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On Sunday evening we went out to eat. We went to a pizza place. I thought that it would be cheaper for a big family, to order a few pizzas and share it, but apparently that's not normal, at least not at this restaurant. We all ordered personal pan pizzas, but I got the small and it was at least 10 inches in diameter. It could've been 12, and it's a personal pizza. The crust was very thin, so you could actually eat a lot. At the end of the meal, all the plates were empty, which is very German. The meal cost 70 Euros total.
I could read most of the menu, since it had things like onions, cheese, tomatoes, things I know. I ordered a pizza that had tomato, cheese, pepperoni, and asparagus. When I got the pizza, I found out that pepperoni in German is not the same thing as pepperoni in English! Pepperoni means jalapeno ;) They were whole jalapenos, though, so I could pick them off. Phillip and Michael ate them. My pizza was very good, though :)
I'm really happy that my computer is working well again. A week ago, it froze up completely (which Macs aren't supposed to do) and I had to shut it down. When I turned it back on, it worked fine. But yesterday the screen was getting unusually dark, so I turned it off again, and it's working like normal. Speaking of appliances, though, some aren't as lucky. I plugged in my alarm clock from home and blew the fuse. It's good that I don't need it. I ride my bike to school, and when I go home it's dark, and bikes have to have lights on them, not just reflector lights but real lights. I couldn't figure out how to turn it on, and today Michael fixed it and showed me how to use it.
In German class on Monday we conjugated verbs for three hours. I'm sure I'm smarter for it, but it was really boring, and pretty frustrating too, since in German they have a lot of prepositions. You really don't know how confusing prepositions are until you try to learn German. I really feel sorry for all the people who try to learn English, because English has a lot of prepositions too. Dora told me that when they decided the world language, the options were German or English. I don't know why those were the options, goodness. I think they decided on world power rather than how easy the language is. I think it should've been Spanish, it's much easier. I helped Johanna with her English homework, which was filling in verbs into already-written paragraphs. If English weren't my first language, I'm not sure how I'd ever have known which tense to put in. And poor Phillip has to memorize an English text, and it's about the most depressing text I've ever heard. It's about the American melting pot, how people go in Scotish or Polish or whatever and come out American. Then there was a whole bit about a black guy who got thrown out a thousand times because "we don't want your black stain." Yikes. And then the guy said something about damn it, and I couldn't believe that that would be in an English textbook, and that they have to memorize it.
Last week Dora and I made jam. It's grape and plum together, and it's really good.
This weekend Elizabeth Mast came to Neustadt. She came with her host-siblings, who were here for a youth conference thing. She came on Friday evening, so I couldn't go to youth group, which made me really sad since I didn't go last week either, but oh well. On Saturday morning we walked around Neustadt, in the shopping part. It was fun, we actually found a bunch of cool stores that I hadn't seen before. Neustadt is actually pretty big. Anyway, there were a couple of yarn stores that I'm going to have to go back to. While she was here, her allergies acted up. I felt really bad for her! I think it's something about Heidehof, though, since my allergies acted up when I first got here too. They're fine now though.
In the evening we went to the biggest Winefestival in the world, in Bad Durkheim. Elizabeth, Paul, and I went with Laura, her sister, a friend, and their exchange student from Poland, Camille, which is a guy's name. I thought it was cool, in our group of seven, their were two Americans, someone from Poland, someone from France, and two Germans. Camille could speak English well, but his German isn't very good. He talked to Paul in English, which is actually too bad for Paul, because he knows only a little English, and his German is much better than his English. At the train station, they were talking in German, and the guy that was with us told us that they could switch to English, if we wanted. I thought that was pretty amazing, that they're willing to switch to English; in the states, I don't think anyone would be overly willing to speak in a different language. The festival was pretty cool, of course there is a lot of wine, but it also had fair-type rides and games. It was crazy, because everything was on a huge scale. I'll put my pictures up sometime. If you buy wine, you pay a 2 Euro deposit on the glass, that they give you back when you return the glass. I thought that was interesting, if this was in the states, they'd serve it in something you can throw away. The legal drinking age here is 16, but at both winefests that I've been to (the first was with the youth group, in Lachen) someone has warned us about not drinking too much. I thought it was notable; even though drinking is legal, they are very careful about it.
I think I mentioned before that I haven't seen many people smoking. There were a lot of people smoking at the winefest. There were also a lot of people with dreads, spiky hair, or mohawks.. A lot of Laura's classmates were there, so it was mildly boring for me and Elizabeth, because we didn't know anyone. There were so many people there, though, walking through the streets was really difficult, you literally had to push your way through.
On the way back to the train station, Laura told me about the way that German school system works. There are three different kinds of high schools in Germany, the names of which I can't quite remember, but the most common, and the one goes for 13 years, is Gymnasium. At the end of Gymnasium, you must take Abitur, which is like an exit exam, and you can get into university. Right now, Laura is in Gymnasium and is taking nine subjects. She said you could take up to 12 subjects, but then you'd be in school from 8:00-5:00. Once you get into the upper grades of Gymnasium, you choose what subjects you will focus on, and these are the subjects that you take the Abitur in. I think that's pretty cool, it's actually preparing them for university, and helping them to decide what to focus on already in high school.
By the time we got to the train, there were so many people waiting that we couldn't get on. We had to wait a half hour for the next train to come. Laura was worried that Dora would be worried about us; Germans can be quite particular about time. She wasn't, though. There were a lot of people making out on the train, it was really creepy.
On Sunday we went to the service that Elizabeth's host-siblings came for. It was a big Mennonite thing, and we went to the teen service. They say a lot of English songs. The service was three hours long though. But on the way home I think I figured out why lights here turn from red to yellow and then to green. When you're driving a stick-shift, it can help you avoid stopping unnecessarily; if you are coming up to a red light and it turns yellow, you know you can just shift down instead of completely stopping. I think that is the reason for the round-a-bouts too; they avoid stopping if you don't need to.
