Good Evening Everyone:

I hope this finds you well.  All is in order here in Germany - today was unfortunately a bit wet.  Luckily, I bought a very nice (and on 50% discount) rain jacket so I stayed rather dry.  Our classes were today very demanding - they ran over into every pause (break) then we had not so much free time.  This evening we all went to see the film Renn, wenn du kannst in the cinema.  I felt like I had stepped back in time! The drinks (naturally in Germany) we’re in glass bottles, there was actually a curtain that opened to the movie screen, the fashion was a bit “old,” but we had a great time.  After the film, we all went to a typical university locale to have some tea (coffee, espresso, etc) to discuss the film. After about 30 minutes we came back to the guest house.  I stopped off at the Doener Kebap place (Ali Baba) to get some dinner (pretty late) - Viertel for me (1/4).  Kota tried Doener Kebap for the first time, and Sandy had pizza for the first time! It was quite exciting.  The house has been quite noisy this evening, but the noise makers have left to attend Stammtisch (Tribal Table) - a traditional German event.  I’m going to shower then sleep - as I didn’t sleep so well last night.  Tomorrow should be a moderately normal day. Let’s just hope the rain ends!

Have a great evening!

Lucas

Hi all!  What a glorious weekend it has been - Monday is nearing its end and has been a rather chill day.  Saturday early Akiko, Jeanne, and I met at the guest house to take first a train, then a bus to Colmar, France.  Unfortunately, during WWII, the train bridge to Colmar was destroyed, and never rebuilt - so we had to take a bus.  Colmar was absolutely beautiful - the food was great, but without French language - it was a bit difficult.  The older people there still speak German (as the Alsace region of France has switched hands 4 times in the past 75 years).  Early on Sunday, five of us traveled to Konstanz am Bodensee to see the sights.  This was the most beautiful island I have seen - thousands of flowers everywhere - totally breathtaking.  In the evening, we relaxed on the lake watching the paddle boaters, the blimps, the ships (there was so much to see!).  After leaving Konstanz a bit early, we made a pit stop at Titisee - a beautiful lake village in the Black Forest.  After enjoying a piece of Schwaelderkirschtorte (Black Forest Cake), we headed home. To say I slept well might be an understatement.  Today, Monday, we had class this morning, grabbed some quick lunch, and I’ve been doing laundry and piddling on facebook (uploading photos).  Will upload more photos on my website when I get some more time.  For now I must go retrieve my laundry from the dryer.

Until later!

Lucas

Hello again friends.  Sorry for no post until now - my schedule has been rather full for the past two days - with skyping some classes at school and evening programs here at the institute.  All is more than great - still a bit of a cold, but getting better.  Today (Friday) is again marvelous weather wise and our plans are set for the weekend.  In the past few days, we’ve eating at various types of restaurants.  First we had Italian (I had a Pizza Diavolo - may have already mentioned), then typical German (Schnitzel with Spatzele), then Greek (Lamb chops and green beans), Turkish (Doener kebap), and today again Italian.  The pizza buffet evening program last night was by my standards no buffet.  I had only 3 small pieces then went for more and it was all gone!  No more came!  That is no buffet.  We had a good time though - as we (teachers) are a bit older than the rest of the people in the guest house, we sat in the corner and talked a bit.  Many of the other participants here have larger classes, and therefore get to know others very easily.  They also group up with people from their homeland and speak only that language outside of the institute.  We teachers find that bad practice as we are all here to better our German!  Each day for breakfast I’ve stopped off at a bakery on the way to class.  Normally I get a croissant - today I branched out from a regular croissant and got one with marzipan inside and powdered sugar on top.  It is quite difficult for our instructor (Frau Ute Nasarek) to keep us on task - we really enjoy talking about current events and topics.  It’s hard to believe a week is already over - only 1 more to go.  I must do some laundry this weekend (or maybe Monday evening) to get through the week.  Tomorrow Jeanne (pronounced Jean with a strong french accent), Akiko and I are traveling by bus to Colmar, France.  We had a hard time deciding exactly where to go, but ultimately decided (as Jeanne speaks some French) that it would be fun to go there for a few hours.  On Sunday, Marianne, Kota, Akiko, Jeanne and I are traveling by train down to the Bodensee (Lake Constance) to see the sights, make a bike tour, and just relax by the lake.  We’ll spend a few hours there before coming home (relatively early Sunday evening).  I’ll continue to update you as I can!  Have a great weekend!

