I was invited to a party in Heidelberg this weekend, and while it was a very international party, of course there was a lot of German being spoken. I sat with some people and listened to their conversations (I couldn't contribute much) and sometimes got the gist of the story (woot woot!). Man, if I did this every day, my German would REALLY come along great! Listening to the radio or CDs just isn't the same.
Some people were speaking Spanish, too, and I understood the gist of that, as well, but every time I wanted to say something and formulated a sentence in my head, "yo" because "ich" and things started sounding German so I just kept my mouth shut. I think at this point I just need to operate in two languages.
The party was fun and reasonably big. I was surprised that the neighbors didn't complain; the music was loud past quiet hours, but I guess it depends on your neighbors for that one. We had a great view of the castle. It was the first party I've attended with a view of a castle ;)
I had another chance to speak German, on the train home, but I didn't really appreciate this chance. An elderly man sat across from me and asked if the train was stopping at a certain city. I told him yes then he started saying something else I didn't catch. I must've looked confused because he asked someone else about where the train was stopping. He then asked me again! I confirmed it and he asked another woman, who did, too. At that point, I thought, what the heck! I wonder if this guy has dementia or something and forgot that he had already asked about the stop.
He later took out a brush and a mirror and combed his hair and grinned and said something about him looking nice. If the train weren't so crowded and I weren't so sleepy, I would have moved. He seemed harmless enough, but dude, leave me alone.
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