Meine Klein Welt

Senior Class Christmas Party

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Class Christmas Party

Way back in December we had the senior class Christmas party. One of the families hosted it at their house and cooked us an amazing sit-down dinner. They provided the turkey and ham while the rest of us brought traditional side dishes and desserts from our home cultures. Everything was delicious!

Class Christmas Party

We started the party off with a gift exchange. I tell you, these folks know how to give gifts. No white elephants here – well except from Matt who gave one of the boys Christmas themed toilet paper and canned snow. Yes, really. Anyway, the kids got clothes, jewelry, make-up, and all kinds of fun stuff. They know how to take care of each other. I was super excited because I got a case of Diet Dr. Pepper. Yay! It’s nice to have families with commissary connections. 🙂

Class Christmas Party

After dinner we went outside and played in the snow. The kids did some running and sliding on the sidewalk, we broke a piñata, then we all lit sparklers and took fun pictures. It was a great night!

Class Christmas Party

You can see the rest of the pictures here: Christmas Party

Class Christmas Party

Why German is Hard

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Sorry, Wrong Number 72 dpi jpeg

Apparently there was an advertisement in the paper this weekend to sell something, and as luck would have it, they posted the wrong number – our number. The truth is that our German is limited mostly to ordering things at a restaurant and telling people we’re sorry that our German is bad. This makes it more than a little challenging to explain to people over the phone that they have the wrong number due to a printing error. In an effort to come up with a good sentence to use for the dozens of phone calls I’m getting today, I went to Leo and tried to look up the word for advertisement. This is what I found:

ad

Below this there were 49 more phrases and words to help you narrow it down. I found this which got me a little closer to what I wanted to know:

ad2

Now from here I had to make an educated guess (well, not that educated). I decided to go with die Zeitungsannonce since I know that Zeitung is newspaper. I really have no idea if it’s the right choice.

Here’s the sentence I came up with (with a little help from Google Translate):

Sind Sie fragen nach der Zeitungsannonce?

Then I hope they keep it simple and just say, “Ja.”

Then I get to say a sentence I feel a little more confident about:

Dies ist die falsche Nummer.

Then I pray that they don’t ask me a lot of questions because even though I will probably understand the questions, I’ll be completely incapable of coming up with a coherent answer.

So, my German speaking friends, here is your chance to help me out. How bad is the question I came up with, and what should I really be saying?

Young Man, There’s a Place You Can Go

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YMCA_Week5Back by popular demand! Here is the fifth in the series of YMCA photos. Sooner or later I’ll be ready for my cameo on the Village People Reunion Tour. I’m also making an attempt to break the record for most diverse collection of tank tops in a series of YMCA photos. Someone call Guinness. Or send me a new tank top. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.

Check out my previous attempts below and see how much progress I’ve made.

YMCA_Week4YMCA_Week3YMCA_Week2YMCA_Week1

Samstag auf dem Apfel-Hof

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Apfel-Hof Collage 

On Saturday we went to an apple farm on the outskirts of Vienna called Apfel-Hof Grundschober. This apple farm has been in the Grundschober family for 500 years! Since I’m actually allergic to apples, I had just planned on a fun day with friends taking pictures on the farm. It turned out to be so much better than that! We got to pick potatoes fresh from the ground and eat them for lunch. We got to pick walnuts from the surrounding trees. We got to pick apples AND pears. Yum! Just before lunch, Herr Grundschober made fresh pressed apple cider for everyone. Best of all, at the end we got to pick our own pumpkins! All of this for only 7 Euro each. Last year we paid 8 Euro for just one pumpkin, so I’d say this is a much better deal.

You can see lots more pictures here: Apfel-Hof

Apfel-Hof collage

There’s No Need to Be Unhappy

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YMCA_Week4So here’s the week 4 picture. My doctor and my physical therapist are both pleased with how I’m progressing, and I’m definitely getting more range of motion. As you can see, though, I’ve still got a ways to go. Look at me go!

YMCA_Week3YMCA_Week2YMCA_Week1