My Lufthansa flight to San Francisco is offering reasonably-priced internet access, so I'm making this post from 35,000 (or more?) feet. Out the window is Greenland, a snowy crust cracked with outcroppings of brown rock.
It was a wonderful 10 days in Germany, and I feel much less anxious about our move now. Stefan and Angela were amazingly helpful, translating the paperwork from the Health Care companies, helping me to buy cobblestone-appropriate shoes, allowing me to use their address to establish a DeutscheBank checking account. Our friend Tina in Berlin offered to help us find an apartment in Kreuzberg-Schoneberg, and I had a very successful meeting with the director of the MPI and my new collaborator.
It was a bit frustrating at times to find myself in situations that we have practiced so many times in my German course - "Sind Sie?" was the first question asked of me by the hotel agent when I arrived in Berlin, and it took me 10 minutes after the interaction to realize what he had said. Since I was alone at the hotel, I walked to the nearest restaurant to find some dinner. I asked for the menu in German, and then ordered what I thought would be Spargelsuppe (White asparagus soup), a Prosecco, and Brot mit Kase. The waiter asked me something that ended with "alles zusammen?" (all together?), which I interpreted as meaning that I wanted my food together, and I responded no, that he could bring it in courses. After I had finished the soup and bread, however, the waiter brought me some kind of fish-rice dish, complete with octopus legs. I didn't know enough German to ask him what had happened, so I pushed it around on my plate until it looked half-eaten and got out of there as fast as I could.
I hope that when I'm back in my German class on Tuesday night that my accent has at least improved after a week of practice. Stefan and Angela were so helpful, helping me to understand my mistakes and learn what to say the next time. Once I read aloud two stories to Stefan and he helped me with my pronunciation - working one-on-one with a native speaker really has no substitute.
So now it's back to Fremont for a few weeks (with the Humboldt Orientation and Graduation squeezed in), where we'll sort our lives into three piles:
1. Keep and pack for Germany (the smallest pile).
2. Keep and pack for Colorado.
3. Sell or Give away (amazingly, almost the size of the "pack for Colorado" pile - it's amazing what we have accumulated!).
It was a wonderful 10 days in Germany, and I feel much less anxious about our move now. Stefan and Angela were amazingly helpful, translating the paperwork from the Health Care companies, helping me to buy cobblestone-appropriate shoes, allowing me to use their address to establish a DeutscheBank checking account. Our friend Tina in Berlin offered to help us find an apartment in Kreuzberg-Schoneberg, and I had a very successful meeting with the director of the MPI and my new collaborator.
It was a bit frustrating at times to find myself in situations that we have practiced so many times in my German course - "Sind Sie?" was the first question asked of me by the hotel agent when I arrived in Berlin, and it took me 10 minutes after the interaction to realize what he had said. Since I was alone at the hotel, I walked to the nearest restaurant to find some dinner. I asked for the menu in German, and then ordered what I thought would be Spargelsuppe (White asparagus soup), a Prosecco, and Brot mit Kase. The waiter asked me something that ended with "alles zusammen?" (all together?), which I interpreted as meaning that I wanted my food together, and I responded no, that he could bring it in courses. After I had finished the soup and bread, however, the waiter brought me some kind of fish-rice dish, complete with octopus legs. I didn't know enough German to ask him what had happened, so I pushed it around on my plate until it looked half-eaten and got out of there as fast as I could.
I hope that when I'm back in my German class on Tuesday night that my accent has at least improved after a week of practice. Stefan and Angela were so helpful, helping me to understand my mistakes and learn what to say the next time. Once I read aloud two stories to Stefan and he helped me with my pronunciation - working one-on-one with a native speaker really has no substitute.
So now it's back to Fremont for a few weeks (with the Humboldt Orientation and Graduation squeezed in), where we'll sort our lives into three piles:
1. Keep and pack for Germany (the smallest pile).
2. Keep and pack for Colorado.
3. Sell or Give away (amazingly, almost the size of the "pack for Colorado" pile - it's amazing what we have accumulated!).
posted by Erin at 5:56 PM
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