I have my next German course test tomorrow. As I spent time trying to study grammar and the more than 500 new words from the last 2.5 weeks of class, I realized I would only have time for a quick blog post today. Which is my excuse for posting yet another photo and letting it pretty much speak for itself…
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of Little Red Riding Hood, right? There’s a young girl, and she wears a red cape with a red hood. She carries a basket of goodies and sets off through the forest to go see her grandmother. Along the way, she runs into a wolf who wants to eat her. Then mayhem ensues until we get to the part with the happy ending. Well, a happy ending for all but the wolf. Remember, as they say in German at the end of the fairytales, if they haven’t died, then they still live, and that’s the happy ending. Continue reading
This is the first in what I have planned as a periodic series of photos of things that aren’t what they seem. Today’s entry: a restaurant named Gasthaus Bavaria. Continue reading
It strikes me as I go through the my daily routine in Tübingen that everybody around me has also read the script for daily life that we learned that day in class. I.e., on any given day, perhaps we’ll have “rehearsed” the scene where I’m the person wanting to buy oranges in the market, while my classmate plays the role of the orange vendor. These little practice dialogs are cute, and good for spoken language practice, but while in class it all seems removed from a real world setting. Continue reading
Today I had an odd experience of talking on the phone with our bank back in Bolzano. The friendly gentleman on the phone said he spoke English, so I switched to that, having originally asked — in both Italian and German — if he spoke English. I used to use Italian at the bank in Bolzano, but I figured it would be easier to explain my question in English while on the phone, rather than ploughing through it in Italian. Continue reading
On our first trip to the local library, Chris and I got a DVD with Top Hat, the old 1930s movie musical with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It was a version which had been dubbed in German – the name of the movie in German is Ich tanz’ mich in dein Herz hinein, “I dance into your heart”. Since it’s one of our favorite movies, which we’ve seen many, many times, we figured it might be fun a fun way to practice our German. Continue reading
We live in the Altstadt (literally, “old city”) part of Tübingen. Our building dates to 1513, although it was remodelled last year just before we moved in.
I call our building one of the “rock stars” of the neighborhood; on most days, there are people stopped outside, either looking it over, or peeking in to see what it’s like inside. It’s almost like being famous ourselves, although it’s the building that people are interested in, not the residents, of course. Continue reading
In my German class we had several writing exercises last week where we wrote in the style of a Grimm’s fairytale. This was in order to practice a particular grammar point that happens to be quite common when telling a story. Anyway, they taught us how to say the typical opening of one of those stories: Continue reading
Back in November 2009 on my old blog, I wrote about eating a doughnut in Berlin. At the time, I titled the post “Ich (ate) ein Berliner” because I didn’t know how to say “eat” in German. How times have changed … fast forward two years, and I can now write that whole sentence in German, which is the title of this post. Impressive, I know. 😉
However, as they say, the more things change, the more things remain the same. Continue reading
Thanks everybody for all the feedback, comments and well-wishes the past few days about the photography show, as well as for all the comments over the past couple of weeks. I’m busy working on a post to follow-up on questions, etc. from all those comments, but it’s not quite done for today. So, instead, let’s talk about the weather. 😉 Continue reading