the reasons for my masterful confusion are as follows....
(im going to be putting in random lyrics to what im listening to for awesomes, cuz thats how i roll)
i have been learning german everyday for the past 30 years, yeah im pretty sure thats an accurate number. it does weird things to your brain man... bonamana bonamana bonamana...
i have a tiny tiny summer vacation, ok one month but it felt really tiny and like i said, my brain...
which brings me to the next reason, i had an epic and amazing giant trip in that tiny window of time! we spent time in 3 different countries! so wild, europe is a funny funny place! everything is so close! makes me feel a little claustrophobic if i think about it too much..... oh yeah! blahblahblahblah little cup blahblahblahblah fill it up
reason # 72 i started my new, harder, extended version, german class 1 week after we got home
so because of all of that i have no idea where to begin and am dreading the thought, ok not dreading that was dramatic, but i cant seem to get my brain to run in any sort of coherent order, babo babo babo babo. (i love this song!)
so i will begin at the beginning, wait no i already began at the beginning, so ill begin in the part after the beginning and before the middle, the begiddle if you will.
so it was my birthday! i had a yummy cake made by the menfolks mentioned in the previous post. it was chocolate and i was looking forward to eat the heck of it, but we forgot it at áö's house! that made me real real sad! but life goes on!
!!!사진의!!!
this is bad wimpfen. really sad story, apparently the town was attacked by nuclear monsters and these houses have mutated into each other - there were no survivors.
go us!
fá (eyþórs dad) likes pudding!
runs in the family?
i think pudding is tasting...
áö likes life!!
or something.... he's really an awesome dude though, it was really cool to meet him!
PEPPAH!!
up on the totally shakey jakey tower... it was... unsettling
this is my "it's my birthday, i dont want to die!!" face
eyþór took this one, what an artist guy :D
this is áö's house/apartment basically the top floor of that house up to the three windows!
we were at the top of this crazy tower with crazy creaky stairs and ridiculously narrow walk ways at the top , the end
this is the emergency evacuation shoot from the old days... if you know what i mean... evacuation of the bowels ;o
fýlu... poki? púki? one of those i cant remember which
this guy is my new best friend
or this guy, oh man! 어떻게해야!
if you can guess why i took this picture you get a prize! the prize is mental superiority! hint: my dream job!
eyþór being a mega tourist
the siemsen men! on adventures and kicking most butts!
ok so thats the end of part one, stay tuned for part zwei
next time on Dont Blog the Toilette: lots of mountains, switzerland, frustration, water, commerce, italy and much much less.
we have been on adventures, but ive been so busy having adventures that i havent taken any pictures of them.
we rented a car cuz we thought it would be more comfortable and free! which has been the case for the most part, eythor was a little rusty at first, he hadnt driven since we got married, almost a year ago! but he has been doing a great job and loves driving on the autobahn hahaha. arg the map to reality ratio isnt the best though, we've gotten lost a few times but nothing extreme :D adventures adventures!!
lets see where the heck did we go? oh going back a little we went to the temple the weekend before sometime and went to dresden (that place is a flipping castle yo! some fancy as people were having some sort of event there with all the touristas hanging out walking in and out of wha ever the heck they were up to) as well! it ws so pretty, but because it was a saturday it was filled with all manner of tourists! i mean for serious, it was like 17. juni or sumin. it was pretty gross but still really old and pretty, and as far as i know still being rebuilt from being bombed the crap of from the poms.
back to this part or whatever, first we went to a place called weimar it was nice there, a little goethe obsessed, as was a lot of that area, there were very few tourists there and the old part of town was almost deserted seeing as how we got there late (meaning after 6)
then we went on to the next little town called arnstadt that place was pretty weird, they had this way old wall around the place which was kind of awesome, then there was this bell tower that was not conected to anything, just sticking up out of nowheres for funnzies. but the most awesome part of this place was the castle ruin (s?) it was a huga and glorious back in the day, but just some rocks now and the built tons of minatures amoungst the ruins i felt like a giant stomping about the place. there wa this tall as towere there as well but it looked pretty shakey jakey and costed money so we skipped that :) then was this blasphenmous church called bachkircke, basicall the church of bach, did i hear lightning in the vicinity? it was not pretty but had an interesting interioir. we staed the night there in a hotel that was like 500 years old or something, i felt like i was at the prancing pony.
