Hmmmm...

A curious thing appears to be happening, the more I am practicing my German and speaking to other people around the town and the dorm, who do not speak English very well, the worse my English is becoming. I don't think I have ever noticed this before but I find myself having to consciously go back and add words to written sentences where I know they belong, and would normally have placed them. Pronouns and other simple words are beginning to disappear from my writing, even when they are obviously needed. Verbs are no longer being conjugated properly but used only in the present tense.
I have always prided myself on being able to write in well formed intelligible sentences, and this is a skill I am not willing to lose. Hopefully with conscious effort I will be able to regain and keep the skill I pride myself on doing unconsciously.

PS: I talked to another girl here and she said she has noticed the same thing is occurring in her writing when she is sending emails home. I guess that is a positive thing that it is not only effecting me, but if anyone has tricks on how not to let a new language by full immersion mess up your old languages, please drop me a comment.

The Wrong Bus

So today I had a bit of an adventure, a new girl arrived in the house yesterday ad she needed to buy a train ticket to go to berlin for the weekend, so we took the bus to the train staition. We made it there fine and got her tickets without a problem, then when we came out of the bus station we saw our bus number, but did not check that it was heading back in the right direction, and we got on the right bus in the wrong direction. Luckily we noticed it quickly and got off at the next stop. Then we had to walk quiet a ways back to the nearest stop for a bus going the right direction because the bus had gone some distance before it actually stopped so we could get off. If we had stayed on much longer I have no clue where we would have been because we were headed south-east out of the city, and we live in the north-east area of the city. But now all is well and we made it back to the dorm, a few hours later then expected, luckily we had nothing else to do today...

PS: I checked on bicycles and the cost is a bit higher then I can afford so I guess it is the bus & trolley for the restof my journey here.

painful day

Well, do not think I will get much travel done in the next few days, after 2 trips to town today my right ankle has swollen to double it's size. I even tried to by new shoes to see if that would help any, they did take away some of the foot pain, but nothing is relieving te ankle pain. I think I am going to head to bed early and elevate it best I can...then on wednesday I will look into buying a bicycle, all the local ride them instead of walking, and I can see why!!!

Nothing is Open

Well today is Sunday, and you guessed it nothing is open. Well there are a few tiny shops open, like the little florist & fruit stand was open, as are the restaurants. So i decided to take a walk today, I walked up a hill behind my house and around and ended up down towards downtown, at the top of the hill i was able to get a picture from between 2 of the houses of some rooftops on this side of town, it just looked so pretty and colorful.
When I reached downtown, of course nothing but the florist/fruit stand was open so I decided to buy an apple and sit down in the park
along the Neckar and enjoy it. Then on the way back I smelled the Chinese Restaurant which was just opening it's doors for lunch so I decided to grab some take out for later, and I hate to say it but the guy here, in the middle of Germany, spoke English better then the guys running the Chinese restaurant back in the States!!! The food was pretty good too, except they put take out soup, in the same tin tray with cardboard cover containers as the regular food, and it leaked all over the inside of the bag, I wonder if he would be upset if next time I bring my own container for the soup?
Oh and if you are interested in seeing a little of what I see, or where I go, I have begun to map places I have found or places I would like to visit on a Google Map. I have also measured some distances on there and according to the distance tool Google provides I am exactly 3964.63 miles from my house at home when I am in my dorm here, not that it really matters. What does matter to me right now is that I am 1.11 miles from my school across town. This unfortunately does not take into account the hills that need to be climbed to reach the building at either end.

Sleep...Finally

Finally I got a full nights sleep last night - my first since I arrived here. I am not sure how I made it downtown and back yesterday on 3 hours sleep. I think I may take a bus to the oldtown today and walk around the market a bit. My ankle is bothering me toomuch to walk there today, it is about 2 miles each way. Once I get downtown it is not a problem it is basically flat around the riverfront area, but walking back to the housing up hill & then up the stairs is really killing my ankle. All the sidewalks slope down towards the street, most likly since cars park half on the sidewalk here. I am sure this is great for drainage when it rains, but it causes your feet to be on weird angles when you walk along them and I keep rolling my right ankle. I did snap some photos yesterday from the bridge when I was walking back home after checking out the cost of some prepaid cell phones.

Midnight Ping Pong

Well actually more like 1am - it all started last night at about midnight when my computer decided it no longer liked the internet, although it was connecting with very good signal strength, none of my programs would connect. Everyone was out but one other student on the floor and hers was working so she decided to hep me see if I was missing something... After a few tries to get things going we decided to take a break and go for a walk, in the dark, around this giant old house that houses classrooms and dorms. First we walked around the outside then we decided to follow the various staircases to see where they lead and check out some of the classrooms. One of them is in this neat little room with wood paneled walls, it appears to have once been a wine cellar possibly. After a few trips up and down the various staircases I think we found 3 ways to the laundry room, and at about 1am we stumbled on a beat up old ping pong table in the basement and decided to play ping pong for a while. I learned something too...I am bad at ping pong. We got back to our floor about 2am and I am not sure what I did but somehow I got my web to work again and I headed to bed at 2:30am..for another sleepless night.

