Schreiben, Sprechen, gut!

J: Ich mag mein Baby sehr

M: ich auch!

J: Did I write that richtig?

J: schriebe richtig?

M: schreiben

M: The sentence before was right

J: Geil!

J: I am a German master!!!

———————————

J: How did you know that?

M: I have canadian holidays loaded in my gmail calender

J: Geil!!!

M: also the german one

J: Also Deutsch rememberance day?

M: nein, der deutsche Kalender mit all den Holiday days which wir haben

M:

M: Wir haben eine geile Sprache!!!

J: Ach, klar!

J: Wir sprechen und scrieben sehr gut Deutsch!

M: schreiben

M: feb. 15th you guys have some alberta holiday

M: you find it when you open your calender and click on some button in the upper right hand corner. Mine says NEW: SPORT CALENDERS

J: Ach quatsch! Us Ontarians don’t care about Alberta holidays

J: SPORT? Wieso?

J: Okay, let me go see this scheiss

M: You are funny.

J: Geil!

M: I know. Google is a bit scary but who cares

J: Ja, das ist sehr geil

J: und frei!

M: you can add so much scheiß until you don’t see anything on your calender anymore

M: kostenlos

J: ich bin nicht verängstigt.

J: ich bin brav.

M: du bist sehr brav!

J: Aber ich mag kostenlos

M: Aber nicht bei Nacht

M: das ist gut so!

J: Ich bin brav bei Nacht!!!!

M: okay!!

 

Excitingggg

Things have been busy here!

I’ve been catching up with friends, going to job interviews, and getting ready for Martin’s visit!

I don’t know how much I should write about this whole job hunting process, because my Mom started making me paranoid about how the company will google me and find this site somehow. But, I will say that things are going well on this front, and that I’m very very excited.

And yes, Martin is coming to Toronto to visit for a few weeks!! He will be meeting my parents for the first time, which is both thrilling and nerve wracking. I have never introduced a boyfriend to my parents before, so it’s a pretty big deal for me. Luckily Martin is a good one, so the parent-meeting thing should go off smoothly.

Originally Martin was going to stay at my parents’ place with me. My ex-boss offered him and I a room in her house if we needed a break from my parents, or we could just stay with her and her family if we wanted. My girlfriend also offered to house us in the new big house she just bought, which was also a consideration for us.

I’m really thankful to have all this support, but what Martin and I are really doing is renting a place for ourselves at my other gf’s condo that’s right on the subway line and a 5 minute walk to my soon-to-be new work. This gf has fallen in love and moved in with her bf, so is never around her own place. She was half-looking for someone to rent to, and when I approached her about it, we both got so excited and she gave me a great price. Gf’s are so helpful!

So that’s pretty much what’s been going on here. I’m so excited to see Martin again. We talk on the phone almost everyday, which works because I don’t have a job so we can skirt around the time difference. But once I do start working, we’ll have to rely on emails and can only talk on weekends. Boo.

It will be nice to see each other face to face and go OUT on DATES. Woo!!

Deutsche Sprache lernen

It’s SO weird but I’m forgetting a lot of my German and instead, French is flying back into my head.

When I was in Germany, I knew the German verb Sein (to be), off the top of my head. While the same verb in French, Être, I could not remember for the life of me.

Now I’ve forgotten how to conjugate Sein, because every time I try, it is being replaced by Être conjugations. Suddenly I remember Être again, but at the expense of Sein!

Of course my brain has to be this frustrating!! >:|

I passed by the French school yesterday and read their announcement sign. I knew every single word and exactly what it meant. French is MUCH easier for me to understand than German is, but it still surprises me how much I remember from my French days, and how French is just a part of my life living in a bilingual country (even if I only get doses of French in passive ways).

I think learning German helped me get back some of my French!

I was terrible at French, and just went through the motions of learning without really knowing WTH was going on.

Now I’m putting in much more effort to learn German, because it means something to me. I also have positive reinforcements from a cute German smiling at me every time I speak it.

Martin tells me it will all come back to me. Which is sweet, but I know I have to actively keep it up in order to retain anything.

Ich möchte deutsch sprechen, aber deutsch ist sehr schwer.

Hello Toronto!

I’m home! As in just freshly arrived in Toronto, and it’s great to be back!

Everything went smoothly, with some unexpected happenings today:

Early this morning, I got to Köln airport and went through their security check. I breezed through the metal detector with no beeps (score!), but apparently was carrying scissors in my bag. I thought – no way, those are eyelash curlers, not scissors – and took out my toiletry bag to show them who’s right. To my surprise, there were actually a pair of sharp hair cutting scissors in my bag. Oops!

So big deal right? They can confiscate the scissors and I can be on my way. But the weird thing was, they didn’t even confiscate it. All they said was “That’s okay, just make sure next time you put it in your suitcase!” and let me me keep this dangerous weapon in my carry-on! I didn’t know they were allowed to do that. I thought of just throwing the scissors out because I was connecting through Munich, and last time I connected through Munich there was an extra security checkpoint. Then I forgot about the scissors completely because I wanted to talk to Martin on the phone instead.