then we went to wurzburg, famoous for a massive fort on the top of the hill, again we were late so everything was closing but we got to walk around the grouds this place was huge! the walls were like a meter and a half thick on the top and got wider and wider, it was pretty crazy and really impressive. we basically just went straight through the city but there were so many things there that i would want to come back and see, like this place so princessy!
then we got to where we are right now, bad wimpfen, a famously pretty little village with virtually no tourists and an australian themed pub down the road ;) so far we have been doin a lot of manly manly things, (side note: ive never been so outnumbered in all my life, three dudes and little old me) yesterday we went to the audi factory (oh did i forget to mention, eythors uncle works there, an engineer, he works on designing customizations, putting a fridge in somehwere for example, why one should have a fridge in a car, i dont know [also he has a sweet sweet a5 {and a motorbike and something called a triumph but those are several other stories}]) and took the tour, it was crazy, loud and amazing, modern industry go figure. and we got to sit in a R8, we decided they are not half bad. then today we went for a drive in the country, that is to say we went to see hockenheimring (some famousy racetrack? anyways there were some crazy cars outside of it, ferrari, a few audi R8s and the like) and then eythor got to drive the triumph a very little bit, he likes modern cars better, hahahaa. and then we drove by the hoffenheim stadium, were this icelandic dude plays. needless to say eythor has been very chuffed :D and i have had a constant headache from the heat and humidity, so sticky! :p
tomorrow is my birthday, it doesnt really feel like it, eythor got me a lovely present before we went on our trip, and i will absolutely take a picture of them soon.
so here i am blogging at a table that belonged to eythors grandfather, while the men watch fußball (some league or other has just begun)
my goal for this trip has been to actually go inside a castle, so far it hasnt happened but im confident it will!
and im gonna take pictures starting right now!! but ill post them at a later time
im just going to jump right over the fact that i havent written in blah blee bloh
[Warning: this is about to get real real long]
im going to share a little bit (or a lottle bit) about my class today, the reason being that something incredulous happened today. i feel, for the sake of clarity, that i would need to go several generations back in time to paint a clear and precise picture. but for practicality we'll have to go back just a few months.
LOS! (a very affective way of saying "lets go!" in german)
the year was 2010, november. in a dark alleyway waited a man with an envelope, he tried vainly to shield it from the indiscriminate rain drops falling from the steely sky.... not really but doesnt that sound like a great story?!
LOS! ehrlich...
so! i've been taking german since about the middle november for reals. before that i took a correspondence course in german for one semester (i.e. 3 months, while working full time and planning a wedding 스트레스! but that's another story) last spring or something, in order to "prepare" myself... all the stuff i learned in that class became redundant during the first week or two of the INTENSIV (<--- german, and yes thats what its called) course.
basically here's how its structured: go to class for three hours a day (this is for real dude!) hopefully something that has been covered in that time will stick to your grey matter. so i show up to class and everything iseasy peasy cotton cheezy, oh wait, that was a fictitious statement! totally overwhelming but thats the point, i didnt know what to expect but it was all german, all the time, all over the place. it was really awesome and really intense at the same time. my teacher didnt (doesnt) even speak english so... yeah total submersion(<---feel free to use your movie-trailer-man-voice here)
everything goes stumbling along its way and for reasons i dont feel are appropriate to discuss on the interwebs, i felt very motivated to do well and learn this thing! (or get 'er done as some might say)
so i does my homeworks, comes to class and so forth, time goes by... final test day what?! yeah that should show how good my german was at this point, i didnt even pick up on when the test was, so my brain says to me he says "oh dear friend, lets give the old try, what d'ya say?" so stumble stumble, "im supposed to write a flippin letter what the?" balh blah blah, surprise of surprises, i passed, 42 out of 45 even! great success! i was so relieved, i thought i would not do very well. so then im like oh german is easy friends? ringdingdong wrongwrongwrongwrong
enter stage right: INTENSIV2 (the villain of the piece) here's were things get pretty murky, distressing, cold and sniffly. hold on to your face cuz it could become dangerously shocked or possibly fall off all together.
a little background: basically it was the worst winter ever, averaging 6.58 meters of snow a day (probably) so of course i was sick all the time and what not, and the trams were being total wussbags and not going cuz it was "impossible" or "dangerous", i know right?
so then we begin, the class is a composite, some old people are gone for whatever reason and new people have taken their places, from the word "los" things are shaky. someone, we'll call her "the ogre of budapest" hmm too harsh? alright how about V? no! thats too cool. Q, Q has always been my least favorite consonant, so codependent. alright where were we? ok so Q suggests everyone to be great friends and do things together, oh did i say suggest? i meant demand. such an overbearing one! im having severe difficulty in finding the words. i shall illustrate with perhaps the most direct assault; oh! first i must introduce another! we will call her dee for drama, the sort of person who laughs as much as she speaks, not in an easy, joyful way but in a vapid and acrid way.
