Peiking snooze

I overestimated German's excitement about the upcoming Olympic games. And by overestimated, I simply mean I thought that the Germans might actually muster up a little umlauted buzz about the games. I thought that they would have some sort of TV personality like Bob Costas covering the events, and maybe his name would be Helmut Spitter or something. I thought that I would be constatly seeing commercials for Olympics coverage and hear beer-soaked German Olympic cheers spring forth from crowded sports bars. But alas, I hear and see nothing. In fact, the only excitement I see about Beijing comes from the discarded McDonalds' cups lining the U-Bahn track.


But now I know why. Some German students looked at me quizically the other day when I mentioned the big games. ''Beijing?'' they asked. I told them it was the Olympic city, and the said, ''Oh, you mean Peiking!.'' How can I teach these people prepositions when we can't even agree on a common name for China's second largest city?

I was under the impression that Germans ate up athletic competitions, espcially the geopolitical kind. The country hosted the two most politically significant games (Belin '36, Munich '72) and just played host to the 2005 World Cup (ugh, I hate myself for even mentioning fußball on my blog. yuck.) But these are buzz-resistant people.

It is hot here. Like 90 degrees and really humid, feuch, and all of the little German Eis Cafes (ice cream parlors) sell one scoop for € 0.80. It's the one affordable thing in this town.

Back from Berlin

Just got back from six days in Berlin, surely the best city in continental Europe. Where else can you see men in puple leggings pushing strollers through the ruins of socialism? Erik and I went there last week because we had even more archaic Christian holidays to celebrate, and we met Erik's brother in the big city.

We did all sorts of really touristy stuff. We walked down the Unter den Linden towards the Reichstag, visited Checkpoint Charlie, and went to the Pergamon museum.

The two highlights of the trips though were decidedly ''un-Berlin'' moments. The first came on Thursday night when we scalped tickets to see Vampire Weekend at Maria's, a river-side rock club in the industrial area by the Ostbanhof. The people watching, especialy the American college kids who were trying their hardest to look German, was spot-on at this club.

The second event was our attempt to see the new ''Indiana Jones'' in English. There are plenty of English theaters in Berlin, so when we looked online and saw that it was playing at a place called the Babylon, we felt optimistic. We asked a waiter where the Babylon was and he gave us clear directions that led us to the theater after 20 mins on the U-Bahn. Too bad it was the wrong Babylon. Turns out there was an East and a West Babylon theater. We raced to the other one and were only 10 mins late. Indy was waiting for us.

Now it's back to work in the 'Furt.

My best students like Monty Python and...

... are never Germans. Lately, I've realized it's Turkish and Polish/Russian students who are the most willing to participate in class, review vocab, and actually try to learn English. I don't know what accounts for this. Perhaps because English is their third or fourth language these students are more relaxed about the learning process; they don't get frustrated if challenged with difficult reading or do poorly on a quiz. But with Germans it's another story; I've had so many run-ins/disagreements with really great adult German students who complain about how slow their language skills are improving. I try to explain that even with 90 minutes per week they have to devote a lot of free time to English is they really want to perfect it. They have none of this, they have "no time." That's fine, but then don't blame me if you forget the meaning of "exception."

Anyway, I had an uplifting moment on Tuesday with one class, a group of architects, many of whom are Russian or Polish. They only have three sessions left and so I asked them what they would like to do for their last month of class last week. Their answer: Watch "Monty Python" clips with a native speaker so they can understand the nuances of "the Flying Circus." I thought they were kidding but when I came to class on Tuesday I found a movie projector in the conference room and one student passing out hand-transcribed scripts to the group. It was so fun! They were laughing so hard at "Story Time," especially when I explained the dirty stuff about transvestites in British sea ports. And I had an extra proud moment explain that SPAM is manufactured in Austin, MN. This was a class that already knew (from my raving) that MN was also the birthplace of Post-It Notes. They were doubly impressed.

I am not a dedicated blogger

To all 3 of my dedicated readers: Sorry for the absence!

I wish I could say the last 10 days have been filled with adventure or travels, and thus I couldn't find time to blog. But, alas, I was simply in the 'Furt feeling the malaise of summer and not doing a whole lot of anything.

A few updates:

Last weekend we went to IKEA and bought a couch! Yes! No more air mattress for us. The chenille moss-colored Sofabett is a real treat, and that coupled with my new straw place settings really made the hellish 5 hour trek to the Swedish store worth it. Thinking about it, I wonder if I could actually get to Sweden in 5 hours and go to the original IKEA outpost. In the 'Furt, for the car-less, the journey is never-ending because one must rely on 3 forms (U-bahn, train, bus) of public transportation.

In addition to the couch, we got locked out of our apartment on Wednesday and Erik had to jump from our neighbor's balcony, Indiana Jones-style, to our balcony in order to crawl through the open window. This "adventure" also took 5 hours (most of them filled with the sweat-drenched consultations on the remove-ability of our door knob with our Czech manlord), which leads me to develop a new theory that everything in Europe takes 5 hours. Note: Never stick your keys on the inside of your door in Europe and then proceed to shut said door while asking "Do you know where my keys are?"

Finally, my work schedule has been pleasantly spotty due to the 3 Feiertage, or public holidays, in May. Because of these off days (one being this Monday) many students plan vacations to Spain or Miami in May. Germans love to travel to Spanish-speaking lands. This is an unfortunate fixation because nothing sounds worse than a German trying to pronounce the soft melodies of the Spanish language. Nothing.

Speaking of the Spanish language, last night Ms. Henly had a Cinco de Mayo fiesta in Sachsenhausen. My homemade guac just made me pine for Chipotle even more. *Sigh.

It's 80 degrees here and way too many German men are wearing tank tops on the U-Bahn.