Time for a Post

Sorry sorry sorry!  Bitte Bitte Bitte!  I haven’t posted in about a week and a half and well, it won’t happen again.  The friends that I have made from Spain are set on seeing basically everything there is to see during their time in Hamburg and I’ve gone along for a couple of their excursions.  Haha, this has been fun and I’ve seen and done a lot of things, but I’ve come back exhausted and only ready to quickly go to the gym, eat, do meine Hausaufgabe and sleep.  Although this hasn’t turned into a lot of cool blog posts, it has resulted in a bunch of pictures that I can now put up.  So I’ll try to make a couple of blog posts on pictures from each of these little excursions.

Anyways - I miss home.  Ok, ok, I know, it’s only been a little more than 2 weeks and of course I’m going to miss home.. but I was showing my new friends some of my pictures from home and it made me get a little homesick.  Also, I’ve heard that the weather has been ridiculously hot in Texas which, may sound crazy, makes me want to be back home.  Honestly, it has rained just about every day here - at least for a little bit.  Tomorrow there isn’t supposed to be a cloud in the sky and I feel like I should celebrate.  Also it’s been about 60-70 degrees F, and I’ve tried to refuse wearing a jacket in August, but I’ve succumbed and officially opened up my winter suitcase.

Alright enough complaining.  I still am really enjoying myself and have decided to join my Spanish friends on a trip of theirs to Berlin and we’ll leave Freitag morgan and come back on Sonntag.  We’re staying in a hostel, which makes me nervous because the only thing I know about hostels is from the movie…… you know… where people get killed.  Haha, so we’ll see!  

Uhh - so I’ll make a few posts on only pictures soon - but for now, here’s a couple of pictures of me and my new friends.  We’re pretty cool and we know how to take a good picture.

:)  Haha, ok that’s it for now.  Until next time, God Bless!

German Lesson #3 - Conjugate

Ok, so this is the most basic of conjugating in German.  I’m still learning about the 150million verb rules, but this will at least help a little.

Let’s take the verb, ‘Fragen’ - to ask, and conjugate it.  First off, I always look at the word and take the -‘en’ off, because basically every verb ends in ‘en’.  So take off the ‘en’ and start from there.

Fragen:

Ich Frage - I ask.  (add an ‘e’)
Du Fragst - You ask.  (Informal - add a ‘st’)
Er/sie/es Fragt - He/She/It ask.  (add a ‘t’)
Wir Fragen - We ask.  (add an ‘en’)
Ihr Fragt - They ask.  (Masculine - add a ‘t’)
Sie Fragen  - You ask.  (Formal - add an ‘en’)

18 August 2010 · Comments

• Tags
• Hamburg
• Germany
• German lesson
• Hostel
• Weather

Finished with week 1!

I wanted to wait to make another blog post until after my first week was over, so that I wasn’t just basically saying the same thing every day.  So this post is basically going to be a giant recap of my entire first week. 

Anyways - wow, it’s crazy how fast this week went by.  I’ve almost been in Germany for a week and I felt like I was just landing and trying to avoid an epic jet lag.  I’ve officially mastered the German introduction (Wie Geht’s? O Allez ist Gut, und dir?)  haha, and am excited to learn more German everyday. 

A typical day for me starts out at about 7:10am, checking if it’s going to rain, then jumping in the shower.  Then I go in my room and listen to a little music and head off for the S-Bahn (rail system) around 8:10am.  It’s about a 5-10min walk to the station and I usually have a nice little playlist that I’m listening to as I take in the morning air.  I’ll get onto the No31 Bahn and take a short 10 min ride to Dammtor.  I’ll then get off and go get a croissant in the station and eat it as I’m walking for another 5 min to the language school.  I’ll stop and get my morning Cafe right next to the school, and then head up to class.  The class goes from 8:50am-1:00pm and we take two 15 min break (fünfzehn minuten pauses) where we go outside and talk in usually any language… other than German haha.  After class, I’ll go and grab a croissant with ham/cheese/turkey/etc.. and go off back to the apartment.  When I get back, I’ll write out all the new words we learned that day, and then get ready to go the fitness center I signed up at.  LeFit:

I go every day and then after a quick shower, I come back to review the words that I had written down earlier.  After this review, I’ll go and grab something to eat close by.  I’ll come back and do my homework (Hausaufgab) and then I’ll do a couple chapters on Rosetta Stone.  It’s usually about 11pm now and I’ll get ready for sleep, and after reading a short chapter in my book (The next book will be in German), I’ll go to sleep around midnight.

