Grammar Lesson

Last night Jutta and I spent a good hour or so working on German adjective endings and articles. At the last German class, my teacher had given me a story ("Rotkäppchen," aka "Little Red Riding Hood") with adjective endings to fill in. After an hour of work, explanations, and chart drawings, I think I understand how most of the endings work. The next problem will be putting it to practice, because writing them down on paper is easier than having to use them in speech quickly.

This week in one of the school German classes the teacher told me about the most common German grammatical mistake: distinguishing between das, das, and dass.

das is an article for a neutral noun.
das is a pronoun that basically means "it."
dass means "that," but not for every instance of English "that" is "dass" used.

For example, "That is an auto" would translate into German as "Das ist ein Auto," which in English is literally "It is an Auto," not "Dass ist ein Auto." There doesn't seem to be much difference, but it bothers a lot of Germans when people get it wrong.

Thank goodness this is easy for German teachers. For everyone else, it's difficult.

And that's not the end of today's German grammar lesson! At Pacifica, we learned articles in a chart from Nominative, Accusative, to Dative. In Germany, students don't learn their articles in this fashion. In fact, internationally students learn German articles in another order: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative.

__ Nom Gen Dat Acc
der der des dem den
die die der der die
das das des dem das

It's another one of those things that seems unimportant (after all, the articles are the same no matter which order you learn them in), but this way is easier if you have to check on German grammar charts or if someone is trying to explain why this article is this article by reciting this chart. Besides, sometimes it's good to be on the same train of thought.

And that's the end of today's grammar lesson. No homework, enjoy your weekend!

Life is Setting in

Days are getting busier and busier. More time is spent figuring out homework and schoolwork every day. Some days are good days, some days are not. A light clicks on, occasionally, and a sudden realization will be made. Other times, it's like having a cloud of question marks floating above your head.

The end of holidays was fun, despite the approaching Monday in school. Natasha (Rus) spent Saturday night with us after an AFS event in Oberhausen. She's one of the AFSers who has to change families because her family does not want her anymore. She stayed until Sunday evening, when she helped us make schnitzel with Jager sauce (mushrooms). Natasha and Jutta ended up doing most of the work, all I could do was skin potatoes. The kitchen is not big enough for 3 people working.

Many AFSers had birthdays during the holidays: Sarah, Alicia, Ana Paula, and Sanja, probably more. On Wednesday about 10 of us went to Sarah's house in Duisburg to celebrate her birthday, and on Sunday we went to Sanja's. It was interesting to hear "Happy Birthday" in seven different languages, or eat Bosnian cake.

The fun night with the AFS betrauers on Saturday was in the Oberhausen CentrO, the humongous mall. I've been to Oberhausen twice now. One of the coolest stores there is the Lego store, where they built a huge model of Harry Potter out of Lego bricks.

I wish I could do that.

Also in CentrO is a ton of clothing stores, phone stores, department stores, jewelry stores, you name it, they've got it. It has its own Bus station in the center, as well as its own mini theme park. On the grounds is also a theater type place, where I think Cold Play is playing for a while. The Backstreet Boys are apparently playing somewhere around this area, too, because one of my schoolmates went to their concert the other day. There are many, many performances of all types of bands, musicals, orchestras, and more between Oberhausen and Essen. Beauty and the Beast is playing here, as well as The Phantom of the Opera. I'm hoping to be able to attend at least one of these two in February-March when the German is better. Today's poll: which musical should I see?

This Wednesday Sara, a student at my school, came over for 4 hours to help with homework. Classurs, the class tests, are coming up in 3-4 weeks, and I want to have at least some idea about what's going on in my classes. Most of the time we just talked, though. We have a lot of common interests: we both love film music, Harry Potter, we're both reading Eragon in the other's language, and she loves Star Wars. We are already thinking about seeing Harry Potter 4 together when it comes out in November.