Things got much better today.  Even though I didn’t say, the first two days were a bit rough.  Not knowing the area, being very cold, and raining - I was not happy.  Today, I’ve got cash (of course I went yesterday to the ATM), went to the grocery store, the sun shined all day and I had a great time!  I went to the little bakery by the institut for breakfast (again - this could become a trend) - had a croissant today.  Class this morning was a bit boring, but we continued to analyze statistics from the school system in Germany.  After giving presentations on various statistics, Marianna from Argentina presented about her school.  When morning class was over at 1:30, I went to Akiko, Sandy, and Jeanne to an Italian restaurant for lunch.  I had Pizze Diavolo (spicy salami pizza) and a Coke Light.  After lunch, we had a Goethe-Institut grammar specialist (she teaches the basic level classes) come to teach us grammar games.  We had a good time then departed.  I stopped at the Ekeda for a few groceries then came to the common room to spend some quality time online (had to finish typing a paper for grad school, send a few emails, etc).  I met this evening (as I have been sitting in common room for several hours at this point) a nice lady from Iran and a nice guy from Italy who lives in Switzerland.  The Italians invited me out to a Stammtisch tonight, but I am SKYPEing into my grad class at 11:30 PM my time until 2:30 AM my time.  After some Paprika Chips and Trolli Sour Gummi Worms, I am pleasantly full and ready for class!  I’m uploading some photos to my website - please visit http://www.herrgravitt.com and select the link Herr Gravitt’s Photos

Good Evening Everyone:

I hope this finds you well.  I’ve survived day two through the cold rain (a few sniffles) and had a great time today.  After waking up at 3 AM - my day officially started at 8:30 when we meet at the Institut for class.  Ute Nasarek, our professor lady, is quite nice and interesting.  There are 9 teachers in my class from all over the world - our only common language is German!  There is two from Japan, one from the Philippines, one from Indonesia, one from Latvia, one from Argentina, one from Brazil, one from Poland, and me from USA!  I’ve made friends (Akiko and Kota from Japan and Jairo from Brazil, but none more than Magdalene from Poland - she is a hoot!).  After virtually no breakfast, I found a cash machine (ATM) during a 30 minute break at 11 AM - ran to the bakery and bought a butter pretzel and a bottle of water.  At lunch I decided on Doener Kebap (my favorite cheap quick food in Germany, no McDonalds for me).  We embarked after lunch on a city tour/scavenger hunt in the pouring rain.  Sandy (guy from Indonesia) and Magadelena (girl from Poland) were my partners and we had a blast.  After walking all over Freiburg in the pouring rain, we finished second with 100% correctness!  Our professor took us all to a brewery for dinner - Sandy didn’t eat because of his observance of Ramadan.  I look forward to a warm shower and sleep - maybe a little snack of leftover butter pretzel from this morning.  That’s all for now - have a great night - chat tomorrow!

Lucas

PS - sorry no photos - I didn’t take any today because of the rain - soon though!

Good Late Afternoon Friends & Rogue Readers!

I arrived safely in Zurich, Switzerland at 8am this morning - even though I had upgraded to Economy Plus seating (for 5 extra leg room inches), I didn’t sleep a bit.  Clearing immigration and customs was a breeze.  After a few stops, I made my way over to the train station, bought some Ricola (my throat is/was hurting a bit) and a Coke Light (diet coke) before boarding a train to the main train station.  The trip was about 10 minutes.  It took me quite some time to figure out where to go and what train to take - but I finally found one that was going to Basel.  At this point, I was a bit weary - but made it safely to Basel, and subsequently on a train to Freiburg.  Upon arriving in Freiburg, I believe I could have laid down on a street bench to sleep, but I forged ahead to find the GH (guest house).  Unfortunately I was 4 hours early for check in.  After a brief break (and a few sips of my Coke Light), I found some people and asked if they knew of a cafe that was near (as I still had all my luggage) - as it turned out she did - and as a language learner, she asked if I spoke English so she could explain it better - sure enough!  Holla die Waldfee is my new favorite place.  Decorated like something out of Fern Gullie or Avatar, I sat on a bar stool that was covered with some version of astroturf.  After having 2 cups of Milchkaffee (coffee with frothed milk on top) and an order of Kartoffelecken with Currydipp (potatoes with curry dip), I meandered back to the GH to find a rather pleasant resident assistant type person who gave me my room keys early!  The room is nice (room 005) - on the ground floor with nice big windows, a private bathroom, small fridge, a desk, locking night stand, and a wardrobe - that’s about it!  So after a brief nap (I shouldn’t have taken a nap, as that is the worst way to deal with jet lag - but I felt it necessary for mental stability), I returned back down to the “office” of the “dorm” to find a very pleasant young guy (with very shinny and nice teeth!) who told me about this common room just upstairs from my little apartment (my current location).  No other obligations this evening - will have to munch on my snacks I brought along for dinner as I have yet to find an ATM (will find tomorrow) and don’t really feel like walking around much more tonight.  The area of Freiburg I’m in is mostly residential - many university students in this area (could be exciting?).  My next obligation is at 8:30 tomorrow morning (2:30 AM for you) when I trek across the train tracks to the actual institut to begin the course.  I haven’t really met anyone yet, but I am noticing that a) I am so far the only American, b) quite a bit of ethnic diversity, and c) my German seems as good if not better than most of the people here.  I think there are only 8-10 of us here for the German teacher seminar - so the majority of people have come here to simply learn German (for business, immigration reasons, etc.).  So that’s all for now.  I promise to take some photos and upload them tomorrow. 

