The Importance of Pronunciation

Today as i sat in a Cafe drinking wine with my buddy, Nick, we started to talk about the wine we were drinking and then all things wine like. Remember my post about Sekt? A sparkling German wine, if you don't pronounce it properly it can lead to awkward situations:

Me: This is really good, better than Sekt. When was the last time you had Sekt?
Nick: (stammers and blushes) uhhh...excuse me? Is that really something we need to talk about right now?
Me: huh?

It's a bit tough to speak Denglish. If you're not paying attention, the german words take you a bit by surprise and you don't hear them properly. Think about it like this- Sekt is pronounced with a Z, making it basically Zekt. Now, trying saying it again- saying the S as an S, in my lazy North American accent. I think we all know why Nick was a bit embarassed. And yes- it was awkward and strangely funny...

Fall

As i rode my bike home today along the bike path, i noticed that fall seems to have struck the Ahr Valley with a vengence. Then i got to thinking- if Spring has sprung, can one say that Fall has fallen? I mean, i suppose it's grammatically ok, but it sounds a bit off. i started thinking maybe it was just a matter of finding a synonym for fallen. Here is what Thesaurus.com pulled up:

1 thesaurus results for: fallen
Main Entry: fallen
Part of Speech: adjective
Synonyms: dead, debased, degraded, deposed, depreciated, disgraced, dropped, immoral, lost, prostrate, shamed, sinful, slain

I think i may have maybe not done this search using the right word. Because, as sure as i am that no one really says "Fall has fallen", i am even more sure that no one would ever say "Fall has depreciated" or "Fall has dropped". Maybe i should hit the drawing board again here. There seems to be some fundamental flaws in my thought process on this one...

The only time hearing "I don't want you" will brighten your day

This morning i taught a half baked lesson i had cobbled together on Canadian history. it started with the Vikings and ended 'round about 1885 with the trans-continental railroad. So, yeah, a bit skewed maybe- seeing as i may have missed a hundred years or so after Confederation, but it went over really well with my grade sixes :) They liked reading a challenging piece and they had a lot of questions. It was the first class that i had today and it really set a positive tone for the day.

Also setting a positive tone was when the teacher of my last class told me she didn't want me today :) They were watching some sort of random/weird DVD and i would have just sat there anyway, so i totally got to peace out early. I think this will officially be the only time ever that "i don't want you" will make someone's day- cause it sure made mine :D

Can't Touch This!

I would just like to point out that the radio station i listen to here, BIG FM, prides itself on playing today's hotest new music. 20 minutes ago they played MC Hammer. i am glad they have kept up with the times.

His, his, his music hits me so hard.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcNUx0-XEfw

He was pretty good live too. Thank you River Cree :)

Sekt

Basically a german sparkling wine, it is definately the quickest buzz i have ever found. A glass of the stuff the Family drinks can make you tispy. 2 glasses can make you cut. keep this in mind.

That is all.

No seriously- what is it?

Remember the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where Ian's mom brought a Bundt cake to the Portokalos Family BBQ and Toula's mom had no idea WTH it was??? ok, well, i have a "WTH is that" as well. But, sorry to disappoint you all- it is not food. It is, in fact, an installation in my bathroom. And at least twice everyday for the past month i have looked at it and thought "no, seriously- what IS it?"



Plus, i can't just ask- what if the answer turns out to be something seriously simple and i look like a tard. Or what if the Family asks why haven't i been using it? Or maybe it's cause my bathroom when i was growing up was simple and all-canadian? I dunno. but everyday i wonder a little bit- wtf is it??? i think it is maybe the weird position of the faucet that confuses me the most. seriously. i have ideas, but i would appreciate it if someone i don't have to live with for the next 8 months could maybe tell me what its function is. And yes Kim, thanks- i get that the one on the left is the toilet ;)

750 g of Awesome

So today is definately all about the food. i made another trip to the Aldi on my way to my weekly meeting with the HOTT guy processing my visa. to make a long story short- basically it's taken about 3 weeks to get it all together (thus, 3 seperate visits *sigh*) So, in Aldi i came across Zimt Chips. ok, cinnamon, i can do that- beats the hell out of the boring ass cornflakes the Family eats for breakfast. So i get home, whip 'em out for snackies and am definately pleasantly surprised. 750 g of Cinnamon Toast Crunch- aka all that is awesome in one happy little box. I have to admit though, that judging a ceral by its box can be risky business, but the box made it look like healthy, hippie cereal. Plus, like all things at Aldi, it was cheap- so definately if it was terrible, i could afford not to eat it.

