It's been a while...

Although I thought having internet in my room would encourage me to blog more, it apparently does not. I was extremely busy all last week. We had two Zwischentests (midterms), one on Thursday and the other on Friday, because our Sprachkurs is already half over. I still feel like everything here is kind of new and that our class just started, but I only have this week and Monday and Tuesday of next week left of class. Thursday of next week is our final, and then we have two weeks off before Wintersemester begins.

I feel like I've learned a lot in the Konversation part of the Sprachkurs, but not necessarily as much in Grammatik. I definitely learned about 100 vocabulary words over the last two weeks, but using them in daily conversation is another story. We are learning really practical things though - vocabulary about our living situations, about WGs, how to ask someone out, how to turn them down, etc. I think I need to start talking more in German with the people I know, and to talk to more Germans in general. It's difficult though, and my lack of German speaking has not necessarily been for lack of trying. Hopefully I'll get a tandem partner soon.

I have been getting involved in a lot of different things around here though. Senta (my German 301 professor from State) set me, Andrew, Becca and Hannah up with an internship at the Kindergarten that her mother runs right outside of the downtown area. We went there Friday morning to get a tour and see what they do, and it is absolutely amazing. From 9-10 the kids have Freizeit (free time) where they can basically do whatever they choose. There are rooms for exercise, rooms for building things, rooms for playing house, basically anything you can imagine that a kid might want to do. There were a lot of adults there, both older adults and students who were playing or reading with the kids, but there were also rooms where the kids were completely unsupervised and it was no problem. The kids seem a lot more independent than American children, plus the adults place a lot more trust in them early on. Senta's mom said that the kids can work on whatever they choose during the Freizeit as long as they complete what they started and clean everything up when they're done. I was really impressed by everything. Becca and I are going in again tomorrow morning to play with the kids and get a feel for what it's like.

I'm also going to be working as an English teacher for a few German high school students in Gutach, a city about 25 minutes outside of Freiburg by train. I went out there after class on Friday with Andrew and two other AYF students and we met a bunch of the kids who we're going to be working with. Basically, they all have to take a big test in November on English, and the first thing they have to do for it is give a presentation on a topic of their choice. We're supposed to help them get prepared for that, and then in late October when the Wintersemester begins and we actually have regular schedules, we'll be going out there individually once or twice a week for a few hours and working with more of the kids on their English. All of the Schüler (the Germans call younger students Schüler; University students are Studenten) were very nice, and had a lot of the same problems with English that we have with German. We met 3 boys and 1 girl; the girl was extremely shy and barely said anything, but I'm hoping she was just very nervous about having to speak English. Frau Vennemann (the teacher we're working with) said that she requested to work with only me, probably because the guys (the other three AYFers were all guys) kind of intimidated her. She's doing her presentation on playing the flute, which is cool since I used to play, so I hope I'm able to help her do well. I'm really excited about both of these activities; they seem like things that will help me learn a lot, both about teaching and about German, and I'm glad to be able to help where I can.

This weekend was also kind of busy, which was a bit unfortunate for me because I probably got only 4-5 hours of sleep a night during the week. Friday night after I got back from Gutach I went out to Vauban to go to a party with everyone who lived there; another American student on the IES program was having people over. It was a pretty low-key night, but I didn't get to bed until 3ish, and then had to wake up at 6 to get back to StuSie to shower and get ready to go to Alsace Saturday morning. Alsace was really lovely; we went to a castle called Hoh-Koenigsburg which was absolutely beautiful, then stopped in a cute little French city called Colmar where we wandered around and went to the Unterlinden Art Museum, home to the Isenheim Alterpiece, which is a spectacular multi-section work of art. We got back to Freiburg around 6. I took a short nap and then Joanna made us all delicious macaroni and cheese for dinner. Since it was Saturday night and we had nothing going on on Sunday, we decided it was a perfect night to go out, so we played a few games with a bunch of the UMass students in my kitchen and then went to Elpi and danced for a few hours. Around 2 I was overtaken by extreme exhaustion and walked home as fast as humanly possible, then promptly collasped onto my bed. I didn't wake up until 2 pm Sunday afternoon, if that's an indication as to how tired I was.

Sunday afternoon was quite lovely; I went with Andrew, Joanna, Becca and Melissa into town to explore a bit. Andrew left us shortly to go homework, so us four girls made our way into the Schwarzwald for a little hike. We hiked up a few paths (and a few non-paths) to the top of this particular section, where there was an observation tower that overlooked the entire city. We climbed to the top (170ish stairs up a winding staircase) and took in the view for a little while. The very top platform of the tower was very small and kind of scary, because it shook quite a bit in the wind, but it offered a really amazing view. The feeling of being higher than the treetops and being able to see so much of the city was really amazing. I took a video of the city which I'll post on facebook soon; hopefully I'll also get a flicker account to post pictures for everyone who doesn't have facebook soon. Unfortunately, my camera was pretty much dead all day Saturday and Sunday, so I was only able to get a few pictures in the Schwarzwald and none in Alsace, but a lot of other people took good ones, so I may steal them so everyone at home can see what I've been up to.

This week is looking pretty good right now: tonight I'm meeting another one of the high school students and then going shopping for WG stuff with my roommates, tomorrow morning I go back to the Kindergarten, Wednesday we're meeting for breakfast with Frau Vennemann again, Wednesday or Thursday evening I'll be working with Nadine (the high school student). This coming Sunday we're going to Donaueschingen. At some point this week we have to give a Referat for our Konversationskurs, but no tests (woooo). I really need to get plans finalized for what I'm going to be doing during the two weeks after the Sprachkurs is finished... Becca and I were thinking maybe going to Italy to visit our friend Andrea, who's staying in Rome, but I need to ask her about that first... :)