Today I had to visit Herr Thomä again (and this time I'm sure I've got his name right) for yet another schedule change. The chemistry class he put me in has a grand total of 34 students and the teacher is extremely unhappy with the size and kicked me out of the class. Now he changed it to art instead, because it's during the same period.

Then Herr Thomä showed me to the art room during my chemistry period so I would know where it is. When we approached the door, he said that something must be wrong because the class was too loud. Sure enough, when he opened the door, low and behold there was a room full of 6th graders coloring in pictures of castles and dragons. That might be a little too young for me. I got a lot of hellos, though, from the children in the after-school group. It's amazing how they can remember my name when the only time I've made it to their group was three weeks ago. I can't remember anyone's name here whom I've talked to multiple times.

So the art class is only on Mondays, and now I have 5th period free on Thursday. I also have nothing 6th period because the 11th grade has sport only once a week. Now school is only 1 1/2 hours on Thursdays, only physics class. I asked Herr Thomä if that was okay. In California there is some sort of law stating that children must be in school at least 3 hours a day. He said only two periods in one day is perfectly fine. If only Mondays were this easy...

Blogging...auf Deutsch!

Heute schreibe ich ein klein Post auf Deutsch, für die Studenten in Herr Harrell's Klassen. Dieses Post ist Ubung für mich auch, weil mein Deutsch nicht gut ist.

Gestern waren Jutta, Stephan, und ich in Duisburg. Duisburg ist der grossest Binnenhafen in Europa. Zuerst gingen wir in ein Schiffmuseum, ein grosses Dampfschiff. Hier war viele Shilden auf Deutsch.

Wenn ich sehe diese Shilden, ich denke an Das Boot.

Das Dampfschiff war sehr interessant. Die Dampfmaschine in der Maschinenraum ist 35 Tonne. Ein Mann hat gesagt, dieses Schiff hat früher eine Tonn Kohle pro Stunde benutzt. Dann es hat Öl benutzt.

Ich muss Hausaufgabe für Deutschunterrichtung jetzt machen. Ich lerne Verben und Präpositionen. E.b., Sie grüßt an ihr Vater, Ich frage an Stephan, Wir fahren von Wesel nach Oberhausen. Ich lerne auch jeden Tag neue Vokabeln. Es ist spass, aber swerig.

Bis dann! Tschüß!

Vacation in Saarland

Guess what this contraption is.

Jutta and I braved the long, 4 hour drive down to Trier to visit her good friend Ruth this weekend. Ruth was the person who tested my room before I came, apparently, and decided everything there was perfect. She does not actually live in Trier, but in Saarburg, because she lives only 500 meters or so from the river Saar, which is on the other side of a hill (burg) with a castle named Saarburg on it. However, telling other people she lives in Saarburg is as descriptive to most people as I telling people in Germany I live in Cypress. No one has actually heard of it.

Ruth showed us around Saarburg on Saturday. If you guessed those were the wheels moving the cable of a gondola, you guessed right!

We took the gondola up one of the many neighboring hills to a camping and holiday resort for Hollanders. There was a luging track to entertain the kids, and the man running it let me on for free (he's one of Ruth's friends, I think). Twice. Luging is really fun, even without the snow and ice they have in the Winter Olympics. This picture is only blurry because yours truly is traveling at the break neck speed of 35 kph (only 4 kph from the record on this track).

We walked to the Innen-Staadt next. Saarburg is not only home to a castle, but to its own waterfall. The water is directed into sluices where it powers water wheels. The whole Innen-Staadt is built on a hill. The houses are cramped together, though, and driving cars literally up and down the tiny streets seems almost impossible. The town seems to have been compressed not only from the sides, but from the top as well. Either that or the people who built it were super short.

We drove into Saarland to view one of the state's most famous photo spots, a place where the river makes a complete U-turn around a hill.

