Mein Jahr in Deutschland (my year in Germany)

I was sitting here thinking about my childhood and started reminiscing about the year I spent living in Germany with my family in 1981. 

It was only my second time on an airplane, and I was sitting next to my sister and some guy wearing a blue checkered shirt (it's strange the little details we remember).  The flight was so long, and we flew out of JFK, which was a nightmare.  Our flight was delayed for hours, and because we were leaving for a year, it seemed like we had more carry-ons than what would be allowed today.  The airports (the larger airports, anyway) used to have these chairs that had TV's attached to them, and for a mere quarter, you could watch about 20 minutes of a television show.  It's pretty easy to see the problem with the math here.  A normal sitcom runs for 30 minutes, so one quarter isn't enough to watch a full 30 minute show, so you just keep putting quarters in until you run out of money.  I was 11 years old at the time, so it wasn't actually my money that was being spent on 20 minute intervals of TV watching.

We landed in Frankfurt (I have no idea what time it was), and while we were waiting for our luggage, I wandered into a magazine store.  The Europeans are not as uptight as Americans are about sexuality and naked body parts, and I picked up a magazine that in the states would have been kept behind the counter in black plastic wrap.  The clerk started yelling at me in German, so I put the magazine down and hauled ass out of that store pretty quick.  I don't think I ever told my parents about that, so if they read this, they may be hearing this story for the first time. 

After a two or three hour train ride, we arrived in Stuttgart, and were greeted by Herr Rupp, who drove us to the apartment we would be renting from him for the next year.  His family was waiting for us, with apple juice and seltzer, coffee and the yummiest Kuchen (cake) I had ever tasted.  At some point I noticed that we didn't have a television, and for a kid who was (still is) a TV -aholic, this was a very dissapointing discovery.  It wouldn't have mattered much anyway, I suppose.  I knew very little German at that time, so I wouldn't have understood what they were saying anyway, but still...NO TV!!  What kind of barbarians don't have a television??  LOL

I should have been in the 6th grade while we were in Germany, so my mom and sister decided it would be best to homeschool me for the year.  My sister taught me history and social studies, and my mom handled math and science.  My dad was busy studying music and traveling to and from Frankfurt to learn from a famous German conductor, so I guess he was off the hook with the whole homeschooling Jennifer idea.  I can't remember how long the homeschooling went on, but at some point my parents received a letter from the German government stating that I needed to be in school.  My dad asked around to find out what school they should send me to, as my inability to speak German was of some concern, and I was eventually sent to a school that had quite a few children from Greece and Turkey.  They did actually speak German and were also in their first year of learning English, but despite the obvious language barrier, we manged just fine, and I ended up making friends with several of the other students.  I'm here to tell you, that the best way to learn a foreign language is to be put in a situation where you don't have a choice.  I picked up German very quickly and ended up speaking better than anyone else in my family, including my dad, who was our resident German expert. 

After a few months at the school with the Greek and Turkish children, I was pulled out of that school and sent to another school that was right next to the church we attended.  I honestly can't remember why I switched schools, but I liked my new school much better.  I had to walk to school every day, and the biggest problem with my new school is that my walk every morning was uphill.  I don't mean a hill here and there...I mean one giant hill from our apartment to the school, and it was not a short walk either. I loved this school, though.  I made lots of friends and my German just kept getting better and better.

One of my friends, Alexandra, lived just up the street from me and used to go to a farm every Monday to take care of a pony that was entrusted to her for it's care once a week.  She invited me to go with her one time, and I just fell in love with this farm.  It was called the "Jugend Farm", which translates simply to "Youth Farm".  They had horses, ponies, donkeys and a host of other farm animals.  All the animals were cared for by young people from 10 to 17 years old.  I went with Alexandra every Monday to take care of a donkey named Senta. The older girls who cared for the horses would sometimes let me ride, which was always the highlight of my day.  One day, we went to the farm on a Tuesday, instead of Monday and another girl, who I didn't know, was looking after Senta.  I went to Senta's pen and called her over, and this girl got furious and started yelling at me.  My German was pretty good at this point, but it was still hard to understand sometimes, especially when someone was yelling at me.  Needless to say, that was the last time I ever went to the Jugend Farm.  I've never been able to handle being yelled at by anyone, and being yelled at in a different language was extremely unpleasant.

