Home At Last

I had great fun in Ilmenau. It was the first of many travel abroad experiences for me. The highlight of my trip there was probably the day that we went to Weimar and the Buchenwald concentration camp. There was so much to take in on that day. There was so much that I'd learned; and I'm not talking about just the city or its' figures. I learned a lot about myself and how I relate things in my mind. For every experience that I had in Germany, I tried to put myself in those time periods and in those situations. The thing that surprised me the most about German culture was the fact that everyone always stared at me, at least in the smaller cities. And I was totally freaked out about the guy in Kaufland in the canadian suit who grabbed my arm. I still don't know what that was about.

The German that I learned in those three weeks seemed very minimal. I guess I had expected more to learn how to speak. Instead, I learned how to listen and pick up on what was being said around me. I guess when you only take a year it takes a while to speak it, because you're still learning vocabulary and grammar. All I know is that I had a ball and I can't wait until they get to come over here. I have no problem showing them how we do things over here. And no need to worry, everything I would have in store for them is within reason and the law :)