This past weekend was Thanksgiving weekend, and I must say that it was much much much better than I thought it would be! Wednesday after school, I took the train up to Neuruppin to meet up with some friends and celebrate Thanksgiving a day early! We spent the ENTIRE afternoon and early evening cooking up a feast! We had a 7,5 kilo turkey (where my friends host mom miraculously found in a market), green beans with crunchies, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas/carrots, home-made stuffing, pumpkin pie, and apple pie! It was SO delicious. We ended up finishing dinner a little bit late and we had no lust to drive back a whole hour/hour and a half back home so we all called our parents to see if we could spent the night. We ALL were expecting them to be like, "no, its a school night" but suprisingly ALL of them had no problem with it! I was dumbfounded. We had the best pre-thanksgiving night EVER! It was so nice to share our tradition with the German family there, and it was a really unique, unforgettable night with friends. (the 1st picture is really funny- hahaha- but there are more of me with the turkey, and I'll put them up once my friend gives them to me)
So on Thursday (real Thanksgiving), we all went back to Berlin and made it back to school for a few hours. I took my Basic French final and it wasn't too bad. I was a little bit tired from the night before, but managed to write a summary and essay in FRENCH! (I got a lot of French and German words mixed up). After school I went home and invite some friends over to eat Thanksgiving dinner at my house. They came, and we all ate a really yummy German-style dinner, with female turkey, round potatoe-dumplings (I don't know the English word for it), gravey, pumpkin soup, bread, and chocolate mousse with cranberry and vanilla sauce. Mmm! I think I gained a few kilos. Best of all, on Thanksgiving night I got to skype with my ENTIRE family! I got to see every single one of them- even my dog! To make things better, the Packer game was going on as I was skyping, and I they scored a TOUCHDOWN (which I saw). It was great to catch up with them and see all of their faces!
So... Friday went by really quick in school. I was late to school because one of my busses came 10 minutes late, but it turned out that my first hour teacher never showed up, so I just sat in the class with some other students and just chatted. We had a Biology final the next hour (which I had no idea about) I felt really awkward because I was studying German Grammar the whole 2 hours, and my teacher thought I was writing the exam, so at the end when I handed in the empty exam, he was like, "Ben you forgot your text" and then I had to embarassingly explain how I didn't understand a word of what they were asking- something about a stress system. But- speaking of language comprehension, even though I can't understand high school textbooks, I really feel like I've gotten over a HUGE landmark in my German skills. I'm able to understand normal day-to-day language really well and can answer pretty well also.
On Friday night I decided to stay home with the family because I've been out a lot lately. My host brother, host mom, and I ended up going to the movies and watching Die Päpstine. It was pretty interesting, and I understood the majority of dialogue which was GREAT! Last night, I went to a party with my host brother. it was on the complete other side of town and we had to go over 20 stops with the subway! But it wasn't too bad because a bunch of his friends were there and we just chatte din German the whole time and they asked a lot of question and one of the girls was in Oregon for a month! The party was pretty cool- it was a really remote house in north-west Berlin with like 70 or so people. Like all parties are, it was a little awkward at first (I'm totally used to awkward situations now, it doesn't really bother me the least bit). I didn't wan't to be hanging on to my brother Max the whole time, so I just kind of mingled, and a lot of his friends recognized me from other parties, so we all started to talk, and it was great because I spoke in german the entire time and recieved a lot of compliments about how my German had improved . A lot of times people asked me if I understood what they were talking about or if the talked really fast if I could understand, and suprisingly I answered their questions without hesitation. I COULD understand what they were saying, and I COULD respond. It was really really really encouraging. So yeah- it was a really fun night!!!
I probably should study for my Advanced French final which is on Tuesday. That should be interesting!
So on Thursday (real Thanksgiving), we all went back to Berlin and made it back to school for a few hours. I took my Basic French final and it wasn't too bad. I was a little bit tired from the night before, but managed to write a summary and essay in FRENCH! (I got a lot of French and German words mixed up). After school I went home and invite some friends over to eat Thanksgiving dinner at my house. They came, and we all ate a really yummy German-style dinner, with female turkey, round potatoe-dumplings (I don't know the English word for it), gravey, pumpkin soup, bread, and chocolate mousse with cranberry and vanilla sauce. Mmm! I think I gained a few kilos. Best of all, on Thanksgiving night I got to skype with my ENTIRE family! I got to see every single one of them- even my dog! To make things better, the Packer game was going on as I was skyping, and I they scored a TOUCHDOWN (which I saw). It was great to catch up with them and see all of their faces!
So... Friday went by really quick in school. I was late to school because one of my busses came 10 minutes late, but it turned out that my first hour teacher never showed up, so I just sat in the class with some other students and just chatted. We had a Biology final the next hour (which I had no idea about) I felt really awkward because I was studying German Grammar the whole 2 hours, and my teacher thought I was writing the exam, so at the end when I handed in the empty exam, he was like, "Ben you forgot your text" and then I had to embarassingly explain how I didn't understand a word of what they were asking- something about a stress system. But- speaking of language comprehension, even though I can't understand high school textbooks, I really feel like I've gotten over a HUGE landmark in my German skills. I'm able to understand normal day-to-day language really well and can answer pretty well also.
On Friday night I decided to stay home with the family because I've been out a lot lately. My host brother, host mom, and I ended up going to the movies and watching Die Päpstine. It was pretty interesting, and I understood the majority of dialogue which was GREAT! Last night, I went to a party with my host brother. it was on the complete other side of town and we had to go over 20 stops with the subway! But it wasn't too bad because a bunch of his friends were there and we just chatte din German the whole time and they asked a lot of question and one of the girls was in Oregon for a month! The party was pretty cool- it was a really remote house in north-west Berlin with like 70 or so people. Like all parties are, it was a little awkward at first (I'm totally used to awkward situations now, it doesn't really bother me the least bit). I didn't wan't to be hanging on to my brother Max the whole time, so I just kind of mingled, and a lot of his friends recognized me from other parties, so we all started to talk, and it was great because I spoke in german the entire time and recieved a lot of compliments about how my German had improved . A lot of times people asked me if I understood what they were talking about or if the talked really fast if I could understand, and suprisingly I answered their questions without hesitation. I COULD understand what they were saying, and I COULD respond. It was really really really encouraging. So yeah- it was a really fun night!!!
I probably should study for my Advanced French final which is on Tuesday. That should be interesting!
