End of the preperation course, a goose, and the DSH Test

Well when we left off last week, I was having a pretty terrible time, but I'm glad to be able to say I'm doing much better! I got my package on Friday, and got my Giants umbrella, some shoes and shirts my mom sent. It ended up being down this alley behind a group of buildings at the service entrance down half a block in what used to be a freight yard. How I missed it, I'll never know.

Last week pretty much consisted of Frau Said and Herr Dörr imparting as much knowledge on us as possible, and a trip to Schwetzingen! Schwetzingen is city a couple miles out from Heidelberg, so we were able to get there with a street car and a bus. We didn't see much of the city itself, just the castle, but the castle grounds were so pretty! It was actually just the summer residence of Karl III, but we all agreed we wouldn't mind spending winters, falls or springs there. We didn't really go inside many of the buildings, rather we just explored the gardens. They were gorgeous, and we had a very nice picnic next to some water which was relaxing and pretty, and then a goose decided he'd like to join. Good thing we had Herr Dörr:

It was possibly one of the funniest things I experienced that day. Props to Annika for getting this sweet action shot of him!

We spent most of Thursday there at the castle seeing the grounds, the temples (there were a few: one to Athena, Apollo, Mercury, as well as a mosque and some fake ruins. yes, they built ruins) and the wedding pictures of an American couple.

The weekend was spent cramming German grammar into my Gehirn (brain) and celebrating at the Heidelberger Herbst (Heidelberg Fall) which is a festival that happens every year on the last weekend of September- it overruns the entire Altstadt, but in a good way. There were multiple stages for concerts, tons of tents for food and beer, and a renaissance fair-type area with delicious smelling cooked something, and a building that sold Met (Mead, which ended up tasting pretty gross) but also Glühwein which is mulled wine and tastes like Christmas in your mouth. It was delicious. I also ate a delicious falafel and it almost made up for the fact that I can't get these delicious chips anywhere except Oregon.

It was a good group of us that wandered around Heidelberger Herbst on Saturday night: Megan, Haleigh, Anne, Annika, Melissa, me and Aaron. We drank some good Pilsner and enjoyed just seeing what HH is all about. Eventually we got down to Bismarkplatz but realized we wanted to be back down at Uniplatz, which is halfway down Hauptstrasse, the main place HH was happening. Because there were so many people and we were impatient, I learned the (intense) art of crowd weaving, thank's to Aaron's coaching. Three of us, Aaron, Megan and I crowd-wove through those people like crazy, and while we made great time and had a blast, we lost Anne, Haleigh and Melissa (Annika ended up crowd weaving on her own and made it to us a few minutes after the three of us crossed the finish line together) who weren't really happy we had decided to charge down Hauptstrasse. C'est la vie.

We ended up, later that night, seeing the greatest cover band ever created. EVER. They did a metal cover of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire with actual fire there to make it so much more legit! Also, they were terrible. It was a great end to the night!

Sunday I spent going to church and studying for the DSH, the huge test I took yesterday that determines what sort of classes I can take as well as what my level of German is. If I pass, I will get a certificate saying that I know German. Studying was difficult because there’s just so much to learn, but with a bunch of us, we were able to get a little done. I went to bed super early on Sunday night and woke up early (not exactly on purpose) yesterday. Once we got to the building where we would be taking the test, we were divided into two groups by last name, and then told what floor to go to, and there, we were divided into two groups again. Thankfully, there were 3 other AJY students in my room: Dan, Aaron and Marcus. Dan and I sat together, and Marcus and Aaron sat together, and we began. The first part of the test was fairly straightforward: read an article, answer a page or two of questions, then a page of grammar about the article. That section was an hour and a half and afterwards we had a brief break. Then we had the listening understanding, which was, I think, universally agreed upon as being the hardest part. After the listening there was a writing section, which was fairly easy as well. The listening part is an enigma to me. I answered the questions, yes, but correctly remains to be seen!

Whatever my grade, I’m done with that part. We have a Mündliche (oral) Prufüng on Thursday, but I’m not too worried about that. I’m just enjoying my day off today, getting some things done I can’t on the weekend, and relaxing. A couple of us are going over to Annika’s to make dinner, and I am very excited- we’re all bringing something, and I think it will be a nice change of pace to make food again ( I miss cooking!). Tomorrow we’re headed to Speyer, of which I know nothing about, so I'm sure I'll have fun facts to share with you next time!