Today has been a good day in Taos! It was our first day of classes, and so far I like mine. The first (at 8:15 in the morning!) is a German language class, and it travels at just the right speed for me to understand everything. I feel like this one is badly needed, because I need to start communicating better with my fellow German students. The second is a German literature class, and I was more worried about this than the language class. It is also fine, and somewhat easy to understand; of course we have not read anything too serious yet. The classroom, though, has a beautiful view of the mountains that I like very much.
Our lecture class, the Grundkurs, was canceled today for the Germany/Italy game. They take that very seriously here! When it came time to watch the game, though, we found that the TV wasn’t working in the dining room–no cable! We had a room full of very worried Germans. Fortunately one of the professors got the game in her room and we all watched it there. There were flags, funny German hats, German sunglasses, etc. I don’t know if any of you have seen soccer fans wear umbrella hats? It’s just what it sounds like, and this one was in gold, red, and black! Unfortunately, Germany lost, and then we had a room full of very sad Germans.
The language barrier is getting easier to deal with. At times it still feels overwhelming–I’m far too happy when someone gives the English equivalent for a German word, which happens rarely and only when absolutely necessary. However, I find that when I have to talk to someone in English (or even type this) it feels very, very strange. It’s already natural for me to say “danke” when someone holds the door open, not “thank you.” So far, so good!
Also, the pictures from the hike yesterday are up. The internet here is bad and they took forever to upload.
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