Besides my daily life, I wanted to talk a little bit about the graffiti in the town.  I had forgotten how much graffiti there is in Europe, and while I despise about 95% of it, there are some that are actually kind of cool - like these:

McDonald’s in the distance

This one is awesome, but I was too zoomed in - this thing goes for maybe 100 yards:

Anyways- that to say.. I still hate the graffiti, but I guess if it all looked like the better ones, then maybe I wouldn’t be so against it.

I’ll post again tomorrow with my weekend stories - I already have some good ones from last night.  Until the next time - God Bless!

German Lesson #2 - Tell me about yourself:

Deutsch: Hallo.  Ich bin Lance.  Mein nachname is O’Brien.  Ich komme aus die USA aber jetzt ich lebe in Hamburg-Altona.  Ich bin zweiundzwanzig Jahre alt.  Ich bin ledig und habe keine kinder.

English: Hello.  I am Lance.  My last name is O’Brien.  I come from the USA but now I live in Altona.  I am 22 years old.  I am single and I have no kids. 

7 August 2010 · Comments

• Tags
• Hamburg
• Daily
• Graffiti
• German Lesson

First day of class

Well today was my first day of class at the Colon Language School here in Hamburg.  It was a pretty good day overall.  It was actually raining pretty hard and about 15 Celsius (60 F) and so it’s safe to say I was somewhat freezing after the 100 degree Texas weather I’m used to.  Laura (the other student who shares this apartment with me) showed me the way to the school and we talked as much as we could, but she speaks little English so it was kind of difficult.  We walked about 5 min, got on a train for 5 min and walked another 5 min to get to the school.  

Once at the school, I got in a line that stretched outside the door.  I finally got to the front of the line and was told I was in the wrong line.  So after finally getting through the next line and set up, I was walked up to my class…. 10 min late. Haha.  I walk into class and the teacher looks at me at says, ‘Wie heißen Sie?’  ‘Wie heißen Sie?’  I kind of stood there like uhhhhhh what the heck lady, I know no German at all.  Anyways, she finally said, ‘Ich heiße Sara. (and pointed to herself)  Wie heißen Sie?’  So I knew she was asking me my name, so I just repeated, ‘Ich heiße Lance’ and went to find an open seat.

Also nice to find out, I was the only guy in class.  I’m 100% fine with that, but the teacher always pointed out the masculine words and then pointed to me, which meant I always had to at least look like I knew what the heck was going on.  Anyways, class went by pretty quickly - I think we covered a total of 4 pages from 8:50am to 1:00pm and I honestly felt like we were going to fast haha.  By this time it was totally sunny and me and Laura went for a walk around town.  Here’s a picture of the Hamburg town hall:

After that, we came back to the apartment and I got online and downloaded Entourage, True Blood and Hung while I studied what I had learned today.  The rest of the day flew by, I took a nap, studied for a lot longer, ate and came back to finish my homework and skype Miles.  I’d be thrilled to see a familiar face so if you want to skype me, do it!  lanceob.  Anyways, I’m going to see what’s going on in the next chapter and keep you posted.  Until next time, God Bless!

German Lesson #1:

Hallo! - Hello
Ich heiße Lance. - My name is Lance (ß sounds like ‘ss’)
Wie geht es dir? Danke, gut! - How are you?  Thank you, I am good.
Bitte Langsam - slowly please (very useful)
Wie schreibt man das? - How do you spell it? (also useful)
Danke schön!  Bitte schön! - Thank you!  You’re welcome!
Ja.  Nein.  - Yes.  No.

2 August 2010 · Comments

• Tags
• Colon
• Hamburg
• German Lesson