An hour later I get to Munich without much fuss, and go through the customs there. I happen to chance upon the young, good looking officer ^_^, who says Hi to me as I hand him my passport. He stamps my passport but doesn’t give it back! Instead, he holds onto it, stands up, exits his booth, and walks around his booth towards me.

I start to get annoyed/nervous, because I only have 20 minutes to connect to my Toronto flight (which is at a far away gate), and don’t want him to search my bag and have to explain why I’m carrying scissors on my person!

Luckily though, all he wanted to do was hand me my passport face to face (!), which he did, and then wished me a safe and happy flight.

I was like, huh! Is this guy French, or German? Cuz he certainly acts French!

I get to my gate with lots of time to spare. The Munich airport is HUGE!

When I get to Toronto’s airport (Terminal 2), I notice there are a new set of fast moving sidewalks. No one told me!!! Like, they look like they are 2.5 times faster than the other sidewalk, and they quite impressed me. I was jealous of the people who took it, because I didn’t.

My Dad picked me up at arrivals and we made our way down the Gardiner Expressway. I’ve always loved this route, as it positions the downtown cluster right in your view as you drive towards it. It makes me feel like Toronto is welcoming me back, and is particularly pleasing after being away for so long.

Some thoughts that ran through my head while driving through Toronto:

-Billboards, yuck! After being in clean-looking, not-too-consumeristic Germany for the year, seeing ads lining the side of the highway is a huge eyesore.

- OMG everything is so spralled out! My Dad literally drove across the whole city since the airport is in the west and we live in the east. I made a mental note about trying not to expect fast European public trans on the TTC *cries!*.

- Concrete, Concrete, Concrete! Okay so Toronto is not a very pretty city afterall. I really only notice this whenever I leave North America. Otherwise it’s just how it is.

I didn’t know how I would feel to leave Germany, and thought it would be gut wrenchingly hard. But surprisingly, I was actually excited to come home and am very happy to be here again. The only thing that sucks is that now Martin and I are back to being long distance again.  Back to lots of emails and phone calls for now!

Take that, bacteria!

I extended my plane ticket for a few more weeks so I’ll be able look after my Sweetie while he recovers from his surgery.

He should be able to walk without crutches next week, but is still not legally allowed to drive until a few weeks later. That is, if he is on his pain meds, which he isn’t taking because he’s a picky German who wants to be able to feel his pain to know what’s going on. *roll eyes*

We’re having a good time here. He has sick days off, and I’m unemployed. So, we have all day everyday just to relax and occassionally visit his Orthopedist.

Oh, did you know, that even though Martin had surgery, that they don’t prescribe antibiotics for him? I had to ask the Orthopedist about this, because coming from a country that [used to] give out antibiotics like free-candy, this is just insane to me! But, the doctor explained to me that since there’s such a low risk of infection, antibiotics are not necessary.

I guess this is good, but were it me under the knife, I would be pining for antibiotics myself.

Recovery Food

Martin just had his knee surgery early this morning, and he is at home now sleeping and recovering.

So, I’m taking this opportunity to make him some Chinese soup!

A few months ago, I had bought a pack of dried soup mix that I never got around to making. You know, the standard: tangerine peels, wax gourd, job’s-tears seeds, lotus leaves, hyacinth beans, candied figs, and fragrant solomonseal rhizome (!).

I also added a carrot, an onion, and some black eyed peas.

Yum! Won’t he be thrilled when he wakes up!

Sweet snack

Martin made this for me while I was super stressed with paperwork:

keke, he’s funny! That’s a piece of flat bread called Knäckebrot, with a layer of butter and some homemade jam that the fiancée one of my students’ gave me. It was delish!

A nice one

of Oma & I. Taken by Martin, of course.

Heading out east

I’ve been really busy here wrapping up my last week of work and slowly moving back to Martin’s place. Martin has been busy too, with back and forth business trips to France to finish up this project that never ends (boo!).

But despite all this, we decided WTH, and made an impromtu trip to Thüringen in East Germany.  We just got back yesterday and had LOTS of fun!

A picture-intense post if you’re interested.

Wanted: Physical Strength

I’ve realized that I’ve turned into a big weakling here because Martin does everything for me. He carries the heavier bags, lifts my bike up and down stairs, and basically does anything and everything that requires load bearing on the bones.

So, I’ve started doing 5 push ups a day!

I know, big deal right?, but I wanted to set an easy starter goal that I could keep. Turns out, I gave myself too much credit because it wasn’t an easy goal at all. 5 push ups were SOOOO hard to do! I was literally out of breath by push up #2, and my arms didn’t feel like they had enough strength to continue.

Pathetic but that’s how bad it was. It’s been getting easier though. I just finished my 5 push ups effortlessly, so I’ll be doubling my goal to 10 push ups a day.

I like pushups, they are so simple and I can keep up with it while I travel. I already feel muscles developing in my arms!