For those who are aware of Amelia's insomnia troubles, she stayed in bed for seven hours this time, which is progress, and was awakened only five or six times, which is also progress. So, definitely more sleep than the last couple of nights.
It's now 7:30 and time to hunt down breakfast. The torture... um... language school begins at 8:30. We will report back in the evening, hopefully.
First we had breakfast in the Mensa. It included lots of bread options, cereal, orange juice, cheeses and deli meats, and a small selections of fruit and veggies. We split a Laugen roll. Mmmmm!
Then, off to the first day of class assembly. Here we go...
The Hospitalsaal (assembly room) is ornate!
Fancy ceiling!
In the back is an organ and a balcony covers the back and one side.
The leader (actually she is not first in charge, but he is on vacation) introduced the city and the Goethe Institut, then all the workers introduced themselves briefly. The leader also told us that these students represent 35 nationalities. Here are most of them (typing on the phone in one language while listening to another language is haaaaaard) in rough order from least number of students to most:
Albania, Indonesia, Ireland, Canada, Columbia, Nigeria, Norway,Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Zambia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Serbia, Turkey, China, Cameroon, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Venezuela, UK, Brazil, France, S Korea, Iran, Spain, India, Thailand, Italy, and USA. Then each teacher came forward and called the names of his or her students and took them away to a classroom.
We are not in the same class, but they are similar with only nine students and one female teacher. The students are from all over the world and from all walks of life. We began in tables of three. Amelia was first seated with an American carpenter and a Turkish imam. Later we worked in pairs and Amelia was paired with a Korean nurse. The teacher took care to separate the people of similar nationalities when grouping us and to separate the married couple (a couple of mathematicians from India).
At first it was overwhelming but after some minutes the clear speaking of the teacher became easier to understand. Each class has students who are at roughly the same level of German knowledge but, of course, we all vary in the details.
Andy's class includes people from Kosovo, Russia, Iran, Italy, Saudi Arabia, India, South Korea. Andy thought his class was a bit rudimentary but it is only the first day. Both our classes did getting acquainted exercises, of course.
At 10am, we had a 30 minute coffee break. Since we don't drink coffee, we just had some water. We stood around in the courtyard (and others in the Mensa) and talked in rudimentary German to whomever wandered up. The two middle aged American men in Amelia's class introduced themselves to us. One is from Hawaii and the other is from Seattle. It was clear who was completely new because we all looked a bit stunned from the information overload.
In class we did various exercises, with lots of speaking and listening and some writing as well, in various sized groups and also alone. In Amelia's class, each student delivered a short presentation introducing another student he or she had interviewed. It was interesting. The teacher said Amelia spoke well and was surprised how fast. But, really, it was only introducing someone using pretty bland sentences and no one was getting to worried about grammar perfection or pronunciation perfection, of course. The presentation was something like this:
Ich heiße Amelia. Heute stelle ich Ihnen auch meine neue Kollegin vor: Olivia. Sie kommt aus Süd Korea. Sie is eine Krankenschwester. Sie is vorhierartet. Sie macht gern Kuchen und musichören und fernsehen. Ihre Lieblings Farben sind weiß und schwarz. Das is alles.
My name is Amelia. Today I will introduce my new new colleague, Oliva. She comes from South Korea. She is a nurse. She is married. She enjoyed cooking, listening to music, and watching television. Her favorite colors are white and black. That is all.
Not too exciting, eh? We did further exercises writing about ourselves (after speaking about someone else) and so forth. We had discussions about how people like to take their coffee and what else they like to drink, post coffee break, and lots of random things.
Around noon we had a 10 minute break and we spoke briefly in the hallway. Our classes are on opposite ends of the building (classrooms are everywhere). Amelia's class is on the top floor so every break means hiking down 75 uneven twisty steps and then back up again. She only stumbled once today...
Amelia's teacher says if she keeps a diary auf Deutsch the teacher will give her writing a quick correction each day. She is going to try this if she can find time and energy!
Andy's teacher gave homework in verb conjugation (he's working on it right now just before bed) and Amelia's mentioned only briefly a small test on warum v. was für which is basically Why? v. What for? Since we did not discuss this in class today, it's a bit intimidating.
Here is Amelia's teacher, Karin. The point of the photo is really the cool whiteboard that slides up and down and stops at any height and then folds open to reveal more while board (this is the closed position).
At 1pm we had lunch in the Mensa. The options were chicken and potatoes with some sort of dressing (not gravy) or a vegetarian pasta. We had the chicken, which was lovely. Salads, apples, and bread were also provided.
Here is a panoramic photo of the Mensa.
We visited a stationary store after class to buy Amelia a diary and some erasable pens. Olivia had one and it was so nice. Amelia hates writing with pencil but felt she must be able to erase frequently (she was right about that!). Then, we sought the post office but still haven't found it. We went home and did a bit of decompressing and some study and then Amelia passed out for an hour (she fell asleep while writing at the desk!) while Andy wrestled with figuring out the washer and dryer and washed a load of laundry. The sign that says,"Please open the window when using the dryer" is not a suggestion. If the window is not open, the dryer will not work.
In the evening we walked up the street a short way for dinner. Here are two views of the street in either direction from just north of our apartment building. This one is looking north. The weather was perfect.
This one is looking South. Our apartment building is just out of view beyond the Josenturm (tower).
We returned to the Italian restaurant and had a lovely dinner with salad and super yummy bread.
As well as steaks. Andy's was a rumpsteak with roasted onions and pasta stuffed with pear and ricotta.
Amelia's was a filet with more pasta stuffed with pear and ricotta and a gorgonzola herb creme sauce.
After a slow enjoyable dinner with a chat to our near neighbor and visiting with some nice dogs, we rode a loop through the innerstadt (city center) on our bikes and stopped for a photo on one of the bridges over the river Kocher (Neue Straße). South and west:
West and north:
We have had a good day. Amelia needed that nap, for sure. She's still having lots of odd sore muscles and such (and found some magnesium and calcium supplements and what not to try to curb it). Tomorrow we have classes again, then we will seek an ATM and the post office. Thursday is a holiday so we will not have classes then.
Gute Nacht!
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