this and that

Where is the time going? This fall is going by so fast...

I have finally started to get a bit homesick (the "honeymoon" is over, I guess). Life has reached a predictable rhythm and I am craving something different, which is hard when your boyfriend needs to work 7 days per week and you have no friends to hang out with. Georg's dad broke his foot over 3 weeks ago, and this means that Georg doesn't get every 2nd weekend off, as was planned. Despite this set-back and me not seeing Georg as much as I'd like, we are still having fun.

The last 2 weekends have been "party weekends"...his aunt celebrated her 50th birthday, so there was a huge party at a local pub with dancing until 2!! Last Sat., the choir (which I have joined, with great delight to the members, because I am one of the youngest there...new blood!!) held a dinner and dance following a church service (I forget the occasion). Good times, good times!

I have gone to a concert by band called "Livingston". I still hope to post a blog about the event...although I had never heard of them before, they were amazing! A bit rockier than I normally like, but the band has members from South Africa, Italy, Germany, England, and the Netherlands, adding a lot of flair to their style of music. Check out their website: http://www.livingstonmusic.co.uk/en/frameplayer/#/en/

Bauernhof Maas (Farm Maas) has acquired a puppy as of last week. Sampson is a very sweet Australian Shepherd mix, although he is quite timid and is strongly attached to Maria. We are trying to get him to leave the deck throughout the day to explore and be a normal curious puppy...but he is on his own agenda.

My weekly Deutsch class is becoming a lot more fun since everyone has become comfortable with each other, last class a girl and I couldn't stop giggling...laughing and smiling definitely makes learning that much more fun! However, this class is fairly slow. In the last 6 wks we have only learned how to introduce ourselves, the alphabet and have started on numbers...so I have been looking around to find a part-time course so that I can learn faster. After looking for 2 weeks and making numerous inquiries, it took Christoph (Georg's sister's boyfriend) to call one learning institute and find me the perfect course to take...talk about magic! This course is a 6-month long program with 4 modules, is sponsored by the government to make it affordable (this program is 11 Euro/4 hrs, whereas other programs are 22 Euro/45 min), and ends with a test, with which I may get a B1 level Deutsch certificate. I believe that it is an oral, hearing, reading, and writing test, so it is fairly intensive...which is good, because then I will learn! It starts on Nov 22...so in the mean time, I have been working on my German with Christoph (who is a young-years teacher) and Anni (Georg's sister) who is off work with laryngitis.

Off I go to a Deutsch lesson with Christoph...