A few hundred years ago one could see the castle that was built on the hill between the river (the bend in the river was once a strategic point not only for photographers). Jutta and I visited this castle on Monday, because you have to hike an hour to get to it and it was much to late on Saturday to be trekking through a dark forest. Unfortunately, the castle is closed on Mondays, so all we could do was walk around the perimeter. It is a lovely, and effective, castle, though.

Saturday evening we visited the Saarburg Schloss instead. It also has a lovely view of the river and the grape fields on the surrounding hills.

Sunday was Floh Markt day in Trier. It was supposed to start at 11, but the place was jam packed long before. We somehow managed to find a spot, even if it wasn't the best. We did sell a lot of stuff, though. The car was packed with boxes and random objects when we left Wesel, and we came back with a respectable amount. Ruth was the lucky one. Apparently while I was out walking around the flea market, someone came by and bought practically everything from her table. They even wanted to buy the table, too! My bartering skills are terrible, so I did not end up doing much in sales. Out of the whole day, I only sold one item, a rug that wasn't even ours, but Ruth's.

Our wares. On the left is Ruth.

Biblical Open-Air Museum

Feiertag in Germany means every shop is closed. Stefan, Jutta, and I were going to drive to Holland to shop there instead, but then Katri's host family called to ask if I would go with them to go sight-seeing. I picked sight-seeing, because this week is going to be full of shopping in CentrO and Bonn, and Jutta and Stephan are still finishing up their tax papers.

We went to the Biblical Open-air Museum for most of the day. There is one building with artifacts from Judaism, Christian, and Islamic history. The place had many models of cities and temples such as Jerusalem that could be lit up to show different parts.

Rebecca, me, Katri, and Benjamin's hand

Outside in the open air part were larger models of buildings from the time periods. We got to walk through a middle-eastern town, a Greek house, a caravan stopping point, and a fishing village, among others. It was an interesting opportunity.

In the caravan building were two women in traditional garb giving out samples of some sort of wheaty pancake type food. There were also chickens, donkeys, and camels on the grounds. Katri and I even rode one.

Sort of.

Katri pretending to be a sheep

in the "natural" cave sheep fold.

We went into a city center after the museum. There were more bikes there than I have ever seen at one time, even in Germany, but we soon found out why. The city was having its own holiday type event, with rides and boutiques and food. We went on a few rides, ate roasted almonds, went on a couple more rides. It was fun, but by the end we were so tired we practically slept on the way back to Germany.

Rebecca and Katri on the swing-carousal ride.

Fahrtour

My poor bicycle traveled over 60 kilometers this weekend. On Saturday, Jutta, Stefan, Jonas, and I biked to Xanthen and back. The route we took is on the dikes protecting Wesel against the flooding of the Rhine. There are nice paths there through the fields and farms, it is the most picturesque places I have ever seen.

These are not happy cows.

The areas we rode through are incredibly green. It makes me think of pictures of Scottland with great expanses of green grass, with maybe a couple of sheep in the background.

To cross the river we took the ferry. Then we biked to the market place in Xanthen (a much hillier ride than Wesel). Unfortunately, in celebration of the earlier darkening of the sky, the ferry only crossed until 5:30 in the evening beginning in October, so our time in Xanthen was cut shorter than we would have liked. We did manage to find time to eat ice cream in the city, though, rushed as we were, to recover sugar.

Jonas on the ferry.

Jonas had spaghetti -- vanilla and strawberry flavored.

Edit: This is really ice cream that looks like spaghetti.

On Sunday I biked around Wesel for three hours. At least, most of the time I think I was in Wesel. I got lost and ended up somewhere near Brünnen, the next city over, but there are special signs for cyclers scattered over NRW saying in which direction the nearest cities are.

This weekend I also got to bike into Wesel to buy a copy of Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz, which came out on Saturday. Some other students from AFS went to a Potter party at a bookstore on Friday night, but I couldn't go, because I was watching Men in Black II with Hannah and Jonas. I hear the costumes there were creative, though. Ever hear of anyone dressing up as a Whomping Willow?