I could read most of the menu, since it had things like onions, cheese, tomatoes, things I know. I ordered a pizza that had tomato, cheese, pepperoni, and asparagus. When I got the pizza, I found out that pepperoni in German is not the same thing as pepperoni in English! Pepperoni means jalapeno ;) They were whole jalapenos, though, so I could pick them off. Phillip and Michael ate them. My pizza was very good, though :)
I'm really happy that my computer is working well again. A week ago, it froze up completely (which Macs aren't supposed to do) and I had to shut it down. When I turned it back on, it worked fine. But yesterday the screen was getting unusually dark, so I turned it off again, and it's working like normal. Speaking of appliances, though, some aren't as lucky. I plugged in my alarm clock from home and blew the fuse. It's good that I don't need it. I ride my bike to school, and when I go home it's dark, and bikes have to have lights on them, not just reflector lights but real lights. I couldn't figure out how to turn it on, and today Michael fixed it and showed me how to use it.
In German class on Monday we conjugated verbs for three hours. I'm sure I'm smarter for it, but it was really boring, and pretty frustrating too, since in German they have a lot of prepositions. You really don't know how confusing prepositions are until you try to learn German. I really feel sorry for all the people who try to learn English, because English has a lot of prepositions too. Dora told me that when they decided the world language, the options were German or English. I don't know why those were the options, goodness. I think they decided on world power rather than how easy the language is. I think it should've been Spanish, it's much easier. I helped Johanna with her English homework, which was filling in verbs into already-written paragraphs. If English weren't my first language, I'm not sure how I'd ever have known which tense to put in. And poor Phillip has to memorize an English text, and it's about the most depressing text I've ever heard. It's about the American melting pot, how people go in Scotish or Polish or whatever and come out American. Then there was a whole bit about a black guy who got thrown out a thousand times because "we don't want your black stain." Yikes. And then the guy said something about damn it, and I couldn't believe that that would be in an English textbook, and that they have to memorize it.
Last week Dora and I made jam. It's grape and plum together, and it's really good.
This weekend Elizabeth Mast came to Neustadt. She came with her host-siblings, who were here for a youth conference thing. She came on Friday evening, so I couldn't go to youth group, which made me really sad since I didn't go last week either, but oh well. On Saturday morning we walked around Neustadt, in the shopping part. It was fun, we actually found a bunch of cool stores that I hadn't seen before. Neustadt is actually pretty big. Anyway, there were a couple of yarn stores that I'm going to have to go back to. While she was here, her allergies acted up. I felt really bad for her! I think it's something about Heidehof, though, since my allergies acted up when I first got here too. They're fine now though.
In the evening we went to the biggest Winefestival in the world, in Bad Durkheim. Elizabeth, Paul, and I went with Laura, her sister, a friend, and their exchange student from Poland, Camille, which is a guy's name. I thought it was cool, in our group of seven, their were two Americans, someone from Poland, someone from France, and two Germans. Camille could speak English well, but his German isn't very good. He talked to Paul in English, which is actually too bad for Paul, because he knows only a little English, and his German is much better than his English. At the train station, they were talking in German, and the guy that was with us told us that they could switch to English, if we wanted. I thought that was pretty amazing, that they're willing to switch to English; in the states, I don't think anyone would be overly willing to speak in a different language. The festival was pretty cool, of course there is a lot of wine, but it also had fair-type rides and games. It was crazy, because everything was on a huge scale. I'll put my pictures up sometime. If you buy wine, you pay a 2 Euro deposit on the glass, that they give you back when you return the glass. I thought that was interesting, if this was in the states, they'd serve it in something you can throw away. The legal drinking age here is 16, but at both winefests that I've been to (the first was with the youth group, in Lachen) someone has warned us about not drinking too much. I thought it was notable; even though drinking is legal, they are very careful about it.
I think I mentioned before that I haven't seen many people smoking. There were a lot of people smoking at the winefest. There were also a lot of people with dreads, spiky hair, or mohawks.. A lot of Laura's classmates were there, so it was mildly boring for me and Elizabeth, because we didn't know anyone. There were so many people there, though, walking through the streets was really difficult, you literally had to push your way through.
On the way back to the train station, Laura told me about the way that German school system works. There are three different kinds of high schools in Germany, the names of which I can't quite remember, but the most common, and the one goes for 13 years, is Gymnasium. At the end of Gymnasium, you must take Abitur, which is like an exit exam, and you can get into university. Right now, Laura is in Gymnasium and is taking nine subjects. She said you could take up to 12 subjects, but then you'd be in school from 8:00-5:00. Once you get into the upper grades of Gymnasium, you choose what subjects you will focus on, and these are the subjects that you take the Abitur in. I think that's pretty cool, it's actually preparing them for university, and helping them to decide what to focus on already in high school.
By the time we got to the train, there were so many people waiting that we couldn't get on. We had to wait a half hour for the next train to come. Laura was worried that Dora would be worried about us; Germans can be quite particular about time. She wasn't, though. There were a lot of people making out on the train, it was really creepy.
On Sunday we went to the service that Elizabeth's host-siblings came for. It was a big Mennonite thing, and we went to the teen service. They say a lot of English songs. The service was three hours long though. But on the way home I think I figured out why lights here turn from red to yellow and then to green. When you're driving a stick-shift, it can help you avoid stopping unnecessarily; if you are coming up to a red light and it turns yellow, you know you can just shift down instead of completely stopping. I think that is the reason for the round-a-bouts too; they avoid stopping if you don't need to.
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