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Was fur ein Automaten?
Feb. 27th, 2010 11:35 pmI've never really considered myself an adventurous person. I don't take risks, I'm seldom spontaneous. I do what comes easy. So I really don't know what possessed me to decide to sign up for a summer immersion course in Germany my junior year in college.
I'd taken two years of French in high school and carried that over to college. I had a couple of semesters under my belt when one day one of the German professors came into our French class. Herr Wohlert was in his 50's and kind of looked a little like Benny Hill but the guy oozed charisma. He beat the hell out of the boring French professors and French had sort of lost it's luster for me so I made the jump to German. And I loved it! I didn't much care for Herr Wohlert's wife, Frau Wohlert (she was the complete opposite of him), but I still loved the language. It was fun and it came easily to me plus, I was pretty good. So when the opportunity to spend a summer living in Germany, working and learning the language came up, I signed up. I had to interview for the program and I had to come up with the airfare but I was determined that I wanted to do it. And I was accepted. I remember leaving the interview and going straight to the get my passport pictures and application.
They wanted to put me at an information desk at the Hamburg Airport because I spoke French and German but I wanted to work on a farm. Auf dem Land. Don't ask me why I chose a farm. Maybe I had visions of some place up in the hills, getting up in the morning, milking cows and generally living the life of Heidi. They made all of the participants take a prep class over the second semester. We had to learn German customs (don't open the windows on a moving vehicle, don't switch the knife and fork when you eat, etc) and we all had to learn vocabulary associated with our work places. I got words for farm animals and tractors.
( Sprechen Sie Deutsch? )
I'd taken two years of French in high school and carried that over to college. I had a couple of semesters under my belt when one day one of the German professors came into our French class. Herr Wohlert was in his 50's and kind of looked a little like Benny Hill but the guy oozed charisma. He beat the hell out of the boring French professors and French had sort of lost it's luster for me so I made the jump to German. And I loved it! I didn't much care for Herr Wohlert's wife, Frau Wohlert (she was the complete opposite of him), but I still loved the language. It was fun and it came easily to me plus, I was pretty good. So when the opportunity to spend a summer living in Germany, working and learning the language came up, I signed up. I had to interview for the program and I had to come up with the airfare but I was determined that I wanted to do it. And I was accepted. I remember leaving the interview and going straight to the get my passport pictures and application.
They wanted to put me at an information desk at the Hamburg Airport because I spoke French and German but I wanted to work on a farm. Auf dem Land. Don't ask me why I chose a farm. Maybe I had visions of some place up in the hills, getting up in the morning, milking cows and generally living the life of Heidi. They made all of the participants take a prep class over the second semester. We had to learn German customs (don't open the windows on a moving vehicle, don't switch the knife and fork when you eat, etc) and we all had to learn vocabulary associated with our work places. I got words for farm animals and tractors.
( Sprechen Sie Deutsch? )
