Needless to say, it rained today. It was the second day of classes at the Hermann-Hesse Kolleg, which, for those of you who don't know, is an intensive language school for foreigners that want to live/work/study in Germany. My class has two teachers, Susan and Anjelika, who switch off with Susan teaching Monday and Wed-Fri, and Anjelika only on Tuesdays. Yesterday Susan said something that I thought was really interesting, which is that once you have the basics of grammar down, it's not important any more. She said "Wir sprechen jetzt und Grammatik kommt später!" meaning "We speak first and grammar comes later" which makes a weird kind of sense. The best way to learn is to do. And trust me, we're doing.
My days at Der Goldener-Adler Hotel follow a pretty regular schedule;
-Wake up at 8:00am and shower
-Breakfast at 8:30am. I really like German breakfast, we have a variety of rolls with butter, or marmalade, cheese, meat (for the omnivores). There's also yogurt, soft-boiled eggs, coffee, tea, orange juice. It's really quite tasty.
-9:00am I leave for classes. The HHK is maybe 20 feet from where I live.
-From 9:00am to 10:30am we have class
-From 10:30am to 11:00am is a break
-More class from 11:00am to 12:30pm. And on Wednesday and Friday, that's when we finish school, but on Mon, Tues, Thurs we have an hour break for lunch and then
-Class from 1:00pm to 3:00pm when school ends.
-After school, I usually hang out with the Americans for a while until I head back home.
-Dinner is usually around 5:30 or 6:00, except on Wednesday, when the restaurant on the first floor isn't open, then we eat a little later and with all of the host-family present.
-After dinner we sit and talk for an hour or so, which is really interesting, because it isn't something I'm used to, and also, there are several
other students staying at the hotel to study in or around Horb.
-Then Bed. at like... 9:30pm or 10:00pm. I feel like my mother! I haven't been to bed this early in a VERY long time!!
Before I forget, I took some pictures of the view from my window, that I thought would be nice to show.
(Horb to the left of me)
(And Horb to the Right)
(Here I am, with Horb in the middle too)
So. Also living in the Hotel is Wu from China and Nuriko from Japan. Wu is studying German at HHK, and Nuriko studied there a while ago, then she did a Praktikum in Düsseldorf, and is now back in Horb but studying English in Tübingen.
Basically we always have a lot to talk about at dinner.
It sounds like Peter and Eva host students pretty much year round, mostly from China, Michigan, California and occasionally Japan.
It's pretty cool.
Tomorrow, we're taking a group excursion to Baden Baden with the HHK, which should be pretty exciting, and picture-worthy. Hopefully it won't rain again, (Haltet ihr die Daumen drück!)
I will try to post again soon!
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FOREIGNER ANECDOTE OF THE DAY:
So, this morning at breakfast, I'm pretty sure Wu from China had a soft-boiled egg, for the simple purpose of showing me that I was eating them wrong.
The first morning I grabbed one, thinking it was a hard-boiled egg. So I peeled it like it were a hard-boiled egg. It worked fine the first morning, but today when I tried it, it was a giant mess. Yoke all over my plate, shells in my hair, I looked pretty savage. So Wu, helpful as he is, went and got one, used his knife to cut off just the top of the egg, and proceeded to eat the rest with a teeny spoon that, up until this point, I'd been using to stir my coffee.
Fantastic.
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