I like Quark

Indeed. it is tasty. it has kind of a weird consistency- somewhere between sour cream and cottage cheese. it tastes fantastic when mixed with jam. You can also buy quark like this:

where it comes whipped and mixed with fruit. nice. also very tasty.

To actually figure out what quark is, i have included this link to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_cheese

Look Ma- I Kauf'd a Handy!

After nearly a month of being out of touch with almost everyone, i finally bought a cell out of sheer desperation. I had gone and looked around at phones and plans earlier this month, but i was mostly just shopping around, trying to find a company that wouldn't hose me as badly as Bell had back in Canada. Pretty much, no one will do a contract for under 2 years, so it was all about the prepaid. I don't mind prepaid- but i find that i always talk too much on the phone so a prepaid can end up being just as expensive as a contract.

Anyway, today i had had enough. i decided that i was going to go get a handy and do it as simply as possible. The first store i went into had only one really ugly-ass prepaid phone. This, in a country where your handy is a fashion accessory and not just a phone, was seriously unacceptable. So i totally fobbed the guy off and told him i needed to think about it. Ha! What was there to think about??? it was a wicked ugly, wicked expensive phone. it was 59 Euro, for a phone without even a camera. ridiculous.

I wandered down the street a bit and came to another Handy store. I went in, asked the guy for a non-expensive, non-ugly phone that was kinda decent. I then paid 30 Euro for a semi-decent phone and another 25 Euro in talk time. It still stuns me that this cost less than JUST the phone at the first place. Then the guy behind the counter even added the pre-paid time for me :)

Satisfied, i wandered out of the store only to take 5 steps and realize i had no idea what my phone # was. ok- turn promptly back around and go talk to the guy who already has his coat 0n and is about to close the store for lunch. As he is showing me what the # is, i realize i haven't seen a charger in the box. a car charger yes- but i don't have a car here, so it's a bit not helpful. It took the poor guy 10 minutes to find the charger for the phone, mostly just because it was sitting on the counter from when he opened the box. nice. so finally everything in order.

And because sometimes i actually manage to be crafty and all plan-y like, i had participated in a class this morning that was doing a comparison on the differences between England and Germany (they just came back from a class trip to the UK). One of the things that came up was the phone booths, leading to a conversation about how phone numbers are different in the UK and Germany. not only did i manage to get the kids to explain the setup of German phone #s, i also got them to explain how to dial local and long distance. it was nice. i have been so confused about it for so long. Now i know.

Anyway- b/c i know you are ABSOLUTELY DYING to see my semi-decent Handy: I also took pics of it next to my North American cell, just so you can see how weirdly small my new phone is. It actually reminds me a bit of Derek Zoolander's itty-bitty high fashion model cell phone in Zoolander.

Things you should NEVER do to Chocolate

While watching Chocolat, did anyone wonder what the Chili that was mixed in with all that chocolate actually tasted like? i have to admit that i was curious. chocolate is such a tasty treat and chilis are spicy and not usually synonymous with dessert.

Then, today as i wandered down the aisles of my favorite store (aka- the drugstore where i pay through the nose but can usually find what i need), i came across my chance. On sale, was a bunch of Lindt chocolate- a variety of which just happened to be Mexican Chili Dark Chocolate. Ok- a golden opportunity if you will.

ARGH. it was not pleasant. Imagine if you will: your mom has just made some of her world famous, prefectly seasoned chili...then just as you are about to eat it, she comes up and squirts some chocolate sauce into your bowl. Yeah- it was kinda like that. My chocolate bar tasted more like chili and less like chocolate* Plus, there was definately the painful "i just ate a whole chili" afterburn.

I think whoever wrote the script for Chocolat was a big fat liar. Chili Chocolate was not tasty at all.

*breathe, Manda, breathe!!! i know it's a bit of a shock that any chocolate could be that terrible, but it was, i swear.

5 Vital Things

There are 5 things that one must know to survive as a teaching asisstent in Germany:

1. NEVER TAKE THE NOON TRAIN HOME. Taking the noon train will ensure that the train will be crowded with screaming, pushing and smelly youngsters-who will all want to say hi to you as they stampede past. *note - all the adults on the train then looked accusingly at me- like it is my fault they are little hellions???* Not a great idea ever, less so when tired.

