Day 14: Hump Day!

Today was a very ordinary day. We had breakfast in the Mensa (cafeteria) and then we had 4.5 hours of class, or rather about 4 hours of class with one 30 minute break and one 10 minute break.  Seriously, the brain can only soak up so much in a second language. How can some people (not here in Schwäbisch Hall) take all day language classes? That would be migraine inducing for sure.

Breakfast of champions?!

In Amelia's class today, dative prepositions were reviewed. If you don't know what dative means don't stress over it, it's a language thing [cases] we don't really have in English.  In German case is very important to how the grammar works. Case, along with gender, determines the endings of articles and other article-like words [there's a whole system for that] as well as adjectives [another system]. Anyhow, here's a video [on my Facebook page]of Karin reminding us one method for remembering the most common dative prepositions.

https://www.facebook.com/aabaldwin/videos/10207341153115693/

And another:

https://www.facebook.com/aabaldwin/videos/vb.1491823027/10207350789476596/

Karin is very lively in class, ja?

After class Karin gave Amelia suggestions for reading material, both a book appropriate for her reading ability (pretty darn easy!) and a magazine.

Lunch in the Mensa today was chicken, Schwabian noodles, and veggies. It was not so exciting.

It was so-so.

After lunch we went home for a bit to study and for Andy to do a load of laundry in the dorm laundry.    After some time, Amelia went back to the Goethe Institute to see if the book Karin suggested is available in the Mediothek. Karin suggested Amelia seek assistance there from Frau Pfepperkorn.  Frau Pfefferkorn, however, was busy for 40 minutes so Amelia eventually went looking for the book herself (the library is pretty small so this isn't as big a job as it sounds) and she miraculously found it but she couldn't check it out of the library because Frau Pfefferkorn was still busy elsewhere. So, she went back home and studied with Andy for a while. After the laundry was finished, we both went back to the Mediothek and studied for a while. Amelia checked out the book, which is a simplified version of Goethe's novel Werther.

Then, we wandered down to Osiander, the book store, to seek some grammar books that have been suggested. Osiander has been in business since 1596. Yes, 1596. How cool is that? We found one copy of a grammar workbook we wanted and managed to order another copy which will arrive on Friday.

Here is one of our favorite Tom Clancy novels auf Deutsch.

We went home for more study (Andy has a test in the morning!) and then wandered down the street looking for supper.

This guy went by. We'd seen him earlier. This cycling kit (shorts and jersey) are made to look like lederhosen! Andy needs a set of kit like this!

Here's a cloudy evening view south on Gelbinger Gasse.

And north, you can see how unique every home is and some are clearly not level or square.

We had pizza at Pulcinella and just sat a long while and chatted. Perhaps next time we'll try something from the past menu. We've had pizza, calzones, entrees with chicken and pork, and steaks here. It's all fantastic. We haven't yet tried any pasta dishes or soups, though.  Eventually we will!

In Europe, waiters are paid a living wage and tipping is not expected. Thus, the waiter isn't trying to run you off so he can seat someone else at your table. And, in fact, you can keep the table pretty much as long as you want. We still haven't perfected the method of letting the waiter know when we are ready for the check so we often end up sitting quite a while but it's nice.

Andy still has a bit of a cold, but otherwise we are healthy and doing pretty well. Our brains are a bit tired, for sure, with all the Deutsch learning, but it's all good.