A few stories/observations and stories from the past 2 weeks.

1) I tried to sleep while the Brazilians in my building had parties – twice.

The first party I didn’t know anything about.  It was the first Saturday I was here and all of a sudden the bell for our floor kept ringing and more and more people were coming upstairs.  Now at this point I had a pretty serious case of jet lag and I had taken a nap earlier in the day, which was probably a bad idea.  I was really trying to get on a regular sleep schedule, so the party was particularly disturbing.  But what was most disturbing about this party was the fact that they went away at around 11pm, and I got a couple of hours of sleep, until they came back at 3am and started listening to music and drinking some more.



The second party was a birthday party for a woman who lives upstairs.  She’s very nice and I knew about this party.  However, I left the party at around midnight assuming it would be wrapping up soon enough.  I was soooo wrong.  Instead of wrapping up the party, they continued until the wee hours of the morning.  I slept through most of it until they started singing Beatles songs (poorly I might add) at 6am.  I was planning on getting up at 7am, so really what’s an hour, but I had such a headache from their singing that I wanted to kill them.

2) Everybody who can speak English, will speak English.  One of the reasons that I’m here in Germany is to work on my German.  I mean seriously, where the hell else would you go?  Switzerland – um no, they speak almost another language down there.  Austria – well maybe, but only if you want an Austrian accent.  But I’m here to work on my German.

In my language course anyone who is a native English speaker speaks English among their group and only switches to German when the teacher is there.  Really?  Just because this is a class doesn’t mean that that’s the only time you should be speaking German.  Maybe you should try talking to other people in German – perhaps your fellow classmates.  As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I usually hang out with people who are not native English speakers, because while they can speak English, they too are here to work on their German and are actually interested in speaking German.

However, it’s not just the native English speakers, it’s also the Brazilians in my dorm.  They will speak Portuguese with each other and English to the Americans.  First of all I find it terribly impolite to exclude people from the conversation by speaking a language that not everyone knows.  Even when I’m at home and among my German speaking friends I speak English if my husband is there because it’s not fair to him if I have to translate everything.  Some people – when they get drunk especially – forget about this, but I don’t really hang out with them anymore, so it’s not a problem.  Secondly, I get that it’s a comfort thing, and a speed thing.  It’s easier to communicate in your own language, especially when you’re trying to communicate about little things, like going to the grocery store, but if they would just try to speak German about those things, I think that those whose German is weakest would benefit immensely. But, whatever I’m not here to tell anyone what to do.  If they want to screw themselves, then who am I to keep them from it.

3) Speaking of screwing…Miss Colorado is possibly the most annoying person in the world.  Her voice even grates on my last nerve.

I have too many things to say about her, but all I will say is that she is young, she acts young, and she’s quite possibly the most disrespectful and annoying person I have met in a long time.  And that’s saying something.