I haven’t written in here for a couple of days now because nothing really has happened and I haven’t really done anything exciting. I’ve gone to class then come back. That’s about it.
That is, except yesterday. After class ended, a bunch of us exchange students got together and decided to go down to the wine festival that was going on downtown. We decided to go later in the evening around 8. Since I’ve never ridden my bike downtown I had no idea how long it would take me to get there by bike, so I left here at around 7:30. It only took me about 10 minutes, so I stood around and waited. While I was waiting, there were a couple of much younger guys that came up to me and asked me if I was 18. I immediately knew what they wanted because they were standing right outside of a tobacconist. They of course asked me in German. And in German, there are 2 formalities you can use when addressing some else directly. There’s a polite form of the word “you” and a familiar form of the word “you”. Since I didn’t want to deal with them and since they addressed me in the familiar form immediately, I pretended to be insulted and went off a little bit on them in German about having addressed me using the familiar form versus the more polite form, then I left. I walked a ways across the area I was waiting in and an older guy who was standing near were I was followed me over there. When I sat down on a bench, he sat down next to me and said in German that he was really surprised and really glad I went off on them because today’s youth just don’t know how to politely address strangers. He said he would’ve done the same thing if they had addressed him with the familiar version of “you”. Then he left.
Anyway, getting back on the subject I originally started with, I waited for a long time for the other exchange students to show up. I waited until 8:15, when I decided to go down to the wine festival to see if they’d just gone down there. I couldn’t find them, so I wandered around downtown a bit. I went to the ATM to get some cash and just wandered. Then I decided to go back to my bike and go home. I went and got my bike and as I was riding towards the street, I saw the others just now showing up at the meeting point. They were 50 minutes late because they had decided to get something to eat without even having bothered informing me. I was infuriated. Not about not eating with them, but about them not saying anything and just being late. We all have phones and each other’s numbers. I was really angry.
Either way, I locked my bike back up and we went down to the wine festival. I had some sort of white wine, of which I can’t remember the name. Then after being there for a while, we went to an old fashioned German pub, where we met up with a guy who lives on Kayla’s floor in her dormitory and one of his friends. I was relieved because I could finally speak German with someone.
I’ll explain before I go further with the evening’s story. I haven’t been able to use nearly as much German as I would like to because I don’t really know any Germans yet. I know a couple, but that’s about it. Most of the people on my floor (all 3 or 4 of them so far) are out all of the time, so I can’t really speak with them. The only people I’ve really been able to speak to on a regular basis are the other exchange students. Unfortunately, most of them will only speak English. There are 2 of them that are good friends with each other (both from UNC) that constantly speak in German with each other. I’ve been trying to go to lunch and hang out with them more than the other exchange students, so I can use German. That is, afterall, what I’m here for. I don’t know why the others won’t speak German. Some of them won’t even speak German with the Germans, which, of course, means that if I’m with them and the Germans start using English with the others, they’ll only speak to me in English as well. Hopefully that won’t be a problem I have to deal with much longer.
Ok, back to the story of the evening. After the pub, went to a club we had been to last week called Cubes. There we sat around and talked for a long time (everyone was way too tired from having to get up early for the class to dance) before we decided it was time to go home. Then I rode my bike home and went straight to bed. It was about 2 am.
That happened yesterday. So far today, nothing at all has happened. It’s cloudy and grey here. Hopefully the sun comes out this evening, I was hoping to go downtown with my camera and get some good pictures, but if the weather stays like this though, the lighting won’t be good enough.