Dein,

Lucas

This will be the last blog post specific to German @ SCHS for the next two weeks (will resume on September 13).  Herr Gravitt has the opportunity to travel to Germany for two weeks to study intense German for teachers at the Goethe-Institut in Freiburg, Germany.  The assignments for the 9 school days are posted below - Mr. Dan Volpe will be our sub.  I feel confident the students will do fine with Mr. Volpe.   I will use this platform to blog my adventures as I experience Freiburg.  I plan also to do video chat with each class at least once while I’m gone.  If interested, please check back to see how things are in Freiburg!

German 1 - review protocol for the next two weeks, go over folders with assignment sheets (see below), complete Rueckblick activities on pages 28-30, activities 21-24 & 26 - turn in at end of class

Sub Plans for Aug 30 thorough Sept 10: German 1 Plans

German 2 - Rueckblick on pages 24-26, activities 20-23 - work in pairs (particularly on activity 20) - turn in at end of class

Sub Plans for Aug 30 thorough Sept 10: German 2 Plans

German 3 - Review train vocabulary on pages 14-15, look at the realia tickets on pages 16-17, identify departure times, cost of ticket, seating arrangements

Sub Plans for Aug 30 thorough Sept 10: German 3 Plans

AP German - Continue questions from first chapter in 1000 Jahre

Sub Plans for Aug 30 thorough Sept 10: AP German Plans

German 1 - review personal pronouns (page 23 activities 16-17), spelling (activity 19 on page 26), and numbers (activitiy 20 on page 26) - all completed orally - students did great!

German 2 - read Mit der U-Bahn geht’s schneller on page 20-21, complete activity 16 (arrange sentences in chronological order), points awarded for completion of assignment

German 3 - review from Tuesday (Chiemsee reading), complete activity 10 in the textbook - turn in, complete activity 11 as a class

AP German - finish questions from Tuesday - due tomorrow/Friday

Special School-Wide Presentation of Rachael’s Challenge (Rachael Scott - Victim of the Columbine Massacre, presented by her uncle) - so classes were a bit sparse …

German 1 - 1st period - all freshmen, ECS afternoon students, and co-ops were gone, the rest of us watched an episode on the “soap opera” from our text series

German 1 - 6th period - all student in the gym at assembly (freshmen in cafeteria)

German 2 - 3rd period - normal attendance, but in an effort to keep all German 2 classes on schedule, we played a variation of Bolderdash

German 2 - 5th period - entire class to the assembly

German 3 - 2nd period - half the class at the assembly - Guest speaker from Germany - we had question/answer session with the 4 Germans in the room (stereotypes, prejudices, opinions)

AP German - 2nd period - Guest speaker from Germany - we had question/answer session with the 4 Germans in the room (stereotypes, prejudices, opinions)

Unfortunately this post had a trauma - and didn’t actually post!  Here it is again!

 German 1 - Continue working through chapter 1 in the textbook, focus on difference between du and Sie (familiar versus formal), complete activities 14, 15 in class orally, read SPRACHE on page 22, create a cheat sheet on teh present tense verb forms to keep in binders

German 2 - Discussion on international travel, German airports, read SPRACHE on page 18, completed in class orally activities 13-14 on page 19

German 3 - Read Der Chiemsee in Bayern on page 10-12, underline coordinating conjunctions, circle subordinating conjunctions

AP German - Begin reading in 1000 Jahre book - read pages 3-7, complete on pages 8-9 Germanen & Roemer, Voelkerwanderung, Runen, and Wie Sich