READY?!
so im lazy. i take the elevator to the 3rd floor where we have class. walking out of the elevator i see dee sitting on the floor at the end of the hallway, maybe 30 meters away, and think nothing of it, walk into class and take my seat. moments later dee enters, limping and saying that she fell by the stairs and that i saw her fall and refused to help. at this point i felt really terrible that i hadnt gone to help her, so in all the fuss and what not the teacher somehow misunderstands and thought that she had fallen down the stairs (come to find out she tripped at the bottom of the stairs and the nurse said she was fine)and calls for a nurse, then V decides to reveal my villainy to the world by shouting about how evil/bad/rude/mean/selfish i am. (30 year old "woman") saying i only think about my self and dont care about anyone else. all i can say is i hope beyond all hope that this is not an accurate depiction of me. she kept turning to others for confirmation and thankfully she didnt get it, people smiled at me and said "no, maliana is good" i felt a sliver of comfort in this. but simply put, i felt AWFUL. i couldnt understand what i did that would provoke such a reaction, and honestly started to believe i was terrible (i must have been! to be the subject of such venom) from then on i was a targeted at any moment she saw fit, mostly she would pretend i didnt exist (for which i was grateful) or tell the class that she hated me (true story) planning a "class" event and specifically not inviting me (i know, i know, but no, she wasnt 5 years old) or opine about my unimportance. after that i realised i was not evil, but that she was a bully and i was her target of choice, that didnt make it any easier, not really. but having that knowledge helped me to study harder and do the best i could. thats making it sound really rosy, it wasnt, but i got used to it.
TEST TIME rolls around this time i knew it was coming but didnt want to psyche myself out or over prepare (ahem lazy?). so i take a whack at it, straight forward, listening, reading, writing. we got the results by email, (all the scores in a mass email) which i didnt know (again awesome german skills kicking in) so i show up for class and everyone knows what i got but me, my teacher congratulates me saying i got a "sehr gut" grade, im just puzzled/awkward/nervous and say thank you. then telma (a nice lady! [and yes thats still a code name]) tells me i got 100% and im pretty shocked, and really awkward feeling that everyone knew before me or at all! enter the title of the post. at that point everyone assumed, because i had gotten everything right that it was somehow easier for me than them. i mean maybe somehow it is, icelandic has a similar structure to german. i felt like my achievement (trivial as it was) was cheapened a bit. german is hard for me too! i dont know why or even if, its easier for me than the others. so all of the sudden people were asking me about grammar concepts (of which there are approximately 1.337 tonnes), what words mean and the like. its weird... i feel like the spiderman of german for noobs. so i try to help and it feels really good when i help someone understand something!
INENSIV3 so! new class, same drill, im starting to feel like a veteran right now, watching passively as people come and go. telma, dee and Q are all here and some new folks. one of which is a controvertial american (hes nice!) who Q decided was her next prey. later she quit, i think she realised no one wanted to sit by her, i know it sounds juvenile but i think that was important for her. i feel bad about it but since then class has become an entirely different experience for me, and i think the others as well.
moral of the stories: people suck! there will always be nei sayers and bullies but it's ok cuz they just suck and maybe cant help it. im still not very good at dealing with them.
since i like learning german, i decided to do an experiment, cuz it's so "easy" for me i though i might try something that i think would be hard, so im learning korean! theres a lady from korea in my class, we'll call her Park Bom, she studied education in korea and offered to teach me! she is super nice! we'll see how it goes. 화이팅!
dude i dont really expect any of you to have gotten this far, just needed to vent my brain spleen, know what im saying?
long story even longer, i hope your face is still intact, if such is not the case this should help
ive been wonderful, did you know it was christmas!? well yeah it really really was and it was a busy busy time.
ive just had me some shepards pie and finished writing my life story or some such nonsense and im feeling pretty good, pretty blogging good.
so the name of the post is in reference to the amount of pictures that have sort of been backed up since the times, so i asked eyþór if it was too many for one post and that's what he said, i may be exaggerating theferocity with which he said it, it was probably more like "yep" but anyways
ive realised its sort of the lazyman's blogging style isnt it? oh well im a lazyman
on
to
the
show
!!
