate gelato at the 2007 World Champion Gelateria. My dad always gets mint chocolate chip but I made him try some new flavors. Where else can you find strawberry and rosemary gelato?? On my last day there we went to Florence and visited the all the famous places like the Ponte Vecio, the Duomo, the Basilica of Maria Novella and some people in our group went to see the Statue of David, but I was not willing to pay 20 euros and wait in a line that was half a kilometer long. I was content with hearing the comentary from them afterwards. The best part of that excursion was the fleamarket. There were hundreds of venders and it must have taken up a good few blocks. It was mostly Italian leather products which the women that we were staying with went crazy over. I won´t deny that I really like the way leather wallets and bags look, but I cannot bring myself to support the leather industry. Luckily when I got home my neighbor gave me some leather shoes that he was going to throw out. Now I can make a wallet without feeling bad. I did buy a scarf though! It was a really long trip back to Germany and when I got of the train in Munich it was snowing! It was a great vacation, but I am glad to be home and starting my regular routine up again.
I only picked up a few words and phrases while I was there, but I am more interested in the practicality of a language rather than how pretty it sounds. A lot of people ask me why I would want to learn german. It is such a harsh-sounding language, isn´t it?? It is true that it is more gutteral than most, but it has some nice aspects to it. Almost all german words are spelled exactly like they are pronounced (unlike english) and you can be very exact with what you say. There is little room for miscommunication in german, but you have to be a patient listener because the verb comes almost always on the end of the sentence! Example:
*Viele Leute sind überrascht, wie schnell dass ich Deutsch gelernt habe.
literal translation: Many people are surprised how fast that I german learned have.
*Bist Du zur Schule mit dem Fahrrad gefahren?
literal translation: Are you to school with the bike driven?
Learning new languages scrambles your brain up sometimes.
Ok, bis nächste Woche dann!
ps. This computer is not allowing me to upload pictures
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Autumn in Göttingen
Hey everyone!
It is definitely autumn here now and it is quite chilly! The colors are not as beautiful as in New
England, but it still has that same smell of crisp air and dead leaves that I love. My host sister and I are on our two-week fall break and all my classmates in school are in Barcelona until Wednesday, so I have just been finding things to amuse myself at home. I have been biking around a lot lately, checking out the small surrounding villages and visiting parks and exibits on my own. The picture is from an outdoor art exibit in a place called Northardenberg. The statues are called "Alltagemenschen" or Everyday People. There are a bunch of statues doing things that people normally do: carrying grocery bags, sitting on a park bench, dancing, getting a haircut, etc. It was cute.
Reality is starting to set in now. The excitment of being in a new country is wearing off and now I have to start building a new life here. It is not really a huge deal for me because I am quite used to doing it. The building of my life has been knocked down plenty of times before, but I always seem to forget how complicated it is to make the foundation.
The last days of September I returned to Bonn for a quick visit. My hostsister had a returnee reunion there from her exchange last year in California, so I tagged along. It was really nice to visit my old city and see my old hostmom, Helga and some friends. That Saturday night Helga and our friend Monica went to a salsa club. There were so many good dancers! (For those of you who have seen Dirty Dancing Havana Nights, I felt like I was in La Rosa Negra ) It was a lot of fun and I now have confidence on the dance floor.
I skyped with my mom and brother the other day for the first time. It was pretty neat to see them and hear their voices. I got to see my fat little puppy Opal too. Homesick is not quite the word I would use to discribe how I´ve been feeling lately, it´s more like I wish I could have the experience of living in Germany without leaving my life in Rhode Island behind. Make sense? I hear about how all my friends back home are living on their own now, working, studying, and doing so many other cool things. I wish I could be there with them, but at the same time I want
to reap as much from my experience in Germany as I can. So ist das Leben as the germans would say.
October 3rd was the 20th Aniversary of the Falling of the Berlin Wall and the reunion of East and West German. Surprisingly, there were no festivals, no parades, no nothing. It was just a day off where everyone slept in and stayed at home. Very strange, I thought at first. But then I remembered how Germans are very hesitant to show any kind of national pride because of their history. It is a shame I think, but it makes sense.
There is a good german movie coming out this month called "Die Päpstin". It is about a german woman during the early middle ages who disguised herself as a man and later became Pope for a few years. There is not a lot of evidence that the story is true, but there are still references to a female pope in some old religious texts. I think it will be worth the 6.50 euro it cost to see a movie here.
Here is where I sign off for now. Let me know how you all are doing back in the States!
Viele Grüße,
Elena
It is definitely autumn here now and it is quite chilly! The colors are not as beautiful as in New
England, but it still has that same smell of crisp air and dead leaves that I love. My host sister and I are on our two-week fall break and all my classmates in school are in Barcelona until Wednesday, so I have just been finding things to amuse myself at home. I have been biking around a lot lately, checking out the small surrounding villages and visiting parks and exibits on my own. The picture is from an outdoor art exibit in a place called Northardenberg. The statues are called "Alltagemenschen" or Everyday People. There are a bunch of statues doing things that people normally do: carrying grocery bags, sitting on a park bench, dancing, getting a haircut, etc. It was cute.Reality is starting to set in now. The excitment of being in a new country is wearing off and now I have to start building a new life here. It is not really a huge deal for me because I am quite used to doing it. The building of my life has been knocked down plenty of times before, but I always seem to forget how complicated it is to make the foundation.
The last days of September I returned to Bonn for a quick visit. My hostsister had a returnee reunion there from her exchange last year in California, so I tagged along. It was really nice to visit my old city and see my old hostmom, Helga and some friends. That Saturday night Helga and our friend Monica went to a salsa club. There were so many good dancers! (For those of you who have seen Dirty Dancing Havana Nights, I felt like I was in La Rosa Negra ) It was a lot of fun and I now have confidence on the dance floor.
I skyped with my mom and brother the other day for the first time. It was pretty neat to see them and hear their voices. I got to see my fat little puppy Opal too. Homesick is not quite the word I would use to discribe how I´ve been feeling lately, it´s more like I wish I could have the experience of living in Germany without leaving my life in Rhode Island behind. Make sense? I hear about how all my friends back home are living on their own now, working, studying, and doing so many other cool things. I wish I could be there with them, but at the same time I want
to reap as much from my experience in Germany as I can. So ist das Leben as the germans would say.October 3rd was the 20th Aniversary of the Falling of the Berlin Wall and the reunion of East and West German. Surprisingly, there were no festivals, no parades, no nothing. It was just a day off where everyone slept in and stayed at home. Very strange, I thought at first. But then I remembered how Germans are very hesitant to show any kind of national pride because of their history. It is a shame I think, but it makes sense.
There is a good german movie coming out this month called "Die Päpstin". It is about a german woman during the early middle ages who disguised herself as a man and later became Pope for a few years. There is not a lot of evidence that the story is true, but there are still references to a female pope in some old religious texts. I think it will be worth the 6.50 euro it cost to see a movie here.
Here is where I sign off for now. Let me know how you all are doing back in the States!
Viele Grüße,
Elena
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