Allergies

Ok, so I think I figured out why I have not been feeling well these past few days, there is a MASSIVE pine tree sitting outside in the courtyard right by my room, the shot to the left is a picture from the 2nd floor ladies washroom, It is very overcast outside so it is kind of hard to get a decent shot...and the washroom is the only place I was able to find that allowed me to see the top of it!! The shot to the right is from the same window looking straigh out into the courtyardyou can see just how big it really is!!
The trunk is at least 2 feet in diameter maybe 3, it is obviously quite old. So it maks me really glad I brought my allergy meds, and wishing I had more, because I don't think I ave enough to last me through this whole trip...Hopefully now that i figured it out I will start feeling better and I will be able to get some travelling in before I go home.

still jetlagged

ok today is my 3rd day here I still cannot get my body adjusted to the time change - I went to bed at 11pm last night and woke up at 3 am and was up until 6am, then fell asleep again until 10 am. all day I am just exhausted, and although I constantly feel hungry I cant seem to eat more then 2 bites without feeling full. I really wanted to travel this weekend but I do not think that will happen with me feeling like this. I barely have the energy to get out of bed right now let alone drag myself down the 4 stories to the street and walk anywhere, then back up the stairs. today I did manage to drag myself to the food store and got some food, i am filling my tiny little fridge now a little at a time so I will have something more then bananas, corn flakes and turkey sandwiches. At first I found it odd that they only have refrigerators and no freezer, but after lugging groceries up the stairs a few times with only a days worth of food, I cannot imagine carrying a week or months worth up here at a time like I would do at home!!

A Birthday Party

I met several more people today and had a chance to get out of the dorm for a bit to help Alina (left) celebrate her birthday with Pimm's & Cake at the park along the Neckar. I had fun, but at the same time it was also sad for me, because most of the people I have met will be leaving on Saturday.
Classes at this school start every Monday with people staying from 2 weeks up to 1 year, and the students come from all over. Normally students arrive the day before thier classes start on saturday and leave on Saturday when their classes end. Because of misinformation I arrived about 2 weeks early so I will take some time to relax and maybe travel a bit before my classes start (once i get over this jetlag).
Most of the students here in the dorm speak English, some speak 3 or 4 languages. All of the students on this floor are here to study German at the language school, although a few admit to me that they have not used it outside of the school, because they have been able to use English in most places with ease. The park along the river is quiet nice, there were a lot of people out enjoying the sun in the late afternoon. There were children playing soccer, and dogs catching balls, even a few people with frisbees. Maybe this will be a good place to study outside of my closet-sized dorm room...

- For those who are not familiar with Pimm's it is sweet alcoholic beverage, served mixed with fruit & sprite (or lemonade as they call it here), after finishing your drink you can savor the flavor even longer wit the strawberries & bananas which by now are fully saturated with the drink.

Made it to Germany

Hello everyone - I'm Here!! I made it to Germany. I will be posting some pictures soon (as soon as I unpack the camera) I arrived this morning at 7am and it is now about midnight here. I walked to down town today a little over a mile and found the school I will be attending it is nice, small compared to Stockton. My dorm room is in the 3rd/4th floor of a big old house on top of a steep hill, I lost count of the number of steps to get here - the room is nice but tiny, i think my one suitcase is bigger, but I wanted a single so I expected it to be small. I have met a few people staying here in the dorm, one was nice and showed me around and where the laundry was which is nice, but they are all leaving on Saturday when their summer course ends so I will be virtually lone here for a week, although they told me there are a few students staying for fall semester from summer. everyone on this floor attends the same school as me across town, and they are from all over Europe. I think i will go back to bed now and think about my mission for tomorrow - to buy a digital clock with an alarm - there are no clocks in this place!!!

1 Week

Ok so i have now recieved all of the information i need regarding housing and such. My bags are pretty much packed with the exception of my meds which i cant get until the 15th because my insurance isn't valid until then.

2 weeks

Time is beginning to get closer, I leave in 2 weeks, and I am still having difficulty reaching the people regarding my housing. I have not recieved anything about housing even though it says i should recieve it several weeks before I arrive, and I need to contact the Airport shuttle service at least 1 week before I arrive, however I cannot contact them because I do not know where to have them take me!! just to make it better, my contact person in the US, is out of his office until the 14th...and the contact person in Germany has not returned an email I sent over a week ago - so I am sending another one - if i do not hear back soon I will have to wake up nice and early to call Germany since they are an hour ahead - this hurry up and wait thing is getting really old really fast...