I could probably fill a novel with all the experiences that I had in Germany during this year, but if anybody does actually read any of this, I don't want lose their attention by going on and on for pages, so I have one more story, and then I call it a night. 

In our apartment, the sink and shower were in one room and the toilet was in a room by itself.  The lock to the room with the sink and  shower was kind of tricky sometimes and used to get stuck every now and then.  Well, I had just gotten out of the tub and could not get the door open.  I started banging on the door, now getting a little nervous, and my mom and sister came and couldn't get the door open from the other side either.  This happened to occur on one of the evenings that my dad was in Frankfurt, so it was just me, my mom, and my sister.  My mom ran upstairs to get the super, but he wasn't home either and, as it turns out, didn't get home until the following morning.  Anyway, I ended up spending the entire night in the bathroom.  I slept on a pile of bathrobes and towels, and my mom slid my Conny comic books (German comic books about a girl and her horse) under the door for me to read.  The next morning, the super came down and was able to open the door, and I was free!  This is one of those stories that isn't funny at the time, but that you can definitely laugh at later.  We still talk about the night I got locked in the bathroom and had to sleep there.  Thank goodness I didn't need to use the toilet during that time. 

So, consider this installment number one about mein Jahr in Deutschland.  I have a feeling I'll be writing more about this again.

A good weather day can make all the difference

When I was a freshman in college, I had to take a psychology class to satisfy a core requirement.  One of our assignments was to pair up and conduct a psychology experiment, and my partner and I did ours on the effects of music on a person's mood.  I can't remember who my partner was, although, I do remember that we fudged most of our data and made up the results based on what we thought they should be.  It made sense that certain songs or types of music can change a person's mood for the better OR for worse.  The same is true of the weather, and this is not something that I came up with on my own, it is a proven psychological fact that a good weather day can change one's mood for the better.

Winter has got to be the hardest of all the seasons.  It's cold, gray, and dreary, but every now and then mother nature will smile down upon you and somewhere in the middle of January, there will be one perfect weather day.  Today was one of those perfect weather days.  It was sunny, there was not a cloud in the sky, and it was about 72 degrees.  It was a perfect spring day, and it's January 29th. 

I took complete advantage of this perfect day.  I did some shopping at Wal-Mart, cleaned out and washed my car, and went on a bike ride (motorcycle, not bicycle) with my husband.  Tonight, we went to one of our friend's house for dinner and two games of Pictionary on the Wii.  It was a good day, and I love good days!  Who knows how long it might be before Mother Nature has pity on us and throws a spring day into the middle of winter. 

Anyway, the weather made all the difference in my mood today, and it was so nice to have a break from the winter doldrums. 

Go Pack Go!

I''m not a huge sports fan, and really the only sport I watch or even care about is NFL football, not college football, just NFL.  My entire family is from Wisconsin, which makes me a Green Bay Packers fan.  So imagine my excitement when the Packers won the NFC title game and are now on their way to the Superbowl!  My beloved Packers haven't been to the Superbowl since 1997 when they got beat by John Elway and the Denver Broncos.  Now, I wish they weren't going to be playing the Steelers in two weeks.  The Steelers are one of my two least favorite teams, and they just played in the Superbowl 2 years ago and beat the Arizona Cardinals.  A few years before that, they went to the Superbowl and beat Seattle, so it just stands to reason that they are due to be defeated, and I think the Packers are just the team to beat them.  It gets tiring watching the same teams play year after year in the biggest game of the year.  It's even worse when they when year after year...I mean, how many superbowl rings do Big Ben and Tom Brady actually need anyway??  I think what really drives me crazy about the Steelers is all the "bandwagon" fans they seem to have.  I think I read somewhere that they are the most popular team in the NFL, and I know a few fans in Arkansas that have absolutely no ties to Pittsburgh or the state of Pennsylvania.  For some Steeler fans, it could be the appeal of the historic franchise that is the Pittsburgh Steelers, but if we're talking about historic football franchises, then they're should be a lot of Green Bay Packer fans out there, too, and I think that there are. 