It was christmas! and sólrún came to visit us for a little bit since she was doing a concert thing in berlin! it was so fun
Eyþór had a class concert here, in the big fancy performing organ, organs are so funny and fundamentally not designed for performance :p what with the organist facing away from the audience hahaha but it was awesome!!
this is the old town hall looking all christmassy as all get out! right by the christmas markt
merry christmas in germanese
this is another one of the creepy ghost houses down the street that eyþór doesnt like :p
the first advent! and our little manger that we got from the nuns in iceland plus some tree ornaments
our backyard looked like this for months and months and months, at least it was a long long time and sooo flipping cold!
giant pyramid powered by candles why not?!
im so proud of this! i made this wreath for our front door woo!
closeup of out super authentic german tree ornaments on our super artificial tree yay for modern industry!
this dude is a turkey
our little tree! i liked it so much! i made the star!
Ingileif enjoying some traditional christmas mango.
me making a star!!
Sólrún making a knitted thing!!
and those were the times!!
Oh Oh Oh! i almost forgot!! my title picture is a cornflake that eyþór brought to me on christmas morning when i wasnt feeling well :) it makes me have many happynesses!
First of all i got what i suppose to be my first home sickness, it came from a word - sundfólk. eyþór reads the sports page on mbl.is religiously and my eyes just landed on that word. i thought about how i have probably said that word less than 4 times in my life, i had never had much occasion to use it, but the point is i realised i wont have any particular reason to say that word in the anytime near future and put me in a reminiscent mood. but anyway things move along ever so swiftly!
its almost christmas! they've started decorating downtown and its so pretty! i cant wait for the christmas market to be ready! weee! i love christmas and eyþórs sisters and mom will be coming for a visit so that will be awesome!! if it would snow then it would be perfect :D but it will be great anyway ;)
i started german classes yesterday and i love it! its 3 hours every weekday (8:30-12:00 plus a half our break) very basic, i understand a lot already but its good to get to practise speaking :D
since ive been here autumn has come and gone, the trees were so pretty and the colors were beautiful! i kind of love this town
here are some piclatures of things and places!!
when we went to the temple to get sealed! it was such a wonderful day! we went with jenny and sebastian müller, (pssst sebastian served in the same mission as binni at the same time! woahwoahwoah )they were wonderful and jenny was so sweet and got me a bouquet! in the same style as my wedding flowers :D it was such a surprise and wonderful!!
this temple is so beautiful in person, its just not the same in pictures, over-cast and raining :p
wee!! this guy is pretty great :D
they loverly colors in our backyard a week or so ago, now the trees are all naked!! for shame
our building! its lovely and inside its really cool and old but in a nice and cosy way!!
this the across the street, i dont know why or how but our side is lovely and bright, while the other side is scary and ghost-inhabited-looking! what the what?!
our street! named after a dude named Günther he was probably really cool
this is our super awesome couch that we got from the lady across the hall, guess what makes it super awesome! its a sofa-bed-nappytime-sleep-a-majig!! and its what you'll have the fantastic luxury of conducting your repose upon if and when you should come and visit us!! arent you excited!? i know you are!
and last but not least this is the button at church for when you get the answer wrong in sunday school
time flies and all the jazz, our apartment is slowly becoming inhabitable, and for it to be so i've been putting together furniture for the last two weeks! A desk, tv table shelf thing, three chairs, a kitchen table and a wardrobe, still have the dining table to go but i'm almost there! alas there are still boxes and homeless things scattered around so no pictures yet :0
this past weekend has been great! Eyþór had a concert on saturday it went really well :D he was very pleased when it was over :p i'm super proud of him whenever he has a concert and i feel so lucky to be a part of it :p
here is a scan of the poster that was hung about the place!!
it's in german but it basically says "eyþór is so awesome at organ playing extravagance, come hear him play, you will be the luckiest duck"
and of course in the hustle and bustle of getting out the door with all the essentials we forgot our cameras!! so silly and no video either :9 but i assure you everyone was sockless by the end from the blowing off of them, which was unfortunate cuz the church was kinda cold :}
and so conference!! because of the timing of the concert we missed out on the saturday sessions and had a conference maraþon on sunday!! so awesome and uplifting! i love conference so much, it gives me the boost i need to adjust my life and get back on track, yay!
so a busy and wonderful and exhausting weekend :p here are some pictures of the sad library disclaimer: i didnt really look too close to the graffitti so if some if it is offensive, oopsie doopsie
right then, friends and foes! anticipate happiness!!
