While "Left of the Middle" is an album title by Australian soap star Natalie Imbruglia, I think I can use "Left of the Middle of Nowhere"; no credit required.
My school organizes social activities throughout the week to help the students integrate and to practice their German skills with each other. While a BBQ in the park consisting of sausages and Wurst on a bun didn't interest me, a day trip to nearby Wittenberg did. It seemed like a great chance to meet other students, practice German outside of the classroom and to see some of the German countryside at a greatly reduced cost.
The regular price of the best 2nd class return train ticket for the +3hr/200 kilometre journey is just under 60 Euro but the school arranged a five-person, regional group ticket which cost us only five euro, seventy cents each. "How on Earth does this make sense", you wonder? Well, it makes sense because we took the slowest possible trains (I swear we were going backwards at one point) and we kept changing every hour or so.
The day began with a 6:30 alarm call and 6:45 uprising. Gerald, who was kind enough to drive me to the train station at 7am, was insistent that I distinguish the difference between waking up (erwachen) and actually getting up (stehen) on this blog. He claims I am not a morning person.
The sub-title for today was almost "The Train Ride That Never Ended" because at that time in the morning (after a late night) the trip seemed like an eternity. The seats in the 2nd class cabin were not comfortable and I felt even more uncomfortable because the other students all knew each other from several weeks' study in their (more advanced) class. Between being far more knowledgable in German, plus the fact that some of them were half my age (+/-2yrs), there wasn't much of a connection. The school escort wasn't a teacher but rather more like a modern-day Julie McCoy. As I introduced myself to her, I explained that I was new to the school and was struggling with German but would appreciate any corrections to my grammar/sentences. Her reply was "just speak English then". Ohhhhhh-Kay.
Soon after arrival, we began our visit with a tour of the Castle Church. This chuch is where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door back in the year 1517 marking the beginning of Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was a priest who, through his theses, protested the Church's indulgences and questioned the power of the Pope.
We split up after lunch and I proceeded on foot to walk the town's two main streets, passing sites I would later pass on the official town tour I endured. The two-hour official tour was presented solely in German, which I was made aware of in advance, but the guide spoke so fast that I didn't have a chance to follow along. I understood roughly 15% of what she was saying, which, in retrospect is a pretty decent victory for only one week of lessons, but by the time I translated the words I recognized, the rest of her sentence was over and I lost the value of the words I managed to figure out.
After a short while, I began to wander off to take photographs and use the solitude to ignite my imagination. I sub-blogged the following using the notepad feature on my phone. "This lady speaks so fast, if she is ever no longer able to walk having given so many walking tours over the years, she could quickly find work as an auctioneer."
I know "Life's What You Make It" but I think I would have been better off staying at the flat to do homework.
My school organizes social activities throughout the week to help the students integrate and to practice their German skills with each other. While a BBQ in the park consisting of sausages and Wurst on a bun didn't interest me, a day trip to nearby Wittenberg did. It seemed like a great chance to meet other students, practice German outside of the classroom and to see some of the German countryside at a greatly reduced cost.
The regular price of the best 2nd class return train ticket for the +3hr/200 kilometre journey is just under 60 Euro but the school arranged a five-person, regional group ticket which cost us only five euro, seventy cents each. "How on Earth does this make sense", you wonder? Well, it makes sense because we took the slowest possible trains (I swear we were going backwards at one point) and we kept changing every hour or so.
The day began with a 6:30 alarm call and 6:45 uprising. Gerald, who was kind enough to drive me to the train station at 7am, was insistent that I distinguish the difference between waking up (erwachen) and actually getting up (stehen) on this blog. He claims I am not a morning person.
The sub-title for today was almost "The Train Ride That Never Ended" because at that time in the morning (after a late night) the trip seemed like an eternity. The seats in the 2nd class cabin were not comfortable and I felt even more uncomfortable because the other students all knew each other from several weeks' study in their (more advanced) class. Between being far more knowledgable in German, plus the fact that some of them were half my age (+/-2yrs), there wasn't much of a connection. The school escort wasn't a teacher but rather more like a modern-day Julie McCoy. As I introduced myself to her, I explained that I was new to the school and was struggling with German but would appreciate any corrections to my grammar/sentences. Her reply was "just speak English then". Ohhhhhh-Kay.
Soon after arrival, we began our visit with a tour of the Castle Church. This chuch is where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door back in the year 1517 marking the beginning of Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was a priest who, through his theses, protested the Church's indulgences and questioned the power of the Pope.
We split up after lunch and I proceeded on foot to walk the town's two main streets, passing sites I would later pass on the official town tour I endured. The two-hour official tour was presented solely in German, which I was made aware of in advance, but the guide spoke so fast that I didn't have a chance to follow along. I understood roughly 15% of what she was saying, which, in retrospect is a pretty decent victory for only one week of lessons, but by the time I translated the words I recognized, the rest of her sentence was over and I lost the value of the words I managed to figure out.
After a short while, I began to wander off to take photographs and use the solitude to ignite my imagination. I sub-blogged the following using the notepad feature on my phone. "This lady speaks so fast, if she is ever no longer able to walk having given so many walking tours over the years, she could quickly find work as an auctioneer."
I know "Life's What You Make It" but I think I would have been better off staying at the flat to do homework.
