So, it was a bit of a hard week. My grandfather passed away last Friday and I wish I could go to the States for his funeral, but I realize that he wouldn't have wanted me to. So I will say rest in peace Humpapa, and I hope you enjoy watching my exchange year from above :)
As for other things, this week week has been rather uninteresting, although I recieved a letter from my friend Audrey and a care package from my Mommy yesterday. I still haven't opened the package...I will open it later today though!
Last week and this week I had Rotary meetings. I will talk about the one that was yesterday. I was picked up at my house by a nice Rotary couple and they brought me to the meeting, but we didn't sit together because their table was full. I was all alone (because my fellow exchange student Matti wasn't there). I ended up sitting across from the president. That is when things got interesting. We held a conversation pretty much entirely in German for the majority of the meeting where we could talk! I found this to be extremely fantastic because I was speaking with the President of the club that payed for my Deutschlandreise coming up, and the club who found my host family for me! My German of course wasn't perfect, but I am glad I only had to revert to English twice in the conversation; I have come a long way from when I arrived nearly 2 months ago.
Speaking of two months, it is totally a lie, you DO NOT understand just about everything in two months. Whoever came up with that number is crazy. I can understand about 90% of what is said directly to me and about 50% of what is said in groups and still barely anything in classes such as Religion. WHERE in the world did they get that number....exchange students reading this please comment on how much you can understand and speak after being in your host country for two months. My speaking is worse than my understanding, I can hear and understand but I don't really know all of the words and the word order. I am now hoping that I can speak really good German by 5-6 months because I believe the magical three month mark will be similar to the magical 2 month mark....
Oh and I must tell you about this wonderful thing that happened today. I was walking out of the office and I eavesdropped on a conversation. Then I was confused because the words sounded really strange and un-German-like. These two young women were speaking English with an American accent!! I believe they were either basketball players or basketball players' wives because my city has a giant Basketball team with many foreign players.I felt the need to tell you this story, because I haven't eavesdropped on a conversation for 2 months....at least not one that I understood. When I am in a public area and bored I find that I will listen to those around me speaking mindless conversations that will be forgotten the next day, but that is rather difficult when I can't understand all of what they are saying. So therefore I enjoyed my small English encounter today.
More will be coming in a week or two, because my exciting weeks begin tomorrow where I will travel with some students from The Czech Repiblic to Bremen!
Tschuess!!!
Kelsey
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