Building a bamboo play house

Yesterday we went outside and started building a small playhouse. At first, Jörg would only speak German to me and I was totally lost! But then, he switched back to English.  

We almost had the frame done, but when I looked at the wood we had left, it was not enough to make the walls!  When I asked Merinda, she said we were going to cut down the bamboo in their yard to make the walls!  I cannot wait to finish the house because it will be one of the few forts I can stand up in.  I hope we work on it more soon.

The grass we planted on the small slope in their backyard has sprouted.  (If you don't know what I am talking about, see blog post: What a Fun Weekend).  But it is not ready to mow yet.  I cannot wait to be able to walk on the new lawn.  It will double our play area and give us even more room to run around!

Several weeks ago, Synja started reading Harry Potter.  I was already reading Harry Potter but I was on the fourth, so I challenged Synja to a race:  I would continue with the fourth, but I would also start the first one.  Who ever finished the first book to the seventh book first would be the winner.  Synja is already on the fourth book!!! I am on the fifth and the third but I think she will still win!  She is just inhaling the books at light speed.

Friday May 25

Today I had a short day of school.  The lessons I had were German (twice), Politics, French (twice), and English.  In English, we corrected our tests and talked about when to drop the y and add the ie on words like fly to flies.  Then our teacher gave us two work sheets for homework.  It is cool that the school teaches English and French or Latin.  The kids choose whether they take French or Latin.

If you were taking a trip to Germany, here are some places I would tell you to go and things I would tell you to do and see.  If you were to go to school here, you should expect to be frustrated with not knowing what people are saying.  I quickly found that if my friends are talking, they speak in German only, even if I am listening.  If you were going to Germany with your parents or children, I would tell you to go and see all the castles or cathedrals you could.  There are some amazing ones in Germany!  You would also need to know that the roads are a lot smaller, the road that leads to the highway would pass as a one way road!  And on the highway, one and a half lanes is one American highway lane!!!  You can see and do a lot of things here that you cannot do in America.  I am finding that to be true more and more every day!

I cannot believe how much my school friends have accepted me!  I feel like I am still going to Teton Jr. High.  The only thing different is how big the school is here!  My classmates make sitting in a classroom and not understanding the teacher feel as easy as doing Math homework.  Without them, I would be as lost and confused as a fish out of water!

Thursday May 23

Today I had a long day at school.  My classes included Math twice, Politics, History twice, break, SL and homework hour.  I am not sure what SL is.  Our Math/P.E. teacher comes and teaches if not math, something else.  I will have to ask Kyra what SL means.

After school, I had to go to karate.  Kyra needed to study for a test tomorrow so she didn't come.  I would rather go to karate like I did than study for a test.  But if I had a test the next day, I would study for it.  I am lucky I only get English tests here!

I have noticed even more differences between America and Germany!  One of them is:  in the classrooms, there are no pencil sharpeners!  You have to bring your own.  And another one that I noticed early on is that every class period when the teacher walks in, we all stand up and say "Guten Morgen Frau/Herr ... " which means "good morning Mrs. Mr. ..." (even if it is afternoon)!  I hope I am not giving the teachers in America any ideas!

Wednesday May 22

Today, Synja had school and Liam had kindergarten.  However, Kyra and I did not have school!  I woke up to find a note from Merinda telling me to do a few pages of a workbook she left me.  The workbook was all in German and had ja and nein questions about a story similar to Hansel and Gretel.  After I finished that, I followed the notes instructions and practiced the piano.

When Merinda came home, she checked my work.  Out of nine questions, I had three or four correct.  Ouch!  So then, she had me translate six sentences of the story to English using my German/English dictionary.  It was hard but I got it done eventually.  I hope I do not have to do that again for a while!

Here we get so many holidays, I would not be surprised if I were to add the number of school days here and find they were almost the same as the number of school days in Teton Valley!  We just get a lot of school days off here in Germany.  I am not complaining though.  I do not mind!  Merinda says that the breaks are coming to an end and we will go a long time without a school day off.  Oh well, at least I will be around my school friends more!

Tuesday May 21

Today I went to an outside kindergarten that Merinda works at.  (Kindergarten is a German word and means:  Kinder=children and Garten=garden).  They walk down to a forest and play by a small creek.  I made little boats to float down the creek.  All the kindergarteners were so cute.  They were riding their bobby cars around.  Merinda and I became toll booths for the kids.  It was really fun even though I could not understand the kids even if they spoke a word I would usually know because they spoke quietly.

After "clean-up time", we all sang songs that had tunes that I did not know.  After everyone had their backpacks on, we started to walk back to the road.  The kids all seemed like they did not want to leave kindergarten because the grownups are always so nice to them.  But they all got in their cars and left to go eat lunch.  I hope I can go again sometime soon!

At three o'clock, Synja and I went to Duncan's house.  Synja played with Duncan's twin sister Emma.  We all had fun on their swing.  I pushed and when it got high enough, I jumped on.  Sometimes we fell off and other times we all slipped of on purpose so we landed on our hands and knees letting the swing go over us once and then we would run to safety.  It was really fun and I did not want to leave!

Weekend plus Monday May 20

This week we have the the weekend and Monday through Wednesday off!  Saturday, we slept in later than usual and had lunch for breakfast and then went to Siegburg.  First, we went to the "meatsy-man" for a pizza and fanta (a German fizzy drink similar to coca cola but tastes like oranges and has no caffein).  Then we went to the park where Liam, Synja and I made trains on the slides.  It was really fun and cool because the slides went up a small sand hill so we would run up as fast as we could trying not to slip down again.  After an ice-cream each, it was time to go home.

Sunday, we worked in the garden and flattened some lumps in the yard.  After we flattened them, we planted some flowers and grass.  Four hours later, we had everything set up, lumps flattened, seeds planted and a pole standing up to scare the birds away.  It was hard but fun.  But I was ready for bed after it!

Monday started out with us cleaning the upstairs.  My job was vacuuming the bathroom and main hall.  I also vacuumed under the table downstairs.  Then Synja and I were free to read or play with Liam.  Later that day, Kyra turned on the Neanderthaler movie which said on the cover that you could change it to English.  But we quickly found this to be false, however, I still enjoyed it.

Thursday and Friday (May 17)

Yesterday, I had karate after school.  We practiced several kicks that involved complicated foot movement.  It was really hard.  Especially when we lined up and went down the line each of us counting to ten.  With each number, we had to punch.  I had to count in German to ten at top speed while punching the air!  I guess it is good to practice in learning German and karate.

Today we had German twice, Politics, French twice and English.  In German, I think my class mates were studying Greek myths, which I do not know how that is related to German grammar.  In politics, I had to switch where I sat with my friend Yasin so I sat next to a kid who was eating sunflower seeds behind the teachers back.  That is not very good!  Then came French and English.  In English, we had a substitute teacher who did not give us any homework!  All in all, it was a good school day and it only got better after that!

Several weeks ago, Merinda hooked me up with another kid named Duncan.  Duncan was very excited to see me again after so many weeks.  He showed me his Gangnam style dance and we both had fun jumping around to it but after three rounds, we were out of breath!  Then we went and played Penny Racers on the playstation 2.  It was really fun to go the wrong way or crash into each other.  After that, we did Origami and I taught him how to make a fly catcher which he really liked!  Duncan is a really wild guy but in a good way!