2. LAUNDRY IS A PAIN IN THE ASS- AVOID IT. 'nuff said- I guarantee YOU won't be the smelly one on the train (see #1)

3. ENGLISH GRAMMER SUCKS TO LEARN and it is even harder to teach. Gird your loins.

4. DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND? This is a question i am repeatedly asked by the students. But, they are not asking if you have any friends- they want to know if you have a boy/girl friend. In german friend means specifically a bf/ gf. So when talking about a friend who is just a friend, one needs to say " a friend of mine"

5. ALWAYS TELL YOUR STUDENTS YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME. They will be hesitant to call you something as informal as just your first name. So they will come up with their own variations to try and make addressing you as polite to their standards as possible. Thus, despite repeatedly telling them that it's just Emily, i am still frequently called Frau Emily or, failing to remember my first name, Frau Kanada. Step aside Captain America, there's a new superhero in town.

I just wonder what my super power will be- cause it sure isn't the ability to teach grammer...

Laundry Day

There is nothing in this world that compares to the smell of freshly washed laundry *sigh* A symbol of all that is hygenic and good in this world to be sure. Except that i am using the family's laundry soap and i don't like how it smells- it's really scent-y. But aside from that, i still really enjoy doing laundry.

It's a bit different here though. A typical wash cycle lasts a bit over an hour. The machine uses very little water, but what it does use, it uses quite effectively. It's nice, my clothes are cleaner than the day i buy them every time they get washed (which i mean if you think about it- how many people tried on the clothes you bought before you bought them? so maybe it doesn't really take much for the clothes to be cleaner than the day you bought them? sorry- a total tangent there) Anyway- so the machine takes an hour to wash your clothes. Then because the Family doesn't have a drier i have to hang them up. Which i don't really mind but it does rain here a lot, so it is a bit of a gamble to dry them. Hang them up outside and potentially have them rained on, or hang them up inside, where they are safe from rain but your jeans will take a full three days to dry.

So imagine the chaos and confusion today. Saturday is usually a good day for any family to do laundry. Except today, you have at least one load from 3 people (so over 3 hours washing time), plus fighting for space on both the indoor and outdoor clothes lines... things could get ugly :D lol.

The cutest little soup i ever saw :)

Wandering down the aisle at Aldi yesterday, looking for a few easy foods to cook when the family isn't here to cook for me, i stumbled across a box of soup. High in sodium, low in nutrition, all that is tasty :) Plus it was only 0.35 Euro. i figured it had a couple packages in it. whatever, it was a good deal.

As i am unpacking my newly purchased foodstuffs, i decided to maybe have some soup for supper. so i opened the box and low and behold- not just 2 packs, but four.

Now, i am sure you are all wondering why this necessitated a post- so here we go- inside the box, in four adorable SQUARE packages were the soup portions. Plus each soup packet, instead of having loose flavoring powder, had a little cylindrical chunk of flavouring- you could decide for yourself how much you wanted! It was so cute that i had to take pictures before i could make any.

The New Power Suit

While perusing my host sister's fashion magazine, i came across this gem:



Now, correct me if i am wrong, but this seems like something i could find back home straight out of Lammles. Damn it, i knew i should have brought nothing but wranglers and button ups!


However, would anyone like to guess what magazine this actually came from? Try this:Who knew? i could have been seriously in style this season just by bringing clothes i already had.

Feeling Frustrated

Ladies and Gentlemen, for your reading pleasure: another vent.

My German does not hold up well in stressful situations. The stress hits and i lose my ability to form a sentence, especially when it is important or expensive.

So to the "lady" at the Reisenzentrum- I am not talking like an idiot because i am stupid. I am talking like an idiot because the train pass i am trying to buy is expensive and i don't have all the necessary vocabulary to buy it using fabulous German. I am stressed and i want it done right. So please, go patronize someone else. Oh, and when i politely point out that you have spelled my name wrong, don't give me the look of death. Please just change it. Thank you.

I don't know how people function in countries where they don't speak the language. I have trouble ordering anything more complex than a pizza and a beer- and i can speak passable German. Frick. Also, i would kill for a Walmart- just so there was a store i knew that could supply all my basic needs.