Eleventh Day in Dortmund

Sept. 11th, 2012

Today was filled with even more paper work. ( I know everyone is just as tired as me of hearing about paperwork) There were lots of copies made, print outs of resumes, tax forms, and the like.

I kind of missed home today. There is usually a moment of silence or reflection. Obviously, this is not the case in Germany. It just seemed that no one remembered or cared what today was. Not that I’m all “Yeah! September 11^th was bad! We should all be sad!” but I still felt sort of unpatriotic.

Besides that, I went to class as usual. I missed a lot in just one day. Our teacher even gave a test, and this was how I felt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccoj5lhLmSQ

However, she took me aside and said I could just try it and skip the stuff I didn’t know. I did surprisingly well. There was a whole section on telling time that I had to leave blank, but I now know the seasons, how to tell my birthday, and some easy verb conjugations. In class, we learned the German sounds that animals make. Everyone had a card with the name of an animal on one side and the phonetic noise on the back. So, I had Katze and miau was on the back. That was the closest one to English. One girl had Pferd (horse) but she made a noise like “whooo whoooo” and everyone guessed owl. It was interesting to see the different ways that each language has in identifying animals. The rooster one was really funny. When you think about it, “cock-a-doodle-doo” doesn’t really sound like the noise a rooster makes, but the German version “kickaree kee” was hilarious as well. 

Later, we had our first major Dortmund Doubles meetup. We gathered in a big circle and everyone introduced themselves.  I got to see Lena for the first time as well! She was an exchange student at Columbia College last year, and we had two classes together. She volunteered to be one of my Doubles when she found out I was coming to Dortmund.  We all planned trips and outings for the whole group, and it was nice to meet other Doubles and international students.

Sorry today was not really that interesting, I will try and get into some shenanigans within the next week.

German Word of the Day: Der Hahn- "rooster" In the morning, der Hahn crows kika-ree-kee or cock-a-doodle-doo, depending on what country he is from.