Anyway, it doesn't matter which team you root for or if you just watch the Superbowl for the commercials, there's no denying that the Superbowl is the biggest sporting event of them all.  So, just have fun and if you don't have a preference for either team, then feel free to throw your support to the Packers....they're due for a win. 

TV, football and other random thoughts

I am actually curious to see if there is anybody out there that is even interested in reading what I have to write.  I think I have an opinion or at least a thought on just about every topic, and I can promise that anything I write will be, for the most part, grammatically correct.  By the way, I use commas.  I don't care what the new rules of grammar are, commas are a natural pause in a sentence, and I still use them.  See how many I just used?

Right now I'm sitting here watching the Ravens and the Steelers play in a nail biter of a football game.  I'm hoping that the Ravens will pull out a win simply because I am tired of seeing the Steelers go to the Superbowl.  It seems like it is either the Steelers or the Patsies (my pet name for the Patriots) that play in the Superbowl almost every year.  Frankly, it would be nice to see both those teams knocked out of the running.  I am a Packers fan.  My whole family is from Milwaukee, WI, and I usually tell people that it is in my genes to be a Packer fan.  I grew up in Virginia but only because my parents moved there about three years before I was born.  Anyway, go Ravens and go Packers!!!  I think that's about all I have to say about football. 

I watch a lot of television.  I have so many different shows that I must watch each week that it's a little ridiculous.  I have given up some of the more mindless shows such as "The Bachelor".  It was fascinating to me to watch these women go nuts over some guy that was basically saying the same loving things to several different women at the same time.  I always thought they must be nuts to think that they have that "special connection" with Jake, Steve or whatever the guy's name is, but who am I to try and judge how another person feels?  At the time, those feelings are real as is the connection.  I gave up watching the show because I found myself on the verge of vomiting every time I had to watch the bachelor and some poor, young girl go on a date that no real couple would ever or could ever afford to go on.  Have you seen some of these dates?  Helicopter rides, private concerts by Chicago or LeeAnn Womack, trips to Spain, Italy or some other exotic location are some examples of dates that Mr. Wonderful and Miss Perfect Body would have.  I mean, I have dated a lot, and I have NEVER been on a date like that.  I was happy with dinner and a movie.  Almost all of the relationships that are spawned from this show inevitably end once the happy couple enters the real world.  Anyway, I've stopped watching this show.  It's just stupid, and I'm determined to cut stupid from my life.  I love "Law and Order" and could probably watch this show all day long.  Actually, I have watched this show all day long before.  I will watch hours of "Law and Order" and will only change the channel once my husband tells me he's tired of it.  I love courtroom drama and the law.  I have always found the law so interesting.  I took a few paralegal classes once, because that's what I thought I wanted to do.  I eventually changed my mind and will just stick with watching it on TV.  I could probably go on and on about television shows that I watch, but that's not the only hobby I have.  I love to read, too.  James Patterson, David Baldacci, John Grisham, and Ann Rule are a few of my favorite authors.  David Baldacci is my recent obsession.  He writes stories that are similar to James Patterson's novels, but he grew up close to my hometown of Roanoke, VA, and most of his stories take place in that area.  When I'm reading one of his books, I can picture the beauty of the Blue Ridge mountains and the small mountain towns that his characters reside in.  I am currently reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".  I heard that it was an excellent book and that I wouldn't be able to put it down once I started reading it.  So far, that's not the case, but I'm not that far into the book, so it may get much better.  It takes place in Sweden, so, of course I have to pull out the world atlas and try and find the cities that are mentioned in the book.  I love maps and atlases and love to know where places that I read about are located in the world. 

Well, I think I have gone on long enough for one day.  By the way, by the time I finished writing all this, the Steelers have successfully defeated the Ravens, which I am not happy about, but my Packers are playing now, so I have only one final thing to say; GO PACKERS!!!!